Seattle On Parade: EQ’s Room with a VU pays a special visit to six of Seattle’s project facilities

EQ Magazine February 2001 Scott Colburn KEY CREW: Tucker Martine CREDITS: Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Modest Mouse, Sick Bees, Land of the Loops, Mount Analog, Julian Priester, Sam Rivers, Hughscore, Farmer Not So John, Eyvind Kang, Danny Barnes, Robin Holcomb CONSOLE: Neotek Series IIIC MONITORS: ProAc Studio 100, Yamaha NS10M, Event PS5 RECORDERS: MCI JH-16 2-inch 16-track with AL3 remote, Otari MX-5050 1/2-inch 8-track, MX5050 1/4-inch 2-track; Panasonic SV3700, TASCAM DA-30 OUTBOARD GEAR: Urei 1176, Empirical Labs Distressor EL-8, TL Audio EQ1, C1; SansAmp PSA-1, dbx 160, 263x (de-esser), 120XP Subharmonic Synthesizer; Lexicon PCM81, Symetrix 564E gates [4], Shure Level-Loc, JoeMeek C2 Stereo Compressor, FMR Audio RNC Compressor, Altec 1612A compressor, Apogee Rosetta A/D converters EFFECTS: Roland Space Echo, Yamaha SPX90, Furman Spring Reverb, TC Electronic M2000, EMT 140 Plate Reverb, tons of funky pedals including the Electro-Harmonix 16-second delay (“the Holy Grail of all pedals!”) MICS: Royer R-121, Neumann U 87 (Klause Heyne modified), KM 184; AKG C414, D12E; Shure SM57, Beta 87, SM81, SH55 “Elvis,” Green Bullet; Sennheiser MD421, Beyerdynamic M500, Sony C500, Audio Technica ATM125, Pro37; Altec 639, Coles 4038 MIC PREAMPS: Neve 1081, Telefunken V72, TL Audio, Focusrite Tone Factory, Neotek Series IIIC SYNTHS AND KEYBOARDS: Estey portable pump organ, upright piano, Lowry organ with wah-wah and beats, Yamaha DX-7, CS-15 analog synth; several Casio keyboards COMPUTERS: Apple Macintosh G4/400 MHz with 320 MB of RAM and 13 GB hard drives [2] SOFTWARE: Digidesign Pro Tools LE DAW EQUIPMENT: Digidesign 001 WIRING: All Mogami cable with Neutrik and Switchcraft connectors INSTRUMENTS: Lots of great old and new drums/percussion, Silvertone electric guitar, Eyvinds Memphis Bass GUITAR AMPLIFIERS: Fender Blues Junior, Magnatone Varsity Tube, National Dobro Amp, Smokey Amp STUDIO NOTES: “Hopefully Flora finds a nice blend between great modern sounds and sounds with lots of coloration and character — which are often achieved by atypical gear operation,” explains Tucker Martine. “An example is ‘effect abuse’ such as feeding effects back into themselves, just hanging on to that point where it’s about to get out of hand. Also, processing of sounds to the point where the source becomes unrecognizable. Anything goes if it sounds good! The live room is L-shaped and the living room above is wired to take advantage of its high ceilings and hardwood floors. It also helps pick up the activity at Boeing field much better!” FAVORITE GEAR: “The last thing I used that sounded cool. It changes everyday.” PRODUCTION NOTES: “Certain sounds will trigger an idea. When you get a strong vision for something, you just have to hook it up and try it. I like to keep a lot of 120-minute DATs around. When something has the slightest hint of being worthwhile, just run it to DAT for a bit. More often than not, I’ll come back to it a month or two later, not even remembering how I arrived at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s amazing! It would be the perfect introduction to this other piece that’s coming together.’ So it’s the constant stockpiling of sounds. Or maybe I’m producing a band, they’re setting up and the gear is all set up wrong but it sounds amazing. I’ll ask them to keep going for two minutes while I roll some tape.” “One thing I’ve found lately is that you can get some really good sounds direct. For a long time I was pretty opposed to that, except for maybe bass. But with the right sequence of pedals, slap-back delay, or a SansAmp, you can get a sound that sits in the mix like it has air around it. It’s an artificial air, but it can be really cool. You can get textures out of a direct guitar that you’ll never get out of an amp.” “On the production end, I like to have people overdub without hearing some of the song’s defining tracks such as the rhythm section. I just give them the organ pad to play to. Then I erase all but the best moments of their performance. That’s something that’s been working with the act Mount Analog lately. You end up with a really interesting take on things.”