[ Tom ] Everybody knows you from all your creative input into albums like Dark Side of the Moon. There’ s so much going on there in terms of panning effects, sampling, tape cutting, and looping. Did you have all that in your imagination before you went in? And did you originally envision all that in surround sound?
[ Alan ] I was certainly thinking of‘ quad’( as it was called then). For example, the loop on“ Money” was designed to walk around the room in quad. And I recorded the clocks for“ Time” at an antique shop on 4 separate tracks, so they would be in quad. We knew the day would come when technology would catch up with us.
[ Tom ] How many years did it take before that happened? Quad never really materialized, but surround sound is basically the same thing?
[ Alan ] For consumers, surround technology came many years later, and thank God, because all of the sounds were there on the multi-track tapes, ready for the‘ Dark Side’ remix.
[ Tom ] So … quad was 4 speakers but“ Money” is in 7 / 4 time, so there are 7 elements in that loop, right?
[ Alan ] Yes, and if I had the chance to remix it again, I would make it bounce around continuously instead of jumping to front left at the end of each cycle. I would have loved it to
continue to go around the room. Maybe we’ ll do that for the 100th anniversary remix!
[ Tom ] And when we say“ loop” we’ re not talking digital...
[ Alan ] No, digital didn’ t exist. I had to measure out with a ruler and cut the tape with a razor blade for each cash register, each sound effect, and then splice them together so they were precisely in time. Then I had to pull the tape out of the tape machine, join the ends, and run it around a mic stand to create the continuous loop.
[ Tom ] I’ ve often wondered about this. With 7
Alan at the Pink Floyd mixing desk
elements in the loop, when it comes back in at verse 2, and you’ re using analog tape … how did you get the loop to line up again?
[ Alan ] When the loop comes back before verse 2, it was just a happy coincidence that it happened to fit. I had faded out the loop when they started to play verse 1 and it just so happened that they were back in sync at verse 2 when the loop comes back in.
[ Tom ] Your journey in music has taken you through some epic moments in rock history. Any crazy“ Stories from the Studio” you can share with us?
[ Alan ] When I was recording Paul McCartney on“ The Long and Winding Road”, at that time it was a fashionable thing to do a“ talking verse” like the Everly Brothers did on“ Love is Strange”. Paul tried it with the line“ Many times I’ ve been alone, and many times I’ ve cried”, the spot which now has Richard Hewson’ s soaring string line instead. Paul only tried the talking verse on that one take, but I remember thinking that it was brilliant!
Alan’ s“ Art & Science of Sound Recording” is available at ArtAndScienceOfSound. com
Alan Parsons Project
Tom Brooks: Grammy winning producer / engineer, studio owner, university professor, keyboardist for Alan Parsons, author of“ The Language of Music”
TomBrooksMusic. com
26 Sep � Oct 2017 GearTechRec. com