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Rick Rubin and Creating THE Sound
Rick Rubin is a legendary producer. Whether you like his style or not he has left his mark on the music industry. He set up Def Jam and American recordings and they released some classic albums by artists such as the Beastie Boys, The Cult, Public Enemy, Masters of Reality, Danzig, Metallica and one of my nostalgic greats by Wolfsbane. It is one of his most recently produced albums I want to bring to the readers attention though. He produced the Black Sabbath album 13.

 
Rick Rubin

 
Rubin is very much an unorthodox character. Some musicians have found him too unconventional and used the media to portray him as an overpaid producer who uses too much compression on later albums. They state that he is not around when needed but all this is speculative and the albums I have heard sound pretty damn good. The latest Sabbath album had to have one major element and that is tone. The video below explains it perfectly; the sound should be one that follows on from the original first set of albums. The classic ‘tone’ is found on ‘Black Sabbath’ through to ‘Vol4’. Of course, Tony Iommi’s guitar tone has always been remarkable. He designed and pretty much shaped the overdriven, saturated sound that must have been overwhelming in the 70’s. When the original members of the band reformed in 2005 they gained a new respect for each other. After a world tour they went their separate ways but came together again and the concept of a new album suddenly came to life. 35 years after Never Say Die, Black Sabbath went back into the studio.
 

unorthodox!
 
 
Rick Rubin was the right choice. The new album certainly goes back to the very beginning. The sound is one of pure terror and one that can only be recorded and captured by a master of the art. Laney and Iommi brought out the second signature amplifier that updated Tony’s sound and it was used on the album. That together with Geezer Butlers inspirational bass style created another Black Sabbath classic. To me this is a bit of a lost art nowadays. I know that the Foo Fighters recorded an album in a garage with analogue equipment in recent years. The songs I have heard are pure and radiate a live atmosphere. To record like that is slow and can be a frustrating process. Doing it with modern mixing and recording techniques and making that sound pure is hard. There are parts of the 13 album that do sound ‘produced’ but they are very few and far between.
Andy Sneap is another great producer that is more orthodox in his approach. He specialises in metal and hard rock. A great example of his work, and his guitar playing, can be heard on the album ‘Human Remains’ by Hell. The sound is live sounding with incredible production. Sneap is much sort after for his mixing and mastering and his back catalogue credits are astounding. Maybe if Sabbath make another album it should be made by Andy Sneap?


 

Rick Rubin with Black Sabbath



Andy Sneap




In the studio with Rick and Sabbath

 
Back Sabbath official website
Tony Iommi's official website
Andy Sneap's Backstage Productions
Category: Music | Views: 1395 | Added by: James | Tags: Rick Rubin, Andy Sneap, Black Sabbath | Rating: 0.0/0
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