In creating a children's music CD, one of our
main concerns was making it sound as joyful as
possible for the kids and at the same time as
musically authentic as possible so adults would
recognize and enjoy their favorite Beatles songs.
Managing this tightrope act were major label
recording artists Brian and Scott Bricklin.
Brian handled all the production, engineering,
mixing and mastering work. For those unfamiliar
with these music industry terms, production refers
to the overall vision of the project (like a director
in the movies); engineering involves all technical
issues such as microphone placement, guitar tones,
and tuning; the mixing process takes all the individual
sounds from instruments to vocals to sound effects
and places them at the right volume to make a
pleasing sound; finally, mastering is the final
step in the process where the songs on the album
are all blended together at optimal volume levels
with the correct song order and fades.
Brian’s goal was to follow in the footsteps
laid by the pioneering musical direction of those
who worked with The Beatles: George Martin (producer),
Geoff Emerick and Norman Smith (engineers) in
Abbey Road Studios in England. Brian did such
a great job re-creating George Martin’s
guidance that we changed his credit on the album
from “Producer” to “Re-Producer”.
Scott Bricklin played the part of John Lennon,
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Unbelievably, Scott played every single instrument
on every single track on the album, except for
the harmonica on Love Me Do, which was played
by Marty Coleman of the Philadelphia based band
The Nebraskans. Because of his proficiency on
drums, guitar, bass, vocals, piano, synthesizers
and just about everything else including ordering
lunch, we nicknamed Scott – “The Beatle”.
On any given song, Scott and Brian would listen
down to a The Beatles’ original recording
(or, as we referred to it during the recording
process, The Demo) such as All You Need Is Love.
They would then determine the best way to emulate
The Beatles’ sound as produced in EMI #2
at Abbey Road. Scott would play the drums, then
listen again, then play the bass, guitars, sing
vocals and harmonies and add any other instrumentation
such as maracas, woodwinds, hand claps, etc.
Forty years later the songs of The Beatles still
ring fresh with their unbridled enthusiasm. We
tried to capture as much authenticity as we could
by using vintage, period accurate instruments
wherever possible. These included:
- Original early 1960’s Hofner Bass
(As used by Paul McCartney)
- Fender Bass (As used by Paul McCartney,
John Lennon and George Harrison)
- Steinway Piano (As used by Paul McCartney
and John Lennon)
- Rickenbacker Guitar (As used by John
Lennon and George Harrison)
- AC-30 Amps (As used by Paul McCartney,
John Lennon and George Harrison)
- Drums modified & mic’ed to
sound like Ludwig Drums (As used by Ringo Starr)
- Effects modules specifically modulated
to 1960’s Beatles Sound (George Martin)
- Chromatic Harmonica (As used by John
Lennon)
|
