Butch Vig and Jeff Tomei talk about recording “Siamese Dream” 12:55 pm // Saturday, August 1, 2009
Posted by jjb in butch vig, gear, siamese dream.trackback
Gearslutz.com, the self-professed “world’s biggest recording equipment discussion website”, recently hosted a Q&A on Siamese Dream with producer Butch Vig and engineer Jeff Tomei. Fortunately, we didn’t find out about it (HT: @Ramires) until after it was no longer possible for us to ask any ignorant questions — but if you happen to wonder what guitar was used to make the squeaks on “Mayonaise”, or how many hours Billy spent on the “Today” intro, wonder no more.
Here’s an excerpt where Vig describes some manual corrections being made to the “Mayonaise” drum track:
[In] rehearsals, I was timing the band around 145 bpm (as far as can remember). When we tracked it, we used a click, and Billy though it sounded too fast. So we slowed it down to around 141 or so.
After we recorded what I thought was the master take, I started to notice certain snare hits that dragged. So I measured where the kick landed with a china marker on tape, then measured where the snare landed. The bars that felt good to me, were in fact around 145 bpm. So Jeff and I went through and starting shaving any snare that dragged forward. And we went in kinda deep! There were probably 200 edits when we were finished! The song was recorded at 141 but ended up at 145!
After 200 edits I looked at Jeff and said “Is it Sweet?”
“Billy has this ability to open his heart, so to speak, and sing with a vulnerabilty that draws you into the song. That was more important to me than technical perfection.”
Did Corgan lose the knack for this at some point along the way?
the best album ever!!! no zeigeist…SIAMESE DREAM!
“I’ve see him a couple time lately, talking about sports, politics, the dire state of the music biz etc, but we have not talked about working together”.
Argh!
Do you honestly expect them ever to work together again? And if they did, what do you think the result would be?
Why not? Just because they haven’t for a long time? I never expected Butch Vig to work with Green Day before he actually did. There’s no animosity between Corgan and Vig as well.
And if they did work together then obviously, the result would be AWESOMENESS.
As defined by UD:
awesomeness -
An unmeasurable amount of awesomenimity something can produce (or that Vig can produce).
Billy said he wanted to mix it up, hence why they moved to Flood.
Honestly, in a lot of interviews I’ve heard/read with Butch, I get the impression that he would probably be the leading vote towards saying Billy Corgan was always The Smashing Pumpkins. He is very guarded and political with his answers towards Jimmy/James/Darcy, and although he has said MANY times how much Jimmy is a monster drummer, I can’t help but get the impression that Butch was just as pissed at him as Billy, possibly more, for the disappearances and whatnot.
Butch has a great way of guiding a band to sound awesome, but I think all his albums since SD show that he focuses what’s there, he doesn’t change it that much. The power of SD remains in the songs themselves, and Billy’s vision which Butch/Alan Moulder helped him to finish without killing himself.
Just like Pearl Jam went back to work with Brendan O’Brien for their upcoming album, I think it would be amazing if Billy worked with Vig again. There is no risk of repeating himself after so much time without working together!
notice you said Billy and not ” smashing pumpkins” hahhaha
Thanks for the great link. Personally, my favorite SP production was on Machina & Adore. I’ve always found Vig’s work to sound too stuffy and flat. I sort of cringe listening to him talk about doubling vocals here:
I want to say, “No! You’re sanding down all the rough edges!” But apparently only after this double tracking has it become a magnificent chorus. I just don’t think producers should listen to a song with things like that in mind – i.e. seeking a “big chorus moment”.
I’m dumbfounded that they could edit Mayonaise that much, and still have it sound solid and seamless. Artists/producers have obviously been innovative & inventive in the studio for a long time before Pro-Tools, sure…..but to go through and chop up something that much–on analog tape–seems like it would be disastrous. But it sounds perfect.
(Would’ve been a piece of cake, with digital editing).
It actually has the potential of ruining the song for me…from now it’s gonna be hard to resist focusing on each & every kick/snare hit, trying to hear some kind of edit…..
i think it is kind of funny to hear Butch say that Atlanta was meant to help keep the discretion aways but.. “However, within 24 hours Jimmy new every drug dealer, hooker, bookie, and nut case in Atlanta…so that part of the plan didn’t work!”