#Phonepunk#
Banned
This is a pretty rad in-depth article on the recording of one of my favorite albums, Beck's "Odelay". This record is famously chock full of samples but there is also a surprisingly good amount of live performance in there as well.
-- article excerpt below --
Legendary sample gurus the Dust Brothers (aka EZ Mike and King Gizmo) had seen one of Beck’s breathtaking live shows and were overawed by the young man’s natural talent and showmanship. After getting in contact and discussing creating new music together, it wasn’t long before Beck and the DBs realised they had common interests and began working on the material that would eventually become Odelay at their tiny studio/home in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.
Beck was already familiar with sampling and wanted to further explore the vast range of possibilities that this new science opened up. He asked the brothers Dust to play him a variety of music from their gigantic and eclectic record library in his search for sounds and elements that he could use to construct the new material.
Although sample-heavy, the tracks on the album would be predominantly approached as songs first: “Beck would say, ‘I’ve got some ideas’, and plug in his guitar and start riffing,” EZ Mike recalls of Beck’s approach during this period. “He’d play a bar or a measure and we’d take that and loop it up and he’d be like, ‘Oh that’s incredible!’.”
Using an early version of Pro Tools (back when it was still a Digidesign product) often raised infuriating issues when recording – the main one being that the Dust Brothers’ computer needed half-an-hour to compile the track data after each take: “Pro Tools was so primitive; a lot of times the takes would be lost, so we would just be praying we wouldn’t have to start over,” Beck would remember in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2008.
Many of the tracks on Odelay made use of a collection of old, discarded Moog synths: “The only people using Moog synthesizers were Stereolab and a couple of indie bands.” Beck would say in 2008. “So you could go to pawn shops and get them for 60 bucks. I had a pile of them and I’d bring one in and use it until it broke, then go get another one.”
full article:
www.musictech.net
-- article excerpt below --
Legendary sample gurus the Dust Brothers (aka EZ Mike and King Gizmo) had seen one of Beck’s breathtaking live shows and were overawed by the young man’s natural talent and showmanship. After getting in contact and discussing creating new music together, it wasn’t long before Beck and the DBs realised they had common interests and began working on the material that would eventually become Odelay at their tiny studio/home in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.
Beck was already familiar with sampling and wanted to further explore the vast range of possibilities that this new science opened up. He asked the brothers Dust to play him a variety of music from their gigantic and eclectic record library in his search for sounds and elements that he could use to construct the new material.
Although sample-heavy, the tracks on the album would be predominantly approached as songs first: “Beck would say, ‘I’ve got some ideas’, and plug in his guitar and start riffing,” EZ Mike recalls of Beck’s approach during this period. “He’d play a bar or a measure and we’d take that and loop it up and he’d be like, ‘Oh that’s incredible!’.”
Using an early version of Pro Tools (back when it was still a Digidesign product) often raised infuriating issues when recording – the main one being that the Dust Brothers’ computer needed half-an-hour to compile the track data after each take: “Pro Tools was so primitive; a lot of times the takes would be lost, so we would just be praying we wouldn’t have to start over,” Beck would remember in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2008.
Many of the tracks on Odelay made use of a collection of old, discarded Moog synths: “The only people using Moog synthesizers were Stereolab and a couple of indie bands.” Beck would say in 2008. “So you could go to pawn shops and get them for 60 bucks. I had a pile of them and I’d bring one in and use it until it broke, then go get another one.”
full article:
Landmark Productions: Beck - Odelay
Beck’s Odelay redefined the musical landscape of the early 90s alternative scene and helped to further popularise DIY sampling. Andy Price goes for a devil’s haircut...
www.musictech.net
