Dettagli sulla produzione di Angel Dust, ...by Matt Wallace

Hello All,

I'm new to this sort of thing so bear with me... plus I was just informed about this chat about "Angel Dust" by my friend Matt and, lo and behold, I only have a bit of time to write. Drag.

First off, thanks to all of you for saying such kind words about the work FNM and I did together on "Angel Dust". I appreciate the props. I don't know if any of you read Kerrang but about 2 years ago they rated the "Most Influential Albmus Of All Time" and to my surprise they named "Angel Dust" as the #1 album. Pretty ****ing cool.

To answer some of your questions, Jim Martin did not like the direction of AD and referred to it as "gay disco music" and that, coupled with his father dying just prior to making the record, the big booted fella who was supposed to bring the 6 string sludge to the table was unable. Bill Gould, the bass player, and I did many demos at his home (based upon live studio recordings of the primary players, Bordin on drums, Bottum on keys, and Gould on bass) and he and I worked out many of the guitar parts. I can't remember exactly but I believe that Bill played on about 60-70% of the guitars. The band were really at odds at this point. Patton, Gould, Bottum, and Bordin and I would track the stuff and then they would leave. Martin would come in after they had left and play guitar. The following day the band would come in to listen to what Jim had recorded and were furious! This lead to many, many heated phone conversations between the band (Bill especially) and Jim Martinl.

The basic tracking was done with almost NO COMPRESSION except about 2dB on the snare drum and bass guitar. Vocals were recorded with about the same amount. This was a conscious decision on my part because when "The Real Thing" was being mastered I almost cried because it sounded so shitty on my home stereo. Thankfully, though, it sounded ****ing amazing on MTV and radio. Whew! So, as a direct response to the thin, hyper compressed sound of TRT I went in the exact, total opposite direction. I did the recording with almost no compression and then in mastering is when I added the squish so that the entire record was compressed together instead of individual instruments being compressed.

The recording process was very, very difficult because Jim Martin didn't like the direction and was reeling from his father's death and this was also the time that Roddy was coming out of the closet (which really ****ed with Jim Martin). We were working at Coast and to say that the support at that studio was lame is an understatement. I will say that Gibbs Chapman, our assistant, was incredible during the 2" editing portion of the record. He and I were in separate rooms and were chopping the basic tracks together. However, once that was done I had to constantly hunt him down for assistance. Anyway, the fact that I was the producer, engineer, assistant enginer, and phone answerer (the studio had people call us directly on a phone line in the studio), and the fact that the band was at odds with eachother, made for a very difficult album to make. I took 3 months off after the record and was deciding if Iwanted to continue. ha ha. What a ****ing pussy I was back then.

By the way, while making AD someone broke the antenna off of my car and I had no functioning radio in the car until I gave it away a few months ago. Kind of ridiculous for a music producer to not have a working radio in his car. Lame. ha ha

Anyway, I have to go. Now that I'm hip to this forum I can check in, I guess. If you have any other questions post them and I'll see if I can answer them.

Once again, THANK YOU very much for your kind words and enthusiasm for the work that Faith No More and I did together. It is pretty cool to still have people talking about that record as we are all proud of the work that we did.

By the way, I have some out takes from that record that I'll have to release to the world sometime soon.

Matt Wallace

Hey gang,

To answer some questions about FNM's "Angel Dust"...

Both "The Real Thing" and "Angel Dust" were cut to a click. For the song "Epic" there are 28 razor blade edits done on that song to ensure that the drums kept the pulse. "Falling To Pieces" had about 24 razor blade edits, and oddly enough, these edits are quite audible if you go back and listen. I don't know how this happened as I did the edits exactly the same, with the same editing block, etc as other songs, but FTP ended up with noticable edits. Lots and lots of 2", razor blade edits on "Angel Dust" to keep the drums relatively tight with the click.

As to microphones, that was a while ago but I'm prety sure that there was an SM57 on the snare. A D12E or D20 on the kick with a U47 FET on the beater side (for Angel Dust), either 414's or 421's on the toms, some fancy assed Neumann or AKG mics for over heads (set up in a triangulated way-for AD album only-wherein a large diaphragm mic was positioned directly above the snare and another similar mic was placed at the far edge of the floor tom aiming towards the snare. both mics were measured and set to be at the exact same distance from the snare. on the monitor section these mics were panned opposite of eachother. i believe that this is an approach discovered or made popular during the Zepplin era), etc.

Anyway, have to go now. Chat with you all later.

Once again, thank you for your interest in the work that FNM and I did many years ago. I am thrilled that we did something that has, to this point, stood the test of time.

Many thanks,

Matt

p.s. I just found a bunch of DAT tapes with FNM stuff on them, outtakes, etc. Found the source material for the cheerleaders on "Be Aggressive". These gals were from the school where Patton's dad taught. Fun to listen to some of those tapes.

ditemi che non è vero!!!

io avevo capito:


Roddy era uscito fuori dall' armadio ( dove avev realmente scopato con Jim Martin)



troppo studio mi manda in pappa il cervello

come out of the closet:

scoprire le proprie tendenze sessuali