Engineer Phil Rohr On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

I'm pleased to have engineer/producer/bass player Phil Rohr on my latest podcast. Phil specializes in recording both audiobooks and long distance (like from LA to Australia) film and TV ADR, a couple of jobs that few in the audio business are ever exposed to.

In the intro I'll discuss the passing of the legend David Bowie, and let you in on some of the amazing facts about the man and his recordings that I learned over the course of co-writing the Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust book with producer/engineer Ken Scott.

Remember that you can find the podcast at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, or either on iTunes, Stitcher and now on Mixcloud and Google Play.

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The Making Of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust Album

Major Tom has left the planet, and I can think of no better tribute to music legend David Bowie than an excerpt from producer Ken Scott’s memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust (which I had the pleasure of co-writing) about the making of what may be Bowie’s most enduring work - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. Ken co-produced three other Bowie albums from that time period (Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and Pinups) and knew the Thin White Duke well. This is an excerpt from Chapter 13 of the book.

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“David had a few demos prepared for the album, but interestingly two of the songs that he decided to record were actually from that first day I reconnected with him (the day of the possible wardrobe malfunction nightmare) when he produced Freddi Burretti - “Moonage Daydream” and “Hang On To Yourself.” Even though David had originally written these songs for Burretti and not for himself (they had been eventually released under the name of Arnold Corns), David thought they might fit nicely in this record, and they did. One song that eventually made the record, “It Ain’t Easy,” had initially been considered for another album. It was a leftover from the Hunky Dory sessions and so was the only track on Ziggy that Rick Wakeman played on.

As with Hunky Dory, what was to become Ziggy was recorded at Trident [Recording Studios in London] in about two weeks, with another two weeks for mixing, but this time we had moved from 8 track up to the relative luxury of 16 track, thanks to the addition of a brand new 3M M56 tape machine. The sessions themselves weren't much different to any of the other Bowie sessions. The basics took about 4 or 5 days and were virtually the same for every track. It was only the nuances in each song that would vary. What’s more, nothing was recorded 100% live. There were overdubs on every track, and as is usually the case, some more than others. 

There were a lot of tracks recorded for Ziggy that didn’t make the album ( most of them I had forgotten about until I began mixing Ziggy for 5.1 release recently) - “Velvet Goldmine,” “Bombers” “Holy Holy” and Jaque Brel’s “Port of Amsterdam”. If I remember correctly, for “Velvet Goldmine” we put a lot of work into it and so it was fairly finished, “Bombers” was only somewhat finished, “Port of Amsterdam” was David with just an acoustic guitar, and “Holy Holy” was only a basic track and I don’t think we even got a good one. Originally one of the tracks intended for Ziggy was “Round and Round,” the old Chuck Berry rock n’ roll classic. Now that one had the least number of overdubs of all the songs that weren’t strictly acoustic and was completely finished.  It was actually supposed to be on the album until RCA decided they needed a single and that was the track that got kicked.

As I said before, David is an amazing singer, and 95% of his vocals on Ziggy and every other album I recorded with him were done in a single take. There was one completely calculated exception however. In the first part of the song “Rock And Roll Suicide” David sings very quietly, and so in order to optimize the sound quality, I had to crank the level of the mic preamp. He eventually becomes a power house and his vocal range was quite different for the latter part of the song, so I had to readjust the levels to compensate for that, hence the vocal for that song was recorded in two parts - each part a first take of course. I learned not to expect anything different.

As with everything Bowie, there are lots of myths and misconceptions and the so-called “sax section” on “Suffragette City” is certainly one of them. The fact of the matter is that it’s not a sax section at all, but a synthesizer. We thought we had finished the song but, as these things often go, it was lacking something. I'd been spending a lot of time messing with the ARP 2500 synthesizer that Trident had recently purchased and suggested we give it a try. I got the sound, and Ronno played the part that David came up with. We were not specifically going for a sax sound and to me it sounds nothing like saxes so it always surprises me when people tell me they thought it was a sax section. Then of course came the really big surprise when David told American DJ Redbeard during an interview that he played all the saxes in the song, but then again, lest we forget, we’re talking about Mr Bowie. One can never tell if he really didn’t remember or he was just telling the interviewer what he wanted to hear.

Of course there’s always a favourite track and on Ziggy it’s “Moonage Daydream”. All the songs work for me but that one just works a couple of percent more for some reason. David has said in interviews that he’s always been like a chef. He takes ingredients from all of the music that he’s heard, mixes it all together, and it comes out being his own. In this case, he took an idea from the B side of the 1960 Hollywood Argyle’s #1 hit “Alley Oop” called “Sho Know A Lot About Love,” where a baritone and flute play the same line together (well, a couple of octaves apart, but I think you know what I mean), and used that same concept for the solo of the song. The only difference on “Moonage” being that it was a recorder not a flute playing with the bari, both of which David played.

He was incredible in that he’d see a trumpet or an accordion or some other instrument in the studio and say, “Let’s find a way to put this on there.” We were so into rock and roll and wanted to remain true and pure, and we’d think,”Oh, God (covers his eyes and hangs his head), he’s not going to put that on it?” He’d do it and place it somewhere back in the mix and it would work. That amazed me. 

The same with takes. We’d do the second take and feel, “Now I know the song,” and he’d go, “That’s the one.” We’d all argue that we could do a better one but he’d say, “No, that’s the one.” After a while we’d begin to think, “We’d better get it by the second take.”Woody Woodmansey [Spiders from Mars drummer] 

Read more on Forbes.

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EMI's Famous Consoles And Little Known Ambiophony Technology

Here are couple of excerpts from the Ken Scott autobiography Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust that I cowrote with him both involving some of the gear used at EMI's Abbey Road Studios back in the heyday of The Beatles. These are both sidebars from Chapter 7 entitled "Engineering Other EMI Artists," and cover the famous EMI consoles as well as a little known feature of the the large Abbey Road Studio 1 called Ambiophony.

"The EMI Consoles

The sound of The Beatles came from a number of custom consoles designed in-house by EMI; the REDD.37 and REDD.51 “Stereosonic” Four-Track Mixer Desks, and later the TG12345. Although the very first Beatles album was recorded on the REDD.37, the REDD.51 was used to record about 85% of their songs, according to Recording The Beatles. Both consoles were nearly identical and were based around valve (vacuum tube) electronics. The consoles were what we’d consider very simple by today’s standards, but were quite sophisticated for their time and very scary the first time I ever saw one as a 16 year old kid. They each had 8 input channels that fed 4 output (subgroup/buss) faders, with two aux sends and  2 stereo returns. The console also had two Auxiliary line inputs, but they were rarely used because of the lack of EQ on these channels.

Since the REDD series consoles were woefully inadequate for 8 track recording, a new console was eventually brought in. In 1968, EMI installed the solid state TG12345 in Number 2 control room. It boasted 24 inputs and 8 subgroups/busses, four echo sends, two separate cue mixes, and a limiter/compressor on every channel.

I worked very little on the TG, using the one in Number 2 for a few tracks on the Mary Hopkin album Postcard and for the majority of A Salty Dog by Procol Harum, as far as I recall. I have to say that I'm a bad judge of the TGs though. The change from the old REDD desks to the more modern TG was a painful one for most of us at the studio, and I don't think any of us liked it. It had none of the warmth, both literally and physically, that the REDDs had. That being said, some great sounding records were made on it, but first impressions go a very long way.

Ambiophony

Even though Studio 1 was one of the largest recoding rooms in the world, it only had a short reverb time; 2.4 seconds if you want to be precise. While this was plenty for most music recording, many classical producers preferred a longer reverb time like that of Kingsway Hall, a place many classical recordings were being made by both EMI and Decca at the time. In an attempt to remedy the situation, EMI employed an experimental system known as Ambiophony.

The system was built around a new piece of technology known as a delay drum; a rotating metal disc drum on the outside with oxide that acted just like a piece of magnetic tape. The difference was that it doesn’t take long for a tape loop to start to wear out, something the drum never did. A signal from the studio was sent to the drum, then multiple playback heads placed around the outside of it would pick off the signal and send it out to different speakers placed around the studio.

In the end, the Ambiophony system wasn’t much of a success, since even though it may have been very clever for its time, it was extremely touchy to set up and suffered from feedback in the studio. It was, apparently, used by Geoff (Emerick) on one Beatles song, the incredible orchestral overdub on “A Day In The Life” from Sgt. Pepper."

To read additional excerpts from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and my other books, go to the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

Eric Clapton Isolated Solo "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

I posted this a few years back, but it's one of the posts I keep on getting requests to post again. It's Eric Clapton's isolated guitar track from George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" off the The Beatles White Album.

Didn't know it was Clapton playing lead? It was a loosely held secret for a while, but EC was one of the few ringers that The Beatles used on their records. Clapton was brought in because he was a close mate of Harrison's, and since George wrote the song, he felt he had more say in who played on it. Here are some things to listen for.

1) There's always been a question as to what gear Clapton used on the song, and none of the people at the session can remember exactly.

Here's what Ken Scott (who engineered the session) said in the book we wrote together Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust:

"The “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” sessions I’d really like to remember since I’ve been repeatedly asked about them, especially the Eric Clapton overdub session, but the only recollection I have is of mixing the song. Eric had been reluctant to play on the record because “no one plays on Beatle records,” but was convinced by his good friend George that the rest of the band would be okay with it. To his credit, he wanted to sound as far away from Eric Clapton as he could, so he insisted on not using any of his own gear and used The Beatle’s gear already set up in the studio instead (I wish I could remember exactly what gear he used). 

This wish to sound as un-Clapton-like as possible extended to mixing as well. In order to make it sound “more Beatley,” the ADT setup (see sidebar) was used to get the warbling sound that’s on the lead guitar and organ, since they were both on the same track. Chris Thomas was put in charge of manually turning the varispeed of the tape machine up and down during the mix to obtain the distinctive wobble. 

I thought it was stupid because it was such a gimmick, but that’s what they wanted because Eric didn’t want it sound like him. They wanted it really extreme so that’s what I did. I did that for hours. It was so bloody boring.Chris Thomas (George Martin's assistant)"

What you'll be hearing here is only Clapton's track, which was probably submixed to another track along with the organ to open one up for additional overdubs.

2) What struck me about the performance is how loose it is. It sounds like a single take as you hear EC switch between playing rhythm and lead. He never sounds sure of exactly what he's playing though, and you can hear the odd flub, especially in the B section and the transition between sections.

3) Listen for the toe taps as EC keeps time.

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More Mono Vinyl For The Beatles

Most Beatles albums were mixed primarily in mono until The White Album, according to engineer Ken Scott in his Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust book (which I was most honored to co-write), with the stereo mixes done as an afterthought, since stereo was such a new technology at the time. This practice continues until the band discovered that some fans were actually buying both mono and stereo copies of their albums because of the slight mix differences between them. At that point, the Boys determined that it would be a good idea to spend more time mixing the stereo versions, which they did from that point on.

That said, most people heard only the mono mixes of those records originally when they were released, but over the years those mixes have been replaced with the stereo mixes. Now those original mono mixes of the 9 UK albums are being released on vinyl in a 14 album box set mono masters collection which will be released in early September.

The albums are being pressed on the best 180 gram vinyl available, and were transferred from a Studer A80 machine to a 1980s era Nuemann VMS80 lathe using the original transfer notes made by the original mastering engineers. The album also comes with an exclusive hardbound book using rare studio photos of the band, archive documents, and articles and advertisements from 1960s publications.

This is not inexpensive at $375, but it is a definitive look at a piece of history that almost everyone in music still reveres. Check out this video for a bit more about it.

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David Bowie "Moonage Daydream" Isolated Vocal

One of the most influential albums in the US in the early 70s was David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The album didn't sell a lot, but every musician had a copy and marveled at how innovative Bowie was. A few years ago I was lucky enough to co-write Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, producer/engineer Ken Scott's memoir, which outlined his time working with Bowie. It was great fun listening to the stories and learning about how they recorded and mixed the album.

Have a listen to the isolated vocal track to a song off that album - "Moonage Daydream." Here are some things to listen for:

1. Bowie's vocals aren't perfect by today's standards, with a few notes here and there that he doesn't quite hit cleanly. That said, 99% of his vocals were only one take, according to Ken, who recorded and produced 4 Bowie albums. Also remember that we listened differently in those days, and tended not to concentrate on the details like we do today.

2. The vocal has a nice sounding medium decay EMT plate on it.

3. The choruses ("Keep your electric eye on me, babe.") are doubled the first two times. The third time there's only the lead vocal, and the fourth time a ping-pong delay is added, which was pretty innovative for the time, since all delay was accomplished through tape machines (in this case two of them with different delay times).

4. Listen through to the end for something not heard on the record.

You can read some excerpts from Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust about Bowie on the excerpts section at bobbyowsinski.com

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The Making Of Lou Reed's Biggest Hit

As a remembrance of Lou Reed, here's an excerpt from engineer/producer Ken Scott's memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust. Ken worked with Lou on Transformer, which many consider his best record and contained his great hit "Walk On The Wild Side."

"Bowie was a big Velvet Underground fan and had taken to playing a few of its singer/songwriter Lou Reed’s songs (“White Light/White Heat,” “Waiting For The Man,” and “Sweet Jane”) in his shows, so it was no surprise when David announced that he was going to produce Lou’s second solo album in August of 1972.

Although the record took the typical two weeks to record (again at Trident), it was different in that it was all done during the day because David and Ronno (guitarist Mick Ronson) would run off to rehearsals for a big Rainbow Theater show (one that would prove to be a critical career turning point) during the evenings. It was also different because we used all session musicians except for Ronno. Lou would teach Ronno the song, then Ronno would teach the session musicians, then we would carry on as if it were a Bowie record until it was time to do Lou’s vocals. 

The album would become Transformer and was particularly noted for Lou’s signature track “Walk On The Wild Side,” which was special from recording right through mixing in terms of creative inspiration. For instance, when Ronno was teaching the band the song, the drummer, Ritchie Dharma, who was in the drum booth, was initially playing it with sticks. As I was listening upstairs in the control room, I knew immediately that the sticks were too heavy for the song and wouldn’t work so I dashed down and asked him to try brushes, which we finished up using all the way through.

The classic double bass line by Herbie Flowers was another inspiration, although not for the reason you may think. It didn’t take very long to put down the basic track, and after we were finished, Herbie came up to the control room and asked me if he could add another bass part using a fretless electric. After he explained what he had in mind, we all said, “Sure. Let’s have it,” and it was magic. What we didn’t know (as Herbie’s gone on to explain in a variety of interviews over the years) was that he was mostly concerned with getting paid double for playing the additional instrument under Musician’s Union rules. A bit mercenary, but the line he came up ended up making the record, let alone becoming one of the most copied and/or sampled bass parts ever.

Lou and David got on like the world on fire. Those were two that found each other. Their discussions were witty, funny and cheeky. Very camp, it was. Lou had his fingernails painted black. He played a fantastic rhythm guitar. I love the bass Herby Flowers played on that record.

Klaus Voorman

After the track was finished, there was still something missing, and David asked, “Do you know any backing vocalists that we can use?” I called up this group that I used to work with called Thunderthighs (consisting of Dari Lallou, Karen Friedman and Casey Synge), who came in and sang it. While the line of the song goes “And the colored girls say...” it’s more like “And the Jewish girls say…” since they were all white and a couple of them were Jewish, but they got the effect that everyone was looking for and certainly painted the necessary picture.

Finally when it came to mixing, thanks to his fear of flying, David was on his way to America via the QE2 for his introductory US tour. Ronno came by for one mix that we didn’t get very far with, and Lou was there physically but not mentally, so it was just me mixing all by my myself once again. By the time it came to mixing “Wild Side”, I was so sick of hearing the “Do Do’s” so many bloody times that I had to do something just to relieve the boredom of it. I had this idea of them coming from way back in the distance and walking forward finally singing it right in your face. I started off with just the reverb signal which I kept at the same level during the mix, but I had the source background vocal level come up and up until you hardly hear the reverb at all and they’re almost dry and in your face. It’s amazing what comes out of boredom sometimes.

Other than that one song, Transformer was rather uneventful. While I’ve heard and read many claim that it’s a classic rock album, I really don’t see it that way. “Walk on the Wild Side,” yes, I think is amazing. It’s a classic track. But a single classic track does not a classic album make.

As I said, Lou was there in body for the sessions, but that’s about it. A couple of weeks after we finished the album, I saw Lou again in a Chinese restaurant in Wardour Street and he had no idea who I was. It just didn’t register. Then recently I was asked to do an English TV show that’s based on classic rock albums, where they interview everyone they can get that’s connected with it to tell the story of the album. I went there and did my bit in the morning, then it was going to be Lou’s time, then I was going to do a bit more. So Lou comes in and they introduced me, and once again he had no clue, “Oh, you’re Ken Scott.” It was the strangest thing to go through “Who is this guy?” all over again."

You can read additional excerpts from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and other books on the excerpts section of bobbyowsinski.com.

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The Concept Of EQing The Mics

Ken Scott placing U87s on the toms

We've all been taught that in order to get the most natural sounding recording, we should move the mic first if it doesn't sound right, then change the mic if that doesn't work. Most experienced engineers will only resort to EQ (at least more than a touch) as a last resort. But there is another way and it comes from legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott, one of the 5 original Beatles engineers, who's worked with everyone from David Bowie to Elton John to the Rolling Stones to Supertramp, Kansas, Missing Persons, The Tubes and many, many more.

Ken always uses the exact same mics whenever he records, and he always EQs at exactly the same frequencies. After watching him work it occurred to me that he wasn't EQing the instrument at all; he was EQing the mics.

The reason why I came to this conclusion is that he would get his sound, and often the instrument itself would change, but he'd hardly ever have to touch his EQ. Regardless of the instrument, it sounded great when he put the mic on it.

This is illustrated in Ken's memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust in Chapter 22 when discussing the making of Devo's Duty Now For The Future album. He says:

"I think we used three different drum kits on the album because we were after different drum sounds. We set up one kit, got the sounds for the songs on that, tore that down and put another one up. The thing with me is, because I’m such a creature of habit, I hardly had to change anything from kit to kit. I even used basically the same EQ, which I had to change very, very little for each kit. And as I always use the same frequencies it wasn’t quite as much of a headache as one might have expected. I’m a firm believer that the sound comes from the studio, not from what I do."

I can say that I experienced this exact same feat with Ken when we were doing the most recent SNEW album, What's It To Ya, together. There was one song that required a completely different drum sound on the outro of a song from the other half. When the new drum kit was reset, Ken put the mics up, didn't change a thing, and it sounded wonderful.

Now obviously this method can only be effective if you always use the same mics and are very, very familiar with how they sound. That being said, I've seen it work first-hand, and it's certainly a totally different concept around using the EQ. Dare I say, one that only a master can use.

To read additional excerpts from Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust and other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

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A Musical Cyber Monday Shopping Guide

Here were are at another Cyber Monday, so I thought I'd post my own gift ideas and forego the usual New Music Gear Monday. Some of these are my own books and courses, but despite the self-promotion, they'll still make some fine gifts. Some of the other items are things that I personally can't live without in the studio, so you might find them useful as well. Here we go:

Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust: Ken Scott is a true legend, having worked with the likes of The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, The Stones, Kansas, and Devo, to name just a very few, and his story is a great one. I admit that I'm biased since I co-wrote the book, but I gotta say that every time I read something from it, I get drawn back in and forget that I was even involved. A great gift for anyone that's a fan of the music, engineering or the music business. You can read more about it at abbeytoziggy.com.

Audio Mixing Bootcamp: To someone who's either never done it before, or who's never done it well, mixing can be a total mystery. I wrote the Audio Mixing Bootcamp specifically to take the mystery out of it by making this a book about the reader actually doing it. Instead of talking about the mixing in the abstract like most other books, this book is a guided series of exercises that allows you to show yourself why something sounds good or why it doesn't. Read more about the Audio Mixing Bootcamp here.







Lynda.com Audio Mixing Bootcamp: If you don't know about Lynda.com then you really should. They're the #1 portal on the Internet for video learning, with over 1600 high-quality courses on just about any kind of high-tech you can think of. I was lucky enough to do this video version of the Audio Mixing Bootcamp book for them, and a lot of people really like. I hope you will too. Lynda is just $24.99 for a full month, which allows you to access as many courses as you can watch. Here's a free 7 day trial.

Lynda.com Audio Recording Techniques: Here's another course I just finished that covers all the basics of recording. You even get an inside look at a session with a bunch of LA A-list players as we record a song from scratch. If you want to see what goes into the making of a record with a rhythm section, vocals, background vocals, strings and horns, check it out.

Etymonic ER20 earplugs: These are the best earplugs made, and at around $10, they're a bargain too. My entire life around live music changed when I got these. They're one of the few earplugs that actually attenuate the audio while keeping the same frequency response. I've not found anything that works better at any price.









Mastering For iTunes: This is a free Lynda.com course that shows you not only how to make your files sound best on iTunes, but also everything about the new Mastered For iTunes program where they now accept hi-res 96/24 files. You'll find information here about the MFIT tools and how to use them that you won't find anywhere else.

Etymonic Research ER4 Micropro Earphones: Not only do these things sound great, but they're the absolute best for traveling, small and compact with great isolation and high-quality audio. If they're too pricy for you, try the HF5's instead.

Equator DS5 Monitors: I'm going to cover these in an upcoming edition of New Music Gear Monday, but let me say that you just can't find a better pair of monitors at this price point ($299) anywhere. Heck, you might have a hard time at twice as much, they're that good.




Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age: This is the definitive book on the music business today and how to take advantage of vast number of changes that that the industry has undergone recently. It includes everything about social media that you need to know in order to communicate, promote and sell directly to your client or fan. You can read more about the Music 3.0 Internet Music guidebook, as well as some excerpts, here.







The Studio Builder's Handbook: The acoustics of a room is often discussed in dark, mysterious scientific tones, but it doesn't have to be that way. The Studio Builder's Handbook breaks room acoustics down into a really easy to understandable way, with less math than you'd find in a cookbook. The best part is it shows you how to really improve the sound of your room for $150 or less (yes, that can really be done.) Read more about The Studio Builder's Handbook here.







Ariel Hyatt's Music Success In 9 Weeks: Ariel Hyatt is one of the smartest people in the music public relations business and a real pioneer in social PR. This book teaches you the right way to get ahead in the business using social media, and fills in where Music 3.0 leaves off.











Monoprice 8323 Headphones: It's hard to believe how good these are for only $28. These are finally the answer to expensive headphones that get lunched during sessions but are expensive to replace. Buy these and no one will be the wiser, because they really sound great for the price.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Ken Scott On Drum Recording

I had an opportunity to work with legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott recently on the latest SNEW record (What's It To Ya) and it was truly a treat. He got the best sounds almost effortlessly, thanks to great fundamental technique (something we forget the importance of sometimes). Here's a video of Ken miking up former Dixie Dregs drummer Rod Morgenstein at Abbey Road Studios while he was recording his EpiK Drums loop and sample library.

You can find out more about Ken's various recording and production techniques in his memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, a book I was fortunate and pleased to be a part of.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Ken Scott At The Grammy Museum This Thursday

For those of you who live in the Los Angeles area, legendary producer Ken Scott will be giving one of his excellent talks at The Grammy Museum this Thursday July 19 at 7:30 PM.

Ken's stories about his career are great, but the highlight for me is when he plays some tracks from George Harrison and David Bowie and breaks them down in a way that few people outside of the studio have ever heard.

Tickets are limited since the Grammy Museum auditorium is rather small, and you can buy them online on their website.

If you can't make it, you can read all the stories and many more in Ken's Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust memoir.

4 Isolated McCartney Bass Lines

We all know Paul McCartney as a fabulous songwriter and singer, but it's easy to overlook what an influential bass player he is as well. Paul, along with MoTown's James Jamerson, changed bass playing from laying down a foundation of root notes to a melodic thing of beauty. Although I don't think the following video is comprised of the best examples of Paul's genius, it does give you an idea of his style.

You'll hear individual snippets from the songs "With A Little Help From My Friends," "Come Together,""Golden Slumbers," and "Band On The Run" with the bass mostly isolated. Sometimes you'll hear other instruments also on the bass track (like the tambourine on "Help From My Friends"), which wasn't all that unusual, according to Beatle engineer Ken Scott's book Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust (which I was lucky enough to help him write). Have a listen.

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Deconstructing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

One of the most beloved and interesting songs in The Beatles catalog is George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." The song not only marked the first time that a non-Beatle played on their recordings (Eric Clapton played the solo, although session drummer Andy White played on one of their first recording sessions), but also used an interesting technique of a six string bass doubling the four string bass (this was called "tic tock" bass in Nashville). This is described in engineer Ken Scott's new memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust as follows:

"The 4-string bass was sometimes doubled by a 6-string bass on some songs. By this time Paul had acquired a Fender Jazz bass which he used in lieu of his Rickenbacker, and a Fender Bass VI was always around the studio. What possibly happened was that the band had heard German orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert double an upright acoustic bass with a 6-string bass when they were in Germany, and decided to give it a try with electrics. Although they might not have known at the time, the practice was also used in Nashville on a lot of country songs and heven had a name: “Tic-toc bass.” You can hear it on “Piggies,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Glass Onion,” and “Rocky Racccoon.” The two parts were always played together and never overdubbed individually."

There's a complete section describing the recording and mixing of song in Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust if you're interested, but in the meantime, enjoy this breakdown of the song (which mostly likely came from tracks from the band's Rock Band game).

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Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust Now Available

June 6th, 2012 is somewhat historic in that it's the 40th anniversary of the release of David Bowie's seminal The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and the 50th anniversary of the first time that The Beatles stepped into Abbey Road Studios to record.

It's also the release date of legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott's memoir Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, co-written by yours truly.

What's the connection to The Beatles and Bowie? Ken was one of the 5 main Beatles engineers, starting as an assistant on A Hard Day's Night, then working his way up to a full engineer on Magical Mystery Tour and The White Album. As for Bowie, Ken co-produced Ziggy Stardust, as well as his Hunky Dory, Pinups and Alladin Sane albums.

But Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust is about much more than that, as Ken discusses his time doing Beatle solo projects (Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance," Ringo's "It Don't Come Easy," and Harrison's All Things Must Pass), Elton John, Supertramp, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Devo, Kansas, The Tubes, Duran Duran, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra and many more.

If you're curious as to the gear that Ken, The Beatles or Bowie used, Ken's recording and mixing techniques, and the layout and hierarchy of the famous Abbey Road Studio, there's plenty of detail all laid out in convenient sidebars so it can be easily found. But if you're just a fan, there's plenty of juicy never-before-told stories and photos that read like a who's who of the 70's and 80's.

I can tell you that even though I helped write the book, I still find it fun and enjoyable to read after being through it dozens of times. It's the next best thing to being there yourself. I hope you'll enjoy it just as much.

Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust can now be found at any book store, music store, or online, and will soon be available for Kindle and iPad.

If you want to read more about the book and see a full overview of each chapter, go to abbeytoziggy.com.

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"Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust" Exclusive Excerpt

The release of legendary engineer/producer Ken Scott's memoir, entitled Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, is coming up soon on June 6, so I thought this was a good time for another excerpt. This one is from the first Supertramp chapter (there are 3) that outlines some of the unique recording methods used on their breakthrough album Crime of the Century.
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"One way of looking at how I approached Crime was that it started as Google Earth. I knew the overall shape of it, and as we went along it became more like the Street View as we slowly saw every nook and cranny. The fact was that I was actually bored with recording. I’d recorded drums, guitars, tambourines and everything else you can imagine so many bloody times and it was always the same. Since we were going all out on this record, I decided that we should try to make it as different as we can. I threw that concept at the band, and they just ran with the idea.

Like with the sound effects. Most times when sound effects were used on records back then, the engineer would go to the closet that had the sound effects records or tapes, and that’s what he’d use. Everyone used the same ones. I insisted, “If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it properly and record our own, exactly like a movie,” so we rented a stereo Nagra portable recorder and recorded all of our own sound effects. For example, for the song “School”, I went down to a friends house that was two doors down from where my three daughters were going to school, just in time for the lunch break because I knew the kids would be out in the yard playing. I recorded for a half hour, then went off to the studio. Roger would then listen on headphones to try to find bits that might actually work in the song, and we’d go through it and finalize what we were going to use.

For percussion we tried to use different things that weren’t typical percussion instruments. On “Dreamer” there’s a part that under normal circumstances would have been a tambourine, but that would’ve made it so ordinary. In trying to get something different, I had the idea of getting Rick [Davies] to shake a pair of drum brushes. He started off doing it rather heavily, but all you could hear was a whistle from them. We got him to slow it down a bit and do it with more wrist than arm action and suddenly we got the effect that we wanted. There’s a kind of whistle there at the same time as the brushes go through the air, which makes it sound totally different than anything you’d expect but still fills the rhythmic need.

Probably one of the  best examples of teamwork was when recording some tom overdubs, also on “Hide In Your Shell.” We wanted to get a change in pitch on each tom hit, so every time Bob [Siebenberg, Supertramp's drummer] hit a tom I changed the varispeed, speeding the tape up and then bringing it back to normal. When played back this makes the tom's pitch go down and then as it tails off it goes back up to normal. Bob had to hit the tom on beat with the tempo going all over the place, a feat he accomplished admirably as can be heard on the final product.

Everything but the kitchen sink went into this recording. Actually we got pretty close to a kitchen sink as well. The session percussionist extraordinaire and all around nice guy Ray Cooper had once told me of something which apparently was used a lot in horror movies - a water gong. You take a gong, hit it and then gradually lower it into water. This creates a strange, eery effect because as the gong is immersed the water makes its pitch change. We were working on the ending of “Crime of the Century” and for those that don’t know, “Crime” is in two parts. There’s the song and then it goes into a seemingly endless piano part during which it builds and builds with different instruments and lines coming and going throughout. We were at the point where the drums came in and we needed something to point out that something big was about to happen. Enter the water gong. 

Now that name is slightly incorrect because it ended up that we didn’t actually use a gong; we used a piece of sheet metal instead, but it worked just as well. We rented a large fish tank and filled it with water and, at the appropriate time, Bob struck it and lowered it into the water, and it sounded amazing. What’s great is that if you hear it on its own with no other instruments and without any reverb, you actually hear the water bubbling. So cool. That effect actually became a pet thing for me as I used it in one form or another on a number of future albums as well. A word of warning however; the filling of the fish tank is slow but fairly easy to accomplish, one bucket of water at a time. But, once you’ve finished the recording you’re left with one hell of a heavy fish tank to empty and so you have to have a fair number of pretty hefty guys to get it to the kitchen or bathroom sink to empty it.

We went completely overboard on everything, which is why the album took close to six months, a very long time for an album back then. Once we were given that crucial go-ahead from the label, we had no real choice but to strive for perfection."

For more details on what's in the book and to pre-order it, go to abbeytoziggy.com. For more info on Ken, go to Ken-Scott.com.

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The Myth Of Ziggy Stardust

It's now less than a month away from the release of Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, the memoir of the amazing life of the legendary producer/engineer Ken Scott published by Alfred Music Publishing that I was lucky enough to co-write.

The book will come out on June 6th, which happens to be the 40th anniversary of the release of David Bowie's seminal album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. In Ken's book, he dispels a number of myths surrounding some of the biggest acts he worked with, from The Beatles to Bowie to Elton John to Duran Duran (and many many more). In this excerpt, Ken speaks to the myth that Ziggy Stardust was a preconceived concept album.
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"There’s always been this whole thing about Ziggy being a concept album, but it really wasn’t. There are only two rock albums that I would 100% consider concept albums; Tommy and Quadrophenia by The Who, and that’s because they were written as a complete piece, whereas Ziggy was just a patchwork of songs. Yes, they fit together very well and one can weave a story from some of them, but when you consider that “Round and Round” was originally there in place of “Starman,” it doesn’t make much sense as a concept. How does “Round and Round” ever fit into the Ziggy story? It’s a classic Chuck Berry song. How does “It Ain’t Easy” fit in with the Ziggy concept? That was taken from the Hunky Dory sessions. All this about Ziggy being Starman is bullshit. It was a song that was just put in as a single at the last minute at the record label’s insistence. So while it’s true that there were a few songs that fitted the ”concept”, the rest were just songs that all worked well together as they would in any good album.

Even David didn’t take the Ziggy concept too seriously at first (that would come later). He has told various stories of how the character came into existence. Supposedly, in one tale, the name Ziggy came from a London tailor shop (“Ziggy’s") that David had seen from the train, and in a later version he told Rolling Stone that Ziggy “was one of the few Christian names I could find beginning with the letter Z.” David has also been quoted in many interviews stating that the character Ziggy Stardust was based upon the Elvis impersonator Vince Taylor, an eccentric leather-clad Brit who achieved a level of stardom in England in the late 50’s before having a very public mental breakdown and winding up in a psychiatric institution. And just as an aside, many, like the Clash’s illustrious Joe Strummer, even considered the bizarre Mr. Taylor to be the beginning of British rock and roll. 

"I met (Vince Taylor) a few times in the mid-Sixties and I went to a few parties with him. He was out of his gourd. Totally flipped. The guy was not playing with a full deck at all. He used to carry maps of Europe around with him, and I remember him opening a map outside Charing Cross tube station, putting it on the pavement and kneeling down with a magnifying glass. He pointed out all the sites where UFOs were going to land."

Bowie, from Golden Years; the David Bowie Story on BBC Radio 2, 18 March 2000

But as David and the band hit the stage after the album was complete, David began to become the Ziggy character and the the public ate it up."

You can find out more about the book and even preorder it at abbeytoziggy.com.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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