4/30/2023 0 Comments Roll with the changes![]() “The overheads would be directly over his ears,” Grupp says. His go-to drum-miking scheme at the time included a Neumann U 47 FET on kick, a Shure SM57 on snare top, an AKG 414 on snare bottom, 57s on toms, and two AKG 414 overheads. “I can give that away now that the studio’s closed,” says Grupp. Gratzer’s kit was situated about two-thirds of the way toward the back of the room from the control room glass. “Since the 87 was back about a foot from the speaker, which causes a time delay of about a millisecond, I put a millisecond delay on the direct to get the direct signal and the amplifier signal in perfect time align and phase,” Grupp explains. Grupp took Hall’s bass direct and simultaneously miked his amp with a U 87. But inside, I used what was pretty much my usual method: an AKG 414 on the midrange, Neumann U 87 on the bottom, and two AKG 452s on left and right sides to pick up the hammers and that nice growl on the bottom end that comes out when you get the mics just right with a well-balanced midrange.” “Also,” he continues, “since the piano was being recorded in the main room with the drums, we had this big box: We took the lid off and added a box that perfectly fit the shape of the piano but went up several feet it was acoustically deadened, so no reflections came back off of it. ![]() “The piano also needed to have a very quick response because sometimes the keys were being hit so quickly that they were misfiring, so we had work done on that, as well. ![]() The specific sound of Sound City’s Steinway grand was also key: “We had a piano technician work on the action and voicing, and he actually hardened the hammers to give it more attack,” Grupp says. “We needed to have the drums, acoustic piano, and bass locked together,” Grupp says. Each song on You Can Tune a Piano… started with the rhythm section-usually just bass and drums-but the album’s opening track, the Kevin Cronin-penned “Roll With the Changes,” includes Cronin playing a percussive but lush piano rhythm part, so piano was added to the basics. Grupp took REO to Sound City Studio A, his favorite room at the time for instrument tracking. “I liked their instrumentation and their energy and their tunes, and I thought they hadn’t always been presented to show their best in the past. “I’d run into the band several times before, and I liked their previous records,” recalls Grupp, who had gone independent in 1974 after two years on staff at Capitol. and asked his frequent engineer Paul Grupp to record and mix the album, and to co-produce along with Cronin and Richrath. However, the label also wanted a trusted influence on the project, so, executive producer John Boylan brought the band out to L.A. REO’s successful concert album, You Get What You Play For (1977), created enough buzz, in fact, for Epic Records to give the bandmembers-vocalist/musician Cronin, guitarist Gary Richrath, drummer Alan Gratzer, bassist Bruce Hall (who joined after the live record), and keyboardist Neal Doughty-more creative control over their next studio release, You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish. ![]() And between Cronin’s clarion voice and unique phrasing, and the talents and appeal of his bandmates, REO was generating growing excitement, especially as a live act. That Midwestern hair and guitar band-having survived several lineup changes since forming at the University of Illinois in the late 1960s-had finally settled on a permanent lead singer in Kevin Cronin. In 1977, REO Speedwagon was on the verge.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |