While it has been easy to find academic writing about the Pixies’ cult album ‘Doolittle’, it has been difficult to filter it down to finding information about the production of the album and Wave of Mutilation.

On the other hand, finding information about the man who produced it, Gil Norton, has been easier. Gil has worked with Foo Fighters, Feeder and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Some of the information I can find out about Norton regards my 4th learning objective (liaise with the client in a professional and well-communicated manner, to ensure total client satisfaction.) (LO4) He says that the first thing he does when working as the producer on an album is to “try to have a conversation with a band before I meet them. I normally get demos and I like to get the band talking about the songs they’ve got and what they think I can do for them.” “Next, you go through the arrangements of the songs, listening to the demo and the arrangements that might work” (Roland.co.uk). While the band I am recording have arrangement ideas of their own, they will be sending me demos prior to the recording date so that I know exactly what I’ll be recording. I have already had a conversation with YCIALM’s drummer, Alex, to find out exactly what the band wants from the album. They actually want demos of each of their new tracks but he mentioned that they are open to keeping my versions as their own should they be of high quality. This is a really good motivation for myself to make sure I record and mix the EP to the absolute best of my ability. “For me pre-production is the most important part of the recording process. It’s where you pull it all together, talk about the songs and get to know each other. I like to know the dynamic of the band and the sound in pre-production so everyone is relaxed when we go to record. So many bands have never done it – but how can you go into a studio if you don’t already have the songs organised?”
Pre-production is something that I’ve had a chance to do a lot of on this project so that I can go into the studio on recording day knowing exactly how the session should go. I will be adding a production plan to this blog at a later date along with a list of recording techniques that I have researched thus far that I intend to use in the session.

“Recording anything is always a challenge, it’s a leap of faith for everybody. That’s why pre-production is so important.”

Norton notes the importance of keeping your client happy when recording by using the example of Black Francis while recording Doolittle; “He was difficult, yeah! It’s not that he won’t do anything more than once, but he would find it boring playing the same chords over. I had to try and convince him to repeat sections, or change things around a bit to keep him happy.”

“I believe anyone can learn how to mic up or understand what a compressor does, but in a closed environment you have to get on with people. They have to like you and want to spend time with you. Some people don’t make bands comfortable and from those engineers, I learned you have to know when to push people and when to back off and let them make their own mistakes. You also have to be able to push without it being confrontational. I’m still learning, like in life, how to get the best out of people.”

In terms of microphone choice, when asked which mic he would choose if he was only allowed to have one and he said, “An SM58”. That’s genius as it’s totally the only mic you would need. “Realistically, you can do nearly anything with a [Shure] SM58. It’s such a great workhorse. It sounds great in front of a guitar cab, on snare drums, for vocals… It’s got a great top end and doesn’t feedback. They’re fairly inexpensive, great quality, capture most sounds you might want to capture and, if you’re young and wanting to learn about recording, you can drop them and they still work.” An SM58 is a microphone I have been thinking about using to record vocals so for him to back this up makes that choice easier. The SM58, as mentioned in my post “1979 – Vocals”, was also used to capture the vocals on 1979, one of the tracks in my influences playlist.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/gil-norton-lists-his-favourite-studio-gear-586433

http://www.roland.co.uk/blog/gil-norton-interview-adventures-in-production/