Welcome Legendary Rec. Engineer Mike Ross (Hendrix, PG's Fleetwood Mac, the Who, etc)

I was never aware that you had trashed me.

 

a 2012 shout at ya Mike.

 

How about a few lines about what it was like to work with Pete Townshend?

 

Wow, just looked at your sessions. Do I have this right....

You tracked "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" and "Oh Gosh"?... my favorite b3 sounds in the universe ever on a record.

How did you mic the Leslie etc? How did you get such a cool edge on those organ sounds. How'd you get those "Oh Gosh" brushes so in-your-face? How'd you mic the bass on Heaven and Gosh? Or was bass all direct for those sessions? What was the machine for tracking.. 8 track?

And Culture Club stuff? Were those tracked to analog 24 track? Or maybe you were using the 3m 32track digital in those days ? Lots of submixing on their stuff? Or sync'd twin machines maybe?

And the one that really blows me away... you worked with Isaac Guillory from the ancient Cryan Shames days???

Have I hit my limit for questions yet?

 

Right. Abbey Road did have several J37s (as well as 2 Telefunken 1" 4-track machines), but I'm not aware of any Who sessions there, except (presumably) a demo session before they signed with Shel Talmy.

 

This thread is a great way to start the new year and one of the reasons why I enjoy the SHF. Thanks Mike for indulging us!

 

Do you know Chris Huston?

 

Mr. Ross-Trevor, you are responsible for so many recordings that changed my life and influenced my work. Can't thank you enough. And thanks for being here and answering questions. I'll be chiming in soon!

GD

 

Sorry I don't know Chris Huston

 

Thank you

 

Pete Townsend is a very serious guy and was very well prepared when he arrived at the studio he would already have a demo of his songs which he made at home on his reel to reel equipment and we listened to these demos and the guys would learn the song it would also help me to understand the sound and balances he was looking for, we always had interesting discussions about recording techniques and he was always ready to learn more recording details, he put a lot of trust in their manager Kit Lambert who produced the records with Pete's input, there was no question that Pete was the leader of the band as he worked with the guys in the studio, he was great to work for and as I said it was very workmanlike and he knew what he wanted.

 

I recorded the complete album of 'A Gift From A Flower To A Garden' .. the organ sound was an overdub and was played very loud in the room with the microphones placed about six feet away from the leslie, there were two dynamic mics on the top cabinet for stereo and a single condenser mic on the bass side of the cabinet. The bass guitar sounds were a combination of DI and amplifier, the DI gave us the edge and the amp gave us the real low end and then the two sounds were compressed together. The brush sound you mention was a condenser mic just above the snare with the highs tipped up using a tube pultec EQ. The whole album was recorded using two Studer 4 track recorders and we bounced back and forth between the machines and we pre- mixed as we went along recording further overdubs.

Culture Club were recording on a Sony 3324 Digital 24 track when I worked with them but the first singles were made on an analogue 24 track machine

Yes I did record a complete album with Isaac Guillory and that was produced by songwriter Ian Samwell, they were slow sessions and there was a lot of attention to detail but he was a lovely guy and a pleasure to work with but very time consuming, it's sad that the album didn't sell very well.

 

Fascinating reading, Mike! What kind of mic setup did you use to record Boy George?

 

My involvement with Culture Club was only for the orchestral overdubs I did a lot of work on 'Victims' and 'Time' Steve Levine the producer used to be my assistant in earlier days and he always asked me to record strings for him when he became a producer for Culture Club

 

I agree; this is so nice. A very peasent read.

 

Terrific to have you here !

 

Great to have you here, Mike! I am unfamiliar with many of the recordings discussed here, but I have a feeling I'm going to be checking them out soon, as I'm a musician and music lover. Thanks for your time and posts!

 

Very nice info and very interesting. A moderator should sticky this.

 

Thanks for answering, and welcome!

 

I guess my first big question would be about the early Fleetwood Mac.

The guitar tones on those recordings are so unique, which is partly the strange wiring on Peter Green's Les Paul I'm sure. How did you go about miking those guitars? Is that plate or chamber we hear on Albatross? And of course, the obligatory question: How was the personal atmosphere on those sessions?

Thanks so much.
GD

 

He engineered a few other tracks on "The Who Sell Out", including "Rael".

 

The guitar tones on the blues albums were very much the result of guitar bleed into other microphones as everything was recorded live including the vocals it was almost like recording a live gig, the room had a unique sound also and that added to the early Fleetwood Mac sound, the guitar amps were miked very close with Neumann U67's and that coupled with the bleed created that fat spacious sound.
On 'Albatross' everything was recorded separately
and it was the first time they had ever recorded this way as they suddenly wanted their records to sound perfect without a blemish. The reverb we used was a mono plate but with each overdub the reverb was recorded on to the multi-track so that means that at any time only one sound would be sent to the plate so we were able to totally control the reverb at each stage of recording and we were sub-mixing as we went along between two four-track recorders by the time the recording was finished we virtually had a mixed recording on the multi-track. Atmosphere on the sessions was generally good even though there were differing opinions on the general direction the band wanted to go in, they started as an authentic blues band and ended up wanting to be a rock band, some band members were very nervous about releasing Albatross as a single.

 

I've never come across that name even though we supposedly shared credits is he an American engineer ?

 

He's from the UK but engineered The Who while working in New York.

http://www.chrishuston.com/

 

And was a member of the Undertakers, from Liverpool.....