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“One time I swung a mic around the room while the guitarist played his solo,” recalls Matt Wallace. “It was really effective because he realized I’d do anything to record something spontaneous.” When you’ve produced, engineered, and mixed some of the best rock and pop bands around, you find new ways to capture their magic. Wallace has done just that for enough established and new bands by now to qualify himself as an outright instigator of creative inspiration. He helped Faith No More create an entirely new sound—funk/metal—on the band’s groundbreaking albums The Real Thing, Angel Dust, and Introduce Yourself; he was there for Maroon5’s Songs About Jane, and Sheryl Crow’s version of “Solitaire” for the Carpenters’ tribute album If I Were A Carpenter. And as far as the Rolling Stones, Deftones, REM, Blues Traveler, Everlast, Paul Westerberg and John Hiatt are concerned, as well, Matt can swing his mics around the room anytime the inspiration strikes him. Wallace recently finished albums by and with Spin Doctors and Josh Kelley,
and he is currently working with the bands As Fast As and Rooster.
MATT: Basically my approach does not seem to change, as I always tend to work with a drummer, bass player, and a guitarist coupled with a lead singer. For some bands I’ll work with a second guitar player and/or a keyboard player. There are occasions wherein I work with a singer/songwriter when we might build up the tracks starting with a loop, and add from there.
MATT: While some of the specifics might change from project to project, generally I use dynamic, ribbon, or condenser microphones—whatever is laying around. Typically I route those into a Neve 1072/1074 mic preamp or an Altec 1567A tube mic preamp, followed usually by an LA-2A or a Distressor. I also find that that exciting things happen when engineers and producers get out of their comfort zones of using their favorite, tried-and-true microphones and approaches. While initially it requires more work and reliance on one's instincts, the end result is usually more interesting and unique.
MATT: The most important aspect of recording is the actual sound of the instrument or voice, about it having a presence or a “feeling” or certain confidence. I believe that it is really first and foremost about the instrument, followed by the actual technical aspects of recording. I look for a mic that best suits the sonics of the song. Sometimes that mic is a vintage large diagphragm tube condenser mic, and other times it’s all about your standard dynamic mic. My engineer, Mike Landolt, really likes ribbon mics and uses them to great effect.
MATT: A dynamic mic for guitar work is always most interesting either pointed at the center of a speaker cone for focus, or off to the side for a more rounded tone. Pushing the mic up against the grill will add low end due to proximity, and sometimes placing a condenser mic on a back corner of the amp to blend in for “girth” or width works well. Ribbon mics are good about six inches away from the front of the cabinet, and placing a condenser more than a foot away from the speaker is pretty cool, too. I have also recorded vocals with a large diaphragm tube mic in the control room with the monitors extremely loud and with the singer grabbing the mic. Now, technically that is absolutely, fundamentally wrong, but that’s exactly how I recorded some blistering vocals with Paul Westerberg.
MATT: I have plugged the speaker output of a Fender Bassman amp directly into a Studer A-80 24 track tape machine with the volume really, really low to get a very direct guitar sound. That was cool. Also, having a vocalist sing in front of studio monitors with the volume turned up pretty loud, without putting one speaker out of phase, can be excellent for getting some inspired performances. RED: What would you say is the toughest thing that engineers consistently have to deal with in the studio? MATT: Being too focused on doing the “right” or “correct” thing. While its understandable that an engineer’s ego is tied into the sound, sometimes you have to capture an artist at his/her peak—that might mean going with some sounds that are not “perfect” and even slightly or wildly semi-pro sounding. As a producer I have, many times, pushed the record button before the engineer was ready because I could feel that the band was on the verge of doing something great.
MATT: There have been many, but two stand out for me. One, in spite of the label telling us that radio would not play it, was recording and producing Faith No More’s The Real Thing. That was groundbreaking at the time to get funk/metal on the radio and, eventually, radio did play it and “Epic” went to number 9 on the Billboard chart. The Maroon5 project was memorable, too. At the time we made that record—for very little money—they were signed to a label that had never put out a record. They also had an unknown, untried manager and were themselves an unknown band. But I knew those songs were hits and believed that if no one dropped the ball, myself included, along the way that we’d have a huge hit record. By the way, initially I tracked Maroon5 with monitor wedges and recorded some excellent live performances. Also, the band, and myself to some extent, were really enamored with hip-hop so we proceeded to cut and paste in loops to ultimately create a very urban record. Well, the label wasn’t keen on that, so we re-recorded about seven tracks of drums and guitar during the mixing. Exciting stuff!
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