There’s a great story about Rod Temperton writing the lyrics for that part in the taxi on the way over to the studio! “And of course we had Vincent Price in for the spoken-word part. There’s some library stuff in there but Michael did those wolf howls. “But you know who it is that is doing those wolf howls? That’s Michael Jackson, we had to get Michael to do it instead, but he did it so great. I thought ‘wouldn’t this be great to have him doing those howls on the record’ but he just never got it together! He didn’t want to be in showbusiness. He was a fantastic dog, 200lbs, his name was Max. We put him up in the barn at night to listen to the coyotes and I had my tape machine ready to record him. “I automatically thought of my Great Dane who I figured ought to be in showbusiness! So I tried to get him to do those howls and you know what? He never did it. At the time there was a Sherlock Holmes movie, The Hound of The Baskervilles, that had this huge dog – a Great Dane – in it that did some howling and of course I had that in my mind’s ear. “When we did Thriller the song, the opening in particular, Rob Temperton – who wrote the track – had conceived us to have wolf howls in it. People can be distracted by too much light in the studio to the extent that it can take away from the music.” Thriller I think one reason why he wanted this – and why it works so effectively – is that through my study of acoustics and so on, I found that the human being is primarily a visual animal, hearing is our second sense. I mean I would have a little bit of light for him, but the studio was absolutely dark. “Interestingly, we always recorded with Michael in the dark – he hated light. Quincy would come in every morning and put on a couple of local radio stations and they were all playing The Girl Is Mine, so that would make you very serious about your work very quickly. “We had recorded The Girl Is Mine and it was already out there and released before we had finished the album. He was such a gentleman, he came to the studio prepared – Linda McCartney was with him and we had a fabulous time. It was a duet with Michael and Paul McCartney who was an absolute joy to work with. “That was actually the first track we recorded for the album. You need to love what you do.” The Girl Is Mine You need to be that dedicated to the sonic of a project. Quincy said that working with me and moving my stuff from studio to studio was like working with the Fifth Army. “The mic pre we used was a Neve 1084 – I’ve got two of them in a gorgeous oak case and I used to carry them with me from session to session. It’s dynamic of course and it worked just flawlessly with Michael – if you notice you can hear all the lyrics very clearly. “I’ve been pretty vocal about how much I love that microphone, it’s a great mic. They’ve made so many SM7s that they don’t even put serial numbers on them any more. “We used the same mic and pre throughout the album – I used my Shure SM7, serial number 232, which is very early. We never hired anybody who couldn’t play. “We of course had incredible keyboard players too. It’s unpainted, unvarnished, about eight feet square and by getting the sound source up off the floor, it prevented secondary pick-up if I was recording other instruments along with whatever was on the drum platform. I still use it and Michael did all his vocals on that drum platform. “That’s John Robinson playing drums on my drum platform. Then, I’d put this cover on and the mic goes inside through a zipper opening in the cover, then you zip it up tight and turn it on and the rest is history.” Baby Be Mine I used to take the front head of the kick drum off and place a couple of real heavy cinder blocks inside to hold it still and weight it. “I tried a bunch of new things in recording the drums on Michael’s record – I had a kick drum cover made. So direct with a module and everything – boy it was killer. Like Roland with the 808 it has bottom end like you wouldn’t believe and if you put that through a speaker it’s all gone. Also, a lot of these drum machines have a lot of low end. “We DI’d every drum machine to get away from secondary pick-up and reflected sound inside the room. We actually used it a lot on the Brothers Johnson record, and we were using it at that time on Michael’s record as well. There’s some drum machines and some live drums and other things. “That track is about Michael’s brothers’ wives and how they were always creating trouble – that was his inspiration.
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