The music industry may have fallen on tough times, but you wouldn’t know it if all you had to go by was Joe Chiccarelli’s weekly planner.
A highly-decorated engineer and producer, whose award-winning career began in the Boston area where he was raised, Chiccarelli has worked with some of the best talent in the business, including Beck, U2 and Elton John.
And he’s never been busier. Chiccarelli recently mixed and produced a new release by Clem Snide called “The Soft Spot.”
“I heard some of the group’s earlier CDs and liked them a lot,” says Mr. Chiccarelli. “They’re a very song-oriented band with a very alternative sound.”
Since Clem Snide lives and works out of New York City, the L.A.-based Chiccarelli has been working on the record at the newly christened Brooklyn Studios. “It’s a very nice studio to work in. They’ve got a Neve 8068 console and a lot of other vintage gear, which I like to use.”
Chiccarelli travels with a suitcase full of his own gear, and these days it’s packed with a Daking Mic Pre/EQ and a Daking FET Compressor.
“John Siket turned me on to the Daking stuff several years ago. He’s a great engineer who’s worked with Sonic Youth and Dave Matthews,” comments Mr. Chiccarelli. “John and I were working on a record for Interscope at the time, with a band called Huffamoose. I was impressed with both units as soon as I heard them.”
“Geoff had told me that the Daking Mic Pre/EQs were reminiscent of the Trident A range consoles. Early in my career I worked at Cherokee Studios, and they had a bunch of those boards, which I really liked.”
“Geoff was right. The mic pre’s do have that 70’s quality that the Trident A epitomized. They have a very ‘present’ sound, with a forward mid range that isn’t overly hard. The 70’s sound is characterized by big, warm tones and lots of live on the top end, whereas the 80’s sound is smaller, harder and edgier. The Daking mic-pre’s have that 70’s sound that I love.”
Daking 52270B Mic-Pre/4 band Equalizer (top) and 91579 Compressor/Limiter both feature all-discrete transistor circuitry and class-"A" amplifiers
“I’ve used the mic-pre’s and EQ’s on a variety of instruments, from acoustic and electric guitars, to snare drums and drum overheads, and on vocals. The Daking FET Compressor is excellent for drums. It also helps with room mics and electric guitars. I did a jazz album in Canada not long ago with vocalist Jane Siberry and the harmonica player Carlos Del Junco. Jane’s a wonderful, moody singer. I set up the FET Compressor on the input chain and it worked beautifully with her voice.”
Sometimes, less is more, says Mr. Chiccarelli. “For the drums on this record we simply set up a single Royer 121 stereo microphone, and passed signal through a pair of Daking FET Compressors. The result was a fantastic drum sound.”
“I also used this compressor on the drums I recorded for Tracy Bonham’s new Island Records album. The producer on this project, Greg Wells, has his own studio, Rocket Carousel, in Louisiana. We used the Daking FET Compressor on the acoustic guitars as well, and it made them sound very bright and alive, but not overly hyped. With rock bands in particular I tend to go for sounds that have lots of character and personality; I don’t want a sterile, hi-fi sound. So I like compressors and mic-pre’s that have a distinct vibe, and Jeff’s stuff does.”
These days, finding the right combination of tools is part of the producer’s job. “I use a lot of digital technology, and nearly every record I cut these days is tracked in ProTools. For me it’s a question of marrying the new stuff with vintage gear, or with gear like the equipment Jeff Daking makes, to warm up the digital sound. I’m working with a cutting edge Latin group, Cafe Tacuba, which has an album coming out on Universal. There’s a lot of live playing on this record, but the group also uses sequences and techno elements that give it a very unique feeling.”
Geoffrey Daking & Co. Web Site
TransAudio Elite Web Site (U.S. Distributor)
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