IICRLT Part 7: Metallica's Black Album

Seems pretty safe to say that if you Title your 5th or 6th studio album with the word "Black" the chances it will become a classic are pretty high. With over 15 million sales in the US and 22 worldwide this is the definitive Metallica album. The legendary Bob Rock produced LP isnt my favorite album by them, but is definately theyre best overall piece of work as far as mixes, the production, and the individual performances each band member provided. James sounds amazing on this album, Kirk's unforgiven solo is impossible, and Lar's timing was as good as its ever been and its a credit to how well the took direction from Mr. Rock. Its really cool to take a look into some of the sessions and seeing how much work went into making an album like this some 18 years later.
Taken From Wikipedia, I think this best describes the band/producer relationship lol
"Metallica was produced by Bob Rock, who was originally asked to mix the album as the band was impressed with his work as producer on the Mötley Crüe album, Dr. Feelgood.[1] Initially, the band was not interested in having Rock produce their album, but changed their minds as Ulrich stated; "We felt that we still had our best record in us and Bob [Rock] could help us make it."[1] The Black Album's sound was a marked difference from the stripped down production of the previous album. Rock altered the band's working schedule and routine so much that they swore never to work with him again. The animosity and tension between band and producer was documented in the documentaries A Year And A Half In The Life of Metallica and Classic Albums: The Black Album. Both explore and document the intense and merciless recording process that resulted in The Black Album."

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IICRLT Part 7: John Mayer At The Crib

So yet another IICRLT post inspired in part by my fellow blogger Apollo, (check out his blog to the right) about John Mayer. I saw that he had some really cool youtube videos posted in the last few weeks and it resparked my love for his music. His last album Continuum was my shit. He's our Eric Clapton, just an amazing musician and songwriter. His music translates so well, its no wonder why so many Hip Hop and R&B acts colaborate with the dude. Looks like he has a pretty decent home setup, I like that he's using an LE
setup to demo out some ideas and work on music that will later get recut im sure at a major facility. Make sure to check out some of his other vids.

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IICRLT Part 6: Linkin Park and Hov: Collision Course

Hey there guys and gals, another post in my series "If I Could Record Like This". Silly I know but I tend to nerd out on this kind of stuff and really its how I came to love what I do. I definitely admire my peer's work and I stay reading credits on who does what. Anyone who knows me is hip to the fact that Jay-z is like me favorite rapper of all time. I know Brooke can relate, being a fellow Jigga fan, it's one of my goals to record him. I know that shit sounds crazy but it's true, I actually came super close to last year, but thats another story lol. I have all of Linkin Park's albums, probably my 2nd all time favorite band. Their music is just a mash up of all my favorite genre's of music. When MTV decided to do the Mash Up's album, I was stoked that these 2 titans of their respective genre's were chosen to be the first, and only I might add, of the series. It's scary how well the songs, configured from various mix stems and multitracked sessions, merged together almost seamlessly. Only a couple of vocal tracks were actually rerecorded for the album. Here's a clip from the airing taped for MTV. Watching this is crazy, Hov one taking his verses and Mike recording his vocals is amazing. If you dont listen to Linkin Park you should, Im not into their newer stuff, but the first 2 albums are classics. They record alot at one of my favorite studios in La, NRG located in North Hollywood. Cool place check out the site and make sure to peep the studio's, they have an awesome B room with a Moroccan motif thats amazing.

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Classic Sound: Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon

One of my favorite albums of all time, DSOTM is arguably the best engineered album ever. The mixes and effects, the loops and certain sequences are just amazing especially for the time. This album stayed on the billboard charts for something crazy like 15 years after its release. Absolutely timeless, I still listen to this album for inspiration. Here's a great documentary with all 4 band members and their engineer Alan Parsons.

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IICRLT: Results May Vary- Limp Bizkit

Another installment of If I Could Record Like This ladies and Gents, and this time its with one of my favorite bands ever and in my top five albums of all time. Results May Vary was definately not their most popular album or best selling but for some reason that i cannot explain, I absolutely love everything about it. The mixing, production, musicianship, artwork, and the whole concept and storyline that went on during the recording of this album. Fred Durst is something like a genious, fuck what you think, this man just directed a movie this year! I put him up there with Kamye and Joseph Hanh from linkin park as far as creativity. I get alot of my sound from this album, i love what they did with the drums and bass as well as the vocal effects used on durst throughout. Give the album a listen if you can on itunes and trust me its worth the 9 bucks.

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IICRLT Part 2

So like 2 weeks ago I had a post called " If I could record like this" which is basically albums i love, if i could record like how they were made, kinda like a dream gig so to speak. I might get shit for this but if not my fav album of all time its gotta be really close, top 3 definately, is Justin Timberlakes " Justified ". The vibe and the whole sound behind this albums awesome. i love every song on here from start to finish. One of my fav sounding albums engineering wise too, I A/B mixes to these songs all the time. The recording process seemed so dope on this album. Justin flew out to Va to work with The neptunes ( fav producers all time) and Timbaland in their studios. Theres even vids of the whole making of the album since it was his first solo joint coming of the huge success of nsync and what not so they taped everything in hopes of an MTV special. I love watching how they came up with some of my fav songs. I know miles is gonna agree this is the shit lol. Had to be the best job ever. Also check out the dre and vidal vids, those guys are dope, better than most the guys out there working now. super talented, and the song they mix in the vid should be released just cause its so dope.

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If I Could Record Like This...

So i was just looking at some of the old dvd's i had laying around and found this laying around. The Morning View Sessions from the incubus album Morning view that i bought way back in 02. I really loved this band and would buy anything they did. this is when i was really into recording and finding out all i could about how it was done. The rented this house out in Malibu for like the entire summer recording their album. It just looked like so much fun, getting to record great stuff like this and be in a huge mansion out in malibu by the water. had to be the best engineering gig ever in life. i couldnt find too many vids on the net with the stuff thats on the dvd but heres some that i found.

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So Im Up Late Playin Xbox

so as usual i get home from my session and i cant sleep. My Tre60 stays on all the time so i dont have to wait for it to load or anything and im too lazy to just hit the power button, so i started playin GOW and looking at studio vids on youtube. I thought it would be a great post for all you late night lurkers out there who would probably end up at some adult site sooner or later, this would distract you from the porn and maybe you would learn something instead. lol anyway here are some of my fav videos about studio shit on youtube...enjoy you perv's

Kanye West makin' an ill track
Uploaded by SaleSud

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