For myself the track I most associate with the band Cheap Trick is their 1976 track “Surrender” from their Heaven Tonight album. It is just one of those songs I can’t help but find incredibly catchy and one that I would be humming all day long. In my younger years I never really appreciated songs for how well they can be mixed. It was just something I took for granted. But now with my stronger audio knowledge, as well as a good pair of headphones the layers of this song are more apparent to me now, and this is such a fun mix of a song.
What I really like about this song is how all the instruments start up at the same time. It begins initially with just a second of lonely drums, but after that a huge blast of music comes your way. There are multiple tracks consisting of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, and even a synthesizer track that is used to help emulate a violin strings sound. While I do enjoy songs that build up all the instruments introduction, on a song like “Surrender” I just always found the huge wall of music that is the songs introduction to be just fun. There is no me anxiously awaiting the big build up to all the music. I can instantly hear the drum beat in the beginning and just know what is coming my way. This song really helps set a standard for similar teen anthems like “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister.
One of the nice subtle touches that I really found well mixed by the mixing engineer of Gary Ladinsky is a variation on a lyric that occurs near the end of the song. Ladinsky describes this moment as “the hardest thing I remember doing was, they decided at the end, after all the backgrounds were completed, they wanted to go back and go, ‘Oh, let's put our names in there. Let's go “Bun E.'s alright, Tommy's alright, Robin's alright, Rick's alright, we're all alright, we're all alright.”’ And that was scary, in that I had to punch in on the tracks that we already had recorded vocals and stacked the vocals on. I wasn't even sure they knew what they were doing.”
This is one of those moments of the song that I tended to do a double take on. If I wasn’t paying attention for it I would of just felt like I was hearing the background vocals as its normal lyric. It is a nice touch for those who notice it, and in fact grew in popularity and would become a big part of the bands live performance of the song.
Ladinsky made good use of EQ on the multiple guitars in his mix sessions by utilizing the B&B equalizer module, which he said “I think it just fattened it up for when it popped in the chorus.” One of the snare drum tracks recieved a Pultec for its EQ. One of the neat mixing tricks he did with the vocals was to double them up, which in mixing he would adjust both parameters on the lead and doubled vocals “through a pair of 1176s” to help limit both tracks.
Reverb on vocals through using a EMT 250 set to chorus mode. The set up of the session involved three different sends. The first send was a live chamber, the second was the 250 and the third was “a phaser effect with an Eventide unit.” In the actual recording of the vocals there was compression utizlied from the UREI 1176 on the vocals coming from a Neumann 47 FET.
While most of the effects where done with physical modules, this shouldn’t be too hard for me to replicate within a software like Reason or Pro Tools, with the powerful reverb and EQ tools they can offer.
Mix Analysis:
Starts off with drums, to my knowledge would be a snare drum leading charge (00:00)
The multiple guitars, bass, and sythesizer enter to complement the drum track all at once for the introduction, and to be repeated throughout the song. In addition to EQ on the tracks, there is some panning of the lead guitar to the right (00:01)
First set of vocals kick in with Reverb placed on them for a slight echo effect (00:15)
First Chorus with the same instruments playing to the fullest, and vocals have reverb on them still but this time there is multiple vocal tracks with some backing vocals that harmonize to complete the chorus (00:43-1:03)
Instruments: Electric Guitar (Lead, two rhythm guitars) Bass (8 and 12 string), Drums(Snare and kick), Vocals (Lead and Background vocal tracks doubled up for harmony), Synthesizer (Labeled Strings Ensemble), Piano (Compressed highly and isn’t too noticeable)
Gary Ladinsky would also work on albums for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, as well as making the switch from music to Hollywood and doing some film and TV work such as Dragnet and Weird Science
Surrender Track Information:
Engineer: Gary Ladinsky
Producer: Tom Werman
Mastering Engineer: George Marino
Studio Recorded: Sound City located inVan Nuys, Califronia
Studio Mastered: In New York
Information found at: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_classic_tracks_cheap/index.html
What I really like about this song is how all the instruments start up at the same time. It begins initially with just a second of lonely drums, but after that a huge blast of music comes your way. There are multiple tracks consisting of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, and even a synthesizer track that is used to help emulate a violin strings sound. While I do enjoy songs that build up all the instruments introduction, on a song like “Surrender” I just always found the huge wall of music that is the songs introduction to be just fun. There is no me anxiously awaiting the big build up to all the music. I can instantly hear the drum beat in the beginning and just know what is coming my way. This song really helps set a standard for similar teen anthems like “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister.
One of the nice subtle touches that I really found well mixed by the mixing engineer of Gary Ladinsky is a variation on a lyric that occurs near the end of the song. Ladinsky describes this moment as “the hardest thing I remember doing was, they decided at the end, after all the backgrounds were completed, they wanted to go back and go, ‘Oh, let's put our names in there. Let's go “Bun E.'s alright, Tommy's alright, Robin's alright, Rick's alright, we're all alright, we're all alright.”’ And that was scary, in that I had to punch in on the tracks that we already had recorded vocals and stacked the vocals on. I wasn't even sure they knew what they were doing.”
This is one of those moments of the song that I tended to do a double take on. If I wasn’t paying attention for it I would of just felt like I was hearing the background vocals as its normal lyric. It is a nice touch for those who notice it, and in fact grew in popularity and would become a big part of the bands live performance of the song.
Ladinsky made good use of EQ on the multiple guitars in his mix sessions by utilizing the B&B equalizer module, which he said “I think it just fattened it up for when it popped in the chorus.” One of the snare drum tracks recieved a Pultec for its EQ. One of the neat mixing tricks he did with the vocals was to double them up, which in mixing he would adjust both parameters on the lead and doubled vocals “through a pair of 1176s” to help limit both tracks.
Reverb on vocals through using a EMT 250 set to chorus mode. The set up of the session involved three different sends. The first send was a live chamber, the second was the 250 and the third was “a phaser effect with an Eventide unit.” In the actual recording of the vocals there was compression utizlied from the UREI 1176 on the vocals coming from a Neumann 47 FET.
While most of the effects where done with physical modules, this shouldn’t be too hard for me to replicate within a software like Reason or Pro Tools, with the powerful reverb and EQ tools they can offer.
Mix Analysis:
Starts off with drums, to my knowledge would be a snare drum leading charge (00:00)
The multiple guitars, bass, and sythesizer enter to complement the drum track all at once for the introduction, and to be repeated throughout the song. In addition to EQ on the tracks, there is some panning of the lead guitar to the right (00:01)
First set of vocals kick in with Reverb placed on them for a slight echo effect (00:15)
First Chorus with the same instruments playing to the fullest, and vocals have reverb on them still but this time there is multiple vocal tracks with some backing vocals that harmonize to complete the chorus (00:43-1:03)
Instruments: Electric Guitar (Lead, two rhythm guitars) Bass (8 and 12 string), Drums(Snare and kick), Vocals (Lead and Background vocal tracks doubled up for harmony), Synthesizer (Labeled Strings Ensemble), Piano (Compressed highly and isn’t too noticeable)
Gary Ladinsky would also work on albums for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, as well as making the switch from music to Hollywood and doing some film and TV work such as Dragnet and Weird Science
Surrender Track Information:
Engineer: Gary Ladinsky
Producer: Tom Werman
Mastering Engineer: George Marino
Studio Recorded: Sound City located inVan Nuys, Califronia
Studio Mastered: In New York
Information found at: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_classic_tracks_cheap/index.html
Again, great analysis. They had access to some nice equipment, although there are plug in versions (like http://www.uaudio.com/store/compressors-limiters/1176ln.html)
ReplyDeleteI'm listening for the punch-in - it was well-done, that's why I love hearing from the engineers to see all the work that they do that is invisible in these songs and scenes.