Stevie Wonder:
Songs In the Key of Life
Stevie Wonder was one of the greatest soul artists of all time, with countless hits like Superstition, Isn't She Lovely and Sir Duke. But how did he manage to become so influential, well lets find out by looking at his album Songs in the Key of Life.
Crystal Sounds Studio
Stevie Wonder was very popular in the early
1970’s and a big influence with his work in the music industry similar to other artists likes Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles. Stevie signed a contract Motown on 5th August 1975, which gave him full artistic control over the album. A total of seventeen tracks were added to the final album and whilst Stevie recorded in a number of recording studios such as Record Plant, LA and The Hit Factory, New York City Stevie did the majority of recording plus mixing was completed at Crystal Sounds recording Studio, Hollywood.
The Head engineer at Crystal Studios, John Fischbach, aided
Stevie during the production of the album and had some unique recording methods. TapeOp.com got the chance to interview John and
this is what he told them. ‘My partner built a mixer, a mixer in that it
had faders on it, no EQ or anything just stereo faders, and we had three
2-track machines and the 24-track.’ He later told Larry Crane, the man
interviewing John Fischbach; they cut everything to vinyl at Crystal Sounds due
to the fact that they had a mastering room.
Stevie didn't want any tape to be spliced or reverb on the album and his main focus was to get rid of as much reverb as possible. echo chambers were used in the studios to cancel out background noise as well as having the first EMT-250 in America. This state of the art equipment at the time helped create a long lasting impact on the quality of the album. The EMT-250 also includes effects like phasing, delay and echo. However little of these effects were used by Stevie as he wanted to minimalize the reverb of the sound and instead add other sounds like kids laughing. This was achieved in the mastering process using the EMT-250.
Pastime Paradise
Pastime paradise was another
great single from Wonder and created inspiration for many artists after its
release. This track was one of the first songs to use the Yamaha GX-, a
synthesizer to perform the sting section of the track. This digital sound
combined with elements of percussion, recorded using an AKG 414, and a gospel
group created a memorable track with the expression of the song being more
sombre compared to his other tracks. For Wonder's vocal on some of the songs, the vocals were recorded using a Neumann 87 which is a large condenser microphone with a capability of omnidirectional, figure of 8 and cardioid polar patterns.
Sir Duke
419Z was the type
of microphones used to record the horns in the song Sir Duke and these dynamic
microphones were very good at picking up sound so Gary Olazabal set up these
microphones behind the horns as well as
having microphones in front of the horns like any other recording. This helped create a unique sound which made Sir Duke stand out as one of Stevie Wonder's greatest songs. The song was a tribute to Duke Ellington who was a big influence on Wonder especially for jazz. This tribute used four different brass instruments including a trumpet and tenor saxophone as Ellington was a jazz musician so to create a jazz feel to the song Wonder decided to use instruments that could create the sound of jazz.
Personnel
During the production of the album there was several personnel who contributed ideas and techniques into the recording besides Stevie Wonder. One of the most important people on the project was John Fischbach who was co founder of Crystal Studios, the studio Wonder used to record the majority of the album. This was important as then he knew about all the equipment in the recording studio and knowledgable in engineering techniques. He was in charge of the recording process on the multi tracks with Stevie Wonder's assistant engineer Gary Olazabal. He also mentioned in an interview that he cut all records onto vinyl at Crystal Sound Studios due to the fact that they had a mastering room. Another important engineer on the project engineer was Dave Henson who was assistant engineer on the album and was in control of aligning the tape machines as the entire album was recorded using analogue. Wonder used a small group of experienced engineers rather than a arge group of engineers to make the quality of the recordings more accurate to what Wonder wanted. And for the entire album there was more than 120 musicians in order to create the right expression for each song. For example I wish was a more upbeat so he got the musicians to use major chords and in the style of funk whereas Village Ghetto Land was slower in comparison and more meaningful due to the orchestral instruments used.
Ray Charles
Ray Charles was named as one of the most influential musicians of all time. inspiring several musicians such as Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Due to his incredible ways of producing music he even got the nickname of 'The Genius'. One of his countless albums, The Genius hits the road, changed the music industry due to the recording techniques used to create expression in his songs and this has similarities to Wonders album.
On The Genius hits the road Charles had large control over the production of the album and spent a lot of time with the producer, Sid Feller, editing the final recordings. This is very similar to how Wonder produced his album as both artists had large influences in the production which allowed the albums to be what they wanted it to sound like for the audience. In Ray Charles biography it describes how an 8-track recorder was used to isolate the bass for the first time which is another comparison to Wonder as they both used multi track whilst recording.
A difference between the two albums is the type of microphones used by the artists, where Wonder used AKG's whereas Charles used a variety of different microphones including RCA 44s and Western Electric 639's.
Stevie Wonders Compared to My Recordings
Wonder
had several people to help him when he recorded his tracks, from the engineers
to musicians. I recorded samples in lessons with a variety of different people
to help with SPL and to Mic up instruments correctly so that when recording the
sound track didn’t sound distorted. My job role when recording was to conduct
sound checks to ensure the recording was of a professional level. This meant I
had to have constant communication with the person setting up the microphones,
telling them where to position the microphone and what distance the microphone
should be placed from the instrument and the microphone itself. This is similar
to the work Gary Olazabal did on Wonders album, as he was also an engineer and
conducted sound checks for the bass used in songs like ‘I Wish’.
When
we recorded our samples it was all completed on digital equipment meaning no
physical copy of the tracks are produced and it is all done on the computer
using Cubase. This was not the case for Wonder’s album as technology was
limited in the 1970’s so everything was recorded using analogue. Analogue means
to record on recording film and tapes. Another
way our recordings differ is that we recorded in stereo. For example we used
one microphone to record an acoustic guitar however the recording is played back
through two or more channels making the sound seem to surround the listener.
This was also the case for Stevie Wonder as the recording studio ‘Crystal Sounds’
had the latest technology at the time so also used stereo recording.
Both
my recordings and Wonder’s album used similar techniques to ensure the quality
of sound was of a professional standard like using a pop shield to record vocal
and minimalize background noise. Also both recording had people assigned to
different roles. I was an engineer like John Fischbach and Gary Olazabal. The musician
Riess was completing the same role as George Benson as they both played guitar.
And the programmer Dan completed the sane tasks as Stevie Wonder did when completing
his album.
The communication between everyone in the recording studio
was clear, we assigned one person to be in charge of each individual role. The
roadie listened to me when setting up the mic stands during sound checks and
the musician was asking relevant questions, such as how loud to play, to ensure
there wasn’t any unwanted sounds being absorbed by the microphones. For example
you don’t want the C1000 to pick up the sound of fingers moving when you change
chord whilst playing guitar.
When recording we came across a few problems with the
microphones and the channels used. During recording we considered using the
C1000 microphone to record an acoustic guitar as the cardioid polar pattern
could pick up all the strings played without difficulty. Then once the
microphone was plugged into channel one, we had trouble listening to the output
transmission from the mic. Checking the gain on the channel and changing the
settings of the monitor on the program Cubase resolved this. Wonder didn’t use
digital recording so him and his team didn’t face this problem. During our time
in the recording studio we considered multiple aspects like the distance
between the microphone and the instrument as well as where to position and face
the microphone. We made sure the C1000 were facing the instrument but this was
not the case for Sir Duke, as discussed earlier.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Ray Charles: Man and Music by Michael Lydon
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