Engineer Rich Chycki On Recording Clockwork Angels

On Tuesday Rich Chycki updated his website and shared a few interesting thoughts regarding the recording of Clockwork Angels.  Here's a portion of his update, visit his website for more:

It feels like it’s been a time of all things ‘Rush’ over the past while. As you all know by now, we spent most of the late fall and early winter 2011 recording Clockwork Angels at Revolution Studios in Toronto, Canada. I had selected that room for its cavernous but controlled drum room and I was pleased with the recorded results, as was Neil. The clockwork stage kit is one of the best kits I’ve ever had the pleasure of recording.

The making of this album was a further development of technique and technology and also a return to some old ways. In my work with some of Rush’s older masters like Moving Pictures, I learned that at that time much of the processing for guitars was committed to tape — a good example being the solo in Limelight, which is a stellar performance wrapped in lush sonics. Alex and I applied much of the same methodology for Clockwork, where a song like Carnies for example, with complex modulations, panning, eq and echo were committed as a premix during the recording phase for simplicity and reproducibility down the road. And Alex did some amazing solos in preproduction that were again, tweaked with vintage and modern technology during the recording phase so they would sit well within the production guidelines that the band had set.

Geddy’s recording was also expanded to include some additional vintage gear, if you recall the Fairchild I tweeted while we were in the studio ;-) . The rest of Mr. Lee’s secret sonic recipe will have to stay secret.

- Thanks to B-man for the headsup!