Engineers who rock

Our producer pals have been piling up, so how about those partners in crime, the engineers who twiddle the knobs? I'll nominate Robin Hood Brians - early ZZ Top, Five Americans and other Abnak artists, Mouse and the Traps (he even cut a good RAB tune for Fraternity - my kinda guy) - good pounding sound. Sam Phillips - old Sam ran the controls when the Sun label got rolling - master of slapback echo, that sound coming from that tiny studio is ragged but right. Next batter...

 

Shelly Yakus...

A brilliant engineer

 

Norman Smith
Geoff Emerick
Lee Perry
John Timperley
Guy Salmon
Andy Johns
Peter Mew (I'm not joking - he engineered "S.F. Sorrow"!!!! WHAT HAPPENED????????!!!!!!!!!??????!!!!!????!?!!??!?!?!?!?!??!?)

That should get us in gear!!

 

Eddie Kramer - Aside from engineering on the Hendrix albums he perfected the three mike technique when it comes to miking drums.

 

Wow, maybe the Pretties warped his mind and now he hears things in an altered state!

 

Peter Kelsey
Joe Ferla
Frank Filipetti
Dave Thoener
James Guthrie
Roger Moutenot
Billy Szawlowski (Canadian engineer, Mahogany Rush, April Wine etc)

 

And now for great, yet sometimes obscure audiophile minimalist engineers...

Michael Bishop (less minimalist on some days)
Bob Katz
Tony Faulkner
Barry Wolifson
Keith O. Johnson (is there a better symphony engineer, I think not!)
Roy DuNann (R.I.P.)
Wilma Cozart Fine (R.I.P.)
Joe Harley
Jeremy Kipnis

 

Roy DuNann died!?!

 

Maybe this should have been titled Engineers - Dead or Alive???

 

Dave Hassinger
Tom Dowd

Er, wrong thread...

*Anyway*...:

Glyn Johns
Bill Halverson
Stephen Barncard
Roy Halee

 

Brooks Arthur - another '60's great
John Leckie
Tchad Blake
Chuck Britz
Eric Stewart
Hank Cicalo

for starters...

 

I still want to know if Roy DuNann is actually dead. He recently did that wondeful Stereophile interview.

OK - engineers who rock: Not all of these people actually rock, but were great:

John Kraus
John Palladino (my buddy)
Roy DuNann
Lee Herschberg
Lowell Frank
Norman Smith
Geoff Emerick
Ken Scott
Eddie "digital sucks" Kramer (although he didn't seem to mind mastering those recent Hendrix LP's from digital tapes)
Fred Plaut
Frank Laico
Lewis Layton
Bruce Botnick
Larry Levine
Chuck Britz
Phil Ramone (at least back in the 1960's when he engineered some great sounding stuff like "Getz/Gilberto - give a listen to the Speakers Corner reissue LP that Kevin Gray mastered)
George Massenberg (at least on those Earth, Wind, and Fire albums)

and others I can't think of right now.


Now I guess the next thing to do is start the thread that Luke thought he was responding to (Engineers that don't rock?)

 

Roger Nichols
RVG

 

Whatever happened to Roy Thomas Baker?

 

I didn't know Wilma Cozart Fine passed away. That is very sad. Wasn't she a producer though and not an engineer?

 

Robert John "Mutt" Lange

 

Didn't engineer much. Did some nice production work with City Boy and Clover in the 70's, then turned out utterly processed/gated sounding garbage with Def Leppard and The Cars.

 

Can't agree. Processed yes, garbage no. I remember first listening to Hysteria (when it was released) and being amazed at the sound world that the Mutt created - the opposite of hi-fi, but also totally unlike the "low-fi" or even "no-fi" approach that other rock bands tried. Very original back in 1987 - did "pop metal" even exist before this album was released? Not that I'm a big pop metal fan, but I did/do like this album.

I'm still baffled that MFSL chose to redo this album - what an odd choice. What was their objective - to make it sound LESS processed?

 

I would disagree. Each band should have their own sound and the sound of Def Leppard is that super compressed/processed/gated sound with the heavy pounding bass and heavy drums.

I happen to like what he did for AC/DC, Foreigner, Bryan Adams and all of country music which has changed since he produced two albums for his wife Shania Twain.

True, he did not engineer except on what you mentioned. I would put him on the list of top notch producers! Just my two cents-- but you are certainly entitled to your feelings and opinion concerning his work.

dough

 

And that early work is the reason I don't like his 80's work.

Compare the natural sound of the Clover and City Boy records to the Def Leppard stuff and Heartbeat City album, and you will see how recorded rock/pop sound began going down the toilet in the 80's. Very similar to the horrible overuse of compression we have now.

 

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Bill Porter in this thread. Elvis, Orbison and the Everlys in their early stereo classics mode! Not to mention all those RCA Nashville recordings in the early '60s!

 

Bill Porter - I was listening to Elvis' 24K Hits last night and I was thinking to myself - did I remember to mention him when I listed some people? I guess I did forget - dumb mistake. Great pick Luke.