Bruce and MJ

Because I've just bought a Blue "Snowball" USB microphone (because Stephen Fry uses one and I had yet to find a good one), I got to talking to TTL about microphones and sound. He said some interesting things:

Yes, microphones and microphone preamps are like lenses to camera people.

When Bruce Swedien (the recording engineer who recorded Michael Jackson's Thiller among others) starts a recording project, a big truck will arrive at the studio and out of the truck comes a number of huge flight cases. What's in them? Bruce's personal mic collection and his mic preamp collection. No studio in the world has mics and preamps to match Bruce's or to satisfy his requirements. Other recording engineers can only drool at the stuff he has. :-)

Bruce explained how Michael has the habit of dancing when he sings even in the studio! Singers normally never do this as they want to concentrate on producing an unrestrained voice and giving their best possible vocal performance. But for Michael dancing is apparently so much a part of his art that he can't just stand still and sing.

Now, the job of a recording engineer is to capture events in audible form. So Bruce, the undisputed king of the craft, came up with the idea to have a special hard plywood platform (I think he said 12x12 feet) built just for the purpose of recording Michael. He would have him on the platform when singing. The difference being that the unpainted wood surface would make his dancing AUDIBLE! The sound of his steps would then bleed into the vocal microphone and become part of the rhythmic texture of the song! (Every song, in fact.)

As a demonstration, he played the vocal track from "The Way You Make Me Feel" which blew away absolutely everyone in the audience - most of whom were seasoned recording engineers. Bruce relates another Michael anecdote at the end of the clip.

(eolake:)"Brilliant. And how daring, since he no longer will have a clean lyrics track."

Yes, daring indeed. Also, what I forgot to mention is that if you listen to the YouTube clip you will notice that his rhythm is perfect. He is like a metronome. It is only because of this inherent quality that Bruce even came to ponder how to make the dancing audible.