Brendan O Brien

[Sleezy E]

Man, check out Brendan's feet. Like a lot of super creative people he is super fidgety.
Like his insides are going 1,000 mph in an 100mph world.

I was watching that too.. when Rick was playing songs it looked like his foot was counting 32nd's

 

[la szum]

"How did you get X, Y, or Z's sound?"

Brendan, "That's just him."

 

[la szum]

no gear or plugins will make you sound like Brendan, but (as we mentioned EMT250’s) this deal is pretty great and for £40 is a pretty unbeatable way of getting:

- EMT250
- Neve 1084/2254
- 1176
- 3 Tape models
- Juno 106

Softube Essentials Collection

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Sweet! Thanks for the legwork and share.

 

[la szum]

Brendan also seemed to confirm that Under The Bridge was indeed a Jaguar and not a Strat.

 

[Sleezy E]

I always liked the "aaahhh haa" on the Trippin on a Hole solo. Now I know the story

Hilarious

 

[MirrorProfiles]

EL Fatso by UAD is an awesome plugin btw, I’m not aware of a native equivalent. PSP Vintage Warmer might do something similarish, although I’ve never compared side by side.

But a FATSO is basically the only piece of gear I’ve ever used that instantly makes me think of Brendan’s drum sound. It’s also a favourite of some of my other favourite mixers like Cenzo Townsend, Alan Moulder and Ben Grosse

 

[Whizzinby]

I always liked the "aaahhh haa" on the Trippin on a Hole solo. Now I know the story

Hilarious

The song in general is ace, but that solo is

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Something that just kind of struck me - Brendan must have been pretty selective with the mixes he got involved in. Like you’d imagine off the back of Limp Bizkit and Korn he could have just piled the work in and done all the copycat bands. Most of those heavy hitters have quite a lot of bands that didn’t go anywhere, whereas O Brien’s discography is largely huge albums.

The other thing that’s kind of noticeable is how many legendary musicians have repeatedly gone back to him.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

absolutely KILLER thread here from TOP, possibly the best I’ve seen from there tbh.

Ryan Williams AKA Louderock posting loads of interesting stuff from his time at Southern Tracks.

How we made records in the 90's

Thought it would be cool to share some of my experiences from making records in the 90's. I would guess most of you didn't get to see that sort of thing up close and may be interested in it. I went to GA State and got a degree in Recording/Music Production and started working at Southern...

www.thegearpage.net

 

[FuzzyAce]

absolutely KILLER thread here from TOP, possibly the best I’ve seen from there tbh.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

just have to read ONLY ryan’s posts in the thread.

Lots of mentions about tape and machines:

Slate VTM is A827 and A80, and has 456 tape at 30ips. No it won’t make you sound like Brendan but it’s still cool. UAD Studer A800, IK A80 and U-he satin are all solid too. Sounds like Ryan just uses decapitator and other plugins for saturation these days

 

[FuzzyAce]

just have to read ONLY ryan’s posts in the thread.

Lots of mentions about tape and machines:

Slate VTM is A827 and A80, and has 456 tape at 30ips. No it won’t make you sound like Brendan but it’s still cool. UAD Studer A800, IK A80 and U-he satin are all solid too. Sounds like Ryan just uses decapitator and other plugins for saturation these days

Thanks. You can post the cliff notes here.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Ha a lot of stuff was things Brendan mentioned. It’s a bit more specific about gear and routing etc but nothing that you wouldn’t expect.

Cool how they kept it mostly down to 24 tracks to avoid needing to sync 2 machines. So much stuff that translates well to mixing in a DAW even if the same technical limitations don’t exist.

 

[woody]

And great records have been made with totally inferior gear..... otherwise known as "not the best gear
from the time period."

Gear is fascinating. But is it ever the most fascinating aspect or element of the end result? I wonder.

Seems like the greats look at it all as more utilitarian than utopian.

From my limited experience the difference between "great gear" and "not the best gear" is that the "not the best gear" requires you to get very conscious about it's limitations. That involves a lot of fiddling with the right settings and the right mic positions.
Great results can be had this way, but it takes a lot of effort, time and trial and error.

If you have a mic with wretched off-axis response, in a so-so room you need to take time to place the mic to minimize the so-so wretchedness (or make the most of it).
That might mean futzing around until a musician is past his or her most excited performance.

Great gear lets you move a lot faster.
If you have a mic with great off axis response in a great room, it does not matter too much where you put it and you'll have a great sound.
As soon as there's a musician pumped and inspired for a great performance, you can capture that take.
If you can spend some time with great gear in a great environment to get sounds, they will be awesome and inspire your musicians to great performances.

Similarily great musicians will give you a track that needs minimal fuzzing around come mix time.
I talked to a fried a couple of days ago and he made recordings with his band and he sad that "The most difficult thing for him was making the vocals sound great".
Some days later I came across this video, here:


I get that Sinatra is not everyone's cup of tea, but man, his performance is just on point.
And from what I've read his vocals on this track weren't compressed, to his request.
It's just his performance. Mix done.


I guess my take on this is: The greater your available gear is the less it impacts the process.
And "it does not matter" gets a subtly different meaning, then.

 

[Achilles]

I get that Sinatra is not everyone's cup of tea, but man, his performance is just on point.
And from what I've read his vocals on this track weren't compressed, to his request.
It's just his performance. Mix done.

I've listened to lots of his earlier stuff both studio and live.
The dude's voice was his instrument and he was a virtuoso with it for sure!

 

[FuzzyAce]

From my limited experience the difference between "great gear" and "not the best gear" is that the "not the best gear" requires you to get very conscious about it's limitations. That involves a lot of fiddling with the right settings and the right mic positions.
Great results can be had this way, but it takes a lot of effort, time and trial and error.

If you have a mic with wretched off-axis response, in a so-so room you need to take time to place the mic to minimize the so-so wretchedness (or make the most of it).
That might mean futzing around until a musician is past his or her most excited performance.

Great gear lets you move a lot faster.
If you have a mic with great off axis response in a great room, it does not matter too much where you put it and you'll have a great sound.
As soon as there's a musician pumped and inspired for a great performance, you can capture that take.
If you can spend some time with great gear in a great environment to get sounds, they will be awesome and inspire your musicians to great performances.

Similarily great musicians will give you a track that needs minimal fuzzing around come mix time.
I talked to a fried a couple of days ago and he made recordings with his band and he sad that "The most difficult thing for him was making the vocals sound great".
Some days later I came across this video, here:


I get that Sinatra is not everyone's cup of tea, but man, his performance is just on point.
And from what I've read his vocals on this track weren't compressed, to his request.
It's just his performance. Mix done.


I guess my take on this is: The greater your available gear is the less it impacts the process.
And "it does not matter" gets a subtly different meaning, then.

Yep. A great singer, musician is going to sound great through anything. That's a fact most can agree on. With that said, there is also a reason mics like the U67, U87 etc, preamps like a 1073 etc. are ambiguous, it's because they work on everything and capture an ideal sound. Performance is everything, knowing how to capture it is 2nd, great gear is 3rd but huge if the the first 2 are at a high level as well.

 

[AutomationBias]

I was today years old when I learned Brendan played the solo on Hard to Handle.

Holy shit. I've loved the tasty phrasing of that solo since the first time I heard it

Man, I've always wondered! I got to see them right after that album came out and it definitely didn't seem like the same guitarist.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Watched this the other day. Dude was a classic rock producer and just didn't know it. Great sounds and super cool guy.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

MAKE NO MISTAKE it is Brendan that makes the records sound the way they do and not the gear. This is purely as a quick reference to nerd out on, sometimes finding this information scattered across various parts of the internet can be cumbersome and I like to document this kind of stuff.



Let me know if anyone would like anything added.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

just from my messing around, driving those tape machine plugins using 456 at 30ips and the UAD fatso definitely give some O Brien flavour to things. i’ve always associated his mixes to have transients more smoother out than other guys (i.e more average level, less peak).

case in point - listen to these drums, a very typical O Brien mix IMO. a good bit of tape saturation (and presumably Fatso in parallel).