CRO-MAGS "Age of Quarrel" Production

[joaquin]

Hi Steve. Thanks for sharing your memories about the "Age of quarrel" production. Indeed it's a classic and I'm sure It has been an important record for many many people. It's great that you helped create a sound shaping Icon for posterior generations, and this is a unique chance for us to learn first hand how was that process.
Here ar my first questions...How much time did you work in tracking?
How was the setup done?...I read from the link you provided http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=2383 that you move the Drums to the Main live area...how big was it?...do you remember the basic mic setup? and also read that the scratch vocals were recorded "between the studio/control room air lock"...so didn't they have visual contact at the time of recording the basics?...did you use a Click Track...or no way? How was the dynamics of the recording sessions...many...or few takes per song? were they focus or was it a pain in the butt to get things done? How was the set up for the vocal sessions? remember wich mic? did you have to edit a lot or not at all? what format did you recorded it to?, how many Tracks...8, 16, 24?, ...at what speed?
I guess that this is a lot of info that I'm asking you to remember... I have plenty of questions about the Mix, and I'm sure some other people will want to chime in.
Here is again the link to the CRO-MAGS website, where you can listen to the songs in the music section http://www.cromags.com/ Thanks for your Time.......................Joaquin.

[Remoteness]

Serendipity baby -- Guess who I just finished doing a gig with?





Parris Mayhew -- The Official Cro-Mags Website

I have been up at least 36 hours. I’m going to get some rest.

I can answer most of those answers now but, my fingers ain't interested. My post about the production will soon come…

I'm also going to look for my notes for that awesome session -- no promises but, it maybe informative.

[joaquin]

Men....The way everything in Life is interrelated never cease to surprise me!!
COOL!! We'll wait for the production stories...maybe they'll be useful for Mr. Mayhew's new website!?
Thanks Steve............................Joaquin.

[joaquin]

...bump!!

[Remoteness]

I recall some of the "Age of Quarrel" project. I recorded, engineered and mixed (Parris considers me the Ghost Producer) the Cro-Mags' first record at Lou Holtzman’s Eastside Sound. For years, kids (Cro-Mags fans) would call Lou’s studio asking him technical questions about the sessions. They thought the recording was done on the Neve console Lou installed years after that session… Believe it or not I recorded “Age of Quarrel” on a Soundcraft console!

When we first got to the studio, the drum kit was in an isolation booth. I immediately wanted to take the drums out of the iso booth and place them in the middle of the studio. Then, I had the remaining musicians (Harley, Doug & Parris) surround Mackie on drums in the main studio area. We ran their cords into the iso booths where we placed their bass and guitar amps. We used the air lock area between the studio/control room for John’s scratch vocals. Originally, Lou tried to convince me to keep the drums in the booth and such but; we ended up doing it my way…

That "Age of Quarrel" record is now a classic and an important record for many people. That record raised the (sound) bar for that genre of music. Many bands base their sound on that 1986 record and we did it on a Soundcraft! I don’t think the masses will ever get it completely – It’s about the Ear and not the Gear! Placement of the band and microphones was the key to the sound of this recording.

Other stories about the “Age of Quarrel” record…

We did a series live shows in the early 90s for MTV called, "Hangin' w/ MTV." During one of the dates, we had Skid Row performing with Rob Halford. Well, during the sound check, Sebastian Bach came into the truck and listened to a portion of the sound check we recorded for their approval. Sebastian kneeled down to me and said something like, "I'm looking for the same sound they got on the Cro-Mags' first record." I replied, "Age of Quarrel?" He said, "Yeah." I answered back, "I recorded & mixed that record." He stood up, looked at me and said, "Great, that's all I needed to know." Or something to that effect and walked out of the truck.

After the live show, we were all standing in the green room watching (and listening) to the video we just recorded. While the video was playing, Bach started swinging his arms, spinning around in place, almost clocking me in the head, since there wasn't a lot of room where we surrounded the TV monitor. When the song was over, he then swung his long arms around and hugged me while he landed a kiss on my cheek. Man, he was really happy. I forget what he was saying at the time, but he was truly happy with the performance and stuff. I couldn't believe he just did that.

Around the same time period, I happened to visit a friend’s brand new digital recording studio in Astoria, Queens. When I walked into the lobby/lounge area I noticed the “Age of Quarrel” CD sitting on a shelf. I figured my buddy knew who the recording engineer was so; I asked him what he thought of the recording. He just started freaking out saying stuff like; it’s the best drum sound he ever heard for that style of music. He went on to say how he has ripped off the drum sounds and has used the samples in every record he worked on at the time. He continued to say, “They made it easy to sample the drums ‘cause the drums start off clean on some of the songs, et cetera, etc., on and on… I realized he really didn’t know who recorded the tracks. I asked him quite laid-back if he knew who recorded the record. He brashly said, “I don’t know, who cares!” I smoothly replied, “Well, maybe you should know because you might meet that person one of these days and I don’t think you would want to word your story in the same way you just did.” He grabbed the CD and read the liner notes. Needless to say, his face turned red, he got very apologetic, and he kept saying he was so sorry. I replied, “How many times have you used those sounds? – I want a dollar for every time you used them! And, that’s every hit in every tune!” He thought I was serious. I told him that it was all good and that I really enjoyed his story. I was truly flattered by it all…

So, I got to thank Lou Holtzman for designing a great sounding room. Eastside Sound had the magic. I'm sure his new studio will equal or exceed the old place!

And, most importantly – I got to thank the Cro-Mags for doing such a great job on that recording.

Check out Parris Mayhew’s official Cro-Mags website > Http://Cro-Mags.com

The original record was on vinyl. It sounded awesome. I EQ’d and compressed the mixes to maximize the effect on vinyl. The CD is a bit brighter than the original. In many cases kids would buy one vinyl record and make buckets of audiocassettes for their friends to listen to. The sound was big and phat on those cassettes.

On January 10th 1986, I met with Chris Williamson and the Cro-Mags at Rocket Rehearsal at around 7:00PM to do some pre-production and work out the details of our recording session.

Not including the setup day, the entire record was done just under 100 hours spread over 14 days during January and February 1986.

On January 11th, we loaded into Eastside Sound around 10:00PM to setup and such.
The following day, January 12th we were booked from 2:00PM until 2:00AM to cut the basic tracks. We finished the basic tracks on January 14th between 12 midnight and 4:00AM. All the basic tracks were recorded in about 16 hours.

Everyone had visual contact during the recording of the basic tracks. The only person that wasn’t in the main tracking room was John; he was standing in between the studio/control room air lock. He was able to see everyone because the studio door had a window. I don’t remember the size of the main room but, I believe it was something like 22’ X 30’ or so… I looked for notes on this project but, only found the dates and times of the sessions. I’m sorry I don’t have more information about the space. I wish I also had copies of the track and takes sheets. They’re with the masters and I don’t have access to them.

I haven’t changed my mic'ing technique for decades so, if I would have to guess, there’s a good chance I had beyer M160s on the overheads, beyer M88 in the kick, Sennheiser MD409s on the toms, Shure SM57 on the snare and guitar cabinets. Don’t hold me to this cause any one of those mics could have been changed out for something else. So, please take it with a grain of salt. No click track was used… Do you really need one with Mackie on the drums?

Overdubs, mixing and such were done in an additional twelve sessions on January 18th (8.5 hours), January 19th (10 hours), January 20th (4 hours), February 2nd (3.5 hours), February 5th (6 hours), February 7th (7 hours), February 9th (8 hours), February 12th (10 hours), February 14th (7.5 hours), February 16th (10.5 hours), February 18th (5 hours) and February 21st (2.5 hours). It’s impossible for me to figure out how many days were used for O/Ds and how many days we took to mix but, it’s safe to say the few days listed were used for mixing.

It’s hard to say how many takes each song took without looking at the take sheets but, I can say we were all very much focused. Once all the tracks were cut we setup the vocals in the main room. I believe we used a U87 or U67 for vocals but, I cannot recall for sure. There wasn’t any editing. We recorded to 24 track analog 2” @ 30IPS. I believe it was an MCI/Sony machine.

I've been working with Parrish Mayhew on various videos. We've done Rob Thomas in NYC, Brad Paisley in Nashville and Switch Foot in LA. He's a Stedicam operator as of late.

Here's a picture of Parris and I outside the TV studio CRM after our Rob Thomas video shoot in NYC.

[joaquin]

Hi Steve. Thank you very much for all the detail you went into answering my questions....Thanks!!.............Joaquin.

[Remoteness]

Here's a picture of Parris when he doesn't have a guitar strapped to his body...

Stedicam operator extraordinaire...

[Remoteness]

So, I've been scanning and transferring all my slides, Polariods, 35mm film and such to digital media on my hard drive.

I came across a few beat up "iods" of that "Age of Quarrel" session.

Here are three for your assessment...

[parris]

Steve Remote did a great job on AGE OF QUARREL. He is incredibly focused and his attention to detail is second to none. Age of Quarrel sounds like it was recorded yesterday and that is important for a bands longevity, at least in the minds of fans and new fans more importantly. If it sounds like 1986, he failed. He succeeded.
Parris Mayhew

[felixtoro]

Originally Posted by parris

Steve Remote did a great job on AGE OF QUARREL. He is incredibly focused and his attention to detail is second to none. Age of Quarrel sounds like it was recorded yesterday and that is important for a bands longevity, at least in the minds of fans and new fans more importantly. If it sounds like 1986, he failed. He succeeded.
Parris Mayhew

I see what Paris is saying about how he's incredibly focused and his attention to detail is second to none.
I happy to say that Steve Remote is still the same person today. He is a perfectionist and a completest with anything he does.

Age is Quarrel is one of the hugest sounding albums ever made. It without a doubt changed the sound of hardcore music.

I am currently in a mixing session with Steve and although it's a different genre of music his sound is still huge.



- Felix