Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet: The Juliet Letters

Silver Sonya · 1st February 2007, 07:48 PM

Hi, Kevin. Thanks for sharing your time. Very kind.

One of my favorite records of all time is "The Juliet Letters." I find the songs quite inventive and profound.

Like many people who bought the record, I was an Elvis Costello fan. I have to say that I have subsequently become a fan of the Brodsky Quartet and have bought many of their other releases, but I feel that they have never been as vividly captured as when you worked with them. "The Juliet Letters" has such a rich, three-dimensional sound? It balances the extroverted "forwardness" of pop music with the high-fidelity dynamic detail of a classical recording.

I wonder if you have any memories (technical or otherwise) from this session you can share. I am curious about microphones and preamps, of course, but also would love to hear what the experience of capturing this unique music was like for you at an emotional level. I imagine it was a special experience.

Thanks again for your time.

Kevin Killen · 3rd February 2007, 03:45 AM

Silver,

Great question !

Elvis and The Brodsky's had performed the piece once before in London and there was general agreement that a "live recording" was necessary to capture the mood of the songs. So we went into "The Church" studios in London ( truly was once a church )
and I set up looking left to right

Violin 1, Violin 2, EC, Viola, Cello in a small semi circle. The room was very ambient, great for strings and stuff but as soon as EC started singing he drowned out the Brodsky's. So I just built a vocal booth with a roof on top, windows at the side for sightlines and that give me the separation to control his voice and the visual and proximity to the others to perform live.

I used Neumann U67's on the Violins and Viola, a TLM 170 on the Cello, U47 On EC.
A number of stereo room mics were employed , plus some M49's and a BiNaural head placed in front of the performers about 20 feet. I used no compression on the quartet and a minimal amount on EC. We recorded different groups of songs every day for two weeks . Looking for that perfect take and there were absolutely no overdubs. The players had to balance themselves in the room and playbacks were always very revealing but we eventually figured out the right combinations and it went pretty smoothly.

It was a fantastic project to record, because we manged to really work the space, balances were commited straight to two track and a multitrack for backup. Some of the finished performances were those initial 2 track balances. The majority of the piece came after the first number of trial days. The ambience you hear on the quartet came from the recording space, EC had some verb added to his performance.

Kevin

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1st February 2007, 07:48 PM	#1
Silver Sonya Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 1,529	Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet: The Juliet Letters Hi, Kevin. Thanks for sharing your time. Very kind. One of my favorite records of all time is "The Juliet Letters." I find the songs quite inventive and profound. Like many people who bought the record, I was an Elvis Costello fan. I have to say that I have subsequently become a fan of the Brodsky Quartet and have bought many of their other releases, but I feel that they have never been as vividly captured as when you worked with them. "The Juliet Letters" has such a rich, three-dimensional sound? It balances the extroverted "forwardness" of pop music with the high-fidelity dynamic detail of a classical recording. I wonder if you have any memories (technical or otherwise) from this session you can share. I am curious about microphones and preamps, of course, but also would love to hear what the experience of capturing this unique music was like for you at an emotional level. I imagine it was a special experience. Thanks again for your time.

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3rd February 2007, 03:45 AM	#2
Kevin Killen engineer / producer / mixer Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 312	Silver, Great question ! Elvis and The Brodsky's had performed the piece once before in London and there was general agreement that a "live recording" was necessary to capture the mood of the songs. So we went into "The Church" studios in London ( truly was once a church ) and I set up looking left to right Violin 1, Violin 2, EC, Viola, Cello in a small semi circle. The room was very ambient, great for strings and stuff but as soon as EC started singing he drowned out the Brodsky's. So I just built a vocal booth with a roof on top, windows at the side for sightlines and that give me the separation to control his voice and the visual and proximity to the others to perform live. I used Neumann U67's on the Violins and Viola, a TLM 170 on the Cello, U47 On EC. A number of stereo room mics were employed , plus some M49's and a BiNaural head placed in front of the performers about 20 feet. I used no compression on the quartet and a minimal amount on EC. We recorded different groups of songs every day for two weeks . Looking for that perfect take and there were absolutely no overdubs. The players had to balance themselves in the room and playbacks were always very revealing but we eventually figured out the right combinations and it went pretty smoothly. It was a fantastic project to record, because we manged to really work the space, balances were commited straight to two track and a multitrack for backup. Some of the finished performances were those initial 2 track balances. The majority of the piece came after the first number of trial days. The ambience you hear on the quartet came from the recording space, EC had some verb added to his performance. Kevin