{"id":7940,"date":"2012-11-11T14:24:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-11T21:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=7940"},"modified":"2012-11-11T14:24:28","modified_gmt":"2012-11-11T21:24:28","slug":"ron-aniello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/11\/ron-aniello\/","title":{"rendered":"RON ANIELLO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

RON ANIELLO\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Doing whatever it takes to make the record great \u00a0 <\/strong>\u00a0<\/em> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Michael Gallant<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Ron Aniello was selected to produce\u00a0Bruce Springsteen\u2019s 2012 album Wrecking Ball<\/em>, he faced a daunting challenge\u2014how to offer constructive criticism to a personal hero. \u201cBeing in the studio, and hearing the voice of my childhood was the main thing I had to get over,\u201d Aniello says with a laugh. \u201cTelling an artist like Bruce that a certain take sounded good but I\u2019d like to hear another was definitely difficult at first.\u201d Considering the results\u2014Wrecking Ball <\/em>topped charts and earned critical acclaim around the globe\u2014the veteran producer handily proved he was up to the task.<\/p>\n

Aniello grew up in Las Vegas and began playing professionally as a guitarist after high school but was soon drawn to the music scene in L.A. He played in multiple bands and began creating original music that he describes as part Tom Waits and part Danny Elfman\u2014yet something wasn\u2019t quite right. \u201cI started bands and always found myself as the main songwriter, but I never really felt comfortable with it,\u201d says the Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum producer. \u201cI loved the recording aspect of what I was doing, but I didn\u2019t love the traveling and touring, and I didn\u2019t even love performing.\u201d For Aniello, a career shift towards production was the\u00a0answer. \u201cIt was all about the studio,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Aniello gravitated to young, talented musicians on whom he could focus and inspire in the studio. \u201cI wanted to be able to flesh out the empty spots in people\u2019s work,\u201d he describes. \u201cI felt I worked best as a coach, filling in the blanks, and that\u2019s what led me to producing.\u201d One such group was Lifehouse\u2014a band that Aniello plucked from obscurity, recorded and launched into stardom.<\/p>\n

Aniello went on to fashion sonic gold for the likes of Gavin DeGraw, Guster, Barenaked Ladies and Matt Nathanson. He also branched out into the Christian genre and is responsible for seminal recordings by artists including Jars of Clay and Jeremy Camp. Aniello discussed with us the secrets of capturing vocal tracks, rights and wrongs of vocal tuning, and working with an American legend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

What made Wrecking Ball <\/em>different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Bruce, it\u2019s all about the songs\u2014what he\u2019s trying to say and how he\u2019s going to say it. He puts a lot of energy into that aspect of his music, so by the time you\u2019re ready to record you already have a wealth of great material to work with. There aren\u2019t many artists who have recorded 30 records and thousands of songs. Producing someone like Bruce is very different from working with bands that are trying to figure out who they are and what their album is about. Bruce already knows all that. My job became more to inspire, reflect and articulate musical things that helped him get the songs to\u00a0a level that he was happy with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where did you record?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Bruce\u2019s studio, in the middle of his\u00a0New Jersey farm. It\u2019s in a garage, like a lot of musicians\u2019 studios, but it\u2019s a magnificent space. It has an SSL board that\u00a0Brendan O\u2019Brien\u2014who produced Bruce over the last 10 years\u2014helped him select. We had a lot of outboard gear, too\u2014compressors, Neves and APIs. There are a few isolation spaces, but we never really used them. When Bruce did his vocals, he sang right in front of me in the studio\u2019s main open space. I loved working in that open environment, nobody\u2019s closed off. It\u2019s more relaxed and leads to a different form of communication.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was your recording process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruce would bring a finished song, play it on guitar to a loop or a click track, and we\u2019d take it from there. Sometimes I could tell that he\u2019d never played the song before\u2014he\u2019d written it, but we\u2019d build the arrangement on the spot. He has hundreds of instruments in his studio\u2014guitars, vintage synths, percussion, organs, toys. I also brought all the samples and string orchestra libraries I had on my computer. We experimented a lot, finding different ways to sculpt and build his ideas. I\u2019d play something on upright bass, for example, and he\u2019d go to the xylophone and play along. Other times, I\u2019d jump on the drums, record a beat and loop it as the basic rhythm track for a song. The\u00a0real drum tracks came later.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did you discuss the album\u2019s vision?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I discovered the direction of the album for myself as we worked on it. It wasn\u2019t something we vocalized about much, since over-discussing can sometimes kill an\u00a0idea\u2014you\u2019re talking about it instead of doing it. Much of it was going on in Bruce\u2019s mind, and my role was to give him the tools he needed to help him get on the right level with each song. We started a new song practically every day. It was a great experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did you use to record vocals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We used the Telefunken 251E microphone that Bruce has had for a while through a Universal Audio 1176 [limiter and amplifier], a Neve preamp, and that\u2019s basically it. We tried some other mics on songs where we wanted distortion or guitar amp sounds on his vocals, but 90 percent was with the Telefunken.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the vocal tracking process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruce isn\u2019t big on punching in. He will do it if asked, but each take is a performance to him. He lays down a song a couple of times and then listens to every take all the way through, contemplating how he\u2019s singing it. The most important factor is what the character of the story is saying through the vocals. He has so many different voices\u2014from the way he sings on \u201cBorn to Run\u201d to his folk voice, operatic voice and rock-and-roll screamer. No two vocal takes were the same so it\u2019s not like working with singers where it\u2019s easy to put a comp together. It\u2019s never just about getting the best vocal\u2014it\u2019s about getting the right emotions and capturing the right vocals for the story of the song. I had to be very alert to the lyrics because that\u2019s\u00a0his main focus, always has been.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did you start working with\u00a0<\/strong>pop-rockers Lifehouse?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They were in the youth group at my church. I liked them and thought that Jason Wade was a great songwriter. They had never recorded before, so we started working at my house to put some demos together. We all learned together since I was just getting started as a producer at that time. We recorded on a Studer tape deck and a Neotek console\u2014no computers, Pro Tools or vocal tuning. They were much more of a scruffy rock band back then, and I thought what we came up with was unique for its time. DreamWorks\u00a0ended up signing them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was it like working with Barenaked Ladies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re a fantastic band\u2014all multitalented multi-instrumentalists with a great sense of humor. When we were working together, it was inspiring to go everywhere with it. There were lots of good, diverse ideas being shared, and I think that\u2019s why they called the [2003] album Everything to Everyone<\/em>. We ended up with rock songs, Tom Waits-style songs\u2014tons of different\u00a0influences were represented.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about tracking vocals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The guys sometimes broke into four-part harmony on the fly, like a doo-wop band, without ever rehearsing. There\u2019s such a deep well of talent there. I recorded their backing vocals in an old-fashioned way: three or four of the band members singing into two mics. They know how to blend their voices, and it was just my job to capture it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you use vocal tuning?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Generally, I\u2019m into sounding as natural as possible, but I use whatever is necessary to make a record sound great. I don\u2019t touch Bruce\u2019s voice with tuning, but there are some pop records that I tune and some bands that really want their vocals processed that way. Too much tuning can iron out all the beauty in a vocal. I can\u2019t stand it when tracks are processed to the point where they don\u2019t sound real, unless that\u2019s an intentional effect. If I\u2019m working on certain types of hip-hop, for example, I\u2019ll have fun playing with a tuner and making the vocal sound like a trumpet or something else interesting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was it like working with a Christian act like Jars of Clay?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re a fantastic band, and I\u2019ve never thought of myself as making \u201cChristian music\u201d when I work with them\u2014I\u2019m just making music that feels very creative. When it comes to lyrics, some of the Christian language can feel awkward in song form, but Jars of Clay does a great job of making it work naturally in their music. We had a lot of fun recording together. We\u2019d all take a shot of whiskey, a gentlemen\u2019s drink at 4 p.m. every day\u2014and that\u2019s the most drinking I ever did on any record\u2014then they\u2019d go home to their families. We didn\u2019t work on weekends and there wasn\u2019t a lot of profanity, but other than that it was like producing any band.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Any advice for aspiring producers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do whatever inspires you and gets you out of bed. Nothing is too small in the beginning. Whether you\u2019re just sitting at the piano or meeting up with friends to write songs, you may feel like you don\u2019t have a chance in hell. But believe me, you\u2019re just a good song away from being successful. The more you can focus on songwriting, the better. Good songs tend to sound great almost regardless of what you do when you\u2019re producing them. It\u2019s the subpar songs that you\u00a0spend all the time in the world on.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RON ANIELLO\u00a0 Doing whatever it takes to make the record great \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By Michael Gallant When Ron Aniello was selected to produce\u00a0Bruce Springsteen\u2019s 2012 album Wrecking Ball, he faced a daunting challenge\u2014how to offer constructive criticism to a personal hero. \u201cBeing in the studio, and hearing the voice of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3844],"tags":[283,5278,969,5282,1686,5273,5274,5279,5275,2438,5281,5272,5077,5280,5277,5276,1646,3595],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7942,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940\/revisions\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}