Michael Jackson "Billy Jean" Instrumental-Only Track

If you're going to analyze great production, there's no better place than Michael Jackson's hits. Between the impeccable engineering of Bruce Swedien, the legendary production skills of Quincy Jones, and Michael's groove sensibilities, the big hits set a standard that's hard to top.

Today we'll listen to the instrumental-only track of "Billy Jean" from the Thriller album. By the way, Bruce once told me that he did 99 mixes of the song, but they ended up using #2! Here's what to listen for:

1. Check out the reverb on the drums, especially the kick, in the intro. Listen to how it breathes with the track, just about dying out when the next beat hits.

2. Notice the shaker on the right side that adds motion, then is doubled on the left during the second verse and the effects that start on the left and end up on the right,.

3. The synths use Bruce's technique of remiking (sending the dry track out to the studio for some ambience - especially first reflection) to give them some separation from the rhythm section.

4. Speaking of synths, listen to how the patch changes from the verse to B-section to chorus.

5. Listen for the claps that reinforce the beat in the chorus.

6. Check all the background vocals, fills and effects that are panned off to one side or another, but balance each other out.

7. Listen to how long the outro is, which we never hear as part of the final mix.

There's so much going on in what might seem a very simple song, but that's part of what makes it a hit. There's something different always happening, but nothing that ever gets in the way of the vocal.

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Michael Jackson "Thriller" Instrumental Track

Engineer Bruce Swedien

Michael Jackson was a star for a long time before Thriller, but the iconic album made him a superstar. Here's the instrument-only track (with some background vocals) that is a model of excellence, from the production (Quincy Jones) to the engineering (the Godfather Bruce Swedien), to the great performances. Take a listen.

1. Check out how the song develops, with something new happening in every section and in every 8 bars of the verse. Either a new instrument enters or a main instrument moves to a new register.

2. Listen for the synth on the left side during the chorus. It's difficult to hear during the final mix.

3. Bruce Swedien is a master of ambience. Check out how each of the instruments are in their own space, from the synth pad to the handclaps to the guitars to the horns, everything fits so well. Especially listen for the parts where you can hear the reverb tails to hear how they fit into the song.

4. Listen for the percussion in the last verse around 3:10. Again, it's something that's easily missed in the final mix.

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Michael Jackson "Rock With You" Isolated Vocal

Here's a song that was considered one of the last hits of the Disco era. It's the isolated lead vocal from Michael Jackson's "Rock With You" from his 1979 Off The Wall album. The album featured 5 hit singles and went on to sell more than 20 million units worldwide. "Rock With You" went on to be a #1 hit in the US.

Here are some things to listen for. The recording is a bit distorted, but I'm pretty sure that came from the copy and not the original master, knowing how precise engineer Bruce Swedien (the Godfather of modern recording) is.

1. Notice the lead synthesizer when it enters in the intro. Bruce was always big on adding a first reflection by sending the recorded synth sound out into the studio and re-recording it. You can hear a bit of it here, plus a nice tape echo.

2.  Michael's vocal isn't too compressed. Yes, you can hear a little in certain places when he sings loudly, but listen to the softer parts where it's brought up with fader movement.

3. All the breaths are left in. This really makes the song as it injects the intimacy that puts it over the top. Many producers would probably eliminate them today in an effort to "clean the track up."

4. The synth solo is dry with the echo added half-way through the solo. Probably something you never noticed on the record.

5. If you listen closely, you can hear Michael's foot stomps in between phrases. Bruce once told me that Michael was always dancing when he sang, so he and producer Quincy Jones decided to play that up and give him a small wooden stage to sing on.

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New Music Gear Monday: Harrison 950mx Console

When you think of Harrison consoles you conjure up thoughts of film consoles and 1980s records, but the company has been making consoles all along, we just haven't seen them much in the States in recent years. Harrison has been strong in broadcast overseas, so the company has never gone away, just lowered its profile in the recording end a bit. Now it's back with a small format desk designed for the DAW studio with its new 950mx.

The Harrison 950mx is designed to be the analog front and back end to the signal path that so many engineers crave. It features the same sweet 3 band EQ from their legendary 32 series (the one that Bruce Swedien loves so much), a mix of mono and stereo modules, 4 aux buses and two stereo buses. The mix buses are unique in that one is transformer-based and the other is transformerless for different flavors, and they can be both summed during mixing for easy parallel compression. They also have built in bus compressors.

A 24 input version is standard, with additional sidecar buckets also available, as well as a line of matching studio furniture as well. Prices range from $24,000 to $45,000.

Harrison joins most other analog console companies in offering a smaller desk suited for today's studio, and it's prices and features are very comparable. Check out the video below or go to Harrison's 950mx webpage for more info.

Bruce Swedien's Mic Closet

Bruce Swedien at his Harrison console

Bruce Swedien is truly the Godfather of recording engineers, having recorded and mixed hits from everyone from Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie to Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer and Michael Jackson. He's a mentor of mentors, as so many of his teachings are now handed down to a generation now just learning (his interview in The Mixing Engineer's Handbook is a standout).

Bruce is also a collector of microphones and will not use one he doesn't personally own, so he knows the exact condition of each. Recently he posted a bit about the mics he uses on his Facebook page, and I thought it worth a reprint.

A couple of things stick out to me.
1. His use of an Sennheiser 421 on kick. I know it's a studio standard for some reason (especially on toms), but I never could get it work on anything in a way that I liked.

2. His use of the relatively new Neumann M149, because it's eh...........new.

3. His synthesizer advice (under the M49) is a real gem.

Here's Bruce.
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Constantly being asked about my mics, so here goes:

My microphone collection, spanning many of the best-known models in studio history, are my pride and joy. My microphones are prized possessions. To me, they are irreplaceable. Having my own mics that no-one else handles or uses assures a consistency in the sonics of my work that would otherwise be impossible.” 

AKG C414 EB
“My first application would be for first and second violins. It’s really great mic for the classical approach for a string section.”
Hear it on... the first and second violins in Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

Altec 21B
“This is a fantastic mic, and I have four of them. It’s an omni condenser, and [for jazz recording] what you do is wrap the base of the mic connector in foam and put it in the bridge of the bass so that it sticks up and sits right under the fingerboard. It wouldn’t be my choice for orchestral sessions, though.”
Hear it on... Numerous recordings for Oscar Peterson between 1959 and 1965.

RCA 44BX & 77BX; AEA R44C
“[The 44BX] is a large, heavy mellow-sounding old mic with a great deal of proximity effect. This is very useful in reinforcing the low register of a vocalist’s range if that is desired. If I am asked to do a big band recording of mainly soft, lush songs, I almost always opt for ribbon mics for the brass. I suggest AEA R44C or RCA44BX on trumpets, and RCA 77DX on trombones. Ribbon mics are great for percussion too.”
Hear it on... trumpets and flugelhorns in Michael Jackson’s ‘Rock With You’ (at 0:54); percussion in Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’.

Sennheiser MD421
“The kick is about the only place I use that mic, and I mike very closely. I frequently remove the bass drum’s front head, and the microphone is placed inside along with some padding to minimise resonances, vibrations, and rattles.”
Hear it on... the kick drum in Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

Shure SM57
“For the snare I love the Shure SM57. In the old days it wasn’t as consistent in manufacture as it is now. I must have eight of those mics, and they’re all just a teeny bit different, so I have one marked ‘snare drum’. But the ones I’ve bought recently are all almost identical. On the snare drum, I usually go for a single microphone. I’ve tried miking both top and bottom of the snare, but this can cause phasing problems.”
Hear it on... snare drum in Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

Telefunken 251
“These mics have a beautiful mellow quality, but possess an amazing degree of clarity in vocal recording. The 251 is not overly sibilant and is often my number one choice for solo vocals.”
Hear it on... Patti Austin in ‘Baby, Come To Me’, her duet with James Ingram.

Telefunken U47
“I still have one of the two U47s that I bought new in 1953, and will still frequently be first choice on lead vocal. This is a mic that can be used on a ballad or on a very aggressive rock track. It has a slight peak in its frequency response at around 7kHz, which gives it a feeling of natural presence. It also has a slight peak in the low end around 100Hz. This gives it a warm, rich sound. For Joe Williams, another mic would never have worked as well. I figured out that it was the mic for him when I heard him speak. After you’ve been doing this for as long as I have, you begin to have instinctive sonic reactions, and it saves a lot of time!”
Hear it on... Joe Williams in the Count Basie Band’s Just The Blues

Neumann M149
“I have a pair of these that Neumann made just for me, with consecutive serial numbers, and they sound so great. That’s what I use now in XY stereo on piano.”

Neumann M49
“This is very close sonically to the M149, but not quite the same. It’s a three-pattern mic and the first that Neumann came up with which had the pattern control on the power supply... you could have the mic in the air and still adjust the pattern. I use these for choir recording in a Blumlein pair, which is one of my favourite techniques because it’s very natural in a good room. When I was recording with Michael and Quincy I was given carte blanche to make the greatest soundfields I could, so what I also did was pick a really good room and record the synths through amps and speakers with a Blumlein pair to get the early reflections as part of the sonic field. The direct sound output of a synthesizer is very uninteresting, but this can make the sonic image fascinating. You have to be really careful, though, to open up the pre-delay of any reverb wide enough to not cover those early reflections. They mostly occur below 120ms, so with 120ms pre-delay those sounds remain intact and very lovely.”
Hear it on... Andre Crouch choir in Michael Jackson’s ‘Man In The Mirror’, ‘Keep The Faith’.

Neumann U67
“The predecessor to the U87, and an excellent microphone, but it’s not one of my real favourites, as a purely instinctive reaction. It’s just a little bit too technical perhaps, and it doesn’t have sufficient sonic character for me to use it on a lead vocal, for instance. It’s a good choice of microphone for violas and cellos, however, and the U87 can also work well in this application.”
Hear it on... violas and cellos in Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

I'll post a bit of Bruce's interview from The Mixing Engineer's Handbook in a future post.

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Bruce Swedien Talks Putnam And Harrison

I like to call Bruce Swedien the "Godfather" of engineering, but his mentor, Bill Putnam, was truly the father of modern engineering. In this video, Bruce talks a bit about Bill, and also about the development of the Harrison console, which was the sound of Thriller and other Michael Jackson albums that Bruce engineered.

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Michael Jackson "Human Nature" Song Analysis

Reader Greg Fine asked for a song analysis of Michael Jackson's hit "Human Nature," the fifth single from his seminal Thriller album. Some feel that this song set the template for what's become known as "adult R&B." Like all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
Like most hit songs, "Human Nature" follows a stock formula but changes it up enough to make it sound different. The form looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Chorus, Outro

There's no real bridge to the song, but the end of the second chorus and the interlude are both different enough to make you think there is. The outro of the song is basically the intro with a slightly changed ending that's faded.

The Arrangement
All of Michael's Thriller-era songs seem pretty sparse and simple, but they all have a lot going on that isn't exactly noticeable. There's a synth pad throughout that can almost be missed because it's so subtle, but most of the song is carried by some clean guitars and a very full synth bass.

  * The Foundation: Drums, synth bass

  * The Pad: Low synth pad and synth strings in the verse

  * The Rhythm: Clean picked guitar and clave

  * The Lead: Michael's vocal

  * The Fills: In the chorus, the delayed vocal answers, in the interlude and intro/outro, the synth counter lines.

In numerous other analysis I've pointed out the "5 element rule," where you never wanted to have more than 5 elements playing at the same time because it gets confusing to the listener. Listen to the intro and interludes, which are very complex arrangement-wise, yet are perfect examples of having only  5 elements playing at once.

The Sound
Engineer Bruce Swedien is certainly the Godfather of audio engineering, but Thriller might've been his finest moment and "Human Nature" is a perfect example of that. There's a lot of effects layering going on (it sounds like every instrument has it's own effect), but nothing ever clashes and each instrument can be heard distinctly even with some of the big reverb washes used. I especially liked the ping pong delayed answer vocals in the chorus.

The Production
This was perhaps producer Quincy Jone's finest hour as well. You never expect anything but the best from one of his productions and this one doesn't disappoint. Q is the master is repeating a part yet making it different, like in the 2nd part of the verses where the strings come in. The first time it's a pedaled string sound, the second time the sound changes and the part is a bit more complex. The same with the choruses. Each time they're slightly different, with either a different vocal effect, another vocal part, or a slight change in the sound of an instrument. This song was state of the art in 1983, and it still is today.

Send me your song analysis suggestions.

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Bruce Swedien's Vocal Recording Tips

For anyone who doesn't know already, Bruce Swedien is truly the Godfather of modern day recording. Having been part of the team the produced Michael Jackson's greatest hits is only one of the things he's done over his long and illustrious career. He's also recorded so many of the jazz greats, from Count Basie to Dizzy Gillespie, and pop giants like Barbra Streisand as well.

There's a great article on ProSound Web (which also runs a few of my articles too) that's an excerpt from his great book, "Make Mine Music." Bruce also was kind enough to contribute an interview in one of my books as well - The Mixing Engineer's Handbook.

Below is an excerpt from the article over on Prosoundweb.com, from which I took some of his points about vocal recording.

• "First off, the type of music to be recorded is most important. Pop, jazz, rhythm and blues, country, and classical all require a different approach. The biggest single difference in studio mike technique for vocal recording comes from recording of vocal sound sources in classical music, contrasted with pop vocal sound sources. The first and most important consideration is that I would never mike the vocalist in a classical recording as closely as I would a vocalist in a pop music recording.

• Good choral recorded sound is best achieved by using as few microphones as possible, with the singers placed well back from the microphones. This technique places most of the sound mixing responsibility on the room acoustics and the vocalists. Obviously, this approach requires an excellent studio or a room with extremely good acoustics.

• Extreme equalization is most definitely not the way to achieve a superb vocal recording, though a small amount of EQ may be beneficial. If you find yourself having to apply a great deal of EQ to the mike channel to achieve an acceptable vocal sound, it’s time to try another microphone.

• Your choice of vocal microphone should be made on the basis of the artist’s vocal quality and the sonic personality you want to project – nothing else.

• Stacking, or “doubling,” a lead vocal is helpful. I frequently change the tape speed of the master recorder slightly during the recording of the “double,” or “stack” (or pitch down the cue mix coming from the digital audio workstation) and play that to the vocalists while recording the “double.” During this process, the amount of pitch change used should be very small. The amount of pitching down that I do is usually only 3 or 4 cents in pitch.

• When recording vocal duets, I frequently look for microphones for the vocalists that have an obviously different sonic character. This difference in microphone character adds to the already different timbre of the two voices and makes the resulting sonic picture more fascinating. 

• When mixing a “stack,” or “double,” of a lead vocal track, I frequently keep the “double” at a slightly lower level in the mix than the basic lead vocal track. This serves to add support to the vocal without making it appear to be an obvious trick."

Read the entire article here.

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Bruce Swedien - Mixing In Colors

When I wrote The Mixing Engineer's Handbook in 1998, I was lucky enough to get to interview the Godfather of recording engineers, Bruce Swedien. During our interview, Bruce talked more about the philosophy of mixing rather than the nuts and bolts. Here's an excerpt from that interview, where he talks about hearing in "colors."
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Is your approach to mixing each song generally the same?

I’ll take that a step further and I’ll say it’s never the same. And I think I have a very unique imagination. I also have another problem in that, I don’t know what the hell it is, somebody told me once, I hear sounds in color, with colors in my mind.  And I can frequently do EQing and so on and check the spectrum of a mix or a piece of music, if I don’t see the right colors I it, I know the balance is not there.

What do you mean?

Well, low frequencies, low sounds appear to my mind’s eye as dark colors.  Black or brown. Bass can usually be black or brown or dark purple. And then high frequencies are brighter colors. Extremely high frequencies gold and silver. And so, it’s funny, but that’s, that can be very distracting. Drives me crazy sometimes.

There is a term for it, I don’t know what it is. [It's called "synaesthesia"]

What are you trying to do then, build a rainbow?

No, it’s just that if I don’t experience and see those colors when I listen to a mix that I’m working on, I know that there’s either an element missing, or that the mix values aren’t satisfying.

How do you know what proportion of what color?

That’s instinctive. Quincy [Jones] has the same problem. It’s terrible! Drives me nuts! But, it’s not a quantitative thing. It’s just that if I focus on a part of the spectrum in a mix, and don’t see the right colors, it bothers me.  

I have a feeling it’s a disease, but people have told me it isn’t.  

How do you go about getting a balance? Do you have a method.

No, purely instinctive. Another thing that I’ve learned from Quincy, I think, that started with my work with Duke Ellington, is to do my mixing reactively, not cerebrally.  

How do you mean?

This is when automated mixing came along, I got really excited because I thought, “At last, here’s a way for me to preserve my first instinctive reaction to the music.”  And the mix values that are there, rather than, you know how frequently we’ll work on a piece of music, and work on it, work on it, and we think, “Oh boy, this is great! Wouldn’t it be great if it had a little more of this, or a little more of that.”  And then you listen to that in the cold gray light of dawn and it sounds like shit. Well, that's when the cerebral part of our mind takes over, pushing the reactive part to the background, so the music suffers.  

Do you start to do your mix from the very first day of tracking?

Yes. But, again, I don’t think that you can say any of these thoughts are across the board.  here is certain types of music that grow in the studio that don’t, you go in and you start a rhythm track and you think you’re gonna have one think, and all of a sudden it does a sharp left and it ends up being something lese. While again, there are other types of music where I start the mix before the musicians come to the studio. I’ll give you a good example of something. On Michael’s History album, “Smile, Charlie Chaplin.”  I knew what the mix would be like two weeks before the musicians hit the studio.  

From listening to the demo?

No. It had nothing to do with anything except what was going on in my mind because the orchestra, the arranger and conductor, Jeremy Lubbock and I had talked about that piece of music. And the orchestra that we were gonna use, it’s a big orchestra, and I came up with a studio setup that I had used with the strings of the Chicago Symphony many years before at Universal.  Where the first violins are set up to the left of the conductor and the second violins to the right, the violas behind the first fiddles and the celli behind the second fiddles, which is a little unusual.  So, I had that whole mix firmly in mind long before we did it.  

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The "Thriller" Intro - Bruce Swedien

Here's another Bruce Swedien video, this time from his keynote speech during Sweetwater's GearFest in 2008. In it Bruce discusses the intro to Michael Jackson's seminal single "Thriller."

Of even more importance is the beginning of Bruce's address where he talks about producer Quincy Jones saying before they began the Thriller recording sessions, "We've got to find a way to get people back into the record stores." What everyone seems to forget is that from 1979 to almost 1982, the record business was in a very bad recession. Disco had just burned out, there was no new trends on the horizon, and record sales were declining fast as a result. It seemed almost as bad as it is now, except for the fact that several things came to the record labels aid - the CD, MTV and Michael Jackson and Thriller.

When the CD format hit, suddenly everyone wanted to buy all of their records all over again, so the label's catalog sales became hot (which was a huge money maker), MTV pushed sales of new acts to greater heights, and of course MJ eventually sold over 100 million copies of Thriller, which certainly helped to bring people back into the record stores.

By the way, the historical perspective mentioned above is covered from two different angles in both The Music Producer's Handbook and Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age.

Tomorrow, we'll take a last look at some words of wisdom from the great Bruce Swedien.

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Bruce Swedien On "Thriller"

This week we'll look at "the Godfather" of modern recording, Bruce Swedien. If you don't know who Bruce is, then that's an especially good reason to watch this video. Besides engineering Michael Jackson's biggest sellers, Bruce has engineered projects for such legends and best sellers like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, Roberta Flack, Mick Jagger, Jennifer Lopez, Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Rufus, Chaka Khan, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, and Sarah Vaughan. His sense of instrument balance and ambient/effects balance is second to none, as you'll hear if you listen to any of the records that he's done.


Here's an interview he did with Dutch television station NPS about a year ago.

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The "Thriller" Console For Sale

Here's an interesting advert for the console that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album was made on. It's a Harrison 4032 and the asking price is $200,000!

Now in its day, Harrison made a pretty good console, but even brand new it was less than half the asking price, and given the huge drop in value in recording consoles these days, this price seems almost laughable. The console has only 32 channels (you'd expect a lot more for 200k), but it's being sold more as a museum piece rather a piece of audio gear, as far as I can tell.

That's probably a good thing since there's virtually no information about the current condition of the console. Does it even pass audio? Is it automated? Does the automation work? Do all the modules work? How is the console terminated? Is the power supply OK? None of those questions are even broached in any one of three websites.

It's true that Bruce Swedien, the engineer for all of Michael's biggest hits, loves this console and even bought one like it for his personal studio, but he may be the only one. In it's day, a Harrison wasn't the most sought after console and it never had any vintage value even when console prices were sky high, that's why the price is so astounding.

Will it draw customers to a studio that features the desk? Probably some, but it's doubtful that it'll draw 200k worth. And if an artist thinks that this console will make them sound like Michael then they'll be sadly mistaken. It's never been about the gear. It's always about the ears!

Check out an article on the sale, the website for the console, and the ebay site, but unless you have more money than you know what to do with, keep it in your pocket on this one.