| RKrizman wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 15:02 |
| jwhynot wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 15:24 |
"Nightfly" and "Gaucho"
|
It's quaint ole analog recording at its Steely Danniest. It's the culmination of something they almost attained with Gaucho's more soulful little sister, Aja.
-R
|
Hate to burst your bubble there, but I'm pretty certain that Gaucho was, with one exception, a digital recording. Not only that, but I was told by Elliot Scheiner that the drums on Gaucho were performed by the Wendal drum machine, programmed by Porcaro and the others. They never listed them as a drum machine because they had a philosophical position that it not be credited as such. ( I once heard Elliot make this point clear to his assistant at the time, Ivy Skof ) By the time Gaucho came along, Roger, and Elliot being early digital converts, had jumped onto the behemoth 3M digital monster. (yeah I know that's redundant...but I thought it deserved it)
I never saw the original Wendal (in case you're wondering, this was nothing like Wendal II) I was told it had multiple outs and had the ability to exhange samples when programmed for a fill. (left hand hit, then right hand) which gave it a sound and feel yet to be beaten.
As to the one exception of analog, it was the song, "Third World Man." This was recorded by Billl Schnee on the Aja sessions. There was some speculation as to which song from Aja made it's way into Gaucho, but it was confirmed by a friend of mine who was an assistant on the Aja tracking sessions at Producer's Workshop. Years later he found an old 1/4" quarter-track tape of rough mixes of the Aja sessions. (If you know what a quarter track tape is, then you're a true veteran!) Anyway, the tape, believe it or not, had rough mixes of the tracks from the Aja session. No vocals, not even guide, and from what it sounds like, no overdubs. Included in this tape was Aja, Josie, I Got The News, an outake with a totally different feel of Peg, and Third World Man.
Even all those years later, at 7.5 ips, 1/4" quarter-track the stuff sounded amazing! For sure it's hissy and you can hear the limitations of the format, but hearing this stuff was very, very cool. Especially hearing Steve Gadd's amazing solo without any overdubs....wow!
One last bit if Steely Dan trivia....I was also told that they had a song that was simply amazing but, right before mixing was accidentally erased by the tech when lining up the machine. (come to think of it, that must have been analog???...fyi the guilty tech left the building and never returned to work!!) Anyway, they tried to reproduce it, but when it never came out as good, they dropped it. I'm guessing here, but a now deceased mastering engineer named Arnie Acosta had a session booked with them and the album was called "High Steaks." I'm guessing that the erased song had that name...as in keeping with the tradition the boys had in naming the album after a song) Anyway...if that story is true...and I believe the source...then that would explain the resurrection of Third World Man from the Aja session.
This all probably sounds a bit bogus, but I heard all this from first hand accounts....for what it's worth. I hope you all enjoy the trivia. Those albums were major reasons for me even getting into the biz.
