You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
I have always been interested in Spatialisation of instruments and where they are placed in the stereo plane on different albums.
So, I listened to AFD last night again, still cuts like a freshly sharpened cutlass, beautiful album. I was listening to the production with great attention.
Something struck me in the production. It is very straight forward Izzy one side Slash the other. Extra slash parts on the big chorus' of the songs.
The production was kept very tight. Izzy's lines are restrained to a very definite "space" in the music. Slash's are also consigned to a very definite space.
Izzy's lines though they are not as numerous as slash's seem to grab you more!
They have a sharper sound and are intriguing because he has a great stylistic approach of skipping certain notes and syncopating his rhythms wildly, very emotive stuff.
Slash's seem more straight forward and his guitar tone somewhat less appealing. In fact a lot of the time he seemed to be just filling the empty space behind Duff's bass line.
The drums take up that space in the centre of the song axls vocals are positioned over them and the bass comes at you from both sides dead centre but fill a taller space than the guitars. Izzy and slash are panned to opposite sides sometimes interchanged I think, and as I said for the big chorus' Slash gets a second guitar line.
It seemed however that outside of his solos he was consigned to a very small range of the actual recording, for those big chorus' his second line was placed behind the bass.
So, all that said here's the theory.
Slash was unhappy with how Mike Clink Represented his playing on AFD and when it came time to record UYI he fought hard to have his guitar front row centre
Thus adding to the tension in the band and making the album sound some what more bloated as a result.
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
Your description is good, but IMO your assumption is not. The Illusions had basically one guitarist, cause Izzy wasn't around, according to them. It was over in his mind.
I remember an old Slash interview from the GN'R days where he complained that he had to double his guitars to have enough lines and sometimes they used old Izzy recordings from old demos.
You can hear it all over the record, except some songs, that Izzy didn't make two much effort in the collaboration. He wrote some basic tracks the others tried to explore, but the twins suffer of the absence of the great rhythm guitarist Izzy was (is?).
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
I prefer most of UYI to AFD, so whatever he or they did to make it sound the way it did was a-ok with me. Slash and Izzy had some amazing guitar interaction on AFD, but it was there on UYI as well, though apparently in some cases it was Slash interacting with Slash.
listen to the beginning of Locomotive through headphones and one channel at a time. Not the most technically difficult guitar parts ever, but the way the two interact is top notch. It was missing from Snakepit for the most part and it's missing from VR. I imagine it will be missing from his solo album too. I love Slash, but when he was on with Izzy, it was magic as far as I'm concerned. Minus Izzy, something has been missing. It's not that he's been bad, but it just is missing something.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
Yeah I think Locomotive is one of the "All slash" tracks...brilliant song!
Interesting post about the production, but I do agree with the poster above, I think the more slash heavy sound is due to izzy's absence rather than slash ego.
But then I think the guitar parts on Snakepit 1 are just as cool as most GNR parts....it's just lacking axl's touch...but musically it was there.
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
Yeah I think Locomotive is one of the "All slash" tracks...brilliant song!
Yeah, no Izzy there.
But then I think the guitar parts on Snakepit 1 are just as cool as most GNR parts....it's just lacking axl's touch...but musically it was there.
Agreed, the guitar playing on the first Snakepit album is probably Slash's best.
I do think that Eric Dover did a great job, but he's not in Axl Rose's league for sure.
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
I always found the production on AFD to be it's weakest point. It's straight forward and raw, but the guitars lack the finesse that you find on UYI. Other than that, the drums are way to heavy on the reverb and the overheads/hi-hat are too loud in the mix. The bass could probably carry the sound a bit more as well, to fill the sonic spectrum.
As for UYI, just go listen to the intro to Don't Damn Me to hear the perfect recorded representation of a full guitar sound. And this without the current bag of tricks of doubling and re-amping used all over the place (I'm guilty of that too... it's just so much easier to get a full sound that way 
).
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
I always found the production on AFD to be it's weakest point. It's straight forward and raw, but the guitars lack the finesse that you find on UYI. Other than that, the drums are way to heavy on the reverb and the overheads/hi-hat are too loud in the mix. The bass could probably carry the sound a bit more as well, to fill the sonic spectrum.
As for UYI, just go listen to the intro to Don't Damn Me to hear the perfect recorded representation of a full guitar sound. And this without the current bag of tricks of doubling and re-amping used all over the place (I'm guilty of that too... it's just so much easier to get a full sound that way
I agree with your thoughts, but recording technology improved a lot between 1987 and 1991. I think the first Snakepit album is the perfect production of rock guitar sound.
Re: Spatialisation - Theory on Mike Clinks role in Shaping GNR
I agree with your thoughts, but recording technology improved a lot between 1987 and 1991. I think the first Snakepit album is the perfect production of rock guitar sound.
Absolutely. IFOCS is guitar production heaven. And I know technology changed a lot, but production style as well and although AFD wasn't following any trends by any means it does have some stylistic elements that really date it. Doesn't change the fact that it's a brilliant album and musically GNR's best (imho), but a re-recorded version of that album with modern production techniques (although blasphemy in terms of lighting-in-a-bottle striking abilities) is definitely something I would like to hear - purely out of audio-geek interest.
