Hey Neil who are YOUR favourite producers/sound engineers?

B

batmura

Sea of Tranquility
Nov 1, 2001
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www.seaoftranquility.org
You've been a personal favourite of mine for the last 6-7 years now. The more albums I hear mixed/produced by you the more I am impressed. What I like best about your production work is how you can mix a brutal death metal band one day like Nile and then go and mix Spiral Architect or be the candidate for Evergrey or Redemption. Even if you don't work with these bands for whatever reason, you are always among the first to pop up in their minds. Unlike 98% of the producers out there, you make EVERY band sound different, giving them the best they need.

Anyway, I was wondering who you consider among your favourite producers, or if you were influenced by any of them in particular. Could you talk a little about it?

Finally, what's your opinion on the following names, sonic and production wise?

Dino Alden - my second favourite producer. He's done the Zero Hour stuff, some Racer X, some Imagika, some Cacophony and shred stuff such as Marty Friedman and Tony MacAlpine.

Andy Sneap - he's more of an engineer than producer but whenever I listen to an extreme band and enjoy the sound it's Sneap who did it.

Sascha Paeth - not a personal favourite of mine but very popular among power metallers

Tommy Hansen - very different from you in that he loves the warm sound but any Conception and Ark album is cool, no?

Andy LaRocque - love his mix on Evergrey's third one and so looked forward to your doing Recreation Day but it just didn't work out cause of your work residence or something, right?

Tommy Brown - Rush, Fates Warning, and a million others.

Steven Wilson - Opeth anyone?

Anders Theo Neander - Pain of Salvation, Allen/Lande.

It would be cool to hear your take on fellow colleagues and the ones I listed above.

Thanks Neil.

Murat
 
Batmura,

Thanks for the questions. I'll do my very best to answer them as fully as possible. I'll quote your question, and then my thoughts under them.

"Anyway, I was wondering who you consider among your favourite producers, or if you were influenced by any of them in particular. Could you talk a little about it? "

NK - Over the years I've been influenced by many people. The reason I don't say "producers" is because I'm a musician first and foremost, and never even thought I'd become a recording engineer, let alone a record producer. My main influences are very deep and strong - my biggest musical influence is and always has been Todd Rundgren, closely followed by David Foster. Both Todd and David are fantastic producers as well as being stellar songwriters of course. I would also add Mutt Lange to this list. You will also notice that none of these are "metal" producers per se, which brings me to my next point which is that I consider myself much more of an all-round producer than someone who only works with metal projects. To be perfectly honest, I find that if I work on any one style of music too much I tend to start to do things too similarly and wonder if I'm getting "caught in a rut" so to speak. Personally, I think every artist, whether they are a metal band, pop artist, jazz/fusion ensemble etc. deserves to have their music preserved as "their sound" so I work extremely hard at capturing the individuality of each artist I produce. I think that's fundamentally important in helping retain all the character of the artist.

"Dino Alden - my second favourite producer. He's done the Zero Hour stuff, some Racer X, some Imagika, some Cacophony and shred stuff such as Marty Friedman and Tony MacAlpine."

NK - The only stuff I know that Dino has done was the Zero Hour. Very good sounding, nice and punchy.

Andy Sneap - he's more of an engineer than producer but whenever I listen to an extreme band and enjoy the sound it's Sneap who did it.

NK - Andy Sneap! Who?? Heh.. just kidding. Andy indeed makes great sounding records, there's no doubt about that. I can always hear everything clearly and crisply. I'm certainly a fan of his work, although I think he can put something of an "Andy Sneap" stamp on the sound - that might not necessarily appeal to everyone. Still, sonically his albums DO kick arse!!

Sascha Paeth - not a personal favourite of mine but very popular among power metallers

NK - Not really a PM fan, so I can't comment. I did listen to one Kamelot album in its entirety, but it was not by choice, and at the end I seem to remember feeling rather unwell.. hehe. The strippers took my mind off things though....

Tommy Hansen - very different from you in that he loves the warm sound but any Conception and Ark album is cool, no?

NK - Well, I love the warm sound too you know. You have to remember that while these days digital recording and all its "cold, clinical, souless" criticisms are very popular, I was using analogue exclusively until about '98-99. Since then I've used whatever hybrid of analogue/digital etc. that's appropriate for each album I work on. Recently I mixed an album that Tommy had tracked and the tracks sounded very good.

Andy LaRocque - love his mix on Evergrey's third one and so looked forward to your doing Recreation Day but it just didn't work out cause of your work residence or something, right?

NK - Yes, my problems with working with Evergrey..the very tip of the iceberg I'm afraid...sadly those problems still exist. Now, they don't only prevent me from leaving the US to work, but I am still unable to go home (I'm from London) to see my family. My (now ex) fiancée got so fed up with the situation that she moved on with her life. This all happened right after the events of 9/11, so the situation has been really fucked, pardon my French.

Tommy Brown - Rush, Fates Warning, and a million others.

NK - Do you mean Terry Brown? I'd bet you do. Well, I'm not much of a Rush fan myself to be honest..more of an old school English proghead if anything. The music was good..not sure the sound was anything special though..

Steven Wilson - Opeth anyone?

NK - Hmm... I like his productions a lot. I was talking to Mikael about possibly working with Opeth on the production of Deliverance/Damnation, but...same problem...I could not leave the US. As far as Steven's other stuff, Porcupine Tree - I think I prefer Pink Floyd's original flavours. On a positive note though, his production of Anja Garbarek's album was absolutely sublime.

Anders Theo Neander - Pain of Salvation, Allen/Lande.

NK - I'm a huge fan of PoS, but really from a musical point of view. To be honest, I only notice production if it's either stellar, or if it ends up getting in the way. As a musician first and foremost I always go for the vibe..if that's not there it really doesn't matter how good the album sounds. If I don't get goosepimples from hearing something then I probably "missed" the moment...

I do have one absolute favourite in the "metal producer" realm though. That would be Colin Richardson. I think he continues to reinvent the wheel when it comes to making records that all sound killer and also retain the character of the artist, rather than become "generic" and lose their individuality. I simply can't say enough good stuff about his albums, because he just gets it. To be honest, I religiously go out and buy all his work.

As a global comment..I don't normally go out and buy albums based on who worked on them, with a few notable exceptions - all listed above. I buy albums based on the music, and if the sound complements the music then great - if it gets in the way, then that's not so good. I see MY job as being much more important to be transparent than to be someone who might take an artist's character away. Character is SO vital.

Hopefully this helps a bit..

:headbang:

Neil K.
 
batmura said:
Andy Sneap - he's more of an engineer than producer but whenever I listen to an extreme band and enjoy the sound it's Sneap who did it.

Murat
Click to expand...
i had the pleasure of spending 4 weeks at Andy's studio in Derbyshire with him while he produced the latest Nevermore album, "This Godless Endeavor"... and produce it he did, without a doubt.... and damn well. We had a right laugh to boot. \m/
 
interesting you say that I put a stamp on things because I think Colin does also, a kinda signature to the tone, even if using different samples etc, just the way it fits together.
 
Andy Sneap said:
interesting you say that I put a stamp on things because I think Colin does also, a kinda signature to the tone, even if using different samples etc, just the way it fits together.
Click to expand...

Well, coming from me it's not exactly a criticism because I enjoy how your albums sound, as I've told you a number of times.

I remember that back in the 80s it was fairly common for producers and engineers to make things sound really similar from album to album. Back in those days it was more the use of specific guitar amps, the same drum kit, same studio room. mics etc. (and of course the same set of ears doing the work) that made things sound a bit samey, not to mention how the music started sounding samey as well after a time.

Having meetings with A&R people about potential projects back in those days I can remember being asked to "try to not make this album sound like all those others out there". While I've never gone for a particular sound I can certainly hear similarities in albums that I make, but I also like to record and mix in different places, giving myself a different perspective. That's exactly why I don't have my own studio (and have never wanted one) because I like to tailor the studio to the project, from a recording room standpoint. Working at Sonic Ranch has always been fun (I've done 70 albums down there now since discovering the place in '94, and I'm going back down there next week to do #71) because there are so many different rooms to track in for different approaches. As you know though, I also do lots of different types of records. from metal to jazz/fusion to industrial to pop (and other types too) so it's important to me to be able to use different approaches for each type. Back in the mid-80s I was offered a partnership in a well-known NYC studio (I lived there for 11 years) and they offered to build me my own separate room, with everything I would need. I had just done three albums with Hall and Oates that had done rather well and was flying all over the world making albums at a ridiculous pace, feeling that I might never get home again, so at first it seemed like a very attractive offer. The more I thought about it though, the more I gravitated towards the idea of being mobile, and I was much more interested in having my own mobile studio. This was a much more attractive idea to me because that way I could just pull up the mobile to a rehearsal room, live gig, farmhouse or wherever and really use the perfect combination of location, vibe and technology. I was doing a lot of work with the Le Mobile truck back then - I used it for several Hall and Oates projects, a double live album, an MTV special, and HBO special, and I also used it to record Peter Gabriel's Plays Live record. By then I was hooked on the mobile truck idea and in the years following I used the truck for albums by Kansas, Dokken, Queensryche etc. along with many others. At one point in the middle of that phase I even parked the truck right outside Irving Plaza in NYC for 6 weeks (we actually used IP for our power) and tracked an entire album there. It was really very exciting indeed. The ability to bring the truck to the band rather than have to bring the band to me, whether that be in NYC, Seattle, LA etc., or wherever I happened to be living at that point, felt a lot more special and different each time out. I enjoyed the search for recording rooms, spaces that had a particular sound or vibe to them, rather than be locked in to one place. That approach always helped me keep things fresh (at least in my mind) As a result, while I never ended up bothering to get my own mobile truck, I do still travel all over the place to record albums that I produce.

I think both you and Colin have a distinctive sound to your records, but I can tell more quickly when you've done something. Incidentally, I defended your work in a thread on another board a while back, so please don't think it's me that's being critical..after all, you and I do the same job and walk similar paths. The main point discussed in that thread was "how much Andy Sneap's albums sound alike" and while some people were saying that they thought all the bands sounded exactly the same but with different singers, others strongly defended and praised the job you do. Hey, doing what we do, we know that we're never going to please 100% of the people 100% of the time, right?

Anyhow, get back to work you slacker! :yell:

Cheers mate.

Neil K.
 
ha-ha don't worry, I was just kidding, I didn't take your comments as a criticism, far from it. I know what you mean about being mobile, but it got to such a point for me a few years ago, I was so sick of being away from home for 6 months out the year, I sat down and added up how much the studio owners were making out of me bringing work to them and I figured if I set my studio up on a more professional level I could cut the bands/labels a better deal, whilst funding my own studio which I was familiar with (sound and gear wise). This has proved a worthwhile investment especially with budgets shrinking. I don't feel tied down here either, I still have a mobile protools rig (I recorded the entire Exodus album, Tempo Of The Damned on my laptop), but I do feel it's a nice thing to have to fall back on.
Tony down at Sonic Ranch is a great guy though, always have fun down there. The Tequila runs over the boarder with Warrel and Jim spring to mind and trying to jump the water tower in his car....:headbang:
 
Andy Sneap said:
Tony down at Sonic Ranch is a great guy though, always have fun down there. The Tequila runs over the boarder with Warrel and Jim spring to mind and trying to jump the water tower in his car....:headbang:
Click to expand...

Yeah, Tony's great. I've done so many records there..hard to imagine it's an average of almost 7 a year over the last 11 years or so - just at the one studio too. Things have been really growing there - he's got a new control room/huge tracking room almost ready to go now, with gear to be finally decided upon to fill it. Possibly a Neve, or maybe another SSL..not sure yet. Did you know he's got three HD rigs now? Makes it nice and easy to move projects seamlessly from room to room - no sampling rate snafus etc.

On another note, I had a really nice chat on the phone with Senor Loomis the other day. I think the last time I spoke to him was about 5 years ago or so, and it was nice to catch up. We're hoping to get together to do some tracking some time in December I think.. should be fun, it usually is!

Cheers

Neil K.
 
Neil,

Have you ever heard Devin Townsend's Terria record? It is quite possibly the most infinitely layered album I've ever heard with a wall of sound like no other.

What do you think of it and are you a fan of Devin's music?

Murat
 
Are you kidding?? No..only on the way there...haha!!

Incidentally, I'll be going down to TX next week - I'll give Tony your regards.

Neil K.
 
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