Record
Expenditures:
Fleetwood
Max
(Continuedfrom page 19)
Wc’vc been dealing, for the
most part, in generalities.
For some specifics on why
it costs so much to make a
rock album, we turn to a revealing article
by Howard Cummings in the May, 1978
issue of Recording Engineer I Producer. Richard
Dashut and Ken Caillat, who engineered
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, opened up with
some behind-the-scenes glimpses.
The original schedule, according to Cail
lat, was to spend five weeks recording the
album and another week mixing and editing,
all at the Record Plant in the San Francisco
suburb of Sausalito. By the time they were
finished, eleven months later, here’s what
they did:
Spent 18 hours a day 5 s.evcn days a
week, for 2Vi months in the studio writing,
rehearsing, and recording. Caillat says that,
as the sessions commenced, Lindsey Buckin
gham, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks
each had a few ideas; nothing more. After
those 2Vi months in the studio one in the
$l5O/hour class the band broke for six
weeks’ touring.
—Upon returning from the road, the band
and engineers listened to the tapes and de
cided that several songs'had been recorded in
the wrong key. All instruments save percus
sion were erased from the master tapes and
re-recorded in the new key.
The Mac are fastidious about their
sound. So much so that the engineers spent
18 hours getting proper miking of Mick
Fleetwood’s kick drum. The rest of his kit
todlc longer. After the 'initial set-up, the
engineers spent 2Vi hours each day tuning
and miking the drum set. The rest of the in
struments, each with its own problems, took
longer. Buckingham used several different
guitar-amplifier combinations; Christine
McVie used seven different pianos and em
ployed four different piano tuners at different
times.
By the time mixing and editing were
completed, Fleetwood Mac had rented
studio time, in Sausalito, Los Angeles, and
Florida.
No matter how fastidious they were
about their sound, by the time recording was
complete the tapes had worn through enough
that there was a noticeable drop in high
frequency fidelity. At that point, Dashut and
Caillat say 'they cancelled all dreams of win
ning a .“best engineering” Grammy. They
won it anyway.
There were so many orders for the
album that many more than the usual
number of master lacquers were made
enough so that for a while there were as many
as 19 a day being run off the increasingly-thin
master tape. Enough so that, according to the
engineers, there is an even more noticeable
fidelity drop between the first and second
million copies of the album. And so on, down
the line. The album has so far sold more than
fourteen million copies worldwide, all de
rived from that same tattered and torn mas
ter tape. ..
Angeleno Harold Bronson has produced records, including
“It’s Gonna Be a Punk Rock Christmas” by The Ravers,
none of which has cost $150,000.
October, 1978