When there are producers like Sylvia Massy around, the discipline shouldn’t be said to have lost its appetite for experimentation.
Massy has produced albums by the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down, and Tool, as well as welcoming other artists to the studio.
It is possible that Massy is the reason artists sign up for him. It is part of it. Her restless search for new sounds and new ways of engineering a record that other producers might consider just too radical is one of the factors.
She has done things like smashing up pianos with Tool, exploding a Hammond organ for a Lady Strangelove album, and having Alabama Thunderpussy record their guitar and bass guitar parts in an abandoned cooling tower at a nuclear power plant.
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George Martin only dreamed of passing an electric guitar signal through cheese sausages.
The experiment was conducted while Massy was in Germany. The signal from the amplifier was sent through a pair of cheese sausages in order to add something to the sound.
The process of making music is always a learning experience according to Massy, who documents a lot of this on YouTube.
It was Massy’s first time using cheese sausage as a conduit for an electric guitar, and it brought a whole new meaning to the idea of a heavily processed guitar signal.
She says that they put a pair of cheap sausages into the speaker cable. There are two sausages, a positive and a negative one. We are going to have some attenuation with the power soak.
Is cheese sausage better for guitar playing? The title of the video is “That is the question” James Birdsall is going for the lead guitar tone with his guitar.
The frontman has his approval. He thinks it breaks up a little bit. The sausage makes a nice break up.
Massy believes that the inferior quality of the sausages helped with the break up. It is time for the experiment to end.
Massy was recording a song with Flying mammals. Massy rigged up an old Bsendorfer with a pair of Neumann KM 54s and a Sontronics Apollo 2. It was all very normal. It’s nice gear. After skirting the harp and running a hose inside the piano, the sounds were captured through a funnel taped to the hose.
Massy has a lot of information for those looking for new techniques.
She says that this is a tried and tested method. There’s a real visual element to this, too, with the sodium content making the pickups light up as the signal passes through it.
Don’t forget to drop by the supermarket on the way home and stock up on the food you want, once you have the best audio interface. You won’t go hungry if the music doesn’t work out.