Songs for the deaf

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happymatty

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the QOTSA album, im sure some of you are familiar with it and im sure lots of you have kikass speaks/sterios to listen to it through.

anyway, i was wudering if any of you can shed a light on how this album was produced/recorded, beacuse this is my image of brillant sound and i would like to learn from it, but i cant simulate it and i cant find any information on how it was produced!

any help appreciated, ta .
 
happymatty said:
the QOTSA album, im sure some of you are familiar with it and im sure lots of you have kikass speaks/sterios to listen to it through.

anyway, i was wudering if any of you can shed a light on how this album was produced/recorded, beacuse this is my image of brillant sound and i would like to learn from it, but i cant simulate it and i cant find any information on how it was produced!

any help appreciated, ta .
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Could you be more specific? What about it do you really like? Do you want to be able to get that guitar tone? The drums? Specifics. Then we could go from there.

What kind of equipment are you using to record?
 
Well first off, the drums on that album are very processed (which is why I personally like their other albums better), so there's a lot of compression and eq. The toms are close mic'ed and are very predominant in the mix, creating the "in your face" sound. The guitars are genuine badass I must say. Probably a lot of low eq on the guitars. They also downtune quite a bit which gives it that very low end ballsy sound. I think a large part of the sound on that album is just the fact that they're QOTSA.
But it's my first post, so what do I know.
I'm also interested if anyone else has good info.
 
from what i understand, homme primarily uses heavily-modded ampeg V4's, both live and in the studio, which is where the bulk of the guitar tone comes from. i don't remember what type of guitar he plays; i want to say gretsch, but i know that's not right. whatever it is, he's been using the same guitars since he was in kyuss.

also, i've read that the skins and the cymbals were recorded in separate passes...not sure why they did that, but it's what i heard

those are about all the details i can come up with...they're pretty secretive about how they go about doing things, so good luck finding more info
 
The guitars and drums are what make that record unique, in my opinion.

Yea, the drums were very close-miked, and the cymbals were tracked separately. Not a very common thing for that type of band, but doing it that way is likely what gives each tom and snare hit so much distinction. But you're also talking Dave Groll here, so that's going to account for about 80% of the sound right there.

The guitars were tracked with the Ampegs, as suggested earlier. But from what I understand, they used the Palmer speaker simulator rather than a mic on the cab, which is, again, not an overly common way of tracking.

The combo of those two techniques, I believe, really bring the mixes forward -- like they're pressed right up against the speakers. I believe that was the overall vibe they were going for, and they did a good job achieving it.
 
If I remember right, they tune their guitars to C. Can anyone confirm that?
 
As one of the resident Aussies, I seem to recall that Mr Homme plays Matons, which is an Australian brand, and IMHO, exceptionally ugly... or at least he does now. Not sure about Songs for the Deaf - that was quite a few years back...
 
happymatty said:
the QOTSA album, im sure some of you are familiar with it and im sure lots of you have kikass speaks/sterios to listen to it through.

anyway, i was wudering if any of you can shed a light on how this album was produced/recorded, beacuse this is my image of brillant sound and i would like to learn from it, but i cant simulate it and i cant find any information on how it was produced!

any help appreciated, ta .
Click to expand...

can't help answer your question, but i will agree.

"songs for the deaf" was brilliantly written, performed, and captured.

it was also responsible for changing my opinion of dave grohl from "yeah, good drummer," to *mouth agape*

one of those albums that makes many others disappointing.
 
grohl has always been a solid drummer

i remember when i was a kid i would rock nevermind/in utero all the time...my mom totally hated it(as she does everything rock), but would consistently say "at least the drummer is good"
 
ermm what im using to record, cubase, soon a Echo layla 3g, all processing is software done. im in collage cant afford to build a rack. is there a sotware palmer speaker sim? lol

i though the drums were just the best drums ever built with sick drummer, but over processing makes sence to.

if guitars go low eq where does bass go?
me a mixer/sound person thing i will NEVER mix a track where the bass and bass dum dont make u feel the sound (unless its a style that dont need it).
bt thats just pointless rabble

yep, will be recording my band when i get my interface, i shall try and take out the bit of this production i like (90% of it) and try n put it with my mixing...

still any more info appreciated

drop tuings
closed mic's
speaker sims
seperate cymbals
whatever else i missed out
 
Superb playing and arrangement have more to do with it.

Wasn't this album mono too?
 
mrhotapples said:
Wasn't this album mono too?
Click to expand...

it's not mono...i had to go and look in itunes when i read that...that would be totally sweet if it was.

and another tip to get that guitar tone: roll the tone knob all the way off and use beefy strings to get that muffled gritty sound.
 
Tape Op magazine just had an article on the studio that one of the guitarists owns out in Joshua National Park. It's just a dumpy house out in the middle of the desert.
 
they didn't record cymbals and toms/snare/kick seperately on that album...they did that on Lullabies to Paralyze with Steve Albini if I remember correctly...

as far as the guitar tone goes, josh is probably more secretive about it than the majority of players...btw, I believe he plays modded ampeg vt-22's and not v-4's...

just chalk up that album to amazing performances, engineers, and creative minds...those guys (homme specifically) are geniuses beyond their years...their newer material goes over most people's heads, especially the new album.
 
actually they did record the cymbals/toms separately. they have done so, since rated R their second (an even more brilliant imo) album. big part of the great sound is the chemistry with producer Chriss Goss.
Also, qotsa never records albums at Rancho de la Luna, except for the desert sessions homme does, but that's not qotsa. They only do pre-production in the desert. The last albums were done at sound city where they had tons of amps, comps, neve etc etc...that helps too.
There's a dvd with almost all of their albums with some great in the studio stuff, it's on youtube too. check it out!
 
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