Dylan Charts…
oh.
#1 in the UK
#2 in US
#1 on iTunes …as of last week.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1273827596359340032
Recording Studio Rockstars Podcast
I dId a fun interview with Lij Shaw over at Recording Studio Rockstars.
Check it out here.
Third Man Re-Issues Redd Kross' Show World
This showed up in the mail from Third Man today.
First time on vinyl.
I produced / mixed this way back in '97…
Redd Kross - Show World
Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways Out June 19th
I can finally say that yes, there’s a new Dylan record out and that I recorded and mixed it.
You’re gonna love this one…
White Pepper Turns 20…
Sing to Me Willie
Edie Brickell duet with Willie Nelson.
I mixed this a few months ago
Released for Willie’s 87th birthday today…
Pure Mix Webinar.
I did a webinar for PureMix. I opened up the Pro Tools session for Nada Surf’s Jules and Jim and discuss how I mixed it and other things. Check it out here
(You have to register to watch buy it’s free}
Bob Dylan - Murder Most Foul
I may have had something to do with this… ;)
His longest song to date
Ric
The receptionist at the studio in Seattle called into the control room - "I've got Ric Ocasek on line 2 for Chris". I almost didn't take the call. Twenty minutes earlier I had been gushing about my love of the Cars with the band I was working with. Being the practical jokers they were I thought one of them was pranking me but they were all sitting there on the couch in front of me. A week or so later I was sitting in the living room of Ric's Townhouse in Gramercy Park. What looked like a grey carpet was actually white with a fine leopard skin print. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed what I thought were two framed Warhol posters that upon closer inspection were actually two original Warhol paintings of Ric. Moments later I'm in his kitchen drinking coffee with him and Paulina and he's playing me the rough mixes for his next solo record Negative Theater. The album had two distinct sides: The pop side (which was mixed by Mike Shipley known for mixing Heartbeat City and the Def Leppard records) and he was asking me if I'd be interested in mixing the experimental side. There were 5 songs he wanted to use but wasn't sure which one of the two extra songs he wanted to use for the sixth track and asked me to pick one. Uhhhhhh… me? You want me to pick the song? Ric smiled and said "sure, why not?". Everyone who's met Ric knows that smile - it instantly puts you at ease.
A few months later he invited me back to the house to play me the demos for what became Weezer's Blue album. What I remember most about making that record was how generous Ric was in every way. We spent a few days at his home studio recording vocals and he let us rummage around his guitar collection. I picked up his bright pink Jazzmaster and while I tinkering around with it he got up, plugged it straight in to the console and said "play the intro for My Best Friend's Girl". I did, and there it was: THAT guitar sound. Rivers asked him about writing Just What I Needed. Ric showed us how there was no melody for the lyrics at first by picking up a guitar, playing the chords, reciting the lyrics while Rivers and I were just glancing back and forth at each other with stupid grins on our faces. He'd spend hours talking to Rivers about songwriting, publishing, the music business. There was nothing off limits. I'd grill him about working with Mutt Lange on Heartbeat City. "Mutt took weeks to mix one song so I took the tapes from him and Mike Shipley and I mixed the entire record in a week in Studio B while it was still under construction". I had a bad habit of working without a break so every day he’d tap me on the shoulder "come on, let's get out of here for a bit" and we'd walk across the street to Grays Papaya and grab a cheap hot dog.
I was lucky enough to work with hm on a few records: Weezer, Bran Van 3000, and Motion City Soundtrack. We did a Bad Brains record as well. There were some surreal moments on that project. We flew out to LA the day before Thanksgiving and the next day he and Paulina invited us over for dinner. HR sat to my left and was telling me how it wasn't good to be eating meat while Ric was on my right ginning as he served me a plate piled high with turkey. HR was mercurial to say the least (there was one week where he insisted that we call him by a different name every day) but he was always calm around Ric. As always he knew how to put everyone at ease. His enthusiasm for the songs never wavered even on the most trying days.
Ric is a towering figure in my life as music fan, a musician, and as a mentor, but most importantly as a friend. The last time I saw him was at Radio City Music hall for the premier of the Dylan documentary No Direction Home. He saw me, walked all the way across the theater, smiled and gave me a big hug saying "Where have you been? I've missed you." I guess now it's my turn.
Rolling Stone / Weezer 25th Anniversary Article
I have a few quotes here…
Working Class Audio Podcast
Matt Boudreau was kind enough to have me his great podcast series Working Class Audio. We talk at length about a bunch of cool topics. Check it out here.
Red Kross "Get Out of Myself"
FBF: I made this record with Red Kross a while back. I don't remember how I did the full track flange toward the end but I do remember I mixed the whole album through the Fairchild at Village Recorder.
I haven't listened to this in ages…
Pluto Media Podcast
Hey I did an interview for Pluto Media in Australia.
Have a listen.
The Engineer's Elvis
I was elected to the Board of Govenors of the Texas chapter of the Grammys a couple of months ago and the first big event I participated in was yesterday - a salute to audio legend and Texas resident Rupert Neve. Rupert's contribution to the audio world cannot be overstated. If you were Claude Monet then Rupert would be the man who invented blue paint.
Also in attendance were two other engineering legends - Alan Parsons and Geoff Emerick. Amongst other albums Alan is most well known for recording and mixing Dark Side of the Moon. If that were the only thing he did he would still be cemented in audio history.
Geoff Emerick of course was the recording engineer for the Beatles. He started out as an assistant in their early days and at the ripe old age of twenty became their chief engineer. On the first day in this new position he recorded "Tomorrow Never Knows". Let that sink in for a moment.
It was an incredible afternoon. I met him briefly and was only able to ask him for the opportunity to take a picture. I was completely star struck to say the least.
Oh yeah. It was Rupert's 91st birthday and they baked him a cake that was shaped like a 5088 console. As he cut into it he said "this is quite possibly the sweetest console I've seen".
Geoff
Rupert
Alan
Partner "Everyone Knows You're High", "Sex Object"
I mixed this a while back. If you're a Weezer fan, you're welcome…
(Scroll Down in the widow below for the Soundcloud links)
oeksound Soothe
This plugin works miracles on vocals with annoying hi freq resonances (and I'm not talking about de-essing). No more automating notch EQs. I wish I got it before I started mixing the project I'm on now instead of getting it in time for the last mix.
Trust me. Demo it. Buy it here.
Thank me later.
The day after the election…
"While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it."
iZotope Neutron
Been testing iZotope's new Neutron plugin.
It's pretty amazing. The track assistant calculates a preset based on the audio passing through (EQ, compression, transient shaper, and exciter). More times than not it gets you within striking distance of a final sound.
It also allows you to EQ two tracks at the same time while showing you a histogram of common frequencies between them. Throw in dynamic EQs, multi-band compression, and a ridiculous side-chaining matrix and you can do some amazing things.
It's a winner
Native Instruments Replika XT
OK. So I'm going to hawk some software…
I've been beta testing FX and processing plugins for Native instruments for a couple of years now. This latest offering is really cool. Replika XT is a very intuitive delay with a lot of processing options. My favorite is the diffusion setting. It's a cross between delay and reverb and it I've been using it extensively for the past month or so. It's incredible on keys and vocals. There's also a lot of modulation and post processing. I authored a few presets for it as well.
If you downloaded the free, non-XT version they gave away last year then the upgrade is only $49. Well worth it. Try the demo if you don't believe me…
Get it here
Scroll down the page and see my mug (or not…)