Rick Rubin interview with Zane Lowe

[KovalainenFanBoy]

 

Lots of interesting stories and anecdotes. Rubin seems like a really nice guy

[YO303]

he might be a nice guy but hes a terrible producer

[Guest bitroast]

he might be a nice guy but hes a terrible producer

 

terrible?

he seems fine as a versatile producer bringing out the good in artists. dude knows how to make good records :|

[Bechuga]

He's good at removing the chaff and letting the band/artist get on with it. Case in point: Johnny Cash, those solo acoustic albums are good stuff.

 

I'm also fond of the album he recorded* for American Head Charge. Good riffs/vocals on that thing.

 

edit: *produced, natch

[YO303]

really? have you listen to Californication ?

 

a bunch of artists have come out and say hes a terrible producer (as in he doesnt do anything other than get paid) and decide not to work with him ever again.

[joshuatxuk]

 

he might be a nice guy but hes a terrible producer

 

terrible?

he seems fine as a versatile producer bringing out the good in artists. dude knows how to make good records :|

 

 

He's good at removing the chaff and letting the band/artist get on with it. Case in point: Johnny Cash, those solo acoustic albums are good stuff.

 

I'm also fond of the album he recorded* for American Head Charge. Good riffs/vocals on that thing.

 

edit: *produced, natch

 

good producer, iffy engineer at times, or at least complacent to overcompression

[delet...]

really? have you listen to Californication ?

 

a bunch of artists have come out and say hes a terrible producer (as in he doesnt do anything other than get paid) and decide not to work with him ever again.

 

Who are those artists? I'm not trying to invalidate what you are saying, if anything i am a little suspicious of someone that is so enamoured with kanye. It's funny, when he was first asked about kanye, you could see a tell that showed he knew that he was going to have to lie about some stuff, micro expression of mirth as well "ahh yes, he's this super intellect, a hope for humanity". heh. I hope people don't take that interview at face value, cause it's pretty clear that you don't want to piss off all these artists that keep coming round and dumping money at your door.

 

I didn't watch past the talking about sabbath, cause it was all rather banal. I wouldn't have minded hearing the biographical stuff but i didn't have the patience to wait for it and if i skimmed it would have been difficult to pin down where to start without bothering too hard.

[Guest bitroast]

really? have you listen to Californication ?

 

a bunch of artists have come out and say hes a terrible producer (as in he doesnt do anything other than get paid) and decide not to work with him ever again.

 

Californication was the first album I ever purchased as a kid. I loved the shit out of it. Great rock/(rock pop?) music.

 

As for the mastering, I can say now that it's absolutely shocking. I can't argue that. But is that even part of Rick Rubin's process? i'm not too sure, because the vinyl of it sounds fine and both are produced by Rubin, so I assume the mastering gets handled by someone else.

 

It's a great record of the band for where they were at at the time.

[YO303]

out of the top of my head Slipknot said he was absent the whole them and got paid a lot to do nothing, he mentions slipknot in the interview which he turned into some bullshit about leaving the artists to think for themselves (which i agree but you dont need to get paid millions to let artists think for themselves, lol)

 

i dont even care really, im not into the artists he works with anyways, i dont know why i posted in this thread BYE BYE BYE BYE

[Guest bitroast]

bye.

(none of your posts made too much sense? you asked if I heard Californication, but didn't really provide any clarification as to what your point was after that. then you said most bands don't continue go back to him after working with him, without providing any examples. I mean, take your own unrelated example (californication) for example, red hot chili peppers continued to work with him after californication and produced something like 3 or 4 albums after that.) and now you're leaving the thread without clarifying or expanding on your point? gahhhh. this forum is tormenting me *n*!!!

[YO303]

sorry im listening to cylob and its making me do "wrong things"

 

(in my opinion californication in unlistenable, sounds like i downloaded the album thru limewire)

[YO303]

i would like to apologize for my behaviour in this thread, we all make mistakes, feel free to delete all my posts in this thread.

 

 

[Guest bitroast]

naw man, I was just trying to work out where "terrible producer" came from.

 

 

 

that music sucks! you have bad taste in music!

 

 

[beerwolf]

Legend, and after watching this (thanks for posting) I like him even more.

[Klopjob]

Anyone who calls him a terrible producer must bring their own material to the table or shut the fuck up.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Kinda bummed Zane didn't ask him about the compression issue, seeing as it's Rubin critics haters main complaint, but that was expected (Zane is the least confrontational interviewer you can think off). Everything about this inteview is a bit sugar coated, "everything is awesome", but still it was a pleasant listen.

[beerwolf]

He doe's ask him about negative comments from Slipknot and he gets a straight answer.

 

Sure Rubin lost his way in the last few years, so fucking what? His name has been printed on the back of stuff I bought from Run DMC, Slayer, SOAD and Cash etc etc etc. The man is a visionary yet people want to concentrate on the minor hiccups. As fucking always.

[Guest bitroast]

really? have you listen to Californication ?

 

a bunch of artists have come out and say hes a terrible producer (as in he doesnt do anything other than get paid) and decide not to work with him ever again.

 

oh lol, here's me retracting my previous comment.

 

just saw this on the Wikipedia:

 

John Frusciante has stated his dissatisfaction with the album's overall mix on a few occasions.

 

"To tell you the truth, I've had a really hard time accepting that By the Way is actually finished, On my record you'll notice any interesting sound that comes in is loud. For me that's what keeps my interest going in a record. I don't want them to get in the way of the vocal, but I am also not paranoid about stepping on the vocal. Rick really mixes the vocals high and pushes anything that matches the vocals' power back so it doesn't come anywhere near it. I can't even listen to our last record because of that; the mix just drives me so crazy. For the first time Rick was nice enough to let me have something to do with the mixing process, where I was saying how loud to put this harmony next to this harmony and stuff. But the big picture was left to him. But in the course of time I've really developed my own opinions as far as that goes..."

 

"...With By the Way there are so many things about it I wish were different and I can't let go of it, you know? I can't just admit to myself that it's happened. We remixed Can't Stop for the single and I like that mix a million times better and we just did a remix of Universally Speaking because they're thinking of releasing that as a single, and I like that a lot better too. When we get these opportunities to remix songs I get to get them the way I want. I guess I hadn't really refined my ability to trust my own instincts about things. I was used to just handing the tapes over and letting Rick mix them however he felt best and I was always happy with them. My approach now is so much more multi-dimensional than just playing guitar."

[Audioblysk]

He produced Deloused in the Comatorium

 

Nuff said.

 

Edit- I like the mixing on Californiacation. Not a huge RHCP fan, but that record is fun. I dunno. If you don't like the mix that much, do it yourself, or tell the producer you (or more likely, your label) pay to let you mix with more input the way you want it to sound.

[delet...]

I think frusciante was talking from the perspective of a guitarist, musician too. The public on the other hand, want vocals up front, it's the vocals that draw them into a song, it's what they connect to. I know it's strange for us to think about, especially me as i've never really heard lyrics in songs. Just recently i heard a couple of ancient tracks from a couple of different bands and for the first time i heard more than just the first few words of the chorus. You know what i mean, actually heard them, as language and not just another device to add inflection in tone and rhythm to the song. Was weird, made me think that maybe something was wrong with me.

 

Anyway, that's what i mean by frusciante's coming from a guitarist's/musicians perspective. Now i haven't heard that album, because frankly everything about it would probably have sucked to me so i can't comment on whether rubin's production was good or not. But perhaps on this point rubin was mixing for the sake of album sales, because the market hears music differently than musicians do. Sometimes i think that they're aren't musical at all. Emotional, sure they are, but mostly they're in it for the spoken feels. The music is melodic baggage.

 

Oh course i could be wrong on this theory, i probably just have a very warped sense of music appreciation and no idea what anyone else is thinking, heh.

[Zephyr_Nova]

I really like the mix on By the Way, but it's the harmonies that really sell it for me. It is easily their strongest album vocally. I can understand why Rubin would have chosen to have the vocals way up front for that reason. I do however recall hearing a SOAD album he produced where the vocals were so loud relative to the guitars that it was just dumb. Sucked all the heaviness right out of it. He does have a good track record for getting great performances out of bands, and not interfering too much on the creative side of things. By that I mean when I hear a Rick Rubin production, I don't feel like I'm listening to a Rick Rubin production -I feel like I'm hearing the band. Sometimes things are clipping and sounding like ass from a sonic perspective, but the energy and the vibe is there. But he has also released some really good sounding productions. A lot of the time I think that's thanks more to the engineer/mixer he's chosen to work with... or entirely because of it. I don't think he's really a mixer, more the guy who offers opinions to whoever's covering that end of things (ie. "the vocals should be more up front, Greg.") His strength as a producer is setting up an environment that's conducive to the artist working at their best, then interfering as little as possible. That's always been my impression anyway.