Cool book quote

As I’m chugging through a book I checked out of the library, I came across a line that I thought I should share with you all. The book is called “Behind The Glass: Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft The Hits“, and is written by Howard Massey and published in 2000. I believe there is now a follow-up to this book out as well. What Mr. Massey, himself a producer and engineer, did was to interview many of the top recording studio producers and engineers on a variety of topics about their approach to making a record. He covers things like meshing the producer’s vision with the artist’s vision and a lot of technical stuff about microphone placement for various instruments and their approach to mixing records. He has interviews with people like Arif Mardin, Phil Ramone, Brian Wilson, the whole “Abbey Road Gang” (George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Alan Parsons, etc.).

In the chapter where he is talking with Alan Parsons about achieving his vision for a “sound” for various instruments, the book has (author’s question is in boldface, answer is in regular):

How do you generally mic an acoustic piano?
I’ve always had a bit of frustration with piano; I just don’t think I’m very good on piano sounds. (laughs) Some of it’s because I’ve been unlucky enough to have to record piano with drums more often than I’d like to. Plus, great piano sounds are made with great pianos, and I don’t think I’ve worked with enough great pianos. They’re either too clangy and hard and bright, or they’re too dull and nasty. My idol for piano sound is Bruce Hornsby, but it’s at least 75 percent in the playing. What a great piano sound he gets! I went to a session he was doing with David Pack a couple of years back, and there it was – a pair of AKG C12s. Allen Sides was the engineer – I love his work, he’s a bit of a hero. He knows what he’s doing no matter what mics he uses.
How cool!! Even uber-producer Alan Parsons digs Bruce’s piano sound, and he largely credits it to the way Bruce plays it more than any technical aspects of recording him. Weren’t we trying to get a discussion going about what it is that makes Bruce’s playing so “signature”? I guess AP thinks it Bruce.

BTW, the session Parsons is referring to is in all likelihood the one where Bruce recorded “Cool” with Patti Austin and Branford Marsalis for the tribute project “The Songs Of West Side Story.” David Pack was the producer of that CD. Pack is also, possibly not all-too-coincidentally, the former lead singer of the soft-rock band, Ambrosia, whose bass player was Joe Puerta, later a founding member of The Range. The AKG C12s are microphones

Rich

“Nobody called me when I was not home…I didn’t really have much to say.” – Moi