Interviews
By Roman Sokal
Adam Samuels is Daniel Lanois' [see article this issue] right-hand man in the sphere of sound. His youthful and attentive scholastic approach, hunger and ability to adapt are among his gifts. His almost sudden appearance on the scene also adds intrigue. Though having only been in the business...
Interviews
This band down the street from me uses Digital Performer on their computer with tons of great plug-ins for their home recordings an...
Interviews
Doug has been a proponent of high-quality, high-end tube recording gear for ten years now. H...
Interviews
Michael Brauer is the person who introduced me to subgroup compression. I had recorded a...
Interviews
Rock and roll can cause you to behave irrationally. I was working on a renovation project...
Interviews
Dan Snaith (aka Manitoba [and later known as Caribou]) might just have the makings of the...
"It feels so good to be back on the road again," reveals a recharged Daniel Lanois, as the tour RV he's been traveling in merges onto highway 403 just outside of his former hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. For the two previous nights, he, vanguard drummer Brian Blade and an assortment of special guests played a pair of triumphantly moving and intimate "homecoming" concerts here. First and foremost, Daniel Lanois is an artist: a painter, photographer, thinker and storyteller, though he is best known as a musician and producer. He began his journey into music at a young age when he was given an ultimatum by his music teacher: Choose between learning the pedal steel guitar or the accordion. Many moons later, the cosmic, antiquated, weeping instrument that is the pedal steel can be heard on Shine (Anti/Epitaph), a record of a haunting, relaxing and engaging hybrid of psychedelic folk, slow driving pop and instrumental songs. It is his first proper album in a decade. Between and long proceeding those ten years, Daniel Lanois "the producer" has been a conduit and source of ideas — a perceptive human microscope calibrated to aurally identify, display and enhance a fellow artist's talent and methodologies in the studio and beyond. He himself calls his job "soul mining". He is also adept at experimenting with technology — a "sound miner". In fact, it was his curious manipulations of sound in the late '70s that triggered a homing beacon of sorts to Brian Eno [Tape Op #85]. At the time Eno was preparing to delve further into ambient works, hoping to find a recording facility in a modest yet unlikely and distraction-free urban area whereby he could work with the utmost sense of freedom. A project recorded by Lanois happened to cross Eno's path and pique his ears. Everything then pointed towards the autonomous, ultra-blue-collar, back-boned steel-making city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, a recording studio on Grant Avenue and its owners and operators-collaborators, the brothers Bob and Daniel Lanois. Together Eno and Lanois would break ground, polish listeners' cochlea and inspire countless others with albums such as Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, Pearl (both with Harold Budd), Ambient 4: On Land, Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks and the Music For Films series. It was during this period (lasting until the mid-'80s) that Daniel Lanois would exponentially develop his craft as producer, engineer and musician. He would also acquire a further understanding of the concepts of communication — a key ingredient to translating and fortifying talent onto record. Eno, having produced and worked with artists such as Talking Heads and David Bowie, was approached by an Irish band by the name of U2 to produce their next record. Eno, with an increasing interest in other mediums in art at the time, confidently suggested the hungry and inquisitive Lanois to the helm of the project, as he and the band both shared a vision of "building the studio around the band". Lanois was then 32, yet already sporting a modest, impressive resume of production credits. U2's The Unforgettable Fire propelled Daniel Lanois to a status that would allow him to travel and absorb the world's varying musical cultures. From then on, Lanois would produce further albums by U2, as well as masterpieces (ranging from organic sounding to hi-tech productions) by Peter Gabriel [Tape Op #63] (So, US and engineering the Birdy soundtrack), Bob Dylan (Oh Mercy, Time Out Of Mind), Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball), the Neville Brothers (Yellow Moon) and Robbie Robertson, as well as Lanois' own "solo" efforts Acadie and For The Beauty Of Wynona. There is an arguable misconception that any Daniel Lanois "production" involves a sort of an aural "trademark" or "stamp". Most of these albums are rich and dense with sonic scenery and atmosphere, the kind that evoke nostalgia, and some might also include his talented guitar playing (which is certainly unique). Yet the "stamp", in fact, is the intense, raw, neuron-firing electrical-emotional passion that gets communicated and passed on via musician to Lanois to recording medium to playback device to listener. It is unquantifiable — it can only be felt. And it is up to the listener to have their receptors set to "on" or "off". There is no in-between. Another production tool of his is the ability to identify an amazingly talented musician and invite them to partake in a recording. A Daniel Lanois production, when applicable, will include musicians from varying parts of the globe, who bring a completely different perspective to a certain genre of music, thus taking one's project to a higher level. To this day Lanois has retained a hard-working attitude and ethic. (Backstage after one show, an old friend and bandmate recounted how after their bar gigs, Lanois would continue practicing the guitar while everyone else partook in ritual partying.) These traits were, no doubt, planted in him from his days of growing up and having to fend for himself financially. The style even shows in his guitar playing — a rugged, native Neil Young-meets-Jimi Hendrix type of assault on the strings — chopping away, hitting notes at every angle and part of his hand possible. The RV sails towards London, Ontario, the next destination on the Shine tour. Like the famed eccentric piano player Glenn Gould, he occasionally wears a pair of black gloves to protect the hands (or the "gift", as he calls it) from possible unnecessary wear and tear when working out (which he does lightly on and off throughout the day) or simply handling things. At the moment, Lanois occupies the small humble kitchen section of the RV, restocking various items. When speaking, he sometimes personifies things, making references and metaphors to things being akin to kitchens and cooking. His shows, in fact, can be referred to as being kitchen parties, where friends are invited to play and sit in the periphery onstage, much like in the same manner as the old days when his family in his native Quebec would gather in the kitchen and sing songs. The hour or so drive was an idyllic time for Dan to lay down some thoughts for Tape Op. Even before I can suggest a method in which to minimize the sound of highway traffic and wind in order to capture our voices more clearly, his attentiveness and sharp sense of focus immediately come into play. He picks up the cassette tape recorder and thoroughly examines it like a curious scientist with a new sample. In this case, he looks for the small built-in microphone. Upon discovering it, he decides to hold the recording device himself, placing it in close to me and to himself when it is time for either of us to speak respectively. He comes across as both a mysterious character and an accommodating, warm person. At times like these, one must always be recording. This is one of Lanois' major virtues. Always record, for the moment that's needed might otherwise slip by forever. A Daniel Lanois recording will likely contain some highly interesting sonics occurring, but the number one ingredient is always passion. (His sonics, however, certainly surpass convention.)
Back in July/August of 2002, I offered up a tube mic preamp circuit here in Tape Op, and provided a kit for a limited time to assist in building it, through my company Hamptone. For all of you I scared off with subtle warnings about hi voltage and serious death, this project may be more your speed. My goal was to design an extremely simple solid-state circuit that sounded great, but was inexpensive and easy to build. Tube circuits inherently get more complicated because of power supply requirements, whereas the circuits shown here can all be run off a DC wall wart. First I will describe how a JFET (junction field effect transistor) works and why I chose it as the amplifying device. Second, I will show a circuit implementing the JFET in a simple class A gain stage with a voltage follower. Last, we will use the gain stage in three applications: an instrument preamplifier, a microphone preamplifier, and a line mixer. The JFET amp shown here can be applied to a variety of other applications including condenser microphones. It will be my intent to keep this more oriented toward practical application rather than going heavily into technical detail. So fire up your soldering irons, let's DIY!
I added this box to my rack for a two-month testing period and was impressed right from the start. It's pretty much a 2U channel strip with preamp, compressor, gate, and EQ sections. At first I was struck by the unit's simplicity. No need to flip through the manual, everything was clearly marked,...
ADK was one of the first companies to offer low-cost condenser microphones. Today they offer a wide range of microphones, including the affordable A-51 Model A. The A-51 is a sturdy, Class-A, cardioid FET condenser with a 1'' diaphragm. It comes in a matte black finish. You can buy a plain A-51 in...
I am a HUGE fan of the Delta Lab Effectrons of yesteryear. I remember growing up in North Carolina, then moving to Florida, and it seemed like everywhere I went, there was one of those blue 1U delays in every control room. The reasons make plenty of sense, too: great- sounding, easy to use,...
My control room has an open "A-Frame" ceiling with a single steel beam forming the horizontal element of the A. When we designed the room, not only did we choose to keep the ceiling open, but we wanted to highlight the ceiling with upward-pointing flood lights to make the room feel more spacious,...
The AT3060 is a large diaphragm tube mic that runs on 48V phantom; there's no external power supply. There's also no frills: it's cardioid only, there's no low cut, no pad, no nothing. Just mic. It showed up at my house awhile back and I put it right into the rotation. My first impression was that...
Once I realized I would be dragging my laptop with me nearly everywhere, the question became what to carry it in. My spacious messenger bag didn't offer the necessary protection. A nearby Staples offered an appealing, but ultimately temporary solution, the $45 Icon single- shoulder carrying case....
Is your home/project studio lacking the bitchin' control room features that only a high end console is capable of delivering? Are you tired of patching and re-patching your various sets of monitors? Does it make you sad that your mixer is not equipped with a talkback mic for communicating with the...
First let's get one thing out of the way: I have never used a real Neumann/Telefunken U47. I wish-but it has never happened. I thought about renting or borrowing a vintage U47 to compare to the Soundelux E47, but I finally decided it didn't matter. I know Soundelux were attempting to recreate the...
My studio is inside a building that has three doorways leading to two different streets. Instead of wiring doorbells to all three doors, I decided to save some money (and time) and use a wireless door chime with wireless buttons. The contractor who renovated my building had already installed a...
Like a lot of people, I've been watching the trend towards DAW mixing "out of the box." Systems like the Dangerous 2-Bus were pretty appealing, but then I started seeing these old Neve broadcast consoles on eBay. Hmm, I thought, I wonder if this would work out kinda' like a 2-Bus but also have some...
Every once in a blue moon a deal on equipment comes along that grabs me by the neck and just says "I'm good, and I'm affordable...ya simply gotta buy me!" Recently, one of these little screamers took the form of an MXL Pro Pac from Marshall Electronics. The Pro Pac consists of an MXL 2001...
About a year and a half ago I decided I needed to upgrade my modest home recording setup to something more professional. I have experience recording on analog gear as well as ADATs, and at home I'd been recording with a Roland VS1680 hard disk recorder. I had several requirements I needed to meet,...
Ok, I know that last issue I reviewed a really nice high-end compressor (and I still love those Geoff Dakings), but compressors to me are the equivalent of spices to a chef. Therefore, you need a lot of them and many different varieties. The compressor panel at this year's TapeOpCon was quite...
I've had this headphone amp/mixer in my studio for over two years now and it's probably one of the best under $300 investments I've made. The Q-Mix is a 6 x 6 headphone mixer and amp with six inputs and six powered headphone outputs. Each musician can dial in their own personalized mix from the six...
By now you must have heard some rumblings about what may prove to be the best-sounding type of reverb plug-ins: they're termed "impulse response" reverbs. In layman's terms (my terms too) these devices work on impulses created in physical spaces by generating and then recording broadband signals...
Two word review: Holy shit! That's what I said after listening to the first tracks I ran though this compressor. It's also literally what the next four people who heard it said. The bad news-it costs around $4,000. The good news-it's worth it. Ellis Sorkin, the owner of Studio Referrals in LA, told...
This box was one of the first TR-909-style drum machines that appeared in the '90s, precipitating a flood of Roland TR-X0X-style hardware and software that has yet to subside. Of these, it remains one of the truest to the form. Unlike the emaciated rackmount facades of the Novation Drumstation and...