This week I'm really pleased to have engineer/mixer Richard Chycki as a guest on my podcast.
Richard has a ton of credits, but those of you into prog rock know that he's worked extensively with both Rush and Dream Theater. On the show we discuss miking Neil Peart and Mike Mangini's drum kits (and avoiding phase shift when using 40 mics!), a great guitar recording trick, and surround sound mixing, among other things.
On the intro I'll talk about how 1% of artists make 80% of the money, the introduction of Spotify Touch Preview, the significance of Apple buying Symmetric, as well as the new MIDI HD and the upcoming AVB standards.
Here's a cool isolated guitar track from Rush's big hit "Limelight" from their Moving Pictures album, which broke the band as a worldwide act. Guitarist Alex Lifeson used an usual technique for getting his guitar sound by placing two amps inside the studio as usual, plus another two outside so they could capture the sound bouncing off the side of the mountains beside Le Studio near Montreal. Here's what to listen for.
1. There are two distinctly different guitar sounds, with the guitar getting distinctly cleaner for the beginning of the B sections of the song.
2. The guitar sound is a very wide chorused stereo with the right side slightly delayed.
3. The solo is interesting in that most of the sound is up the middle but two different timed delays are panned hard left and right, with the longer one on the left.
4. Many feel that drummer Neil Peart is the ultimate timekeeper, but listen to the great timing in the guitar performance by Lifeson. There's not a note out of place.
We haven't done a song analysis for a while, so here's an excerpt from my Deconstructed Hits: Classic Rock Vol 1 book. It's Rush's "Tom Sawyer," a perennial FM radio favorite and the first single from their breakout Moving Pictures album from 1981. The song is a part of the defining moment in the band’s history when they finally broke out to world-wide superstardom.
The song was written on a band summer rehearsal holiday spent on a farm outside of Toronto. Poet Pye Dubois presented the band with a poem entitled “Louis The Lawyer,” which drummer Neil Peart then modified, and bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson set to music.
THE SONG
As with everything Rush, "Tom Sawyer" is complex and doesn't follow a standard form, but that's why they're so well liked, right? The form looks something like this:
You can dispute exactly where the chorus is, but the popular thinking is it's where the "Tom Sawyer" lyric is mentioned. None the less, the song is as unconventional as it is interesting.
While most of the song is in 4/4 time, the solo begins in 7/8, then switches to 13/16. It then returns to 4/4 until the outro, where it again changes to 7/8.
The lyrics are poetry set to music, instead of the other way around. There’s no overt need to rhyme if it doesn’t fit the thought, which is a whole lot better than forcing it and having an awkward lyric or cadence.
THE ARRANGEMENT
Rush's songs are fairly bare-bones in that they're meant to be played live, so there's not a lot of obvious layering. The guitars are doubled and heavily effected to make them bigger, but you can hear how they effectively use only a single less effected guitar in the first turnaround of the solo, then the second has the full guitar sound to change the dynamics.
Arrangement Elements
The Foundation:drums
The Pad:synthesizer on the intro and outro, high register synth in solo beginning and outro
The Rhythm: high hat
The Lead: lead vocal, guitar solo,
The Fills:none
Rush uses synthesizers very creatively, from the Oberheim OB-X swell in the intro and outro, to the Moogish sound in the interlude and outro. Also, the lead vocal is doubled in the C-section, which differentiates it from the other sections.
THE SOUND
The mix of “Tom Sawyer” is as interesting as is the song form. Neil Peart's drums are way up in front and the snare has a nice pre-delayed medium room on it that you can only hear in the beginning when the drums are played by themselves. All of the other drums are dry. The snare is fairly bright, as is the high hat, which is featured in the mix since it keeps the motion of the song moving forward. The kick and snare are compressed well to make them punchy and in your face without seeming squashed. The cymbals are nice and bright but pulled back in the mix.
Geddy Lee's vocal has a timed delay with a medium reverb wash that blends seamlessly into the track, which also has a bit of modulation that you can hear as it dies out. Once again, you can only hear it during the intro when the song is fairly sparse. His bass has that Rickenbacker treble sound yet still has a lot of bottom, despite the distortion.
Alex Lifeson's guitar is doubled using a short delay, and slightly chorused with a medium reverb wash for the huge sound that glues everything together. In the case of the solo guitar, the reverb is effected and then spread hard left and right. It also uses the same guitar sound as the rhythm guitar, which is unusual, since solos usually have a different sound on most records.
Listen Up:
To the modulation at the end of the reverb on Geddy Lee’s vocal.
To how large the stereo synthesizers on the intro of the song are.
To the stereo effect on the Moog synth at the beginning of the solo and the outro.
THE PRODUCTION
Any power trio has to have great musicians to have everything sound big and cohesive, and Rush does just that. Peart's drumming is absolutely rock solid, without a beat ever feeling like it drifted even a microsecond out of time, yet still feels organic. The way he’s placed in the mix totally holds it together, yet it never feels as if he’s the one featured. As with most other hits, it’s the energy of the track that pulls you in, which goes to show you that without a near perfect basic track, it’s difficult to keep the track interesting.
There are some songs that we all know because they've been a staple of AOR or classic rock radio since their release. Rush's "Tom Sawyer" (from their big Moving Pictures album) is one of these, and even if you're not a Rush fan, you sort of know the song by the osmosis process of hearing it for so long.
Here's Neil Peart's isolated drum track from the song. There's a split of opinion about Peart's playing in that some think he's the best drummer on the planet, while others feel his playing is robotic and soulless. Regardless of how you feel, this is a great drum track that's worth checking out. Here's what to listen for:
1. Check out the flange effect on the cymbals on the opening downbeat
2. You can't miss the long dark reverb on the snare. You never hear it with the rest of the instruments because it's so dark.
3. Unlike many of today's mixes, the high hat is panned to the center rather than to the right as you see it.
4. The tom fills that start at 1:00 sound like they're really tightly tuned and almost out of place with the rest of the kit. That said, the floor tom fills that start at 2:40 still sound like they're tuned high, but are more in line with the sound of the kick and snare.
Staying with our guitar themed Fridays, here's Alex Lifeson's isolated guitar from Rush's seminal "Tom Sawyer," one of the most popular cuts from their breakthrough Moving Pictures album. What's interesting is that there's not a lot of production trickery here. It's just one man and his guitar; no doubles or stacking. The guitar solo is different from the rest of the song, but you'd expect that in almost any recording. Here are some things to listen for.
1. The guitar is heavily chorused, but the dry signal is panned to the center while the chorus is spread out left and right.
2. Check out the very long 20 second sustain starting at 1:27.
3. The guitar sound changes in the solo, with the dry signal slightly to the right with a short double panned to the left.
Rush is a band that can pull off their records live because they play it that way in the studio. This example is Lifeson and Rush at their best.
Our good friend Anonymous requested an interesting song for a song analysis. It's "Tom Sawyer" from everyone's favorite prog-rock band Rush. The song is a perennial FM radio favorite and a single from their breakout Moving Pictures album from 1981 (is it really 30 years already?). The song reached as high as #8 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and the album was top 10 the world over.
As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, sound and performance.
The Song
As with everything Rush, "Tom Sawyer" is complex and doesn't follow a standard form, but that's why they're so well liked, right? The form looks something like this:
Intro/Chorus, Verse, B section, C section, Chorus, Interlude, Solo, Intro, Verse, B section, C section, Chorus, Outro
You can dispute exactly where the chorus is, but I'm thinking it's where the "Tom Sawyer" lyric is mentioned. It could very well be the C section though, and you're interpretation is as good as mine. One thing's for sure, the song's form is not conventional.
That being said, there is a lot of melody in the song that millions of people today happily sing to themselves and others.
The Arrangement
Rush's songs are fairly bare-bones in that they're meant to be played live, so there's not a lot of obvious layering. The guitars are doubled and heavily effected to make them bigger, but you can hear how they effectively use only a single less effected guitar in the first turnaround of the solo, then the 2nd has the full guitar sound to change the dynamics.
Rush also uses synthesizers very creatively, from the Moogish sound in the interlude and outro, to the big bass envelopes in the intro and outro.
Also, the lead vocal is doubled in the C section, which differentiates it from the others, although that's not needed that much in this song.
The Sound
The overall sound is about as good as it gets on a album. Neil Pert's drums are way up in front and have a nice pre-delayed medium room on them that you can only hear in the beginning when they're by themselves. The drums are compressed very well so they're punchy and in your face without seeming squashed.
Geddy Lee's vocal has a timed delay with a medium reverb wash that blends seamlessly into the track. Once again, you can only hear it during the intro. It sounds just a little squashed, but I'm cutting hairs here. His bass has that Rickenbacker treble sound yet still has a lot of bottom, despite the distortion.
Alex Lifeson's guitar is doubled and slightly chorused with a medium reverb wash for the huge sound that glues everything together.
The Performance
What can you say, they're all great. You have to be to pull it off as a power trio. I think what sticks out to me though is Pert's drumming. It's absolutely rock solid, without a beat ever feeling like it drifted even a microsecond, yet still feels organic. There are not many dudes who can do that.
Today we're back with more of Tom Sawyer from Rush. In this case, we'll be listening to Alex Lifeson's guitars.
1) The guitars are doubled using a short delay, then panning the original and delayed tracks left and right.
2) Boy, there's a lot of reverb on the guitars. They sound slightly chorused as well. I think Alex was using Gallien-Krueger amps back then, which had a built-in chorus on them.
3) The track is very solid. I heard one very, very slight timing issue on a picked part at about 1:58 but it's so small that it's nit picking.
4) The guitar solo uses the same sound as the rhythm, which is unusual.
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Today we're going to analyze Rush's "Tom Sawyer," a hit off of their 1981 Moving Picture's album that's been a staple of album oriented radio ever since. Here's the drum track by the amazing Neil Pert.
1) You've really got to hand it to Neil, not only is the time rock-solid, but it feels so good as well. Once I posed about how you can tell a hit just from the high-hat track of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," and the exact same thing applies here. It feels like a hit.
2) There's a nice long reverb on the snare that's nicely timed to the track. All other drums are dry.
3) The cymbals are nice and bright but pulled back in the mix a bit.
4) Many of Neil's fills would never sound good in the hands of another drummer with less than perfect time.
5) The kick and snare are nicely compressed. They pop yet never sound chocked.
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" from everyone's favorite prog-rock band Rush. The song is a perennial FM radio favorite and a single from their breakout 
album from 1981 (is it really 30 years already?). The song reached as high as #8 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and the album was top 10 the world over.
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," and the exact same thing applies here. It feels like a hit.