1. Analysis of Production
Techniques
Miguel Rodrigues
BSc Music Informatics
Student Number: 11511645
Module: 2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The
Contemporary Mainstream
2. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
Song: I Shot The Sheriff
Artist: Bob Marley and The Wailers
Label: Island
Year: 1973
Producers: Chris Blackwell, The Waillers
Engineers: Phill Brown, Tony Platt
Studios: Tuff Gong and Basing Street
“I Shot The Sheriff” melded the funky reggae beat with lyrics
about spirituality and the Jamaican struggle with poverty and
violence. Essentially, the recording was a call to arms. As written and
sung by Bob Marley, he admits that he did not plant a seed’ and gun
down head-hunting Sheriff John Brown in self-defense, but pleads
innocent to all charges of killing the deputy. The power on this song is
on the lyrics.
According to Brown, the studio on Basing Street consisted of a
24 in and 8 outs Helios desk. Its basic EQ was fantastic, fixed to
10KHz for the top end and 50Hz for the bass, with five mid-range
frequencies and it had mic preamps. Yet the mixer didn’t have loads
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 1
Production Techniques Essay
3. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
of effects: just two echo sends and two foldbacks (returns). Mixing in
those days was always about thinking ahead about what they wanted
to have on the record.
Along with the in-board EQ, Brown used the Urei 1176 for
compression on the vocals or any other recordings and EMT echo
plates as well as the Eventide digital delays. A lot of what they did
was about to miking technique and getting sounds in the room.
They used largely the same mics from session to session: AKG
D20s on guitar amps, Neumann U87s for backing vocals, Neumann
67s for lead vocals, D20s or Neumann FET 47s on amped
keyboards.
Prior to the sessions, the Wailers recorded their songs at
Marley’s own Tuff Gong eight-track studio. The tapes machines were
then transported to Basing Street studio and transferred to 16-track in
preparation for overdubs of extra guitars, keyboards, vocals, as well
as the mix. Everything was mono: two tracks for drums (one for the
bass drum and the other for the kit drum), a track for the bass, a track
of Hammond organ, a track of guitar and two tracks of vocals.
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 2
Production Techniques Essay
4. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
In terms of editing and overdubs they had 3 versions on the
eight-track that were copied to the 16-track tape machine and most of
the overdubs were DI’d.
They were always concerned about frequencies and sound, so
they never wanted to mix down too much because of the loss in
quality. The mixing process was very simple since the tracks were
recorded clean on tape machine. The effects used on the mixing
stage were just an EMT echo plate, a bit of spring reverb,
compression and a bit of delay and ADT on the backing vocals. At
that time they had to be very creative to have the sound they wanted
for the fact of the limited resources they had.
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 3
Production Techniques Essay
5. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
Song: Like a Virgin
Artist: Madonna
Label: Sire Records
Year: 1984
Producers: Nile Rodgers, Madonna, Stephen Bray
Engineer: Jason Corsaro
Studio: Power Station
Madonna had hits with her first album, even reaching the top
ten twice with “Borderline” and “Lucky Star”, but she did not become
a superstar, an icon, until her second album “Like a Virgin”. She saw
the opening for this kind of explosion and seized it, bringing in former
Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers in as a producer, to help her expand her
sound.
The song, as well as the whole album, was recorded digitally: a
Sony 3324 24-track digital tape recorder and a Sony F1 two-track for
the 12-bit mix. Yes, at that time the bit rate was 12-bit.
The song is quite simple in structure. Combining that simple
structure with good musicians and a good live room gives space on
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 4
Production Techniques Essay
6. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
the recording and make the drums sound big. It is possible to hear on
the drums a lot of the room, as Jason Corsaro used a technique to
capture a better sound by putting the mics further back. Corsaro
miked the kick drum with a Shure SM58 with a pop shield, a
Neumann U47fet behind it and then about 10 feet further back in the
room a Beyerdynamic M160 dual ribbon. The toms, the snare and the
hi-hat were miked top and bottom with a Sennheiser MD421s, giving
Corsaro much more information. As room mics he used four
Neumann U47fet: two behind the kit drum and two in front.
With regards to the other instruments, the bass was DI’d and
the guitar was recorded through a Music Man amp, miked with two
Shure SM 57, one a little bit further back so they were out of phase
(when brought them even, this brings the mid range further dip) and
the guitar was also DI’d. On top of that Corsaro recorded the
keyboard part. Then he recorded the backing vocals of Frank and
George Simms, Brenda and Curtis King and also Madonna,
separately. Corsaro recorded Madonna’s lead parts with a stereo
AKG C24 tube microphone, with a Schoeps mic preamp and a Pultec
EQ.
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 5
Production Techniques Essay
7. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
The mix took place towards the end of the project with an SSL
E-series console. The effects used on the mixing stage were effects
to fit certain spaces mainly reverbs, phasers and flangers.
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 6
Production Techniques Essay
8. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
Song: Papua New Guinea
Artist: Future Sound of London
Label: EMI
Year: 1991
Producers: Garry Cobain, Brian Dougans
Engineer: Yage
Studio: Earthbeat
In 1991 The Future Sound of London brought their unique
brand of experimentalism to the dancefloor with the influential track
“Papua New Guinea”. The core of this song is the sampling of the
bass line from Meat Beat Manifesto’s “Radio Babylon” together with
Lisa Gerrard’s vocal from ‘Dawn of the Iconoclast’ by Dead Can
Dance.
The setup consisted of a 28-input Soundtracs desk, an Atari
1040 running Creator, DATs machines and recorders. In regards to
outboard gear the studio was equipped with Yamaha SPX90s,
Roland Space Echo, Roland D110 synth module, a Roland TR909
and TB303, drum machines and other analogue equipment. They ran
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 7
Production Techniques Essay
9. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
several samplers, like an Akai S1000, a S950, a S900 and a S612.
They ran the samplers live onto DAT machines and on top of that had
various synth sounds, one of them the Roland JX3P. Sampling for
them was going through records, TV, getting a conga note and then
playing weird rhythms with it. It was very creative sampling and took
it to a new dimension. “Papua New Guinea” was the first time that
sampling really went there and it was a fusion of a lot of musical
material from the Smiths to dance culture, industrial funk and they
combined all that influences into the dance music scene.
Their production techniques consist of collecting a palette of
sounds that works in terms of the mix from the top, middle and bass
production level. Another important element on the song is the strings
and the effect they achieved through a process called gating. On top
of that they used some old break beats. The drums consist of four
drum loops, a fat bass drum that was jammed in a giant reverb and
the dubs sounds came from sounds that they recorded before and
playing it backwards. Then, with the bass sample of Meat Beat
Manifesto added to the song, they added a break halfway that comes
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 8
Production Techniques Essay
10. Miguel Rodrigues Student Number: 11511645 Course: BSc Music Informatics
with some tribal percussion as well as a flute that they had sampled.
They dropped the drums out and brought in some of the percussion.
At the end they added a JX3P sequenced line and a vocal that they
sampled from a male session singer.
At the mixing stage, they stuck the whole mix through a Fostex
3070 compressor and mixing the track at the same time. “Papua New
Guinea” is that: loads of experimental and loads of sampling.
2MUS414 – Recording & Technology: The Contemporary Mainstream – 9
Production Techniques Essay