[WM] Speaking of mics, the guitar sound in
“As You Find Me” is gorgeous. What are some
of the biggest differences between how you
approach mic’ing guitar live and in the studio,
and do you ever capture raw DI guitar live to
preamp in the studio?
Hillsong UNITED // “As You Find Me”
[MGC] The biggest difference with this new
United album is I DI’d all of the guitars. I think
on the night we probably had two amps each
and used Shure SM57’s, the regular mics that
you would use on a guitar amp. Then I came
back into the studio and ran the DI out. I had
a pretty elaborate amp setup, I think we’ve
talked about this in the past, but I have five
different amps that all have pretty different
characteristics. So like for Dylan I just ran
Shop Talk with Dylan
back through his performance, for example
people that use them would know what that’s ended up recording at our house. It just has “Whole Heart”, which has no Dylan electric
like. If you don’t have a perfect mix you cant a sound that is really directional. If I do any guitar overdub whatsoever, it’s all just his actual
just bump an ear off. overdubs on an album, I’ll still use an SM7. I performance from the night, which is why we
just think they sound great. look stressed out on stage. Same thing for me,
so I did no overdubs, and you can tell because
The irony of that whole thing is we had set up to
not use in ears or even headphones at all, we’d We did that Israel album, Of Dirt and Grace, at the start of “Whole Heart” there’s one or two
set up to record without and hear it organically. and that was all done on SM7’s so we did no notes that don’t ring through properly. At first it
So I was like, “You can sing into the mic but vocal overdubs for that at all so what you hear kind of bugged me, but then I figured, well, it is
you’re not going to hear anything…” and Joel is what you get, and I love how directional they live and I don’t want to be cheating, so we just
was like, “I think I want to hear something.” So are and that they don’t pick up too much noise. left it as is.
it was a little more elaborate setup, but we went That song with Joel playing the piano, the piano with headphones. We had everything ready to is really loud, and the fact that it didn’t really So, it’s just the way I usually record guitars. I’ve
go, but the original concept was that we would pick up much on the SM7 was a really good got an Orange cab which I’ve been using for a
do it all without headphones. testament to how directional they are. long time, and I have a 57 and a Royer 121 on
that which I record at the same time. I have a
[WM] As noted in that video, the Shure SM7B pretty cool amp switcher which lets me run a
is getting a love of love these days. Can you tell few different heads into the Orange cab, and
us what about that mic you enjoy most? then I’ve got my vintage Vox AC30 which I’ve
been using since I was seventeen.
[MGC] I’ve been using SM7’s a lot. I used to
live with a guy who was really into SM7’s, and I Then I have my go-to outboard stuff. I use the
used them a couple times on vocals when we Chandler LTD1 mic pre, then I use the API 550A
had booked a studio that fell through and we
20
Hillsong UNITED // “Touch the Sky”
April 2019
EQ, and then I’m running it into the Chandler
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