Engineering Steely Dan's GAUCHO (1980): Interview w/ Elliot Scheiner
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2021
- A technical interview focusing on the studio gear and recording methodology behind this audiophile masterpiece, May 4th, 2021. tyler-burns.com
Edit/Subs/Post by Alec Eagon
How many analog multitrack recorders were being used upon mixdown, one or two?
One.
Were you using a slave machine?
No.
What type of multitracks were being used?
Studer A800 (mk I) 24-track at A&R, and at Soundtrack a 24-track 3M m79. Most of the record was done on an A800 (mk I).
What tape speed and were you using noise reduction?
30 IPS for tracking, no NR, except for electronic keyboards/synths and guitars.
If so, what kind of noise reduction?
Synths and guitars were Dolby A.
What tape formula and how hot?
456, +3
What was the main mixdown (two-track) tape machine for this record?
Studer A80 (no specification as to whether it was an RC or VU model)
What tape speed for mixdown?
15 IPS.
Noise reduction at mixdown?
No.
Were there any electronic modifications that you were aware of for either the multitracks or the mixdown machine?
No.
What was your mixbuss (compression/eq/limiting) signal chain for this record?
None.
What console was used for tracking?
Neve 8068
Was this same console used for mixing, as well?
Neve 8068 and an 8078 at The Village.
What was Donald Fagen’s lead vocal mic chain?
[Elliot did not track Donald’s vocals, but he believes that Donald preferred a U87 with no EQ and no compression upon tracking.]
How were backing vocals recorded? In mono and panned or in stereo?
[Elliot did not work on this. This was Roger Nichols’ specialty.]
Can you tell us about the plate reverb used on this record and any details about the send/return processing?
A&R had four EMT 140s, tuned by Phil Ramone, with a 4-track tape machine as the tape delay going into the plates. So, the pre-delay would have been about 150 ms coming off the playback heads. There was no EQ processing on the send or the return. At The Village, in L.A., where most of the mixing was done, it was a combo of EMT 140s and a live room for re-amping.
What digital effects were being used on this record?
[None that Elliot remembers.]
What was your mixing process like? What parts did you mix first? Rhythm section?
Drums were mixed first, then bass guitar, then keyboards, then guitars, horns, etc. Vocals would be last.
How much high pass filtering were you doing?
None.
How did you track/mix kick and bass, at that time, to work so well together? They are so balanced compared to modern records!
Kick and bass would be soloed together and made sure that they both were the same volume.
What mix processing, in terms of EQ and compression (and what units), were you using on Donald Fagen’s lead vocals?
A DBX 160 VU was used for limiting Donald’s vocals, (not compression). EQ would have been the Neve board. The top end would be boosted and a little bit of 1 kHz would be cut.
The fascinating panning scheme on Gaucho!
There would be three mono EMT 140 reverbs panned left, center, and right, and then one stereo EMT 140 reverb. If an element was panned left or right, it would be sent to the respectively panned reverb return. (Center instruments would often go to the stereo EMT 140 or the center-panned mono EMT 140.)
Were you using mixing automation on this record?
Yes. Moving fader automation on the Neve 8068 at The Village, where most of the record was mixed. (There was no automation on the 8068 at A&R.)
It seems like a lot of elements were recorded in mono and simply panned on this record. What stuff was actually tracked in stereo?
Electric piano (sometimes), piano, organ, and sometimes guitar. Rhythm guitars were always mono. The Rhodes was recorded DI (there are stereo outputs), sometimes using a stereo phaser.
How were Donald Fagen’s vocals comp’d? Were they submixed or automated from the original takes?
There was no comping. Donald would just punch in. He would work all day on a vocal, punching in and out on one track.
What percentage of the drums on Gaucho were real and how much were the Wendell drum computer?
“Babylon Sisters,” was all real drums. “Hey Nineteen” was all Wendell. “Glamour Profession” was all Wendell. “Time Out of Mind” was all real drums. “My Rival” was all Wendel. “Third World Man” was real drums. (If a drummer was credited for a song which used the Wendel, it simply meant that his drum samples had been used in the Wendell for that song.)
The late 90s CD master of Gaucho, which is what I prefer listening to, was sourced from an early 80s digital backup by Roger Nichols. What digital system would Roger have done those digital backups on in the early 80s?
Sony F1 at 16 bit, 44.056 kHz
How were you recording snare drum?
One single SM57 on top.
Overheads?
A pair of U87s or a pair of 451s.
Kick drum?
D12.
For synthesizer and bass guitar, were you just DI’ing into the console preamp?
For bass guitar, it was DI’d. Synthesizers were just DI’d and went into the console preamp.
What’s your favorite console?
Neve.
Tape machine?
Studer.
Tyler..and Elliot: You have done a GREAT service to the industry by doing this interview. I thank you both tremendously. And especially Elliot Scheiner. I am well aware that Phil Ramone was so secretive about his methods, and thats a shame, now that he is gone. his skill went away with him. Same with Roger Nichols. So Thank you Elliot, you have advanced the whole field by speaking freely about your experiences. Thank you.
Phil Ramone has a great autobiography. Read it a few years ago. He speaks on his in studio technique quite a bit and the stories behind the songs, how he met Billy Joel, etc. Nice read.
Nichols wrote a book about his recording method, correct?
Yup, totally agree, a vital historical document, thank you so much! 🍾❤️
Gaucho is my favourite Steely Dan album, too. It has an atmosphere.
16 years old in 1976 my first real job, 1st paycheck, I bought the album royal scam and played it relentlessly. Amazing music.
I love Gaucho. It was the epitome of a great career. Ultra sophisticated. Hey Nineteen makes me want to crack open the Cuervo Gold and go skating.
It's also the audio capture of the death of a career, via perfectionism.
I guess the album has a whole mythos behind it now, but Fagen has said in interviews that their pursuit of sonic perfection made them pretty miserable/anxious as music makers. The whole creation of Gaucho (particularly the Wendel incident, and the destruction of the Second Arrangement) was the pinnacle but also the very bottom. It's a minor miracle it ever got released.
I knew Roger Nichols. I remember asking him about these sessions and I was fascinated by how he’d explain them. It’s great to hear him mentioned here on such a timeless piece of work.
One thing Elliot forgot to mention is that the quality of the arrangements made mixing easy. There simple weren’t any conflicting sounds to deal with.
Every note in the arrangement was open for discussion.
So much of the “balance” was decided upon during recording/arranging.
*
(To avoid any misunderstanding, this comes directly from Elliot, I had many talks with him about this)
Fredo
Yes. Arrangement (and eliminating what doesn’t need to be there) makes mixing so much easier. And lets the mixing process be more creative and artistic, rather than problem-solving, like fighting collisions.
I think that's a good point. Good arrangements definitely make the mixing process easier
100%
I hear engineer hearts breaking to learn there was nothing on the 2 bus. Everything upstream was platinum quality.
Lol -- yep. Mix as if there's no mastering...@@ColinJarrett
I met Elliot on an Acura TL press event years ago. He had developed the sound system for that model. I was a photographer for the TV show Motorweek and he rode with us. Just the nicest, unassuming guy you will ever meet. He had such great stories and it was fresh to not have a Honda press person in the back seat. We then cranked Dragon Attack (Queen) the rest of the trip. Good Times!
Royal Scam/AJA/Gaucho ...imo, the best back to back to back album trio done to date...change my mind
Foxtrot/Selling England/Lamb weren’t too shabby.
Pretzel Logic should be added. My fav SD album is The Royal Scam, then Aja. However, I was listening to Countdown To Ecstacy the other day. There are elements of this album that one could say is the best work SD have done. In terms of sheer muscianship etc. Countdown is one of their best. They are all great albums so I'm splitting hairs. I just remember hearing The Royal Scam for the first time thinking it was a perfect album. The title track which has the 1920's horn with the bell sounding section. At the same time, The Royal Scam is their funkiest album. The range of musical influence is broad on this record.
I would say Can’t Buy a Thrill-Gaucho was a great 7 album run
I love gaucho / and this probably is agaisnt the rules but i would swap that one for nightfly even though it was solo work. But yeah. ❤
Sure, I can do that!
Cartas Caatingueiras/Na Quadrada das Águas Perdidas/Árias Sertânicas.
Mr Scheiner's memory is amazing. i can't even remember the stuff i did 5 years ago.
but this interview reminds me of the countless times, as a journalist, in the countless interviews i'd done with famous people (Don and Walt were among them), when i thought they must have done something really special or something beyond the ordinary, but they would say something like "Well, I just did what I thought I needed to do."
often we think something is magic, but it turns out that it was just very talented persons doing something very normal. they're just super good at it.
Very well put. I sometimes have to remind myself these iconic albums that sound like they literally descended from the heavens, were made by guys that ate lunch that same day, might have stubbed their toe on a door on the way to the session....they're mortals like us, just EXTREMELY talented.
Great to hear from Elliot about these sessions; between he and Schnee, there's some greatness to be heard on Aja & Gaucho. Back then these top shelf engineers were just trying to make great sounding records with relatively primitive tools, and we are the better for it. Back then, the band and the arrangement was king - no need to carve out vocal space - it was written that way. Today's DAW operators cannot fathom the pressure of live rhythm dates and live-to-2 track sessions, never mind the set up and signal path to achieve their goals. Try mixing with one EQ on each track, 6 or 8 dynamics plugins total, no automation, no bus processing, maybe 2 reverbs, tape delay, and 24 tracks with all of your instruments.
Sounds like the difference between drawing with ink and drawing with pencil. When you use pencil you are not as technical or accurate because you know you have an eraser. With ink, very calculated on what you do. I’m not a music engineer, don’t even play an instrument but I love Steely Dan and this intrigues me how great they sounded so many years ago
I just heard the song gaucho for the first time 2 days ago and I was completely floored I was in love with it halfway through the song
Part of the title track Gaucho was used in a movie, I forget which one, Tootsie maybe?
I’m surprised there was no question about Donald Fagen doing something like 274 mixes of Babylon Sisters. That’s a crazy amount. I read that the studio gave him a mock award for it.
Was not aware
But it's so perfect
@@violetmoondance8182 it was likely mix #7.
@@SPAZZOID100- either that or #167
@@SPAZZOID100 If I remember correctly, it was #3. (According Elliot)
Thank you for making this important historical document 👍👍
I don't understand half of it but still find it absolutely fascinating. Hats off to these guys who made this masterpiece.
22:02 "...enhance the stereo imagery" perhaps the Aphex Aural Exciter, which was the thing for that at the time.
Thank God the subject is interesting because this interviewer has the style of a prosecutor on the spectrum.
Elliot, this is one of the most sonically beautiful albums I have ever heard. New Gold Dream by Simple Minds is another. Thank you for the music.
I LOVE that album. Holy cow. I've interviewed Peter Walsh about it...but only over email.
Woa! We couldn’t possibly agree more. What a brilliant comment to mention those two records in the same sentence!
Such an unbelievable record.
My fave SD album as well. Every song is just perfect.
Elliot is fucking awesome those songs and mix are fucking amazing
Every Steely Dan album is good to great. Gaucho is transcendent.
Amazing info! We need a part 2 🙏
This is amazing! Thank you so much for doing this. Truly appreciated.
Thank you for this! Great to have this information captured for all time.
Thanks for doing this interview. Great to document these historic sessions.
Seems like he has his eyes closed the whole interview.
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!
Such a great interview! Thank you!
That’s great work man. Thanks for doing that.
Great work. Thank you for posting. I love the reverb explanations. Mono with pre-delay of 150 ms, interesting. Roger Nichols was pretty proud of the "No EQ" ethos back then. I usually worked with some sketchy plates i- hand tuned in mysterious ways by Phil Ramone indeed, cool stuff. Right up there with Sun records stairwell, Abbey Roads stacked tiles and Roy Halee's office building elevator shaft snare reverb on "The Boxer". The verbs were always everybody's secret sauce. I never really got a satisfactory explanation of "The Andy Williams verb" vs "The Tony Bennett verb" Maybe someone will do a secret verbs of the sixties UA-cam series.
just finished listening to this for the first time, definitely one of my favorite interviews of all time, thank .you
Thank you so much for this great interview.
I feel a little better about my tracking/mixing methods now... Thanks guys!!
Wonderful to hear Elliot Scheiner give his insights into this legendary album. There is so much to the 'Dan story that it even deserves a second interview, at least!
4,718 views
May 28, 2021
Amazing interview ! Thanks
This is a great interview, I’m glad you talked gear with him. 👍🤟👏
What a super interview, great technical details and such clarity for a album recorded 40 years ago.
Please do another one like this. Awesome 😎
Thanks Tyler, fantastic interview with Elliot. The knowledge, the experience and the stories he's shared with us is immeasurable, so very generous of him and so smart of you to have him on. Bravo!
Finally some authoritative info on Wendel credits! Been wondering about that for a long time.
Love this. Thank you both.
Fascinating discussion. Thanks & kudos. On YT & elsewhere, the Dan gets lots of play for & about the great musicians who performed on various tunes, but of equal (arguably, greater) importance is the resulting sound that comes out of the speakers or headphones. All too seldom discussed. Listening to Mr. Scheiner's recollections, admiring his steel-trap mind & amazing recall of equipment, techniques, processes, etc., was a real treat. Also appreciate learning about those who influenced him, like Al Schmidt, Phil Ramone & of course Roger Nichols. This was time well spent. Thanks again. No denying the ultra-professional, unforgettable sound quality of Gaucho. For audio aficionados, it's so pristine that it can't help but leave an imprint in one's DNA.
I guess they were very wary of noise reduction after the Katy Lied experience. A lot of the equipment model references went over my head, but I got a lot from the video. Never realised that Gary Katz was the man who did Don and Walt's 'Dirty Work'! Interesting to find out how Scheiner, Nicholls and Katz worked together. Fantastic interview. Thank you!
What happened with NR on Katy Lied
@@MonkeyBars1 They used dbx technology, which was supposed to have a better signal/noise ratio than Dolby, but there was a problem with the encoding that made the tapes sound dull and lifeless. It's quite well documented on-line.
Just fabulous. Thank you.
I don't really understand much of anything being said here, but I just wanted to say I really love your music. You deserve so many more subscribers. Keep up the great work!
Fantastic interview. Love the story about the "original Gaucho band". Priceless stuff, man!
This one's incredible- to get to hear from a legend like this is so rare- Thank you Ty!
This is a good interview: ua-cam.com/video/M8omvDhw2MQ/v-deo.html
Wow. Gotta say. I LOVE the Dan and this interview was so far over my head and yet answered so many of my questions about the sound. Fantastic interview… Great work, keep it up!!
I love listening to people who's language is totally beyond my comprehension. I do it all day listening to the business channels who's guest are using economic lingo that I have no idea what-so-ever what they're saying. I don't know what these guys are
saying as well but I love Steely Dan and the music they've created over the years
This are so good please do more vids like this ....
holy crap this is freaking amazing!!!! thank you so much :)
Fantastic interview !
This is such a cool interview!
I was always curious if that was an oxide flub on Time Out of Mind. Its funny how you strive to create such a perfect record and in that pursuit, incidentally create an imperfection as a result of it.
It’s fascinating to hear technical explanations for these type of things. At approx 1:20 in Time Out Mind there is definitely a wrinkle or flub during the transition into the pre chorus.
My best guess was mix buss compression, because at that moment there’s a flourish on lead guitar (panned right), a staccato jab on keys (panned medium left) and horns (panned far left) all at once, and maybe pushed threshold & recovery was too slow?
BUT, as Elliot says, there was no compression on the mix buss! In fact nothing on it. So “oxide flub” is an explanation I’d never have realised without this comment, following this cool interview! Ha. Cheers to that.
Imperfection and grace 😂
Amazing interview!
Incredibly eye opening. Glad to know that they decided to go with the sound from the console and leave any comp up to the mastering. Also just the amount of "No's" returned from Elliot shows how conservative the whole process was from start to finish. You did an excellent job on this and I really appreciate how you conducted the interview.
Great interview....how can your channel only have 189 subscribers?...Well you just got one more.....looking forward to seeing what other gems you have on this channel. Thanks very much. Al
This is what I was thinking! Maybe it’s a new channel.
Excellent. Thanks!
Freaking amazing!
I didn’t even understand half of the technical stuff they were talking about, but the absolute LOVE AND RESPECT for the subject matter and THE MUSIC was there throughout the interview.
Well done!
👍🏼🎸🎼🥂❤️😎
Great video, thanks a lot
Truly awesome
What a lovely man, very accommodating.
Interesting, thanks for the interview.
GOLD! Thanks for that.
Thank you very much.
greetings from rio de janeiro. thanks for the amazing interview. he is so humble that he makes us think that the recording process is very simple (we all know it's not)😀😀😀
wonderful lessons and informations
Thank you for this.
Thank you so much:)
Phenomenal interview. WOW!
Great! I didn't understand half of it, but this gold for the upcoming generations!
This is an amazing interview! Loved every minute of it
Thanks! Glad you liked it! Cheers!
Fundamentals. Great musicians make the engineers job so much easier. Humble man.
*Gaucho* I felt they left everything in the recording studio on this album. They were panned by critics, exited the music scene and we didn't see them live until 20 years later. I also feel that the song 'Gaucho'; it's the pinnacle of their musical career.
Hindsight is 20/20. It's bizarre how some things are panned at the time and then hailed later. Case in point: 90s comedies were largely panned by critics when they were released, but are now considered masterpieces. Comedies just weren't considered high art at the time...now they are. (Tomatometer represents the critics' score at the time of release.)
Tommy Boy (1995) - Tomatometer: 44%, Audience Score: 90%
Billy Madison (1995) - Tomatometer: 41%, Audience Score: 79%
Heavyweights (1995) - Tomatometer: 29%, Audience Score: 77%
Happy Gilmore (1996) - Tomatometer: 61%, Audience Score: 85%
Black Sheep (1996) - Tomatometer: 28%, Audience Score: 70%
Baseketball (1998) - Tomatometer: 41%, Audience Score: 74%
Great interview and questions but I was really hoping you were going to ask him about the second arrangement and what went down
The title song is, in fact, Steely Dan’s highest songwriting and production peak
That very last statement, it wasn't about Christmas at all but that one hit hard nevertheless. Gave me goosebumps.
Awesome!
Main takeaway: the production quality of Steely Dan's records is not the product of twiddling the knobs on stacks of boxes with blinking lights. It's the result of solid recording fundamentals and LISTENING.
You had me at Aja (maybe my favorite album of all time!!) Gaucho is my 2nd fave SD album.
Good work ☺👏👏🙏🏻
Awesome interview! I love all the techie stuff.. Super fascinating. 😎
Please ask about the Royal Scam & Katy Lied next!
This is GOOOOD!
Good to hear from you, Doctor Mix!
God bless Elliott for doing this
The device that they used to widen the stereo imaging could have been one of a couple of things. One was the Eventide harmonizer, which was almost always set to 99 percent of pitch on one side. We had a Roland Dimension D, which was a subtler effect, but did a great job of widening the stereo image of an electric piano track.
Bravo Tyler!! 🙌 Have Elliot back to go in depth about his early years and career with other artists.
Appreciate it, but the amount of flack I've gotten for this interview doesn't inspire me to do another video.
@@TylerBurnsOfficial I didn’t hear any problems with the interview. A couple of jokers are always around the comment section. I learned a lot. Thanks Tyler.
Hey Tyler, that's just the internet. Bunch of dweebs hiding behind the lack of social consequences. Lean into your role as content creator and let it roll off you. It's a good lesson to ignore the losers and focus on the positive. This was a very special interview and we are so grateful.
Ha! Fired! Just for doing the exercise. Classic!
Glamour Profession.
6:05 - Outside the stadium” refers to Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis’ no-hitter against the San Diego Padres on June 1, 1970.:: Supposedly he had flown to LA to try LSD and came back STILL under the influence at 6:05**, when the game started at San Diego Stadium. The basketball references are there to obscure just WHOM Steely Dan are talking about. And Dock Ellis was a high school basketball star in Gardena, California.
Interesting connection! In the documentary about this, Dock explains how he thought he had a day off that day and dropped in the morning in San Diego then as he was coming up his friend saw in the paper he was scheduled to open the game in LA that evening, so he flew up high off his ass and threw the ball down the glittering tube of light for a few hours, pegging a couple hitters and scaring the rest in his legendary no-hitter.
This was a great Q&A session. I would have loved to hear Elliot talk about the DTS surround mix he did. That surround mix sounds incredible. There are element flowing around all 6 speakers. The bass and kick are in the pocket on that mix.
My favorite part of this is when you ask him about digital fx and Elliot's like , "Do you realize what you're saying?!" Lol, cranky old timer...
Great job Tyler. Thank you so much for this interview. I've rewatched it countless times.
Excellent interview! Subscribed.
Brilliant insight. This is gold
Even Cratchit didn't have to work Christmas day!
GAUCHO - so smooth, like chocolate for the ears.
Appreciate you geeking out to the max on this... sounds like he was settling lot of arguments... a few dollars were exchanged, I'll bet. You also have to understand that these guys really knew how to be purists... and not really mess too much with effects or sweetening... or in house mastering... they sound like that because they didn't do that and used acoustic spaces to shape the sound and Bob Ludwig to master... and like so many masterworks, it's more shaped by its limitations, than special effects or tricks..trucks... there were so few at this time.
At 22:14 the stereo device he is referring to is an Aphex Aural Exciter. Back in those days you had to rent them, as they weren’t available for sale.
Awesome. Great to know!
Not sure that’s right… The Aural Exciter added brightness/sizzle to material (a sophisticated high frequency booster, basically, that used psychoacoustic trickery to do more than what was achievable just by boosting with EQ). I don’t think it did anything to the stereo image.
More likely an MXR 126 flanger/doubler - or possibly lunchbox-style autophaser or autoflanger. Remember, this is 1978-vintage gear. The Roland Dimension D debuted in 1979 too.
Absolutely!
The "Goucho" album gave out a certain atmosphere that I haven't heard on any other record. Schneider obviously was responsible. But you also have to hand it to the gear they used. The A800 running at 30 had a lot to do with it. I've cut lots of tracks on it, and I haven't yet been able to replicate the texture and 'warmth' that it delivers. I remember soloing just the kick drum up in the monitors, and it seemed that it actually breathed. A stunning machine, to me the best recording device ever known to man -- digital or analog.
Fantastic interview, thanks so much for posting.
Some tape emulation plugins seem to be improving, but I haven't heard an actual owner of a Studer (like @WhiteSeaStudios) say they can replace analog tape yet.
I was again, impressed with Elliot and him NOT mentioning that 'Hey Nineteen' was based on a story he shared with them! To this day I have a picture Elliot shared with me, as he is standing with President Obama, still on one of my walls in my Control Room! Class act in deed. Tyler, some good questions from a youngblood, about our past methods & means.
Gaucho is my fav Dan album. Hard to pick one but it is my go to sleep piece
Wow great questions !
Fascinating interview! 16 bit digital recording would've been very cutting edge in 1980... after all 16 bit was pretty much the mastering standard until the late 90s when 24 bit became available. Even today 16 bit is considered good enough for the final product.