The EM Poll

Tony Visconti: Audio Visionary

Apr 19, 2007 7:17 PM, By Michael Molenda

           

Bruce Springsteen (seated, left), David Bowie (standing, far right), and Visconti (seated, right) listening to the Thin White Duke's version of Springsteen's "Saint in the City" during the recording of Young Americans in 1974. Sadly, the track was never finished.

So what inspired you to sweeten all those T. Rex tracks with classical orchestrations?
I was trained in music and Marc wasn't, but even though he knew only seven chords, he used to delight in anything I'd show him from the classical world. One of our favorite records was Instruments of the Orchestra narrated by Sir Adrian Boult, and if Marc heard something like a Cor Anglais, he would giggle with delight and say he wanted one on his records. So after "Ride a White Swan" became a hit, we made an agreement that I could suggest and write for any combination of classical instruments that I saw fit to be on a T. Rex record. Now, T. Rex records were made very quickly with no thought whatsoever of orchestral overdubs, but somehow we made it happen. On "Jeepster," for example, I used four cellos and a bassoon to play those descending bass lines. It was a good period of my life to learn and devise new tricks to make some very simple rock tracks into stunning productions.

In addition to your conventional orchestration skills, I've always loved the way that you've used sonic textures as "hooks."
I acknowledge that I am a sound addict. I love enhancing and changing the sound of an ordinary instrument and coming up with something that has never been heard before. Robert Fripp's guitar tone on Bowie's "Heroes" was filtered, ring modulated, and otherwise mangled through Eno's briefcase synth. Although the guitar plays a strong theme, the sound is the thing that is mesmerizing. Rock music is mainly about energy and sound.

Also, a conventional melodic part can really come alive when its timbre is rendered "unconventional." The riff at the beginning of "Ashes to Ashes" on Bowie's Scary Monsters album, for example, started out as a simple piano motif. But the part gained a wonderfully eerie presence after it was strangulated through an Eventide Instant Flanger that only had one side of the stereo output working. The first choice for the motif was a Fender Rhodes, but we couldn’t get one right away. I'm glad we didn't.

But what inspired fit of madness caused you to process a snare drum through a Harmonizer on Bowie's Low album?
I owned one of the first Eventide Digital Delays, so I received a press release about the Harmonizer that claimed it could change pitch without changing speed. This was science fiction to me, and no matter how much it cost, I had to have one. Now, as the manual suggested auditioning instruments and voices through the Harmonizer, I stayed up all night processing every single track on a multitrack tape. When I put a snare drum through it—while decreasing the pitch and adding feedback—I heard the heaviest snare of my live. It was truly magic, and I couldn't wait to try this thing out on a commercial recording.

About that time, Bowie asked whether I'd mind making an album with Brian Eno in France, and we commenced to make Low. I unveiled my secret weapon, patching the snare mics directly into the Harmonizer and recording the effect on track 24. When drummer Dennis Davis heard the sound, he begged to have it routed into this headphones. We soon discovered that the rate of the Harmonizer's drop off was controlled by an envelope at its input. So now that Dennis could hear the effect as he played, he was able to control the sound by how hard he hit his snare. This is why hardly anyone has duplicated that snare sound—we didn't do it in the mix, we did it live!

It seems obvious that experimentation and "happy accidents" are major components of your production style.
Yes, accidents are always waiting to happen. I'm delighted when I push up the wrong fader and discover the guitar amp blasting through a vocal mic from 30-feet away. If it sounds good, I record it and don't ask questions.

Another happy accident is when I carefully rehearse background singers or an instrumentalist to end a section on a particular note or chord. However, when the time comes, they forget and hit something so far out, I never would have thought of it. If it sounds incredible—even if it wasn't planned—I just have to go with it. I love it when stuff like that happens.

I know that you're extremely proud of your home studio, but isn't it difficult to work at home when you've tracked in the best studios the world has to offer?
Believe me, my digital-editing facilities at home are far better than in any studio I've ever worked in. I can bring tracks home from anywhere I work and do some scary, tricky stuff with my Macintosh and MIDI equipment. I can edit drum tracks, "tune up" vocals and guitar solos, and record overdubs at home and simply transfer the results back to whatever format I was using in the large studio. Then, I can mix in the grandeur of an SSL or Neve room.

And there's another benefit to my home studio: I can take on projects that tickle my fancy but lack heavy financial backing. This situation is directly responsible for my being able to work with Alex Forbes, a very cool songwriter who wrote "Don't Rush Me" for Taylor Dayne. Alex has another one of those "quirky" voices—and she writes brilliant lyrics—so I casually entered a writing/producing relationship with her.

We now have a completed album that contains eight mutually penned songs. And although the project was recorded at home, it has Richie Morales on drums and Noel Redding and my son, Morgan, on bass. I am very proud of this album. I've often felt that I started my music career as a songwriter but got waylaid into being a producer for 28 years. Now I think I'm on the right track again, thanks to my home studio and Alex.

Now I do want to make clear that although I love my little home studio, I still enjoy having a million-dollar console wrapped around me in a world-class facility. My home studio is just an alternative and serves different purposes.

Obviously, you've done your share of engineering, and you continue to engineer at home. Is it difficult to turn the console over to someone else when you're producing a session in a large studio?
No matter where I work, I do most of my own engineering. I've been working like this for 25 years, so it isn't that hard for me to engineer and produce simultaneously. However, making records requires teamwork, so I'll often work with another engineer or a talented assistant. If the engineer is really hot, I will rarely interfere. I'm always open to learning about different recording techniques and new microphones, so I turn the experience of working with an engineer into a personal seminar. But if I'm looking for a very specific sound and I know exactly how I want to get it, I have no problem giving the orders. Too much is at stake to allow everybody to put in their two cents.

Do you feel a producer must have engineering chops or just an intuitive ear for music?
Without a doubt, you need some recording chops. After all, this is a profession. Making a record has become a highly technical procedure that requires a vast knowledge of music and technology. You can never know enough. Every month, I read all the journals pertaining to my profession and have regular talks with my colleagues about new equipment and how it works. As a musician I make it a regular practice to jam with my mates and listen to as much new music as I can stand. Knowledge is power.

What are some of the major differences between being a producer today and when you started your career in the late 1960s?
There are so many more ways of recording music now. I was fortunate enough to start out when 4-track recorders were pretty much all that was available. My learning curve was slow and steady. I pity a producer starting out today!

Cut and paste wasn't even conceived in the days of T. Rex, and two machines couldn't be locked up until the early 1980s. We did everything on the fly. We speed up and slowed down tapes, we put buckets on our heads, and we swung mics around the studio like lassos to emulate the Doppler effect. We had very few tools capable of making fantastic sounds, so we taxed our imaginations to reproduce the noises we heard in our heads. And my generation was living in the shadow of the Beatles, who made fantastic, surreal recordings with even less equipment than we had!

However, it is still the producer's, job to record music, and the responsibilities have remained the same throughout the years. You work within the confines of a budget and strive to cut a record that makes such a shocking contribution to the culture that it is considered a classic. So, in a sense, nothing has really changed except the toys.