Locomotive Skin - vocal chain?

[nico]

Hey Michael,

how are you?

Keep listening to the "Second Mind" record all the time - what was your vocal chain? I like the size and weight of the vocals (especially the initmacy on "Big Wind")

Thanks!!

Nico

[Michael Messer]

Hi Nico,

Good to hear from you.

It is hard to remember - but I am sure we used a Neumann U87 with valve pre-amps on those two songs. However, it may have been an SM58 on Locomotive Skin. I think the main ingredient on most of my recordings is the analogue 1 inch 24 track Fostex recorder and the analogue mastering. I also should mention the other extremely important ingredient in the chain....that is the engineer, Keith James. Keith is a wizard at recording voices and acoustic instruments on to tape. Perhaps if you write to Keith ( www.keith-james.com ) and mention this thread, he will come to the forum and talk a little about his techniques. Big Wind took a lot of work to get right, but it was worth the effort. I do remember the electric slide guitar sound is more reverb than actual signal. I think it was on the edge of that on Locomotive Skin too. There are many contributing factors to the sound of those recordings - we did everything possible to create atmosphere and attitude in the recordings - for example we never cleaned the recording heads on the Fostex during recording or mixing. We also kept as much amp hiss and tape noise as possible, rather than the modern approach, which is to make everything clear and clean.

Keep listening to Second Mind!!!!!

and keep in touch Nico,

Shine On,
Michael.

[Bill Stig]

Oh my God - you never cleaned the tape heads??? Those heads are expensive to replace. I hope you've got a good supply of tape; quantegy are ceasing production soon. I've just been over to Liverpool to get 2 reels of 1" tape a friend found in a skip. The other coincidence is I was listening to your Lucky Charms CD in the car, there's some good stuff there, you sound like Nick Cave on Havana Blues.

Keep music hissy,
Bill

[Michael Messer]

I don't know what it added or took away, but during the recording of both Second Mind & Play The Blues we did everything possible to create atmosphere. Not cleaning the tape heads was just one of many devices we used. Keith was worried, but I would not allow any head cleaning! I bet they didn't clean the tape heads too often at Chess in their peak period.

Lucky Charms was approached slightly different - not quite so low tech, but still going for as much old vinyl analogue 1970s as possible, without becoming a pastiche.

Ummhh....Nick Cave....someone else said that Big Wind sounds like Nick Cave....interesting.....my influence on both songs was more Robbie Robertson's Somewhere Down The Crazy River....but it came out sounding like Nick Cave, that's no bad thing!

If anyone would like their record to sound like Second Mind, Play The Blues, or Lucky Charms, we are always interested in taking on production work, so drop me a line. I am always looking for interesting projects both as a player & a producer.

Shine On,
Michael.