142 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
142 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
Guitar World interview with Alan Parsons, Feb. 1993
|
|
"Guitar World", February 1993, Vol.14,No.2, pp 79,121-3
|
|
|
|
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 17:30:03 EST
|
|
From: Nicholas Monitto <monitn@rip.edu>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pink Floyd- WALL OF SOUND
|
|
|
|
-'The Wall' producer BOB EZRIN and 'Dark Side of the Moon' engineer ALAN
|
|
PARSONS reveal a saucer-full of studio secrets-
|
|
|
|
|
|
ALAN PARSONS
|
|
|
|
by Brad Tolinski
|
|
|
|
"Working with Pink Floyd is an engineer's dream, so I tried to take advantage
|
|
of the situation," explains studio-wizard Alan Parsons, with a touch of
|
|
modesty. "'Dark Side of the Moon' came at a crucial stage in my career, so I
|
|
was highly motivated. It was important to me, and I wanted to be sure that the
|
|
job was done right."
|
|
|
|
Parsons' attention to detail obviously paid off: He won a Grammy award for
|
|
the best engineered album of 1973, and 'Dark Side of the Moon' went on to ride
|
|
the charts for a record-breaking 14 years.
|
|
|
|
More than just an engineer, Parsons functioned as Pink Floyd's chief sonic
|
|
architect. In addition to capturing the band's inspired preformances on tape
|
|
and crafting 'Dark Side's celebrated three-dimensional mix, Parsons was also
|
|
responsible for creating the album's twisted array of heartbeats, footsteps,
|
|
clocks, airplanes and cash registers.
|
|
|
|
Understandably, Parsons admits that it's "difficult to remember all the
|
|
details of something that happened 20 years ago." Nonetheless, he gamely tried
|
|
to field all questions related this musical milestone.
|
|
|
|
[GW-denotes a question, AP-denotes his response]
|
|
|
|
GW- How did you become Pink Floyd's engineer?
|
|
|
|
AP- It was simply through my staff position at Abbey Road studios. I mixed
|
|
Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother', and they like my work, so they recruited me to
|
|
work on the sessions for 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
|
|
|
|
GW- Did 'Dark Side's three-dimensional sound evolve over a period of time, or
|
|
was it planned from the beginning of the project?
|
|
|
|
AP- Nothing specific was said, but Pink Floyd had a reputation for creating
|
|
records that were in a class of their own. They obviously wanted something
|
|
special.
|
|
|
|
GW- Do you have any particularly vivid memories of those sessions?
|
|
|
|
AP- There are a couple. I have some fond memories of being left alone every
|
|
once in a while to do rough mixes. Those were in the days when the comedy
|
|
group Monty Python was popular, and the band would often leave the studio to
|
|
watch them on television. I would stay behind and work, and it was during those
|
|
times that I would get my best ideas.
|
|
|
|
One of my contributions was to add the footsteps to the "On the Run" sequence.
|
|
There were no band members present- it was just me with my assistant engineer,
|
|
Peter James. Poor Peter had the job of running back and forth while I recorded
|
|
him. I remember instructing him to do things like "breath harder." [laughs]
|
|
|
|
I was also responsible for the clocks in "Time". I originally recorded them at
|
|
an antique store for a sound-effects record. Each clock was recorded
|
|
separately, and we just blended them together.
|
|
|
|
GW- Did the band compose much of the album's material in the studio?
|
|
|
|
AP- Not really. They already performed a version of 'Dark Side' in concert
|
|
before they went into the studio. It was originally called "Eclipse".
|
|
|
|
GW- What about "On the Run"? I always assumed that it was created in the
|
|
studio?
|
|
|
|
AP- You're right. "On the Run" is an exception. That was pretty much Dave's
|
|
studio creation. He programmed a random sequence into an early VCS3 synthesizer
|
|
and expermented until he found something he liked. All the basic sounds-
|
|
including the bass and percussion sounds- came as a mono feed from that one
|
|
synth. It's funny, because most people assume that "On the Run" is composed of
|
|
several overdubs, it's actually a one-off performance.
|
|
|
|
GW-Were there any specific technological factors that contributed to the
|
|
album's space-age sound?
|
|
|
|
AP-'Dark Side' was recorded at a time when quadrophonic systems [systems using
|
|
four channels to record and reproduce sound] seemed to be on the horizon. For
|
|
example, a lot of the effects on the album were designed with quad reproduction
|
|
in mind- most notably, the introduction to "Money". The idea was that each part
|
|
of the cash register would emanate from a different speaker. As a result, lots
|
|
of time was spent recording each segment of the sound effect on discrete
|
|
channels. Obviously, no one knew that quad systems would eventually fizzle, but
|
|
I would say that thinking in quadrophonic terms probably made us more careful
|
|
about how we recorded the effects.
|
|
|
|
GW- David Gilmour's guitar sound on 'Dark Side' is massive. Do you recall how
|
|
it was recorded?
|
|
|
|
AP- David was very much in control of his sound system [see the DG interview
|
|
for further information (which will come eventually...)]. We rarely added
|
|
effects to his guitar in the control room. Generally speaking, the sound on the
|
|
album is pretty much what came out of his amp. As I recall, he used a Hiwatt
|
|
stack and a Binson Echorec for delays.
|
|
|
|
GW- What kind of board were you using?
|
|
|
|
AP- A custom-built, late-generation, 16-track, EMI board. It's been reported
|
|
that we used a 24-track board, but that's not true. Believe it or not, almost
|
|
all the tracks are second generation. We often ran out of tracks and had to
|
|
bounce.
|
|
|
|
GW- Do you think 'DSOTM' could have been recorded using today's colder-sounding
|
|
digital equipment?
|
|
|
|
AP- I don't see why not. The album is just the combination of four talented
|
|
people with some good songs and good ideas. These days, the only difference is
|
|
that it's difficult to be original with sound. Those Japanese black boxes just
|
|
make it too easy to dial up good sounds, but not necessarily original ones.
|
|
Back then we really had to work at it.
|
|
|
|
It was literally a fight to get the delay effect on "Us and Them". We spent a
|
|
tremendous amount of time hooking up Dolby units and realigning machines at the
|
|
wrong tape speed to accomplish that effect. "Us and Them" was all done with
|
|
tape delays, becuase digital delays didn't exist then. All these things took
|
|
hours to set up.
|
|
|
|
GW- I understand that you helped remaster the CD edition of 'Dark Side of the
|
|
Moon' for the 'Shine On' Pink Floyd box.
|
|
|
|
AP- That is correct. I received a call from James Guthrie, who became the
|
|
band's engineer after I left. He was supervising the remastering of the Pink
|
|
Floyd box, and he needed some technical information regarding those sessions. I
|
|
happened to be in the vicinity of the studio where he was remastering, so I
|
|
went down.
|
|
|
|
Basically, we discovered that the master tapes were in pretty good shape, and
|
|
all we had to do was add a little brightness to the end of the tracks. I felt
|
|
very pleased with what we did, and feel that the version of 'DSOTM' on 'Shine
|
|
On' is the definitive version.
|