Robert Herndon Project
In Memorandum
During the recording of Back in Black, Engineer Tony Platt recalled, "With AC/DC, it had always been about the riff - and on Back in Black, there would be plenty of them: “Hells Bells,” “Shoot to Thrill,” “You Shook Me” (eventually the band’s first Top 40 hit) and the unrelenting title track featured the dynamic interplay between Angus’ right-channel SG lead and brother Malcolm’s left-channel Gretsch rhythm. From his control-room vantage point, Platt realized the sound he was after was already coming through the monitors; processing and other add-ons would be purposely left off the rhythm tracks. “We all had a good idea of how we wanted it to sound right from the start,” says Platt, “and so our goal was to get it on tape there, rather than leaving it for the final mix. Being restricted to 24 tracks meant that a lot of the decisions would be made early on, which also added to the feeling of immediacy. But most off all, they just played it like it is! There was hardly any patching required - we’d just cut takes until we had a nice balance of perfection and feel.”
As so often happens, on Back in Black the make-up of the studio itself helped determine the recording dynamics. “The set up and approach was quite different from Highway,” notes Platt, who’d come aboard during the mix phase of the previous album. “Highway had been recorded in a very dead studio, so much so that during mixing I’d fed various parts back through the speakers and into the studio, recording the result for extra ambience. So when it came time to do Back in Black, the idea was to get that ambience on tape right from the start. The room at Compass Point was fairly large but had a low-ish ceiling, which concerned me a little as I didn’t want the room to compress the sound. We spent some time choosing the right position for the drums by hitting a snare in various parts of the room. I discovered a ‘sweet spot’ where the snare suddenly sounded bigger, deeper, fuller and most important, snappier. I subsequently discovered that there was a void above this position that was obviously allowing the sound to rise without choking it!”
For Angus’ solo tracks (which were overdubbed), Platt employed two stacks, one in the main room and another in a live chamber at the far end of the building. “We used Angus’s radios to transmit to these amps,” says Platt. “The radios actually proved to be quite an important part of the sound, as they added some mid bite. I used two Neumann U67s on each cabinet, so I could pan the result where I wanted. And absolutely no compression was used at all.”
Pay attention here:
"Mixing for the album took place at Electric Lady Studios in New York shortly after the sessions were completed. “The size of the sound is really a combination of things,” says Platt. “The tuning is good, the arrangements are spacious, the recording isn’t heavily processed, aside from some subtle addition of delays and light reverb just for extra ambience. I remember we also monitored quietly so we could balance carefully.”
Been an AC/DC tone guy for a long time....
As so often happens, on Back in Black the make-up of the studio itself helped determine the recording dynamics. “The set up and approach was quite different from Highway,” notes Platt, who’d come aboard during the mix phase of the previous album. “Highway had been recorded in a very dead studio, so much so that during mixing I’d fed various parts back through the speakers and into the studio, recording the result for extra ambience. So when it came time to do Back in Black, the idea was to get that ambience on tape right from the start. The room at Compass Point was fairly large but had a low-ish ceiling, which concerned me a little as I didn’t want the room to compress the sound. We spent some time choosing the right position for the drums by hitting a snare in various parts of the room. I discovered a ‘sweet spot’ where the snare suddenly sounded bigger, deeper, fuller and most important, snappier. I subsequently discovered that there was a void above this position that was obviously allowing the sound to rise without choking it!”
For Angus’ solo tracks (which were overdubbed), Platt employed two stacks, one in the main room and another in a live chamber at the far end of the building. “We used Angus’s radios to transmit to these amps,” says Platt. “The radios actually proved to be quite an important part of the sound, as they added some mid bite. I used two Neumann U67s on each cabinet, so I could pan the result where I wanted. And absolutely no compression was used at all.”
Pay attention here:
"Mixing for the album took place at Electric Lady Studios in New York shortly after the sessions were completed. “The size of the sound is really a combination of things,” says Platt. “The tuning is good, the arrangements are spacious, the recording isn’t heavily processed, aside from some subtle addition of delays and light reverb just for extra ambience. I remember we also monitored quietly so we could balance carefully.”
Been an AC/DC tone guy for a long time....
