Rest in peace to the great Bruce Swedien who passed away today at 86, his great works include Thriller.
What made Thriller sound so good, what is it, whatβs good about it?
One of the best to ever do it, was fortunate to hear him speak at AES years ago. If you are not familiar go look up his credits immediately!
A great has passed away.. In light of that, here is a vid of him displaying his love and knowledge of the recording arts. RIP bruce.
I have not been able to find a proper news article but hereβs a FB post from his daughter:
https://www.facebook.com/100001817768231/posts/4849353848468493/?d=n
From his website:
Bruce has worked with the following artists (partial list): Patti Austin, Count Basie, Oscar Brown Jr., Jerry Butler, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Gene Chandler, Duke Ellington, Roberta Flack, Herb Alpert, Dizzy Gillespie, The Chi-Lites, Lionel Hampton, Jennifer Holliday, Mick Jagger, B. B. King, George Benson, John Lee Hooker, Herbie Hancock, Woody Herman, Missing Persons, Lena Horne, Paul McCartney, Tommy Dorsey, Dinah Washington, Oscar Peterson, King Curtis, Donny Hathaway, Betty Everett, Phil Ford & Mimi Hines, The Four Seasons, Eydie Gorme, Leslie Gore, James Ingram, Michael Jackson, The Jacksons, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Curtis Mayfield, Sergio Mendes, Buddy Miles, Bob Newhart, Andre Previn, Louis Prima & Keely Smith, Jimmy Reed, Diana Ross, Rufus & Chaka Khan, Nipsey Russell, Dinah Shore, The Smothers Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Frankie Valli, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Joe Williams, Jackie Wilson, Jennifer Lopez and many more...
He recorded, mixed, and assisted in producing the best-selling album in the world, Thriller (1982) by Michael Jackson. He also recorded and mixed for jazz artists such as Count Basie, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, The Second Coming, and Jeff Oster
Bruce Swedien, the engineer behind one of the biggest albums of all time, Thriller, is more than experienced and welcome to share this opinion, believing that riding the faders, proper gain staging and using professional musicians are better than using compression, but do you agree with him? Has compression become a lazy habit? Has it become necessary as a stylistic choice for certain genres? Or is it just a case of learning how to use it properly?
I became aware of this quote last year and made a conscious effort to learn how to understand and properly use compression (which I can thank various posters on this subreddit for helping with((compression turns things down, not up!)) ), rather than my previous method of whacking a comp plugin on every track in a session thinking it was necessary. I'm even coming to the point where I'm trying to use compression as little as possible in my mixes, opting for volume automation and saving it for parallel and side chain techniques instead to see if that makes me realise when is the right situation to use compression and how to apply it tastefully too. But how do you use compression? How often? And are their particularly compression techniques you swear by?
Recording and Mixing "Billie Jean"....
The year is 1982. The song is "Billie Jean". The sonic image of Michael Jacksons' "Billie Jean" is a perfect example of what happened, when I sat around dreaming awhile, about combining different recording techniques to produce a unique musical canvas with a tremendous 'sonic personality'.
Of course I was comfortably ensconced in Westlake Audioβs beautiful new Studio βAβ on Beverly Boulevard, with my good friends Quincy Jones, Micheal Jackson and Rod Temperton. We were doing our favorite thing... We were making music!!! We had just started recording Michael Jacksonβs album βThrillerβ...
We were recording Michaelβs song βBillie Jeanβ.....
I recorded the drums,(played by the fantastic drummer, N'Dugu) with as tight, and powerful a drum sound as I could come up with. Of course I put N'Dugu's drum set on my plywood drum platform. Also at this time, I had a special kick drum cover made that covers the whole front of the kick drum. There's a slot with a zipper in it that the mike fits through. When the kick drum mike is in place, in the slot in my drum cover, I zip the opening tightly shut around the mike.
I brought in my old pal George Massenburgs' spectacular sounding, portable, 12 channel recording console and used it to record the rhythm section. With it I recorded the bass, drums and guitars on my analogue 16 track, with no noise reduction equipment in the way of that fantastic sound!
In my estimation, the the result of the song βBillie Jeanβ, is a perfect example of what I call βSonic Personalityβ. I donβt think there are many recordings, where all you need to hear is the first few drums beats, and you instantly know what song it is.
Great albums always start with great songs....
"Billie Jean" is just such a superb song! Of course, Michael wrote "Billie Jean"..
Quincy says that the lyric that Michael wrote is highly personal. Iβm sure thatβs true. Michael told us... it was about a girl, that climbed over the wall at Michaelβs house, and was lounging out there, by the swimming pool.... she was laying out there, near the pool , lounging... hanginβ out... with shades on, her bathing suit on. One morning she just showed up! Kind of like a stalker, almost. She had accused Michael of being the father of ONE of her twins... Is that possible? I donβt think so....
When it came time for me to mix "Billie Jean", it was business as usual... When I am working with Michael, Quincy, Rod, Jennifer, Sergio and so on..... I a
... keep reading on reddit β‘