Frank's additional notes on mixing technique (original) (raw)

From: Rob (rico@home.com)

The album was mixed on JBL4311 speakers.

From: Tom Mulhern's 83 Guitar Player Zappa interview

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~splat/interviews/gp83.htm

Q: The entire album's bass lines are played up quite a bit. Did you purposely spotlight the bass on the album?

FZ: I think that's a result of mixing on the 4311s -- it just gets accentuated. It's up in the mix, but not to a radical extreme for a comfortable listening level. I like bass lines. They're good, because for people who don't understand what's going on in the rest of the song, there's always the bass line.

Q: What kind of effects did you use on the guitar throughout the album?

FZ: I used a MicMix Dynaflanger and Aphex compressors. The signal is compressed after the hanging. And the hanger is set to follow the envelope of the high-frequency decay, rather than the amplitude envelope.

Q: What kind of difference would that make?

FZ: It gives a totally different sound. It makes a more pillowy effect from that particular device.

Q: Why would you compress the signal after the flanger?

FZ: Well, for one thing, you would compress it if you didn't want more hanger cycle. And hangers boost certain frequencies in the midrange that go hog-wild if you don't control them. So we started off just to control those frequencies, and then by cranking that Aphex compressor to some ridiculous extent we got this other kluge sound.