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Authors: Kim Cooper
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quality to it, too. And he was used to writing on the acoustic guitar. And so I had developed an acoustic guitar sound on my own that he was really happy with by the second record, and I think it’s really good.”
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
is one of the fuzziest records ever made, and yet it is completely lacking in over-the-counter fuzz effects. Every bit of distortion was handcrafted to satisfy the demanding ears of Jeff and Robert. Robert explains, “In general, when I record, I tend to max out the equipment. I push the compressors really hard. I like to push the mics. Jeff really liked everything to be coated in a layer of fuzz. I worked very hard to get the fuzz sound—and it was different than the first record—it was a lot better. The fuzz sound is a lot more warm than it is on the first record, and it’s a lot more thick and it permeates the record more. Both of Jeff’s records are very fuzzy compared to other stuff I’ve done. That was a production choice I made, because that was what Jeff wanted to hear. So, regardless of whatever else we were doing, I made everything a little fuzzy just to make it palatable to him. It wasn’t even his vision, because he wasn’t aware of it, it was just his preference. It was what would make the track get used. Any time he didn’tlike something, I would end up putting it through fuzz and play it back to him before he would reject it or keep it. A lot of times he’d end up rejecting it anyway, but I would always put it through a fuzz first.
“We didn’t use fuzztones at all. There are no Big Muffs or distortion pedals or anything like that. I had a few different pieces of equipment at the time. I had a Bellari RP-220 tube mic pre-amp that would distort back on everything. I put the microphone close to Jeff’s guitar. An acoustic guitar has a rattle to it. For me, what’s appealing about acoustic guitar is the way it buzzes. I would position the mic in such a way that it would catch some of that. So right off the acoustic guitar, you’re getting some distortion-like sound—it’s off the strings. Then we put it through the mic pre-amp, and it would be distorted—not terrifically distorted, just a little distorted, so it just sounded overloaded. Then I put it through the mixing board and distorted the mic pre-amp on the console too, then pushed the tape very hard. There were a lot of different sources of distortion, but it was all studio distortion, there was no effect distortion. And also that distortion included horns. Almost all the instruments were sounds that were carried through the air—squeezeboxes, a bagpipe, saws, drums, acoustic guitar. And there was fuzz bass, there was a banjo through the fuzz pedal.
“Every time I used a microphone, I distorted it. So there was some distortion on almost every single instrument. And microphone distortion is different from line-in distortion—line-in distortion sounds punchy, microphone distortion sounds round and thick—and that’s why the Neutral Milk record has that feeling. Microphone distortion is an artificial device you can use in the studio as a production and engineeringchoice, to simulate the energetic sound that you’re trying to get. It’s there, the people are playing it—how do you catch it on tape? You do certain artificial things to capture it. One of them is distorting the microphones. It was partially theoretical for me at the time, because I tend to operate a lot on theory, and it was partially just feel. I was just going by what I thought felt right, because I was learning how to engineer. I don’t mean to always focus on things I did, because it was just a small part of it, but it’s the part that I remember the most and that I was closest to. The sound of those things being distorted, and capturing it that way, is something that I developed immediately upon starting to record that record, that sounded like that record to me. The whole time we were recording, there was a certain sound
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
is one of the fuzziest records ever made, and yet it is completely lacking in over-the-counter fuzz effects. Every bit of distortion was handcrafted to satisfy the demanding ears of Jeff and Robert. Robert explains, “In general, when I record, I tend to max out the equipment. I push the compressors really hard. I like to push the mics. Jeff really liked everything to be coated in a layer of fuzz. I worked very hard to get the fuzz sound—and it was different than the first record—it was a lot better. The fuzz sound is a lot more warm than it is on the first record, and it’s a lot more thick and it permeates the record more. Both of Jeff’s records are very fuzzy compared to other stuff I’ve done. That was a production choice I made, because that was what Jeff wanted to hear. So, regardless of whatever else we were doing, I made everything a little fuzzy just to make it palatable to him. It wasn’t even his vision, because he wasn’t aware of it, it was just his preference. It was what would make the track get used. Any time he didn’tlike something, I would end up putting it through fuzz and play it back to him before he would reject it or keep it. A lot of times he’d end up rejecting it anyway, but I would always put it through a fuzz first.
“We didn’t use fuzztones at all. There are no Big Muffs or distortion pedals or anything like that. I had a few different pieces of equipment at the time. I had a Bellari RP-220 tube mic pre-amp that would distort back on everything. I put the microphone close to Jeff’s guitar. An acoustic guitar has a rattle to it. For me, what’s appealing about acoustic guitar is the way it buzzes. I would position the mic in such a way that it would catch some of that. So right off the acoustic guitar, you’re getting some distortion-like sound—it’s off the strings. Then we put it through the mic pre-amp, and it would be distorted—not terrifically distorted, just a little distorted, so it just sounded overloaded. Then I put it through the mixing board and distorted the mic pre-amp on the console too, then pushed the tape very hard. There were a lot of different sources of distortion, but it was all studio distortion, there was no effect distortion. And also that distortion included horns. Almost all the instruments were sounds that were carried through the air—squeezeboxes, a bagpipe, saws, drums, acoustic guitar. And there was fuzz bass, there was a banjo through the fuzz pedal.
“Every time I used a microphone, I distorted it. So there was some distortion on almost every single instrument. And microphone distortion is different from line-in distortion—line-in distortion sounds punchy, microphone distortion sounds round and thick—and that’s why the Neutral Milk record has that feeling. Microphone distortion is an artificial device you can use in the studio as a production and engineeringchoice, to simulate the energetic sound that you’re trying to get. It’s there, the people are playing it—how do you catch it on tape? You do certain artificial things to capture it. One of them is distorting the microphones. It was partially theoretical for me at the time, because I tend to operate a lot on theory, and it was partially just feel. I was just going by what I thought felt right, because I was learning how to engineer. I don’t mean to always focus on things I did, because it was just a small part of it, but it’s the part that I remember the most and that I was closest to. The sound of those things being distorted, and capturing it that way, is something that I developed immediately upon starting to record that record, that sounded like that record to me. The whole time we were recording, there was a certain sound
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