interview by: Roberto Martinelli
Colin Richardson started to make a name for himself by recording Sisters of Mercy. It was at a small studio in England called Slaughterhouse that he first crossed paths with Napalm Death, and his metal fate was sealed. He went on to record many of the most influential British extreme metal acts on the quintessential Earache label of the late 80s and early 90s, such as Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, and Carcass. The last of the three has recently reformed, much to the delight of the legions of admirers that dedicated their own musical careers to what the British grinders started. Richardson recorded four Carcass records, culminating in the benchmark 1993 release, Heartwork, greatly noted for its tremendous guitar tone. Richardson chatted with us about how he got that tone, how he mixed the albums for his two 2008 Grammy-nominations, and lots and lots of gear naming. This article was conducted for EQ Magazine and is here transcribed in its entirety with kind permission from EQ.
Maelstrom: Heres my confession. I was mostly driven to talk to you because Im a huge Bolt Thrower fan.
Colin Richardson: Wow! Thats going back a while, isnt it?
Maelstrom: As far as Im concerned, you were the sixth member of Bolt Thrower.
Colin Richardson: Hehe.
Maelstrom: The biggest mistakes they meant as far as my fanship is concerned was kicking out Andy Whale and not using you as producer.
Colin Richardson: Youre taking me back a ways, here. Ive got to get my thinking cap on. I think the last record I did with them was The IVth Crusade.
Maelstrom: Didnt you do For Victory?
Colin Richardson: Oh, yeah! Right! Two after Warmaster.
Maelstrom: Have you listened to their latest records?
Colin Richardson: I might have caught a track on You Tube and briefly put it on. Style-wise, it doesnt seem to have changed too much.
Maelstrom: Not too much. I think their riffs have gotten watered down; but honestly, Colin, it doesnt sound heavy anymore to me.
Colin Richardson: It may be in the production. I know those guys arent into experimenting too much. Theyve pretty much always used the same gear; it might not be captured the same way. Theyre on Metal Blade Records, now, arent they?
Maelstrom: They are.
Colin Richardson: There was a buzz with all those bands: Napalm Death, Carcass, Bolt Thrower... during the late 80s and going into the 90s the scene was at its strongest; it was breaking boundaries. People started doing the cookie monster vocals... I think that was genuinely shocking to a few people. There was an energy about that period.
I was the house engineer for four years at The Slaughterhouse the studio Bolt Thrower recorded at in the late 80s. Bolt Thrower came in having some problems mixing. They were like, do you want to have a go at mixin this, really? It wasnt really a metal studio, though. It had a lot of college rock and some goth.
Earache gave me the work not so much because I was into recording or producing, but because I was into pissing people off! Haha. Other engineers were saying the music was weird, but I said Id do it.
Maelstrom: On the new Bolt Thrower stuff, the drums are much thinner and more on top, and the music doesnt have that ambient, fuzzy heaviness like it used to. It doesnt have that rumbling tank feel anymore it feels more ticky-tacky.
You did Realm of Chaos. That was way muddier than IVth Crusade, for example. What were you doing differently?
Colin Richardson: I think I may have just mixed Realm of Chaos... Right! The deal was they had been into a studio in Wales called Loco Studios and either they or the label had rejected the mix and they brought it to me. I remember when I first listened to it, the mix was cloudy and the drums were ambient. I hadnt done too many metal bands at that period, so it was kinda makin it up as I went along, really... hahaha! But it wasnt a great recording.
Warmaster, the second album with me, was done with me from the start.
Maelstrom: What was your first album with Napalm Death?
Colin Richardson: It was probably the Mentally Murdered EP. The first album I produced with them was Utopia Banished, and then I did Words From the Exit Wound and... ummm... the album with Breed to Breathe on it...
Maelstrom: Did you do Fear, Emptiness, Despair?
Colin Richardson: I did only the mix. Again, that was a rescue job. They had done the recording with Pete Coleman, who had done some engineering with me. He mixed it, but the band or label didnt like it. It was a pretty bad recording.
Theres something to digging into problem albums. You hear how its been tracked and you get a lot of pleasure into where you can take it to.
Then there was that album right before Words From the Exit Wound...
Maelstrom: Was it Diatribes?
Colin Richardson: Diatribes! Thats the one! But Words was the last album I did for Napalm. There wasnt any falling out or anything, they just started to use this guy Simon Efemey.
Maelstrom: Was there a falling out with Bolt Thrower?
Colin Richardson: ...Not really... I think we sort of drifted away. I got a weird feeling that maybe because Bolt Thrower saw me doing Fear Factory or Machine Head, and thought I sold out.
Maelstrom: You worked on Carcass most successful and well-regarded albums overall, Necroticism and Heartwork.
Colin Richardson: Yes. Im very proud of Heartwork. I spent a long time trying to find the guitar tone I think it took five days. Looking back, the reason why it took so long was we were using the wrong heads and cabs. Then we managed to get a hold of one of the first Peavey 5150s. The rest of it was merely capturing a band at its peak. They were kind of moving away from the grind and into Megadeth influences and a few Iron Maiden things. I remember thinking at the time, wow, this is a bit too mainstream, but not at all, it was good, catchy riffs. By Swansong, they were signed to Columbia, and I think the label would have liked them to do clean singing vocals, but the band put their foot down on that.
Maelstrom: Did you work on Swansong?
Colin Richardson: I did.
Maelstrom: Perhaps you know thats the record many Carcass fans are not keen on.
Colin Richardson: Exactly. I think Bill [Steer] wanted to do more of a 70s rock thing, Jeff [Walker] was wanting it to be old-school Carcass, at least to Heartwork or before, and it was pulling them apart. Columbia wanted some mainstream vocals, the band rebelled, and then it went into a sort of comedy thing with songs like Keep on Rotting in the Free World. Carcass was a band that found itself pulled in different directions by themselves and the label and it ended up not being true to the roots it began with. Twenty different directions is no direction, and it broke the band up.
Maelstrom: You mentioned the Peavey 5150 for Heartwork. I was in a band in which the guitarist wanted one really badly, and he got the renamed 6505, but we all thought it sounded terrible. What are your opinions?
Colin Richardson: I used a 6505 for the latest Bullet For My Valentine, and we got great results. I think it sounded better than the original 5150! But I loved the original issue 5150. They then made a mark II, and that was awful. But the original 5150 we used on the Machine Head Burn My Eyes album.
Maelstrom: When you used the 6505, what other hardware did you use in conjunction?
Colin Richardson: We used an Ibanez Tube Screamer into a Mesa-Boogie 4x12. The guitar was a Gibson Les Paul with the MJ81s. We recorded the album at Sonic Ranch in El Paso. The album took about eight months, on and off, on and off.
Maelstrom: Thats a long time.
Colin Richardson: What happened was Matt, the singer, basically lost his voice a bunch of times, and in desperation decided to get his tonsils out. That caused a six-week recuperation period. When he came back, he was still a little flaky. The vocals took 4-5 months. It was a tiring and depressing process.
Maelstrom: Could you tell us about how you recorded the guitars on Heartwork?
Colin Richardson: I believe the board was a Neve VR. I used the boards mic pres. For the guitar sound, we tried a Marshall Anniversary and various other heads various combinations. (We didnt try changing the guitar, which would have been a logical thing!) We were kind of making it up as we went along... we tried moving the cab around the room...
I had heard about something they did on the Metallica Black Album, which was they had joined two kick drums together. I had heard Kiss did that as well. Up till then, we couldnt get enough bottom out of the guitar. So in a moment of lull, I thought why not try it with the guitar cab. So we took the back off one Marshall cab, and the front off another one, and duck-taped them together to make a huge cab. Everybody laughed. But it sounded better... It tended to rattle quite a bit and there were still some issues with the sound from the Marshall Anniversary. When we got the 5150, then that was it. I didnt bother taking the cabs apart, and plugged it into the Frankenstein cab, and it sounded amazing.
I was determined not to record anything unless it was better than the previous album. Id ask the band, are you blown away by this? and if they said, yeah, its pretty good, then it wasnt good enough.
I think there was a pedal in there... a Marshall Governor pedal? If I had discovered Tube Screamers back then, I would have been tracking with one.
Maelstrom: What do you like about those?
Colin Richardson: I think it was Andy Sneap that turned me on to those. They tighten the whole sound up. Theres a certain place where youve got to wind the pre-amp up to get the gain, and putting the Tube Screamer on allows you to use a little bit less gain. When youre tuning in E, this isnt so necessary, but when youre down to B, or C, or C sharp, it seems to put it all together, really. I tend to be a creature of habit.
Maelstrom: Did you ever re-do the Frankenstein cab experiment?
Colin Richardson: Never again.
Maelstrom: Thats funny. People love the sound of Heartworks guitars.
Colin Richardson: Marshalls dont have massive amounts of lows when compared to a Mesa-Boogie. We came up with that [cab] out of desperation. We had about six heads to try, and finally we thought if we had a cab twice as big, wed have more low end.
Maelstrom: I wonder what Frankenstein cab would do for a bass guitar.
Colin Richardson: Maybe Ill try that! I was just thinking it would be different as guitar speakers are often 10", but Ampeg has 10" speakers in bass cabs... Maybe a 5150 into a bass cab... Its true that people compartmentalize things, like, thats for the bass guitar, we dont want to use that. And bass is the forgotten instrument in metal. Its a shame, isnt it. And personally, I dont use cabs so much with bass I go DI and a rack Sans Amp for bass. I find that gives me the distortion I want and I mix that with the DI. I havent used a cab for three or four years. I mean, if the guy has an amazing rig, Ill mic it up, but its remarkable how if you split the signal, you use a DI and whack it into a Sans Amp and overdrive it there, it seems more in-your-face than using a cab, which feels a bit far away. When you have wall-of-sound guitars, you want the bass up front.
Of course, there was none of this in the old Carcass days. Sans Amp wasnt around and re-amping didnt exist. It was all onto 2" tape.
Maelstrom: How many tracks of guitars did you do on Heartwork?
Colin Richardson: Four. Two per guitarist. And it wasnt like these days, where, like for the Bullet for My Valentine, I did two tracks with the 6505, and two with a Bogner Ruby Shell. On Carcass, it was four tracks of the 5150... the only good guitar head we could find! Hahaha.
Maelstrom: What distinguished the individual guitarists sound? Did their guitars make the difference?
Colin Richardson: On that record, Bill Steer played all the rhythms. Mike Amott had only been in the band about three months...
Maelstrom: What? But, hes on Necroticism.
Colin Richardson: Im not sure...
Maelstrom: I think he is.
Colin Richardson: Check that one out. I dont remember... maybe Mike played some solos. I remember Bill playing all the rhythms and Mike playing the solos. But I remember Necroticism being a three-piece and Mike coming in when they were writing and doing pre-production for Heartwork.
Maelstrom: If you give me ten seconds, Ill go get my Carcass records.
Colin Richardson: Fire away. Two dollar bet its a three-piece.
Maelstrom: Nope. Here it is: Necroticism Mike Amott: guitar, additional vocals.
Colin Richardson: Oh, I lost two dollars. Wha? Ok, this is my take on this: remember, this is like 14 years ago. Was it 92 or 93?
Maelstrom: Well, 93 was when Heartwork came out. Necroticism was released in 92.
Colin Richardson: Maybe Bill played everything on Necroticism and Mike got some credit as he just joined the band. But I definitely remember Bill playing all the rhythms on Heartwork, and when Mike came to play the solos, I remember thinking, wow! I wonder what hes like on rhythm? Bills rhythms were played all out of the same rig, and panned two right, two left.
Maelstrom: Please tell us how you recorded the drums.
Colin Richardson: Those were recorded in Liverpool, which was convenient because the band was from there and only had a 10-15 minute journey into the studio. Off the main room, there were some iso-booths. There was a dead one, a medium dead one, and one we called the cave. It was about 12'x15', and it was total stone with a marble floor. A lot of the ambience on that record are the drums with a dry sound in the middle of a stone room that was left open.
I dont remember anything unusual about the miking. Standard stuff: SM57s, 421s on the toms... We did use the Bob Rock, two kick drum trick. There was maybe a trigger on the kick drum in the mix, but the snare and toms were natural. The thing I remember most about the drums and what the band would always complain about was that Ken, the drummer, couldnt play to a click track. We tried it, and hed veer off all over the place. His timing was a little roller-coaster, so Bill was always chasing the drums when he was tracking, and eventually he worked out a system of premonition when Ken was going to speed up or slow down. We really wanted to use a click track on all the Carcasses, and with each album, wed hope that Ken had gotten better, but he was so out of time that it was better to go without a click. Ken was following Bills natural metering, and Ken would record to Bills scratch track. But if a drummer doesnt have great metering, hell often push the guitar player along.
Maelstrom: Carcass had those really particular vocals. How did you approach mixing those?
Colin Richardson: Before I get into how I did that, I remember a lyrical change from Necroticism and Symphonies of Sickness, where it was all medical terminologies; on Heartwork, theres a song called No Love Lost, and I remember asking Jeff what medical dictionary that came from. But I think we used a Neumann U67 for the vocals with compression pretty standard as youd use on any metal or rock singer. I had done three Carcass albums by then, so I thought it was best not to put too many effects on it a little bit of delay, chorus, and reverb, and try to keep it as dry and up front as possible. Back then, I was still figuring out how to mix vocals, and I thought that it would be more timeless if the vocals were kept dry; that it might sound joke-y if there was a ton of soup on it.
Maelstrom: Now I have to hear how you recorded Andy Whale. Hes one of my favorite drummers. He influenced a great deal of metal drummers. Well all agree hes far from being the most technically proficient drummer...
Colin Richardson: ...yeah, hes got about three or four beats.
Maelstrom: Right, but theyre SO heavy and SO great. I love his playing. He had a specific sound when he was recording with you. Can you remember what his kit was like, and what it was like recording him?
Colin Richardson: For Victory was tracked in the same drum room as Heartwork, and I remember the Bolt Thrower guys saying they really loved the Heartwork drum sound, and that they wanted something like that. We then did all the overdubs at a studio you had to get to by boat Sawmill Studios. They had a Trident board. It wasnt dissimilar. I remember Andy Whale not hitting as hard as the Carcass drummer. Andy would play very simply, with like a Slayer beat on the ride, and the cymbals were quite sparing on a lot of his patterns. If you could get the drums during sound check to sound good for Bolt Throwers slow beat, their Slayer beat, and their punk beat, then you were pretty much guaranteed to get a good sound.
Bolt Thrower was all about the guitars, the guitars, and Id almost be fighting to turn the drums up.
Maelstrom: Did you ever work with Mick Harris of Napalm Death?
Colin Richardson: I remember him being a complete live wire and wondering what he was on. If he was on happy pills, could I have some of them, please? I remember that, even though he was the drummer, he seemed like the leader of the band. Napalm Deaths <Mentally Murdered> was the first metal thing Id recorded in my life. The blast beats were a bit of a trip, really. I told myself I either love this or I hate it, and after two hours, I made the decision that I loved it. It was literally shocking that a drummer could play at that speed, and at times I wondered if those guys knew what they were doing. They had really primitive, beat-up, shitty equipment. And then theyd tell me they were on the John Peel show and they had a documentary about them on BBC2. For a band playing that style of music, I was impressed by how much of a buzz they had. Thats what turned me on to the whole scene. I started doing research and finding out as much as I could about grindcore and death metal. This was in its infancy, 88 or 89.
I think it was Mick Harris who had chosen Slaughterhouse Studios. He had heard something I had done before.
Maelstrom: What had you done before?
Colin Richardson: I had done bands like The Sisters of Mercy and the Happy Mondays. I was happy to record any band as I felt I was learning as I went along. Nowadays, I can pick who to work with.
Maelstrom: Congratulations on your two Grammy nominations! You have one for As I Lay Dying and one for Machine Head. Before we continue in this positive vein, I have to say it blows me away in a negative way that King Diamonds new record has a song nominated.
Colin Richardson: I havent heard it.
Maelstrom: The record is so flat.
Colin Richardson: I wonder why King Diamond got nominated.
Maelstrom: Its really weird (and random).
Colin Richardson: He was on the 25th anniversary of Roadrunner Records album. He was on two of those tracks. I guess that got good publicity. But if you say his new album is flat, I could think of a few other albums...
Maelstrom: I mean, its clear. The record (Take My Soul... Please) is clear, but it has no power or heaviness. I know from the man himself that hes recorded the last couple albums at home and goes direct with a POD for his guitar tone.
Colin Richardson: Its almost the ultimate insult to say about the record, isnt it? If its true, its well deserved. If you say the record is not heavy and by nature, heavy metal should be powerful and have a really good bottom end.
Do you think [his nomination] is because hes been around since 1983?
Maelstrom: I wouldnt think people would care about King Diamond. I mean, I like King Diamonds music I like his classic records from the mid to late-80s. But his selection is deeply odd to me. It makes me wonder again how the Grammys pick whom they do, and why. I remember one year Jethro Tull was nominated for best metal album.
Colin Richardson: Jethro Tull. Sure, if they went into the folk rock section.
Maelstrom: Anyway, I dont mean to dwell on this.
Colin Richardson: Its a very good question. The Grammys are based in LA. Does the artist have to be American?
Maelstrom: I dont know. I do know the Grammys dont give a shit about metal. I had a friend that worked for them, and I know that no one cares about the music or knows anything about it.
Colin Richardson: Whos making the decision, then?
Maelstrom: I remember a few years back, when Rolling Stone magazine was all into Soilent Green. And Soilent Green is a perfectly good band, but for some reason Rolling Stone decided that Soilent Green was THE metal band, and talked about them in hyperbole like Iron Maiden is talked about. Its like Mastodon. Someone high up decided that Mastodon was the best band ever. I dont know why. To me, there are tons of metal bands more interesting than Mastodon.
Colin Richardson: Magazines can make or break you. Over here, its terrible with Kerrang! We love to build people up and then knock them down in the UK, more so than any other country in the tabloid press. Even though Im British, I never really understood this aspect of the culture too well.
Maelstrom: What I think is great about your nominations is how youre getting the exposure from these Grammy nominations. Two songs out of five nominations are yours. And these are American Grammys, not like the Norwegian Grammys...
Colin Richardson: I got a text on my cell yesterday from Rob Flynn, saying woo, we got nominated and I cant believe it! So I checked the Internet, and As I Lay Dying is on there, too! So Ive almost got a 50% chance of winning something! Hahaha! There might have been a time when I wouldnt have wanted to shout about winning a Grammy, but now I think Grammy-winning producer would sound pretty good.
Maelstrom: Lets talk about your recording of Machine Heads The Blackening and As I Lay Dyings An Ocean Between Us.
Colin Richardson: Well, I can cut out half the answer youre anticipating because I only mixed both those records. Adam D from Killswitch Engage produced the As I Lay Dying. Rob Flynn produced The Blackening, which was recorded at a studio out in the Bay Area called Sharkbite. I mixed both albums on a Neve VR board.
Maelstrom: Sounds like you are fond of that board.
Colin Richardson: I used to be an SSL guy for a long time; either an E or a G series. Ill do half the session in Pro Tools (EQing, compression, and effects) and half on the board I havent wanted to give up the analog board... I think its got a sound that fattens things up. Once youve used Pro Tools, though, you cant go back. I have a pair of Genelec 1031 monitors that I own and take with me wherever I work.
The Blackening was mixed at the Strongroom in London, and the As I Lay Dying was mixed at Miloco Studios, also in London, both mixed on 60-channel Neve VRs. I feel its going really well mixing the old school techniques with the analog board with Pro Tools for the interface. I use a bit of outboard SSL compressor across the whole mix, and a Massenberg 8200 EQ on the guitars. Ive used that one since Heartwork. That might be my secret weapon.
Maelstrom: What do you like about that piece of equipment?
Colin Richardson: Its so powerful. If Im mixing something someone else has tracked, and I think the guitars are a bit thin in the low end, its good to dig in there and put 6-7dB at around 1,800Hz. Its a precision mastering EQ; you can pretty much find anything on there its got five bands on it. Ill mix that with the board EQ.
Maelstrom: It doesnt seem to bother you to accept projects that you dont do from start to finish. I know that drives a lot of engineers up the wall.
Colin Richardson: Ive only tracked about three things in the last two years. I find that I get a little precious with my own recordings. For example, Ill really like the sound of something and overdo tweaking it, or identify something as a problem sound that really isnt one, and pick at it. But when its someone elses recording, its easy to hone in straight away.
I get a lot of sessions for Roadrunner. They feel Im the guy who can hit the home run and fix things. Ive gotten a few problem mixes from Roadrunner. Take the Daath album as an example: It had been recorded as a demo, and then the band got signed, so the demo was all of a sudden going out as the album. I couldnt deal with the guitar sounds and I didnt have a rig when I got them at Strongroom studios, about a month before I worked on The Blackening. So I called Andy [Sneap] up and told him I was in some trouble, so he offered to re-amp the guitars if I sent him the DI signals. I think he put two of the signals through a 5150, and the other two through a Krankenstein.
I trust Andy. I think hes the only person that I could trust 100% to get some great sounds out of guitars I sent through the Internet.
Maelstrom: Right. Look what he did for Nevermores Enemies of Reality.
Colin Richardson: Right. And since [Daaths The Hinderers] was a demo, some of the guitar playing was a little scratchy... by the way, he also re-amped the As I Lay Dying guitars... I think he went through a Randall on that. Andy and I are kind of rivals, but were also best buddies.
I think its cool that two British guys are getting a lot of American bands to work on. Im going to be mixing the next Slipknot record. I think thatll be the biggest project so far.
Maelstrom: How did you approach mixing Machine Head and As I Lay Dying to make them distinct and specific to the bands?
Colin Richardson: Robb from Machine Head has a very specific idea of what he wants, and he knows that I know what he wants, so he lets me do my thing. I knew he wanted a sound similar to Burn My Eyes and The More Things Change. He wanted the drums and guitars to have the same vibe... I was determined to get the bass a bit louder. There are so many records and Ive been guilty of this in the past of putting the bass in there and six months later you notice you cant hear the damn thing.
We replaced the kick drum with two samples out of the six or so samples I have that I rotate through from project to project. It didnt get any compression. I used the original snare and a sampled snare, both of which went through a DBX 160x compressor. I put the overheads through a 165 Stereo DBX compressor. I also put the drums through a Chandler limiter. Its been out three years... something Abbey Road re-issued. Ive also got some extra compressors going on in Pro Tools... the ones that came with the original software. We had an SSL plug-in. We used a Sony Oxford plug-in on the guitars along with the Massenberg 8200. The bass went through some Poltech EP1 EQs. The vocals were all Pro-Tools plug-ins. I used the 1176 Bomb Factory and the Lo-Fi to put some overdrive on it. I usually put a bit of Harmonizer from H3000 on Rob. I used a Lexicon PCM42 at about 250ms delay. The long delays were created in Pro Tools, either by Line 6 or Digidesign.
In contrast, it was my first time working with As I Lay Dying. I quite liked the sound of their previous album that Andy did. I didnt get any directive with the album the band was on tour and the first time I spoke to them was a week into the project and I maybe mixed two songs. I think they assumed Id re-amp the guitars; they didnt like the guitars they had tracked. Although the guitars were a little muddy, I worked with them, so when the band heard the mixes, they asked what amp I had used for the re-amp. We could have saved a week of time if I had known to re-amp from the beginning.
The gear for the As I Lay Dying wasnt too much different than on Machine Head. One different thing was the 2-bus SSL stereo compressor. Ill either compress to 2:1 or 4:1 with a really fast release and a slow attack.
I never compress the rhythm guitars. I like them to breathe. If you want the low end sound the sound of heavy metal you need to leave it open. Besides, when I put the whole thing through the SSL, the 2-bus will put compression on everything, and thats touching on the guitars, as well as everything else. Ill compress a guitar solo like Ill compress a lead vocal.
Maelstrom: What do you like about the Neve VR?
Colin Richardson: Ive always liked the shiny sound of metal and its posh top end. The Neve sounds shinier and cleaner than the SSL consoles. The EQ tends to be softer sounding. I like the cleanness of the board; its laid out logically. I noticed when I switched from the SSL board to a Neve VR that people commented on my mixes being better.
Maelstrom: Whos your favorite mastering engineer?
Colin Richardson: Im into Ted Jensen. I dont trust any British engineer to master metal.
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