Fact #176362
When:
Short story:
Classic IV release a new single, Traces, in the USA.
Full article:
Buddy Buie (co-songwriter) : We were laying down some other tracks, and during a break Emory (bassist Emory Gordy Jr) went to the piano and kept repeating a phrase that I found extremely catchy. I said, 'Em, would you care if J.R. and I took that piece and worked on it?' He said that was fine, and it became the opening phrase of Traces.
Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : We cut Traces on a 3-track Ampex recorder that Jeep Harned, who was the head of MCI, had modified into an 8-track. Harned was a partner in the studio, and the console he built for us was actually the first MCI board. As I recall, it had 12 inputs, two reverb sends and Fairchild equalizers. Jeep later custom-built three EQs into the board, with a midrange that the Fairchilds lacked. As far as outboard gear, we had a Pultec equalizer and an LA-2A. Harned built us a stereo limiter/compressor, and we had a pair of EMT reverbs.
Buddy Buie (co-songwriter) : We spent a lot of time on these productions and the arrangements Emory came up with were a huge part of what made 'Traces' such a good record.
The intro, my favourite of all the records I've been involved with, took a while to come together. Emory brought an English horn player to the session, and that great opening line just kind of evolved. Then there's that string line that leads into the bridge - I hated it at the time! It sounded so schmaltzy. Now it sounds cool to me. Mixing all of the elements together was difficult, and Lou Bradley did a great job.
Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : One thing that stands out in my mind is the amount of time we spent getting Dennis' lead vocal on tape. Buddy was extremely particular about phrasing. I'll bet we spent 30 to 40 hours tracking the lead before Buddy was happy. One night, Buddy said, 'That's it, we're done,' but to me, Dennis was still a little off-pitch on the first two or three notes of his entrance. Today you might use pitch correction, but of course that was not available at the time, so I took a filter and rolled a bunch of the bottom out of the first several notes he sang. Don't get me wrong - Dennis was a great singer who did a tremendous job on this track. I just helped a tiny bit in this area. I've been fortunate enough to work on lots of hit records, and I've learned that most of the time they are team efforts, with everybody contributing something to make the product special.
Buddy Buie (co-songwriter) : Dennis had one great voice, a voice that filled up the entire spectrum. It was so round, so full. Dennis was hard to record, though, because, believe it or not, he was a James Brown imitator who loved to sing R'n'B. None of the Classics IV repertoire was in this vein, but I think the passion he had for this music infused his vocals.
The problem was that he wanted to sing everything hard, and to place the vocal in the context of the material we had to soften him up. During the 'Traces' session, I had tell him to take the R'n'B out over and over again!
J.R. Cobb : (guitarist, Classics IV) : That gut-string guitar I used was so cheap!" Cobb says with a laugh, "and it played and sounded that way! It was impossible to keep in tune; the nearest I could come to having it stay properly pitched was to use the same voicing for the chords and move that shape up and down the neck. I think the slightly out-of-tune sound of the guitar actually added something to the track.
Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : J.R. liked to double-track his parts. He augmented the natural out-of-tune quality of the guitar he was playing by detuning it slightly before we tracked the overdub," Bradley says. "This was way before Harmonizers were used to get a similar effect, so to highlight what he was trying to accomplish I wrapped masking tape around the capstan of the recorder to change its speed. Then I'd immediately bounce the two guitar tracks together, again coming off of the playback head.
(Source : interview by Gary Eskow at http://crystalhorizon.com/Classics_IV/Home_Main.htm)
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Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : We cut Traces on a 3-track Ampex recorder that Jeep Harned, who was the head of MCI, had modified into an 8-track. Harned was a partner in the studio, and the console he built for us was actually the first MCI board. As I recall, it had 12 inputs, two reverb sends and Fairchild equalizers. Jeep later custom-built three EQs into the board, with a midrange that the Fairchilds lacked. As far as outboard gear, we had a Pultec equalizer and an LA-2A. Harned built us a stereo limiter/compressor, and we had a pair of EMT reverbs.
Buddy Buie (co-songwriter) : We spent a lot of time on these productions and the arrangements Emory came up with were a huge part of what made 'Traces' such a good record.
The intro, my favourite of all the records I've been involved with, took a while to come together. Emory brought an English horn player to the session, and that great opening line just kind of evolved. Then there's that string line that leads into the bridge - I hated it at the time! It sounded so schmaltzy. Now it sounds cool to me. Mixing all of the elements together was difficult, and Lou Bradley did a great job.
Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : One thing that stands out in my mind is the amount of time we spent getting Dennis' lead vocal on tape. Buddy was extremely particular about phrasing. I'll bet we spent 30 to 40 hours tracking the lead before Buddy was happy. One night, Buddy said, 'That's it, we're done,' but to me, Dennis was still a little off-pitch on the first two or three notes of his entrance. Today you might use pitch correction, but of course that was not available at the time, so I took a filter and rolled a bunch of the bottom out of the first several notes he sang. Don't get me wrong - Dennis was a great singer who did a tremendous job on this track. I just helped a tiny bit in this area. I've been fortunate enough to work on lots of hit records, and I've learned that most of the time they are team efforts, with everybody contributing something to make the product special.
Buddy Buie (co-songwriter) : Dennis had one great voice, a voice that filled up the entire spectrum. It was so round, so full. Dennis was hard to record, though, because, believe it or not, he was a James Brown imitator who loved to sing R'n'B. None of the Classics IV repertoire was in this vein, but I think the passion he had for this music infused his vocals.
The problem was that he wanted to sing everything hard, and to place the vocal in the context of the material we had to soften him up. During the 'Traces' session, I had tell him to take the R'n'B out over and over again!
J.R. Cobb : (guitarist, Classics IV) : That gut-string guitar I used was so cheap!" Cobb says with a laugh, "and it played and sounded that way! It was impossible to keep in tune; the nearest I could come to having it stay properly pitched was to use the same voicing for the chords and move that shape up and down the neck. I think the slightly out-of-tune sound of the guitar actually added something to the track.
Lou Bradley (engineer, Master Sound Studios, Atlanta) : J.R. liked to double-track his parts. He augmented the natural out-of-tune quality of the guitar he was playing by detuning it slightly before we tracked the overdub," Bradley says. "This was way before Harmonizers were used to get a similar effect, so to highlight what he was trying to accomplish I wrapped masking tape around the capstan of the recorder to change its speed. Then I'd immediately bounce the two guitar tracks together, again coming off of the playback head.
(Source : interview by Gary Eskow at http://crystalhorizon.com/Classics_IV/Home_Main.htm)