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#1
06-09-2014, 06:03 PM
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I've been listening to it for forty years now and something always bothered me...
...but I never took the time to figure it out. Yesterday afternoon I was answering a thread question about songs in Taro Root tuning and decided to listen to Joe Walsh's So What album that contained the song I cited in that thread, "Help Me Through the Night." Because I had just been evaluating a mix I did last week and my mind was in analytical audio mode, I started listening to the album, well, analytically. Yes, it works like that, my brain.
Anyway, something about the album's mix had always driven me a little nuts but I never put the thought into trying to figure out what it was. But yesterday I did: Drummer Joe Vitale's drum kit is split between cymbals and drums. While the drums are arrayed in viewer perspective, the cymbals are in drummer's perspective. That means snare is off-center right, tom rolls are left to right in a high to low roll, but high-hat is panned left and ride cymbal is panned right. Were that not enough, on some songs there was a digital delay fed by the snare or high-hat, probably the very first full-bandwidth commercially-viable unit, the Lexicon Delta-T102 delay* released in '73. All that was very unlike Walsh's producer and engineer, Bill Szymczyk, who always panned the hat out far right. But apparently Bill was called away from the So What sessions, perhaps for the J. Geils Band or Wishbone Ash albums he worked on that year, or even possibly to work on his first effort with the Eagles, who had gotten a referral to Szymczyk from Walsh. Joe's album was finished by a very busy Record Plant staff producer/engineer named John Stronach.** Though So What was a great album, it had always stood out as a sonic side-trail from the rest of Walsh's music stream, and now we know why. I should also mention that So What was also Joe's first album since the tragic death of his infant daughter, Emma, in a car accident. Due to prior tour commitments he spent the year on the road, mostly alone, trying to come to terms with the loss of the person many have said was the one that he most related to in his life. The album reflected his introspective life at the time. As it turns out, "Help Me Through the Night" was written about the long nights in hotel rooms, alone, trying and failing to get to sleep. Bob * Just to date the current author, I actually worked with a Delta-T102 delay in the eighties. It was pretty dreadful. No love lost there. I also worked in a control room in the '90s where Bill Szymczyk's Studer 24-track went to live after his Bayshore Recording Studio was closed. That was the machine on which Walsh's album But Seriously Folks and the Eagles' The Long Run were recorded. Now that was pretty cool. ** John Stronach died last year and was remembered by the Academy on Grammy Awards night.
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) 
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#2
06-10-2014, 08:38 AM
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Interesting .... Wondering how the cymbals were recorded that this happened - maybe just a pair of overheads?
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Mike My music: https://mikebirchmusic.bandcamp.com 2020 Taylor 324ceBE 2017 Taylor 114ce-N 2012 Taylor 310ce 2011 Fender CD140SCE Ibanez 12 string a/e 73(?) Epiphone 6830E 6 string 72 Fender Telecaster Epiphone Dot Studio Epiphone LP Jr Chinese Strat clone Kala baritone ukulele Seagull 'Merlin' Washburn Mandolin Luna 'tatoo' a/e ukulele antique banjolin Squire J bass
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#3
06-10-2014, 02:29 PM
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Well, Szymczyk did the recording. He usually used an AKG451 or Neuman u84 for the hat until around '77 when he switched to a Sony ECM77 lavalier. Overheads were often U87s. My bets are that Stronach just switched the panning of the overheads and hat at mix time to his preference. But it is weird to do it only for the cymbals.
Bob
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website)
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#4
06-10-2014, 02:37 PM
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sounds like you've got a good ear.
My brother had a Pearl drumset in the basement and being a rock fan I know what you mean about the arrangement. Can you imagine if Neil Peart's had a backward roto or something ?!? that would be like finding a needle in a haystack. BTW, have you seen Sound City ? It really talks a lot about the recording art in that era. And the 2-part Eagles documentary was about the best rockumentary I've ever seen.
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Fazool "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter" Taylor GC7, GA3-12, SB2-C, SB2-Cp...... Ibanez AVC-11MHx , AC-240
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#5
06-10-2014, 04:12 PM
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Quote:
Quote:
 Bob
__________________
"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website)
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