Q&A with multi-platinum rock producer Michael Wagener.

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hi Michael,
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, could you please share your observations (funny or otherwise) on working with George, Nuno and Vito Bratta??
Cheers,
Ben

That is quite a tall order, I might have to come back to that later.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Michael, spoke with you at NAMM 2007 while you were in the booth demonstrating the Creation Audio Labs MK 4.23 pedal, still have the information you gave me and just want to say it was awesome speaking with you. Thanks for putting up withy my 4324324 80s shred questions


OK, what do you know about the now famous Aspen purple superlead?

Thanks!

Sorry, never heard of it.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hi Michael, welcome and it's a honor to chat with you. With the equipment thats out today as far as amps go, what amps have you heard that just sound incredible out of the box or do you find that the old ones still have the best sound? Thanks again!!

Splawn Quick Rod, Industrial Amps 120, Egnater Tourmaster, Diezel (any), Metropoulos. There might be more...

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hey Michael,

A lot has been written about guys like Mike Slammer who were 'ghost' guitar players on a lot of those 80's albums.

Were all the albums you did with bands like Poison and Warrant recorded with CC and the Warrant guys playing or did you bring other players in as necessary...how does that work?

Cheers!!

Everything I did was recorded by the actual bandmembers.

 

[thegame]

Hi, thanks for being here !

Do you remember what the guitar/amp/speaker setup was for Overkill's Under the Influence ?

 

[Piero the Guitarero]

Viele Grüße aus Nordrhein-Westfalen Michael

My question is: A lot of times the end of the
regulare 'traditional' tube-amps has been predicted.

What ist your oppinion of modellers, I mean, have you ever considered
to produce a guitar (heavy) oriented production entirely with digital modelling?


Thanks

What albums, if any did you get that feeling with?

Pride, SkidRow, Pornograffitti, MoP, No More Tears and a bunch of others.

Oh yeah, I remember when you mentioned this in german magazine 'Metal Hammer'

I like the Engl

BTW: I really enjoy posting pics of you in your studio with all your amps across the web

http://www.guitarworld.de/forum/interes ... tml#254616

 

[James Lugo]

Hey Michael great to have you here.

Question: Tooth And Nail was such a huge record in my life and then Under Lock And Key came out and sounded so mind blowing to me. It was almost like Lynch's sound had really come into it's own and the band and production sound was peeking, was there a shift on that record? Meaning did the budget get bigger with the success of TAN? New studio? Did you feel your personal chops grew? Luynch's playing? etc..?

Also: The Hunter is one of my all-time favorite solos, do you remember the day you tracked it? Gear? Was that a planned out solo by George or off the cuff?

p.s. Just read the discog and see that you only mixes TAN but produced, engineered and mixed ULK. That could be the answer. ULK is a brilliant sounding record.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hi, thanks for being here !

Do you remember what the guitar/amp/speaker setup was for Overkill's Under the Influence ?

Again, just mixed that one, didn't record it, sorry.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Viele Grüße aus Nordrhein-Westfalen Michael

My question is: A lot of times the end of the
regulare 'traditional' tube-amps has been predicted.

What ist your oppinion of modellers, I mean, have you ever considered
to produce a guitar (heavy) oriented production entirely with digital modelling?


Thanks


Hello Piero

I really think the whole modeling thing is not quite there yet. Granted the modelers have gotten better over the years but I still feel that the right hand is not quite represented in the way a guitar amp does. At this point I even replace modeler tracks with real amp when people send me their files for mixing (if I have the DI tracks) and to me it always sounds better.

 

[Ayrton]

Michael, spoke with you at NAMM 2007 while you were in the booth demonstrating the Creation Audio Labs MK 4.23 pedal, still have the information you gave me and just want to say it was awesome speaking with you. Thanks for putting up withy my 4324324 80s shred questions


OK, what do you know about the now famous Aspen purple superlead?

Thanks!

Sorry, never heard of it.

Michael,

Jams is referring to the purple 1971 Marshall superlead that George liked to borrow from Aspen Pittman. That map was used heavily on the "Back for the Attack" album, but George may have used it on other recordings as well.

 

[sinfish]

Hi Michael,

Is there anyone new in the scene that you would like to work with that you haven't had a chance too?

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Are there any new bands coming out now, that you would love to work with?

Thanks Tony

I just worked with Sweet Eastern Saint from Nashville, Eldebrock from Canada, Baby Jane from Australia, Balboa from Germany, Lordi from Finland and Inlike from Kansas City (release date March 19th).

My next full project will be in May with Marija and Shadowstalk from Calgary Canada, they kick major ass. In fact the first 4 days of that project will be a recording workshop where people can watch us tracking the first song for the album.

There are a 3 more full album projects planned for 2011 so far, but I can't really talk about them yet.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Good Morning Michael,

When you are working with bands in the studio and they are developing and writing ideas for an album, but can't seem to put them together, how do you give them direction? Are there times when you pick up the guitar/bass/drums/etc and play a certain part you have in your head to help them along?

Do you have any stories where you are working with clients and they just want to do to many things and you have to back them down a bit? Like say to many effects on tracks, or they want to do eight million takes because they feel like they could just do better?

What tips/tricks do you have for your go to guitar sound in the studio? ie: favorite mic,mic position, guitar cab and speaker choice, 29 dollar pedals from guitar center that you shouldn't be without sort of thing.

Thanks for your time and welcome to the forum!


Randy

As mentioned in an earlier post, those things will be worked out in pre-production. I don't think there will ever be a time where I could pick up the guitar and show Ty Tabor, or Zack, or Nuno how to play something I also think there are no go-to guitar sounds. Every song, every track is different and has it's own purpose. When a musician buys an amp he is looking for HIS (HERS) sound, I have to be able to get everybody's sound, and hopefully within 15 seconds. That's another reason why I don't like doing guitar tracks for 10 songs all in a row or record 10 solos all in a row. I want to figure out that special sound for each track, so I finish one song at a time.

There is always the thing where musicians think they can do better and in a lot of cases it's true. I will keep going until I feel it doesn't make any sense anymore, or the feeling is getting lost to the more "correct" way of playing something. "Good" or "Great" is relative in recording and the most technical perfect take is not necessarily the best. I grew up during times where you recoded another take and the previous one was gone, so you had to make decisions on when you thought something was great.

We talked about the recording chain earlier. I try to stay away from pedals, except if I am looking for a certain effect. I have more phaser and flanger pedals than distortion pedals, I let the amps do that job. The one box that is on every guitar and bass track I record is the Creation Audio Labs MW-1. I helped the develop that box and I never want to miss it in the studio again.

 

[shredhead7]

Hello Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to visit us!!!

You have worked on some of my all time favorite records and have put to tape the best rock guitar tones ever, thank you for that!!

My question is, my favorite guitar tone at the moment is the one that you got for Chris Impellitteri on Eye of the Hurricane. Do you remember any of the setups for his tone? I know that he has a Bradshaw modded Plexi, but are there other amps, is he boosting with something? Any info that you remember would be grateful. Thanks : )

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hey Michael great to have you here.

Question: Tooth And Nail was such a huge record in my life and then Under Lock And Key came out and sounded so mind blowing to me. It was almost like Lynch's sound had really come into it's own and the band and production sound was peeking, was there a shift on that record? Meaning did the budget get bigger with the success of TAN? New studio? Did you feel your personal chops grew? Luynch's playing? etc..?

Also: The Hunter is one of my all-time favorite solos, do you remember the day you tracked it? Gear? Was that a planned out solo by George or off the cuff?

p.s. Just read the discog and see that you only mixes TAN but produced, engineered and mixed ULK. That could be the answer. ULK is a brilliant sounding record.

Roy Thomas Baker and I were brought in to mix Tooth And Nail. The state of the project was somewhat a disaster at that point.

ULK was one of my first big Platinum selling albums. As you probably know, we had to keep Don and George about 20 miles apart during the recording.

George was one of those guitar players who worked not only on a solo, but also on the sound of that solo for days before it got recorded. The sound was part of the performance. The kids nowadays don't do that anymore, they come in and totally expect me to get them "THEIR" sound. I don't mind, but I liked it when George and Zack had their own tone and I just had to record it the best way possible.

About the Lynch guitar tone on Under Lock And Key. There are tons of rumors on how that tone was made, most of them started by people that want to sell amps to guitar players. What we did: we had two Marshalls and two Laneys (again not sure which models). One Marshall and one Laney had speakers in the big room at Amigo. The Laney took care of the low end and the Marshal took care of the higher sounds. I split them up so not one amp had the whole load of the full guitar spectrum, I still do that to the day. The other Laney was in a totally dead room and was fed by a Boss chorus pedal, and just slightly mixed in with the other two amps. The second Marshal (I think it was a 50W Plexi) was send to a cabinet in a small tiled bathroom. Everything was miced with 16 microphones all over the rooms. I then summed it all into one output on the console and send it to a Fostex 4-track cassette recorder and from there into the digital machine. George had mentioned that he always gets a great sound with his Fostex 4-track, so I told him to bring it in. We had it under the console covered with a packing blanket so nobody could see it and it was cranked to 11. That is most of the rhythm tone on ULK.

 

[EchelonEngineering]

Welcome to the Jungle Michael Wagener!

It is sometimes customary with guitar players to boost their amps with booster/overdrive/distortion etc pedals. A) Is this something that you like to do?? and if so, B) what type/brand of pedal do you like with which amp?? (personally I love the tube screamer style of pedal in front of a modded 50 watt plexi. awesome! )

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come on here and chat.

Paul
Echelon Engineering
http://www.eepedals.com

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hi Michael,

Is there anyone new in the scene that you would like to work with that you haven't had a chance too?

There are a bunch of good bands I like, but my all time fav would be AC/DC, I think after that record I could happily retire

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Hello Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to visit us!!!

You have worked on some of my all time favorite records and have put to tape the best rock guitar tones ever, thank you for that!!

My question is, my favorite guitar tone at the moment is the one that you got for Chris Impellitteri on Eye of the Hurricane. Do you remember any of the setups for his tone? I know that he has a Bradshaw modded Plexi, but are there other amps, is he boosting with something? Any info that you remember would be grateful. Thanks : )

Again, that was just a mix on my end, so I don't know much about how it was recorded. Chris is another guy that works on his tone for days before he records, just like George.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Guys, you can find my discography here: http://www.michaelwagener.com/html/discography.html It has three letters on the right:
P = PRODUCED, R = RECORDED, M = MIXED, that might make future references to questions a bit easier.

Thank you.

 

[MICHAEL WAGENER]

Welcome to the Jungle Michael Wagener!

It is sometimes customary with guitar players to boost their amps with booster/overdrive/distortion etc pedals. A) Is this something that you like to do?? and if so, B) what type/brand of pedal do you like with which amp?? (personally I love the tube screamer style of pedal in front of a modded 50 watt plexi. awesome! )

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come on here and chat.

Paul
Echelon Engineering
http://www.eepedals.com

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I like the pure tone of the amp when it comes to distortion. Sometimes though I use a somewhat clean amp, like the Roland Jazz Chorus with the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire distortion pedal, which gives me a choice over what kind of distortion I want to use, but in general it's just the amp doing all the work