Bogner... K7? Or Rivera KR7?
Barresi on 10,000 Days:
Barresi explains guitarist Adam Jones’ recording setup: “Adam mainly runs three amps: He has a Marshall that he loves, a Diezel and then he was using a Mesa Boogie at one point. I brought in a Bogner Uberschall head and a Rivera Knucklehead Reverb, and several other things. Then we just experimented with combinations of heads and cabinets until it worked for the song. Most of the 4×12s were Mesa Boogie cabinets, which are superior for their low end, except for the Marshall head, which went through a Marshall cabinet, and the Rivera went through a Rivera cabinet. I usually used stock miking. For me, that’s a Shure SM57 and a Sennheiser 421 on every cabinet. The third mic could be anything that I felt the sound needed more of.”
The signal chain for tracking guitar was a bit complex. “Adam would play into whatever pedals he needed,” Barresi says. “That signal then went into a Systematic Systems Splitter. Then it would go to between three and five heads. The signal from the heads went to their own individual cabinets. Each cabinet had two or three microphones on it. Then all the microphones came back to the console, and they were blended down as separated for each amp. The Diezel amp went to its own track. The Marshall amp went to its own track. The third track was a blend of the Bogner and the Rivera, or whatever I liked for the song. And that would be one take — three tracks of guitar.”
On the song “Jambi,” Jones plays a solo that’s reminiscent of Joe Walsh on “Rocky Mountain Way.” Barresi tells how they went to the source to make sure they got it right: “Adam would always reference The Eagles and Joe Walsh for the sound of the Talkbox,” he says. “Bob Heil, who invented the Talkbox, came down when we did the Talkbox stuff. Bob actually has a line of mics that he’s been working on, and we ended up using one of his mics on the guitars, as well. It’s called the PR-30, and it’s a great mic! Joe Walsh actually called to give us some insight on how to record the Talkbox.”
Barresi used minimal processing when recording. “I tried to get by with as little as possible,” he says. “There was no EQ on guitar. There was really no EQ on the bass either. I EQ’d a little bit on the vocal. But if there was an effect on the vocal, then it would be drastic EQ’ing. I used a slight bit of EQ on drums, but I mainly got the drum sound by changing mics out: Like if I needed a little top end, I’d find a brighter mic. If I needed more bottom, I’d try a bigger diaphragm mic.”
Barresi recorded all tracks onto the Studer A827 tape machines at both O’Henry and Grandmaster. He used 2-inch Ampex GP9 tape at 30 ips. When he was happy with the tracks, he would transfer them into Pro Tools. “I call it the ‘holding pen’ ’cause all the tracks are in there,” he says. “Everything went to tape and then it got dumped into Pro Tools to preserve it.”
When it came time to mix, Barresi chose Bay 7 (featured in “L.A. Grapevine,” p. 124) and its SSL G+ console in Valley Village, Calif. Barresi mixed the songs on his own for a while, and then he would also work with each individual musician until everyone was happy with the mixes. They listened to mixes on a variety of monitors at Bay 7, including KRKs, NHTs, Yamaha NS-10s and Realistic speakers.
The final format was a 96k sampling rate, 24-bit-resolution master, which they downsampled to 44.1k, 16-bit. “If any record deserves to be heard in surround sound, it’s this one,” Ludwig says. “There’s so much tone painting and so much color. It would just be a thrill to hear it in surround sound. And with 96k, 24-bit masters, we’re ready for any kind of high-resolution digital projects.”
Barresi on fear Inoculum
What’s the secret behind Adam Jones’ guitar colossal tone? How did you record and mix his rig for the album?
Adam’s guitars were cut on a Neve desk at United Recording to a Studer A827 tape machine. Some guitars (mostly solos/overdubs) and some bass were done at my studio and cut through Neves to a Studer A800 and monitored on my SSL 4000.
Once the tracks were done on tape, they were transferred into Pro Tools. The first track with his main Diezel VH4, the second using a Marshall Super Bass, and the third track had a combination of a Bogner Uberschall and a Rivera Knucklehead. In mixing, I had the
SSL E-Channel plugin on each track. I then blended those down to a single output from Pro Tools back to my console so it was more manageable. 90% of the delays were printed, but I used some
H-Delay on the guitars if we didn’t actually print the Boss delay from the pedalboard.
"His sound is definitely his Les Paul Custom into his main Diezel VH4 and that Marshall Superbass, but like the last record, I also implemented a Bogner Uberschall and a Rivera Knucklehead Reverb or a Knucklehead K Tre as part of the equation.
"I recorded both of Adam’s personal amps to their own track and combined the Bogner and Rivera to a single track, plus we ran a mic’d Leslie cab in stereo the whole time, which gave us a total of five tracks wide of just guitar.
What cabs did you use?
"The body of it was Mesa/Boogie 4x12s loaded with 8-ohm Celestion V-30s. The Riveras went into a Rivera 4x12 loaded with 75-watt Celestions, which is my favorite speaker because they have a tight bottom end.
"The Uberschall was in a Mesa cab and the Marshall was in Adam’s own Marshall cab that had either Celestion V-30s or Greenbacks. The Sound City stuff went through 50-Watt Fanes that were in a new Sound City 4x12."
"For this record, we ran the Diezel on channel 3 with a good rock sound, pretty saturated. It’s actually a modified Diezel that’s had a preamp mod done to it - so it’s the best-sounding Diezel in his arsenal of VH4s. The mod gives it a different responsiveness somehow; it just feels a bit punchier.
It’s also highly volatile because of that, but amps seem to sound better when they’re about to explode! It has a thing and it definitely complements how Adam plays.
"The Marshall fills in the clarity and articulation that’s missing from the Diezel when in high-gain mode. I brought in the Uberschall for some overall beef and the Riveras for some extra muscle as their EQs are so flexible, and they work nicely for both dirty and clean sounds.
Since the signal was split to at least four heads, I put a pedal in front of everything and it helped shape the front-end of all the amps a bit. I used an MXR Micro Amp +, which gave us a little more EQ flexibility, so I could crack in some top or take out some bottom if needed.
"We also ended up using a SoloDallas wireless preamp unit to drive the front of some amps and give a little extra push on some songs.
That was the main dirty sound, but the clean sound varied a lot. Besides cleaning up and dropping the gain on the amps we used for distortion sounds, I used an old Orange, an old Peavey, a new Fryette-made Sound City halfstack, an old Kustom and a Naylor. Adam was really into experimenting with other stuff - guitars included - this time around."
