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MONTRÉAL,
CANADA: Sarah McLachlan's new CD, "Afterglow"
released on November 4th, 2003 finds her teaming
up once again with her long-time producer Pierre
Marchand. Marchand, who grew up in Montréal
and established himself as both musician and engineer
in Canada years ago, has produced four albums for
McLachlan. In addition to producing her previous
CD, the multi-platinum seller "Surfacing",
Marchand co-wrote three tracks ("Building A
Mystery" "Aida" and "Witness").
"Afterglow" was recorded at many different
project studios, including Marchand's facility in
Morin Heights, Quebec, Canada where several of the
songs are being mixed. Most of the project, scheduled
for release on the Nettwerk/Arista label, is being
mixed in Ms. McLachlan's home studio in Vancouver.
Marchand has used Neumann microphones to track Sarah
McLachlan's vocals exclusively for the last two
records they've worked on together. "We've
been using the Neumann M 149 on Sarah, and it works
beautifully. When we recorded her earlier CDs, I
was using an old Telefunken U 47 that needed a lot
of EQ tweaking to get the sound I wanted. Then when
I got my hands on the M 149 I found that leaving
it flat sounded very close to perfect! The M 149
is a very sweet sounding mic. It has lots of warmth
and presence, and the purist highs. Sarah loves
that mic, and I haven't tried any other mic on her
since we started using it."
RECORDING PERCUSSION AND DRUMS WITH TRUE
Jerry Marotta was asked to contribute his drum and
percussion skills to three songs on the new McLachlan
CD. Marotta, who has toured with Peter Gabriel,
the Indigo Girls, Hall and Oates, Tears For Fears,
Elvis Costello, and Paul McCartney, is also producing
these days. His credits include a pair of songs
for the new Indigo Girls CD, "1200 Curfews".
A resident of Woodstock, New York, since 1986, Marotta
operates his own studio, Jersville, in that rustic
town. All of his parts for the McLachlan project
were recorded at Jersville. "I met Sarah while
I was working at Le Studio in Morin Heights, producing
an artist named Larry Gowan for Sony records. Sarah
was working down the road with Pierre Marchand.
They were recording tracks for the "Fumbling
Towards Ecstasy" CD and asked if I would come
in and play on some existing tracks. At the time
I had just discovered the wonders of "Taos"
drums, made in New Mexico by Native Americans.
"Having done the first two Lilith Fair tours
with the Indigo Girls I kept in contact with Sarah
and her husband Ash Sood, who is also her drummer.
In the spring of this year I got a call to play
on some tracks for Sarah's newest record. This time
Pierre brought a hard drive to my studio, and my
close friend and bassist Tony Levin and I did about
six tracks in three days. My engineer, Pete Caigan,
and I have really tailored the studio for drums
and percussion. Two rooms almost exclusively dedicated
to live drums and perc, can you believe it?!"
Marotta is a big fan of True Precision 8s, and used
them on the McLachlan sessions. "The first
time I experienced the Precision 8s was on a recording
for a label called Spotted Pecary in Southern California.
Owner/engineer Howard Givens had me doing more Taos
drums and perc and I was absolutely blown away at
the sound coming back at me. Howard was using the
Precision 8s on the drums and the sound was awesome.
He was involved with Tim Spencer - the designer
of the mic pre's, and was doing some refining to
the sound of the unit. I quickly installed two P-8s,
16 channels, into my set-up at Jersville and started
using them non-stop. Except for the occasional Neve
EQ or compressor, they are responsible for a major
part of the drum sound at Jersville Studios. Everything
from cymbals to Taos bass drums, and all the strange
percussion instruments I've accumulated over the
years, all translate beautifully through the True
gear. I also find the two DI's in each unit sound
great and come in very handy.
In addition, I've really gotten to see what the
True gear can do this spring while recording my
own band's CD, Marotta, Griesgraber, Jones. From
fattening up (if that's possible) a Prophet 5 and
Prophet VS to the Chapman Stick, we pretty much
ran everything thru the P-8s or the newer P-2s.
And while I love all this analog gear, I'm looking
forward to using their digital versions, too."
The Precision 8 is designed and built by Sunrise
Engineering, a design and build manufacturer located
in Tucson, Arizona. Neumann distributes True Systems
in the U.S.
Neumann's award winning line of microphones has
set the standard in the industry since 1928. In
1999, Neumann received the prestigious Technical
Grammy(r) for their 70 years of innovation in microphone
design and contribution to the music industry. A
continuing commitment to provide innovative, technically
refined products and engineering solutions of proven
quality ensures that Neumann's stature will remain
unassailable.
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