Wspomnienia "dźwiękowców" pracujących z MJem
: pn, 17 sie 2009, 1:26
Na branżowym forum inżynierów dźwięku znalazłam wypowiedzi ludzi, którzy miksowali piosenki MJa. Niestety nie znam ich nazwisk, bo posługiwali się nickami.
Przepraszam, jeżeli temat jest w niewłaściwym miejscu forum - nie wiedziałam gdzie będzie pasował, a niektóre informacje są warte przytoczenia :)
Oto wypowiedzi jednego z panów:
I worked with Michael on many occasions...first in 1979 shortly following the release of "Off The Wall", which was recorded at my old studio, Image Recording, when it was owned by its former owner, Allen Zentz.
I then spent some time in 1980 (or 81?) with Michael recording demo's for Thriller. This was great, because it was just the two of us and whoever Michael had coming in. "John, we have Jonathan Moffit coming at 12:00, then Greg Phillinganes at 1:00...oh, and we're recording strings at 4:00!". Wow, what a great experience working so closely with him. I had him on the mic for some days recording vocals, and it was an amazing experience...he would be dancing up a storm while singing and doing all of those "grunts, oohs, ahhs" vocal sounds that would pepper his tracks. He asked me to take up the carpet so he could dance, and in between takes, he would sing other popular songs of the day just freestyle and acapella and we would talk about the music we liked.
Over the next year or two, I hosted the Jacksons many times, recording various tracks, claps (we had a jacuzzi room which they loved to use for the massive white-noise claps that people liked back then). I got to know all the brothers.
Bruce Swedien came back to Image Recording to record a song (or two?) for the Jackson's "Victory" record in about 1983. Another great experience, as Bruce did (as I recall) a string quartet and (perhaps) Michael's vocal at the same time. Bruce IS the best of all time, by the way. BEST.
I believe there were a couple of sundry Jacksons sessions over the next couple of years, but by that time, Michael was hugely popular and I didn't see him as much. The next time was really in 1995, when I worked on the HIStory album. We were all holed up in Larrabee North, where Bruce had a room. Eddie Delena was recording quite a lot Michael's vocals at Larrabee in one room, and I was put in another room to engineer for whomever needed it...my most memorable session being some days with Dallas Austin and on one day, recording The Notorious B.I.G. for his rap on "This Time Around". There I was, standing in a room with Dallas, Biggie and Michael. I'll never forget it.
My favorites on the album were Stranger in Moscow (one of MJ's greatest tracks of all, in my opinion), Smile, Money, Earth Song, They Don't Really Care About Us and the title track. Speaking of the title track, HIStory, there is one kind of special thing about that for some of us. At Michael's request, Matt Forger, another engineer working on various parts of the project, put together an aural collage of all of us reciting various famous dates in time. One by one, he would grab us with his portable recording rig and give us two or three lines...I'll have to listen to the record to remember what my lines were, but when you hear those voices, they were actually spoken by all the people working on the album. So, I must say it's an honor to hear my own voice on a Michael Jackson record, along with the many others who worked on the project.
The final days of that album were made interesting, by Bruce giving me the task to sequence the album and edit it down to a size that we could fit onto a CD. This was no small undertaking, as about 7 minutes needed to be trimmed somewhere. I laid this all out in Sound Tools and came to know every bar of every song very intimately. I found places where songs could be tightened up and came up with many suggestions. On the night of mastering, I was put in a room at Bernie Grundman's with my Sound Tools rig, and in this room, I would have to "negotiate" with Michael about what to take out. I'll never forget this night...Michael came in, and Bruce told MJ that we would have to remove either 1) one whole song or 2) edit the others to fit onto a CD. We chose the latter...I started with song one and played Michael my edits, "Oh no, we can't take THAT out...it's my favorite part of the album!". OK. Let's try another, "Oh no, we MUST keep those four bars". OK...let's go to the vamp, which carries on for two minutes...how about removing these eight bars, "Oh no, that's my favorite part of the vamp!". Well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, Jimmy Jam was in with us, telling Michael that all these edits were killer and actually make things better. And over the course of about 5 hours, we got it down. By this time, it was probably 3:00am, and I was wiped out. Bruce walked in..."Okay, John, I want you to make all these edits on the 1/2" masters right now!". My first thought was, "You've GOT to be kidding!" I had used some crossfades in Tools and such, plus I was worn out from "bartering" with Michael. But, into Bernie's room we went, and with Bruce over my shoulder, I cut the 1/2" tapes. As I recall, this took a couple of hours, and we were done. By the way, video footage of my "bartering session" with Michael exists, although I was never able to get a copy. Perhaps someday!
After that album's completion, we were all invited to The Neverland Ranch with spouses and kids for a day of fun, with Michael as our host.
Oh, and one more IMPORTANT thing. I have never worked with a nicer man than Michael. He was gracious, talented as all get-out, gentle, humble, a perfect gentleman, never swore, was healthy, punctual, and just the very sweetest person I could have ever hoped to work with.
Wspomnienia kolejnego "dźwiękowca":
about "Fly Away," we ran a pretty tight ship, as we only had a 5 million dollar budget to work with, we couldn't get tooooo carried away Ha!! Ha!! "Come Together" was around, we added LIVE audience loops to it from the "Victory Tour" crowd response. Michael loved singing "Black Dog" and it was great hearing him sing it, but no recordings .. dang it !!!
the song I always heard Michael singing around the Studio was "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin truely amazing to witness 1st hand.
Once I was out at Michael's Studio on Havenhurt in Encino, and I was going through a stack of vinyl records sitting by the console. One of the records I came across was Grace Jones "Nightclubbing" I picked it up to look at it front and back and Michael got kind of excited about it too. He took the record from me and asked if I'd like to hear a song that was very influential to him, and I thought are you kidding, YES please. He put on a song called "Feel Up" from that record and I about fell over !!! All the little inflections Michael creates with his voice on his records, are present on this Grace Jones track from 1981. Please check this song out, anyone reading this thread will be glad they did.
One fear of mine was that I knew there’d come a day that it would be just Michael and I in the same room one on one. I’d rehearsed it in the mirror over and over, just what was I going to say to this guy??? Well that day came, and what was probably seconds, seemed like a very long time. Catering had arrived at the Studio and here Michael and I were standing by ourselves. I was looking at the floor and said to myself, “this is it, this is what I‘ve been afraid of, I’m going to have to break the ice.” I took a big deep breath and raised my head to speak and … wham .. I got hit with a handful of corn, I thought, “oh no this is going to be war” … I picked up some pickles and threw them at Michael, then he threw something else and it went back and forth for a while. We were laughing so hard (I had to clean it all up later of coarse) but for three weeks we couldn’t look at each other without laughing. What a great way for him to make me feel at ease. Michael really has a great sense of humor, he just loves seeing people do a 3 stooges act and fumble all over themselves. I wish there were more people in the world exactly like Michael Jackson, he is truly one amazing human being.
While Michael was on the BAD tour, he called me from the road and asked me if I could pick up a leather jacket for him from the designer. This one had metal all over it and paintings of the current band from BAD .. maybe this is the same jacket, it was very heavy. The designer told me Michael can war up to 40 lbs I think he said !!!!!
I had a big full size Ford pickup with tented windows. Michael loved riding in it with me, he was thrilled because he was able to sit up high off the ground as we drove and with the tinted windows we were cool. But man is he a crappy driver ... look out !!!
In between takes, most singers will try to stay in character in order to prevent the mood from changing, Michael included. At Westlake Michael had his own little private room upstairs with a window that looked out into the tracking room. If he needed to get away during times he really wasn't needed, he often went to this room, where he would trash it with pop corn all over the place, he was really quite messy, as he probably is used to having someone pick up after him, this was usually me !!!
"Just Good Friends" is one of my fondest memories. I was standing in the control room right next to Stevie as he laid down the most ripping keyboard solo, and watched Stevie tell Bruce to burn the 1st take, that he'd give him a better one, and that's what happened. How could Bruce go wrong with Stevie Wonder at the keys to make him look good.
When we recorded the vocals, it was duet style w/ Michael & Stevie singing together facing each other. This was the one song on the album that was recorded with the lights ON, I'm sure that was more for Michael, than for Stevie's benefit. However right in the middle of a take, we noticed that a homeless guy had heard music coming from a Studio cartage door which had apparently be left unlocked, and he wandered into the tracking room, crapped his pants probably, but remained quiet up against the wall. I remember this like yesterday, once he was discovered and escorted back outside.
Przepraszam, jeżeli temat jest w niewłaściwym miejscu forum - nie wiedziałam gdzie będzie pasował, a niektóre informacje są warte przytoczenia :)
Oto wypowiedzi jednego z panów:
I worked with Michael on many occasions...first in 1979 shortly following the release of "Off The Wall", which was recorded at my old studio, Image Recording, when it was owned by its former owner, Allen Zentz.
I then spent some time in 1980 (or 81?) with Michael recording demo's for Thriller. This was great, because it was just the two of us and whoever Michael had coming in. "John, we have Jonathan Moffit coming at 12:00, then Greg Phillinganes at 1:00...oh, and we're recording strings at 4:00!". Wow, what a great experience working so closely with him. I had him on the mic for some days recording vocals, and it was an amazing experience...he would be dancing up a storm while singing and doing all of those "grunts, oohs, ahhs" vocal sounds that would pepper his tracks. He asked me to take up the carpet so he could dance, and in between takes, he would sing other popular songs of the day just freestyle and acapella and we would talk about the music we liked.
Over the next year or two, I hosted the Jacksons many times, recording various tracks, claps (we had a jacuzzi room which they loved to use for the massive white-noise claps that people liked back then). I got to know all the brothers.
Bruce Swedien came back to Image Recording to record a song (or two?) for the Jackson's "Victory" record in about 1983. Another great experience, as Bruce did (as I recall) a string quartet and (perhaps) Michael's vocal at the same time. Bruce IS the best of all time, by the way. BEST.
I believe there were a couple of sundry Jacksons sessions over the next couple of years, but by that time, Michael was hugely popular and I didn't see him as much. The next time was really in 1995, when I worked on the HIStory album. We were all holed up in Larrabee North, where Bruce had a room. Eddie Delena was recording quite a lot Michael's vocals at Larrabee in one room, and I was put in another room to engineer for whomever needed it...my most memorable session being some days with Dallas Austin and on one day, recording The Notorious B.I.G. for his rap on "This Time Around". There I was, standing in a room with Dallas, Biggie and Michael. I'll never forget it.
My favorites on the album were Stranger in Moscow (one of MJ's greatest tracks of all, in my opinion), Smile, Money, Earth Song, They Don't Really Care About Us and the title track. Speaking of the title track, HIStory, there is one kind of special thing about that for some of us. At Michael's request, Matt Forger, another engineer working on various parts of the project, put together an aural collage of all of us reciting various famous dates in time. One by one, he would grab us with his portable recording rig and give us two or three lines...I'll have to listen to the record to remember what my lines were, but when you hear those voices, they were actually spoken by all the people working on the album. So, I must say it's an honor to hear my own voice on a Michael Jackson record, along with the many others who worked on the project.
The final days of that album were made interesting, by Bruce giving me the task to sequence the album and edit it down to a size that we could fit onto a CD. This was no small undertaking, as about 7 minutes needed to be trimmed somewhere. I laid this all out in Sound Tools and came to know every bar of every song very intimately. I found places where songs could be tightened up and came up with many suggestions. On the night of mastering, I was put in a room at Bernie Grundman's with my Sound Tools rig, and in this room, I would have to "negotiate" with Michael about what to take out. I'll never forget this night...Michael came in, and Bruce told MJ that we would have to remove either 1) one whole song or 2) edit the others to fit onto a CD. We chose the latter...I started with song one and played Michael my edits, "Oh no, we can't take THAT out...it's my favorite part of the album!". OK. Let's try another, "Oh no, we MUST keep those four bars". OK...let's go to the vamp, which carries on for two minutes...how about removing these eight bars, "Oh no, that's my favorite part of the vamp!". Well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, Jimmy Jam was in with us, telling Michael that all these edits were killer and actually make things better. And over the course of about 5 hours, we got it down. By this time, it was probably 3:00am, and I was wiped out. Bruce walked in..."Okay, John, I want you to make all these edits on the 1/2" masters right now!". My first thought was, "You've GOT to be kidding!" I had used some crossfades in Tools and such, plus I was worn out from "bartering" with Michael. But, into Bernie's room we went, and with Bruce over my shoulder, I cut the 1/2" tapes. As I recall, this took a couple of hours, and we were done. By the way, video footage of my "bartering session" with Michael exists, although I was never able to get a copy. Perhaps someday!
After that album's completion, we were all invited to The Neverland Ranch with spouses and kids for a day of fun, with Michael as our host.
Oh, and one more IMPORTANT thing. I have never worked with a nicer man than Michael. He was gracious, talented as all get-out, gentle, humble, a perfect gentleman, never swore, was healthy, punctual, and just the very sweetest person I could have ever hoped to work with.
Wspomnienia kolejnego "dźwiękowca":
about "Fly Away," we ran a pretty tight ship, as we only had a 5 million dollar budget to work with, we couldn't get tooooo carried away Ha!! Ha!! "Come Together" was around, we added LIVE audience loops to it from the "Victory Tour" crowd response. Michael loved singing "Black Dog" and it was great hearing him sing it, but no recordings .. dang it !!!
the song I always heard Michael singing around the Studio was "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin truely amazing to witness 1st hand.
Once I was out at Michael's Studio on Havenhurt in Encino, and I was going through a stack of vinyl records sitting by the console. One of the records I came across was Grace Jones "Nightclubbing" I picked it up to look at it front and back and Michael got kind of excited about it too. He took the record from me and asked if I'd like to hear a song that was very influential to him, and I thought are you kidding, YES please. He put on a song called "Feel Up" from that record and I about fell over !!! All the little inflections Michael creates with his voice on his records, are present on this Grace Jones track from 1981. Please check this song out, anyone reading this thread will be glad they did.
One fear of mine was that I knew there’d come a day that it would be just Michael and I in the same room one on one. I’d rehearsed it in the mirror over and over, just what was I going to say to this guy??? Well that day came, and what was probably seconds, seemed like a very long time. Catering had arrived at the Studio and here Michael and I were standing by ourselves. I was looking at the floor and said to myself, “this is it, this is what I‘ve been afraid of, I’m going to have to break the ice.” I took a big deep breath and raised my head to speak and … wham .. I got hit with a handful of corn, I thought, “oh no this is going to be war” … I picked up some pickles and threw them at Michael, then he threw something else and it went back and forth for a while. We were laughing so hard (I had to clean it all up later of coarse) but for three weeks we couldn’t look at each other without laughing. What a great way for him to make me feel at ease. Michael really has a great sense of humor, he just loves seeing people do a 3 stooges act and fumble all over themselves. I wish there were more people in the world exactly like Michael Jackson, he is truly one amazing human being.
While Michael was on the BAD tour, he called me from the road and asked me if I could pick up a leather jacket for him from the designer. This one had metal all over it and paintings of the current band from BAD .. maybe this is the same jacket, it was very heavy. The designer told me Michael can war up to 40 lbs I think he said !!!!!
I had a big full size Ford pickup with tented windows. Michael loved riding in it with me, he was thrilled because he was able to sit up high off the ground as we drove and with the tinted windows we were cool. But man is he a crappy driver ... look out !!!
In between takes, most singers will try to stay in character in order to prevent the mood from changing, Michael included. At Westlake Michael had his own little private room upstairs with a window that looked out into the tracking room. If he needed to get away during times he really wasn't needed, he often went to this room, where he would trash it with pop corn all over the place, he was really quite messy, as he probably is used to having someone pick up after him, this was usually me !!!
"Just Good Friends" is one of my fondest memories. I was standing in the control room right next to Stevie as he laid down the most ripping keyboard solo, and watched Stevie tell Bruce to burn the 1st take, that he'd give him a better one, and that's what happened. How could Bruce go wrong with Stevie Wonder at the keys to make him look good.
When we recorded the vocals, it was duet style w/ Michael & Stevie singing together facing each other. This was the one song on the album that was recorded with the lights ON, I'm sure that was more for Michael, than for Stevie's benefit. However right in the middle of a take, we noticed that a homeless guy had heard music coming from a Studio cartage door which had apparently be left unlocked, and he wandered into the tracking room, crapped his pants probably, but remained quiet up against the wall. I remember this like yesterday, once he was discovered and escorted back outside.
]
że trwają prace nad muzyką M - bo dźwiękowcy nagle zapadli się pod ziemię (nie tylko na tym forum, także na myspace, facebook) i nie odpowiadają na maile fanów. 