album or cover daft punk random access memories

Album or cover daft punk random access memories pro#

Mastering, the process where a completed mix is adjusted for optimal volume and tone, is especially crucial to dance music, which depends on tracks hitting listeners hard. To help get that effect, the band mastered “Random Access Memories” with Ludwig in his Gateway Mastering studio in Maine (the Paris-based Chabert also worked on the mastering). INTERACTIVE: Times music staff best of 2013 list The engineers’ challenge was to capture the vintage, precise feel that Daft Punk wanted, but also hold the ears of a teenager streaming songs on Spotify through cheap Apple ear bud headphones.

Modern pop and dance music uses techniques like digital compression to make records stand out, a necessity for pop radio formats where songs have just seconds to grab a listener. “In the mix, a lot of times we were trying to get back to how things sounded before the ‘volume wars,’” said mix engineer Guzauski, referring to the recent fad for using compression to make pop songs feel louder. “What we got to experience, to have master musicians in the greatest spaces, was the most amazing thing,” Lerner said.īut as pleasurable as the album was to make, Daft Punk’s fetish for vintage recording methods meant that their tracks would, in some ways, purposefully feel behind the times. Budgets today are so little and this was such a pleasure.” “These were such luxurious sessions,” said Lagatta, the French engineer who handled much of the vocal engineering on the album. The conditions behind the recording of “Random Access Memories” - one of the music industry’s biggest acts secretly spending around a million dollars of their own money to record in L.A.’s most expensive studios for half a decade - aren’t likely to be repeated soon.

Album or cover daft punk random access memories pro#

While the team used music editing software like Pro Tools to assemble tracks, most of the album was recorded onto several different analog tape formats through vintage microphones, outboard effects rigs and a hulking and well-preserved Neve mixing desk, not unlike the one celebrated in Dave Grohl’s big-screen documentary tribute to analog recording, “Sound City.” studios like Henson, Capitol and Conway, along with Electric Lady in New York City and their own Paris studios.Īn engineer’s job can range from selecting and properly placing microphones to running the mixing board, choosing effects and generally using their technical expertise to execute a band’s vision for their sound. Over five years, the engineering crew - Franco, Guzauski, Florian Lagatta and Daniel Lerner - worked with the band in world-class L.A. In another shift from the band’s futuristic musical aesthetic, Daft Punk hired a team to re-create the expensive, perfectionist L.A. They collaborated with veteran guests like Rodgers, disco producer Giorgio Moroder, the Oscar-winning songwriter Paul Williams and a bevy of session musicians who had performed on Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton and Herbie Hancock albums. Here they only used hand-designed electronics like modular synthesizers and vocoders. On “Random Access Memories,” Daft Punk largely ditched the digital trickery of their old albums (where they used software and machines to sample and manipulate pieces of tracks). Much of it is made on computer software using samples and virtual instruments. I think Daft Punk wanted to have that experience and see what they could do here.”Īmerica is awash in the electronic dance music (or EDM) that Daft Punk helped popularize in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. All of my favorite albums were done in these kinds of studios. “Anyone can record in their house, it’s so cheap and simple to make a record today,” said Peter Franco, one of four nominated engineers who worked with the band during the recording process (another two of the nominees, Bob Ludwig and Antoine Chabert, mastered the album). A week before the Grammys, four of the engineers nominated for their work on “Random Access Memories” gathered there and remembered how good it felt to take their time recording.