Musician's Friend | 1 decade ago
Michael Wagener has produced and engineered recordings that have sold over 90 million copies worldwide. Renowned in the industry for big, heavy guitar sounds, Michael's impressive list of credits include Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Janet Jackson, Kings X, Dokken, Skid Row, and many more.
Bonus Tech Tip from Michael Wagener
As part of his recording process, Michael uses a technique he refers to as "Real-amping." In his own words, "What I do is, record the guitar with an amp sound and also as a DI track, using the Creation Audio Labs MW-1
( http://ow.ly/1QKE3 ). Then later, if I decide I want a bit more or less distortion, or want to add another amp tone, I use the MW-1 to send the DI signal back out into an amp. Sometimes it's easier to decide on the final amp sound when there are already a lot of the other instruments recorded. Works also very well when you want to add different sounds to a track."
Michael's guitar amps of choice include the Randall modular series and Industrial Amps Rock 120, though lately Michael has become a big fan of Egnater amps (Link: http://ow.ly/1QKFb ), " . . . those are my newest find, love them." The Randall setup that Michael has been using as his primary tone factory with artists such as Kings X, comprises Randall two RT2-50 stereo tube power amps (http://ow.ly/1QKGt ) and two Randall RM4 preamp chassis (http://ow.ly/1QKHt ) (with one connected through the effects loop of the other). In one RM4, he Randall modular preamps he uses are the XTC Bogner (http://ow.ly/1QKIZ ) (his favorite among the Randall preamps), 2 Kirk Hammet KH-2 (http://ow.ly/1QKKQ ), and a Dan Donnegan 1086. In the other RM4 are four George Lynch preamps: Grail (http://ow.ly/1QKNr ), Mr. Scary (http://ow.ly/1QKOM ), Brahma (http://ow.ly/1QKPA ), and Super (no longer available).
Michael's guitar recording signal chain Michael was kind enough to share his signal chain for recording distorted guitar: "I use the Royer R-121 ribbon mic (http://ow.ly/1QKYe ) into the Chandler Ltd. TG-2 preamp (http://ow.ly/1QKZn ) (for plenty of character), then to the Crane Song Hedd (for presence and tape saturation)." We also asked Michael if he EQs the Royer R-121 (http://ow.ly/1QL10 ) during tracking to make the sound fit better in the mix. According to Michael, "I normally try to track almost everything without EQ; that method will require some overall high-end lift at mix time (with the Manley Massive Passive (http://ow.ly/1QL2b ). In my opinion, the nasty stuff in guitar tones happens in the high-end range (probably due to good/bad transformers) ... The R-121 (http://ow.ly/1QL49 ) smoothes out exactly that area of the frequency band. And yes, I put the R-121 (http://ow.ly/1QL49 ) about 2" away, right in the center of the speaker where I get the most high end."
Of course there's a lot more to it, and you can learn direct from the master of heavy guitar recording himself—check out Michael Wagener's Production Workshop at www.michaelwagener.co/html/wshops.html
Michael also offers Real-amping as a service to anyone who wants his hit-making guitar sound. Imagine having the guitars on your recording produced by multi-platinum producer Michael Wagener—and you don't even have to leave your home. Check out Michael's Real-amping at http://www.michaelwagener.com/html/realamp.html
