IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP IF YOU WANT TO RECORD AN ALBUM
By Joop van Pelt

Before the previous issue went to press, both Gene and Paul informed me on the planned schedule for the upcoming album (produced by Bruce Fairbairn) which will be the very first album by Paul, Gene, Peter & Ace in almost 20 years. Gene said they would be going into the studio to start recording the songs in December, Paul expected they would begin mixing the tracks by May of this year. It was said that either in June or July the album was expected to be ready. But already in December you could sense that such a date will be quite impossible. Despite their original plans they probably didn't hit the studio until [.....]

[.....] it's a pretty long way from the last recording session to the final product. Not only does one have to consider the fact that a lot of people are involved in the entire process - band members, outside songwriters, producer(s), studio engineers, record label execs, etc. etc. - but also a lot of technical (and also other, such as creative) activities have to be taken care of before you can pick up the actual CD at your local record store.
It's a very long way from demotape to CD no matter who the artist is - at best it will take about two months to have a really finished product available but usually it takes at least a year from start to finish. Within the record industry A(rtist) & R(epertoire) managers from the record company are involved in the entire process, more or less. Depending on the artist, an A & R mangager can be very much involved or only be playing a very small role in the background. Dutch A & R manager Hans Diener, who used to be KISS' product manager when he still worked for Mercury Records Holland, told [.....]

[.....] preference for a specific studio or producer (one producer I talked to said that that's an understatement!). Says Diener: "For rock bands we prefer to use the Wisseloord- or Arnold Mühren Studios." (The Wisseloord Studios are the world famous Dutch recording studios next to the PolyGram/Mercury/Polydor offices in Hilversum, Holland, where acts such as Def Leppard, David Bowie, Scorpions, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Elton John, etc. etc. have recorded and/or mixed albums. [......]

When a selection of recorded songs has been made, the mixing of all tracks begins. And even then it's still possible that the artists change their minds and want something a little different. Even experienced musicians turn out to be suffering from unsecurity when it comes to their 'pieces of art'. Thus it can happen that it takes months before it is decided what mix to use for a particular song while new mixes are being made (German hardrockers the Scorpions come to mind - those experiences are probably still the worst nightmare of Dutch engineer Erwin Musper, as he lost a lot of time on mixing a few [......]

[.....] The specific sound of an album is partly created during the mix, but also during the mastering. The process of mastering (which comes after the mixing) is used for a couple of things, such as to dot all i's and cross all t's in a sound-technical sense. And also to decide the running order of the tracks and to record both the PQ-data and ISRC-codes. (PQ-data is what you can read on your [.....]

Editing has become much easier thanks to digital mastering. There used to be a time when one had to literally cut the tape with a pair of scissors, but nowadays that's taken care of digitally. And that's much more accurate, the monitor shows every wrong cut. Mounting the recordings takes place through socalled cross fades. Undesirable pieces of music can be digitally removed by the mastering engineer on [.....]

[.....] can be more important for a certain type of music than for another one. And it is regarded the icing on the cake by a lot of A & R managers. But the importance must not be exaggerated: a bad recording can't be turned into great one by mastering. As soon as the mastering has been done, the original master (the glass master) is being pressed and the album will be mass-produced by the CD factory. Most of the above is mainly based on national experiences overhere in Holland, so it's hard to say if this also (fully) applies to KISS. Perhaps these things are taken care of in a different way within the KISS camp. To find out whether or not there is a certain permanent pattern I looked at all the albums that the band has released during their 25 years in the business. If there is a permanent pattern, it has to be that it [.....]

[.....] And it looks as if KISS' current producer Bruce Fairbairn has that same attitude when it comes to working on new albums. While taking a look at some of his work from the past one quickly comes to the conclusion that Canadian Fairbairn likes to work with the same engineers as much as possible and that he prefers to record at the [.....]

[.....] More recently Fairbairn produced AC/DC's 1992 live double album (with Ken Lomas as mixing engineer, assisted by Mike Plotnikoff) as well as Aerosmith's (Get A Grip[CURSIEF]) album (engineered by Ken Lomas and Mike Plotnikoff), and 1993's (Face The Heat[CURSIEF]) by Scorpions - when they were still managed by McGhee Entertainment, Inc. (Face The Heat[CURSIEF]), by the way, has been mixed at the Wisseloord Studios in Holland by Dutchman Erwin Musper (now living in the States - Miami and California is where he lives these days - and often [.....]

[.....] world, isn't it? Wrapping up this piece, I can inform you that Bruce Fairbairn is an all-round producer as he's also able to arrange songs, sing background vocals and play unexpected instruments such as cello and trumpet (as he proved on some of the afore mentioned albums). So, let's wait and see what he can do for KISS...