situation. Those and the Chandler 500 series get eighty percent. Then he’ll grab it and get I produced an EP for Hillsong Worship, What
pre-amps. If you have a bright sounding guitar ninety percent. And it’s usually whoever is A Beautiful Name, which came out at the start
and you want to make it brighter, I feel like the playing the part when it gets to one hundred of this year. One of the things it has is a string
API EQ is the perfect thing for it. percent will be the one who gets to play it. section. The song is called “What a Beautiful
We’re not too precious about who gets to play Name (Orchestral Selah)” The guy that worked
it on the albums. on the strings lives in Melbourne, and I reached
[WM] Any other favorite studio guitar tricks,
while we’re on the subject?
out and asked him if he’d be interested in
Dylan was in a car accident when he was doing some stuff for us. We had a really tight
[Michael] I’ve been re-amping a lot of stuff young, so he has kind of a funny memory. He turnaround, but I had a really good idea of
lately, which is a lot of fun. I’ll record the direct remembers some stuff really well, and other what we wanted. The concept was that we
input of the guitar, maybe while listening to stuff not so well. We’ll work on a guitar part for didn’t want to have big thick guitars and stuff,
my amp, but I’ll get the original DI signal that maybe three hours in the middle of the night, go we wanted it to feel like the emotions comes
I’ve recorded and I’ll run it through four or five home, and come back the next day, and Dylan from strings and orchestra sounds. Rather than
different effects and pick and choose between will be like, “Wow! This is an amazing guitar having beat guitars it would have horns fitting
effects. It’s like running parallel effects. It’s the part! When did we do this?” And I’ll say, “This that same spectrum. We sent him a bunch
one guitar performance, but you can do a lot of is what you played last night!” And he’ll say, “I of MIDI stuff, and he got a bunch of players
things with it. I’ve been doing that now for the played that? That sounds awesome!” It gives together
last two years, and it’s been awesome. me an extra sense of assurance that we’ve Orchestra Orchestra. He tracked that for us
from
the
Melbourne
Symphony
done a good job, when he loves it the second pretty early in the process, and then Dylan
[WM] Do you have a mic pre that you prefer time as though it were the first time. And that’s and I had the funny time of trying to fit the
when you do the re-amping? happened at least twenty times. guitars back into it. I can mute anything I want,
[Michael] I go out of the Radial X-amp There’s a style that Dylan has and some stuff felt like some of the emotion was a better payoff
500 Series Reamper, and then I go into the that comes very naturally to him. Even parts coming from the horns than it would have been
pedalboard and then back into the room. that he plays sometimes will be something that doing beat guitar parts. I feel like trying to fit
Another thing with guitar amps, the Chandler I’ve come up with. You can see on the albums guitar back into it definitely made me play more
Germanium preamps are really awesome. With that there’s usually a particular taste. So we like George Harrison than some of the other
the feedback quite high it makes them nice and kind of just stick with whoever can reproduce stuff that we’ve done in the past.
harmonic. But the Radial Reamp is what I’ve that part naturally. It’s pretty easy for us to figure been using a lot. that out.
because I’m in charge, but at the same time I
When Joel was writing the song “Shadow
Step”, which is the second song on the album,
[WM] You’ve said that there are sometimes [WM] For me, Wonder is a very different album he kept trying to finish the song, and while
three or four guitar parts in the mix. As you’re from a production perspective. It finally dawned finishing it realized that the lyrics didn’t fit on
crafting parts with Dylan Thomas, how do you on me as I was listening to it, that this is more the album, so he would then put some of those
decide who is going to play what part? And like Sgt. Pepper meets Abbey Road than lyrics onto another song. He did that six or
then how do you go about divvying them up anything I’ve heard you guys do. There is this seven times, so the whole album has a theme.
when you play them live? Beatles-esque element to this recording where Like, the word “wonder” is sung about eight
it feels like an album versus a bunch of worship times on different songs. So that helps people
[Michael] I’ve known Dylan since we were songs that got recorded. How conscious of see it as a concept album. Actually, you could
really young. His dad used to be the manager that were you? probably see the last four Hillsong United studio
for the first band that we were all in, so I’ve
albums as concept albums. Joel has a really
known him since he was about twelve years [Michael] I was very obsessed with George interesting way of framing songs, but then also
old. He’s quite a bit younger than me, but he’s Harrison when I was growing up. He was making them fit into a jigsaw puzzle as a whole
one of the few people who are pretty much on another reason why I thought the Gretsch album. It gives me a headache when trying to
the same wavelength as me. I’ll get caught up vibe was so cool. There was a period with The produce it, because I have to record so many
on a concept of what I want the guitar to feel Beatles where it went from being a four-piece lyrics and vocals, and then when one song
like, but I won’t really have the notes figured to the song being the most important thing. changes I have to change a couple of different
out. Dylan will grab the guitar and get seventy They would do all sorts of different things, like lines in each song. But when it’s all finished it is
percent of the way there. Then I’ll grab it and strings and horns and full orchestral sections. definitely a nice body of work.
August 2017
WorshipMusician.com
31