Countryside Manner
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Justin Kleinfeld
With Seventh Tree, Goldfrapp's Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp change the landscape for a more expansive yet introspective sound
AMATEUR HOUR
Despite his previous career in film scoring and as a session musician playing saxophone for the likes of The Cure and Portishead, Gregory's role as the main physical production mind behind Goldfrapp is very much immersed in a DIY mindset. Apart from a simple studio setup, there aren't many bells and whistles that go into making Goldfrapp's music sound so polished. “I don't think of myself as a typical producer, and technically, we are both the producers of the music because we both make all the decisions,” Gregory says. “There are lots of things that I don't know about production, but I think the amateurish approach is part of our spirit. If we knew what we were doing, I think it wouldn't be quite as interesting. We both jam ideas together or bring in ideas/sounds to initiate stuff, and we are both there all the time making it happen, either writing, arranging, producing or mixing.”
With few exceptions, Goldfrapp's setup has largely remained the same throughout the years and centers around a common and small amount of analog gear, computers and digital programs. Gregory operates an Apple G4 loaded with Logic Pro 6.4 software. “I would like to know other programs, but my life is too short to learn more,” Gregory says. “Logic is ages to get through, and I don't think I have it in me to learn more.” Included in the Logic setup are various plug-ins, such as the GarageBand acoustic guitar instruments (“It was used often to write with in lieu of the fact that neither of us play guitar,” Gregory says) and Celemony Melodyne software. “We use Melodyne quite a lot because it's great for tuning backing vocals and many soft synths,” he says. “The program is great for getting something down quickly, and we often used it on vocals to correct mistakes and to copy and paste lead vocals two or three times onto different tracks and then pitch the stuff around to create two- or three-part harmonies. It's easier than turning on a piece of old analog equipment, waiting for it to warm up and then finding out it's out of tune. By the time it works, you forget the musical idea you had in the first place!”
The core analog synths and keyboards include ARP 2600; Farfisa Compact; Fender Rhodes; Hohner Clavinet; Korg MS-20; Oberheim 4 Voice SEM modules; Polyvox (Russian synth); Roland Jupiter-6, RS-505 Paraphonic string synth and SH-09; Wurlitzer electric piano; and Korg Polyphonic Ensemble. Used most notably by Jean Michel Jarre on his classic Equinoxe album, Gregory singles out the Korg Polyphonic Ensemble as an essential piece of analog gear. “It's got a very '70s cheapness to it, which is really appealing, and it has a sound that makes you want to play more,” he says. “Because it's 48-note polyphonic, you can put very long decay on the sound and go on playing without sounds stopping or re-triggering. This results in beautiful cascades of '70s-ness.”
GOLDENVOICE
There are few contemporary female vocalists with a voice that can match Alison Goldfrapp. While she doesn't have the most powerful vocal, it's certainly unique, and for the most part, authentic. Gregory claims that most of the strange patterns you hear in Goldfrapp's voice (for example, check out the awesome echoing sound toward the end of “Little Bird”) have not been enhanced by any studio trickery. “Of course, when we want to make things lo-fi, we put the vocal through a synth and crank it a little bit hot or put it through a distortion unit,” Gregory says.
Alison Goldfrapp isn't just a singer; she also uses her voice as an instrument and a placeholder for other instruments. During the jamming process with Gregory, Goldfrapp often sings melodies for other instruments and ends up writing parts based on these vocal ideas. However, there are instances in tracks like “Lovely Head” (featured on Felt Mountain) where Goldfrapp's voice was manipulated to sound like a vocal/machine hybrid. “There are a few bits of old analog gear designed to enable guitar players to play the piano or keyboard,” Gregory says. “Essentially, the guitarist is supposed to plug their guitars into the synth, and the synth was supposed track along with the guitar sound. Of course, it didn't work properly because the gear was primitive. So instead, we plugged Alison's vocals into things that were originally designed for a guitar, and they sounded great. These sorts of things are really luck — when you do things you aren't supposed to and they sound good.”
Beyond having a great voice or understanding how to work with a great voice, an essential piece of gear for Goldfrapp and Gregory is a solid microphone. From the beginning, the AKG C 12 has been the microphone of choice. The C 12 was the world's first remote—controllable, multipattern, large-diaphragm microphone and was produced from 1953 through 1963. Because of its short production life span and status among audio engineers for being one of the finest vocal microphones ever created, availability is scarce and cost is expensive. “The C 12 has a lovely airy top end that suits Alison and adds a breathy edge to her voice, although she also sounds good on a Shure SM58. I'd love to get a Neumann U 47 (the first multipattern condenser) because it's the mic of mics, but I haven't found one that I can afford,” Gregory says.
OPTIGAN ILLUSION
Although far from being a gear junkie, Gregory always seems to pick up a new gadget for the production of each Goldfrapp album. During the recording of Supernature, Gregory picked up a 1960s Univox fuzz pedal made famous by renowned guitarists including Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. Although created for use with the guitar and bass, Gregory had fun adding serious fuzz and distortion to his keyboards.
When looking for a new toy for the recording of Seventh Tree, Gregory turned to Mattel and one of its most ingenious creations, the Optigan (OPTIcal orGAN). Manufactured in the 1970s, the Optigan was a cheap home organ that spun clear discs, optically preset with looped recordings of instruments. A sequence of chord buttons provides a rhythm section, while the melody is played with the right hand on the 37-note keyboard. “The disc we used in particular is called ‘Folk & Other Moods,’ and it had this lovely crackle to it,” Gregory says. “It was made in the '70s, so it comes with this built-in crackling sound, and it was a nice way to initiate the material we used on the album.”
“We used the Optigan on ‘Eat Yourself,’” Goldfrapp continues, “and it had this old woody and folksy guitar sound with a very rustic feel. I did this little scat over the music, and it definitely sounded nice and interesting.”
Another of Gregory's favorite studio tricks involves putting sounds through his Moog Music MF101 Moogerfooger Low Pass Filter Pedal (which removes the high frequencies from a tone) and turning sounds backward. “It's so much easier to do these days because you don't need to turn over the tape anymore,” he says. “You can just reverse the audio file, and that's always interesting.”
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