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Michael Jackson's producers and engineers

mariemarie

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Michael have worked with a lot of people. From his music, videos to his performances. A lot of them have been interviewed. Check out what they have said, how it is like to work with the King of Pop and etc. Someone have probably read it already, for others this is new info.

First I would like to share something from Bruce Swedien. An interview back in the 90's. Ignore the typos in the text, but it's very interesting to hear what other people who have known him and worked with think about that amazing experience.

Got anymore? Please share and post. Lets all read it!



Producer/engineer Bruce Swedien (an engineer on Michael Jackson's albums) For the entire interview go to this link http://absy.com/ABSMMI/ITV/SWEDIEN/ukitvbsw.html#q18


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Q18 : (01: 23: 08 ) Could you describe a typical session with Michael Jackson? [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Well, a lot of times on the songs I produced with michael, for instance, er...it's wonderful, we'll decide on a piece of music to do and then I kind of get to work on it on my own a little bit and then give michael a tape once I get a rhythm track down and he'll say it's great but let's do this.....then i'll go back and work on it some more. so it's kind of an in and out type of thing. Michael is so professional, so wonderful to work with and doing vocals with michael is an absolute joy. he's got ears for days and the pitch and everything. Michael is polite and kind. You know, he'll say: "can I hear a little more piano in the earphones please". And he'll say thank you. this is an industry where you don't hear those words a whole lot. (01: 24: 20 ) So for that reason I totally respect michael and the musical integrity is so...well we usually listen to a composition and a demo and we'll listen and decide whether or not we want to record it. so from then on i'll get musicians in and we'll do an arrangment and record it. Then we'll try michael's voice on it or try the structure to see how it feels and everything and then once we get passed that initial bare bones stage, once we get the overall structure right and it fits michael's voice, then we start sweetening and overdubbing and finishing it. (01: 25: 08 ) So there is a stage in there where we are still experimenting to get the right structure and the right feel so that this music with what Michael will do with it. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Q19 : Can you tell us more about how Michael works and how he relates to the people working with him? [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]I've never ran into anybody that works with michael and doesn't regard it as a pleasant experience, it's just great. He's really easy to deal with in the studio because [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1](01: 26: 05 ) When we record vocals, there's seldom more than four takes or five on the lead vocal. then we'll sit there and make a couple of punches but it's nothing. And another thing i've learned with recording michael is i'll set up the vocal mike and i'll have michael perform singing on my drum platform which is an eight foot square plywood unpainted platform about eight inches off the floor, and then michael is on that. He'll sing and one reason is that he dances when he sings and I love to have that as part of the sound because first of all his time and his rhythm is impeccable and even (01: 26: 50 ) when I do backgrounds, michael does little vocal sounds and snaps his fingers and taps his foot. I keep a (?) of that as part of the recording. [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]One time I even made, for one of my seminars, I made a special mix of the background vocals on "the way you make me feel", took all the band out so that my class could hear all the sounds in there, and how they work in the overall picture because when you put the rhythm section in there, you can barely hear them, but they are really there, they're an important part I think. (01: 27: 38 ) I would hate to record him and take what I call the clinical approach and try to have it antiseptically clean or something. I think it would loose a lot of its charm. [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Working with quincy myself and michael has really been a wonderful experience because not only do we work together well, but we're really friends and it's a three men team and our votes count equally. That's the way it works, it's easy, it's wonderful and we've had such a good time doing "Off The Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad". Quincy has just formed a Quincy Jones entertainment corporation so he's off doing TV. and movies, and producing and directing. Doing things that he's wanted to do for years. Quincy is not working on michael's new album. [/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]I'm producing three songs and coproducing a couple with Michael. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Quincy is very happy. I just spoke to him yesterday and he sounds great, he's having the time of his lifz and happy as a pig in the mud. so i'm doing a little different too...I'm producing and doing things in areas that i've always wanted to be involved in. Building my beautiful studio here at home just for my projects. (01: 30: 29 ) I won't be doing everything here because my home is a sanctuary and I don't want to bring all my work here, but a certain amount I want to be able to do here, really looking forward to it. [/SIZE][/FONT]



Bruce Swedien talks about recording MJ, Seattle 1993:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK_rX4MjvA4
 
Bruce actually kept it gully on a forum called "Gear slutz" where he often helped members with questions about mixing and what not. He often talked about the experiences he's had over the years working with Michael.
He went away from the forum a while ago because of much stress with work and writing a book and what not.

Anyway, here's a rare picture Bruce shared with us of the studio where they recorded Thriller, don't be an asshole now and go and tag this picture and take credit for it (no one mentioned, no one forgotten):
thrilleroutboardlp5.jpg


Here you can see all threads Bruce was active in over his years @ Gear Slutz:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/bruce-swedien/
(maybe not that interesting for everyone, but maybe it can give something to someone)

EDIT: My apologies, that was the equipment used in the mixing process of Thriller, not in the production process.
 
Thanx a whole lot marie! Always brings me joy to get to read about the way he works with others.

Michael is polite and kind. You know, he'll say: "can I hear a little more piano in the earphones please". And he'll say thank you. this is an industry where you don't hear those words a whole lot.
Click to expand...
This shows who he is. Famous and established musicians can be very stuck-up and hard to deal with and somewhat egotistical and volatile nature in artists ain't no help. It's just not in Mike it seems. He's really humble and make others feel comfortable.
 
it sounds like he doesn't shoot down bad or different ideas, like other might. That enables people to feel comfortable in the studio and also brings out the creativity that ultimately helps the album.
 
helena22 said:
Thanx a whole lot marie! Always brings me joy to get to read about the way he works with others.

This shows who he is. Famous and established musicians can be very stuck-up and hard to deal with and somewhat egotistical and volatile nature in artists ain't no help. It's just not in Mike it seems. He's really humble and make others feel comfortable.
Click to expand...

That's what I feel as well. People who have worked with him always says he's a pleasure to work with.

ooooh, cool picture Bruce. :yes:
 
thanks for posting! like I've said a billion times, I love reading these kinds of articles :yes:
Bruce must be the man, lol!
I'm glad it's such a joy for ppl to work with MJ, and we dont hear any 'diva' stories. It just helps to show what type of person he is
 
thank you for posting and it truly is great to read these kind of storys and studio takes.etc....
 
John Landis have worked with Michael a lot on his videos. Although in my opinion he's very outspoken in some of his ways to describe Michael, but he have his respect for him which is cool. ​

And to my memory he have made some controversial comments about Michael in the past, which I can't remember, oh well... I guess you can't satisfy everyone ;)​


John Landis remembers Thriller​

necklacepre3.jpg



How Thriller turned into a monster


Twenty five years ago, a Michael Jackson music video transformed the face of pop. Marc Lee meets its director, John Landis

Film director John Landis is as boisterous and garrulous a character as you're likely to meet. An unstoppable raconteur, he has an endless fund of anecdotes ("Let me tell you this joke I heard from Fellini"), and much of his expletive-strewn conversation is shouted, as if he's addressing someone in the next room.

Perhaps it's his irrepressible good humour that accounts for the equanimity with which he reveals the sorry aftermath of Thriller, the groundbreaking video he shot starring the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

"Listen," he says smiling, "Michael probably owes me $10 million because he's in hock to Sony so deeply. All the monies from the Thriller video, which I own 50 per cent, are collected by Sony. My deal is with Michael's company, and he owes Sony so much that they keep the money. So I will never get the money, and if I want to sue Michael, it's like, 'Get in line.' "

Landis bears no resentment towards Jackson. Indeed, he still has the highest regard for the troubled singer, and they remain friends. Their collaboration on Thriller marked the high point of both their careers.

Although Jackson was only 24 when he released his fourth solo album in 1982, he'd been a star for more than a decade. None of what had gone before, though, could have prepared him for what was about to happen. Thriller changed the course of pop music and catapulted him into global superstardom. It sold more than 50 million copies and spent 37 weeks at number one in the American charts, where it remained for more than two years. All but two of its nine tracks were hit singles.

And it wasn't just the singing. Soon after the LP's release, he perfected his "moonwalk" dance: the worldwide hysteria that ensued was barely containable. Then, as if driven by an obsession to reinvent, he made himself the star of the promo video that would transform the way pop music was marketed.

Jackson had already smashed MTV's extraordinary musical apartheid: Billie Jean (a track from the album) was the first song by a black artist to be played by the channel. But the 14-minute mini-film inspired by Thriller's title track rewrote the rules for the music video, opening up undreamed-of creative possibilities - and, in the process, helping MTV on its way to world domination.

It became the bestselling music video ever, and, a quarter of a century later, it has staked a place in the digital new world, nestling confidently in the iTunes video chart (number two at the time of writing) among tracks by whippersnappers who hadn't even been born when it was shot. It has also been viewed more than three million times since it was added to the YouTube website just nine months ago.

The shoot was rumoured to have cost $1 million. The true figure was half that but still vastly more than the usual budget of $50,000 to $75,000 for a pop video of the period.

Today, Thriller still thrills as much as it did all those years ago, and that is thanks in large measure to its director. For, although the song and Jackson's dance moves are the irresistible ingredients, it was Landis who whipped them into such a satisfying feast.

The young filmmaker was at the peak of his career in Hollywood. He was about to release Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy, having, in the previous four years made Animal House, The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. And it was after seeing the last of these that Jackson called Landis and said: "I want to turn into a monster. Can I do that?"

The release of the video and the accompanying making-of film marked the point at which, according to Landis, Jackson became "a god".

"It created MTV really," he says. "And it created the whole making-of business. It had a huge impact on the business. And all of it was accidental. All that happened was that Michael called me up after watching American Werewolf.

"So I went to see him with Rick Baker, who had done the special effects make-up on that film, and we took along a big book of monsters for him to look at. He hadn't seen many horror films: he was scared of that stuff.

"After The Blues Brothers, I wanted to do a good musical number with real dancers and shoot it correctly. And I tried to exploit Michael's celebrity to reinvent the theatrical short. That's why it's 14 minutes: it's a two-reeler, the same length as a Laurel and Hardy short or a Bugs Bunny cartoon."


Thriller1.jpg


Landis's ambitious script did not go down well at Jackson's record label CBS, who refused to pay for it on the grounds - entirely erroneous - that the album had slipped down the charts and wasn't going to sell many more copies.

So Landis did a deal with the new cable network Showtime, who handed over $300,000 for the video and the making-of feature that Landis would oversee, too. The rest of the budget came from MTV.

The 45-minute Making of Thriller established the genre, anticipating the "extras" that now accompany almost every DVD release. However, at the time, says Landis, "we used to call it 'The Making of Filler'. It turned out very well, but the truth is that it's filled with scenes from American Werewolf because I owned them, and anything else we could find to fill up the time.


"When we found we were still six minutes short, we decided to put in pieces of the video itself. In fact, it's very effective, but at the time I thought, 'This is shameless.' "

When the video hit the small screen, the album went straight back to number one and tripled its sales, while MTV increased its viewership a thousand-fold.

"Michael was terrific to work with," says Landis. "He was in his mid-twenties, but he was like a gifted 10-year-old. He was emotionally damaged but so sweet and so talented."

The purpose of Thriller, in Landis's mind, was "to give Michael some balls". The female presence in Jackson's two previous videos was virtually zero, "so I said I want to get a pretty girl, and I want you to relate to each other sexually. And he went, 'OK.'

"He was agreeable to everything, even when I wrote that line where he says to the girl, 'I'm not like other guys.' I warned him, 'Mike, this is a laugh line.' He said, 'Why?' And I said, 'Because, Michael, you are... unusual, and people will laugh and interpret it any way they want to.'"


thriller_02.jpg

The next potential problem arose with Ola Ray, the actress Landis wanted to play Jackson's girlfriend. "We found out she had been a Playboy playmate. Oh, Jesus Christ! I went to Michael and told him and said, 'Can I hire her?' He said, 'Sure', though I don't think he even knew what I was talking about."

A bigger difficulty emerged after the video's star-studded theatrical première ("Marlon Brando was there, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Cher - I'd never seen anything like it"), when members of the Jehovah's Witnesses church, of which Jackson was a member, started to kick up a fuss.

Landis recalls: "Michael was told, 'This is evil. It endorses Satanism. You can't release it.' So I had to negotiate this bullISH statement and put it on the beginning of the video." The disclaimer ("Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult - Michael Jackson") probably had the opposite effect to the one intended.

"It was such a bizarre opening, but it actually had a positive influence because it created so much talk, so much controversy. And, by the way, Michael didn't write it; I did."

Landis last spoke to Jackson a few months ago. What, I wondered, is his mood like these days? "When I talk to him, he's very friendly and funny. I'm upset at what he's done to himself physically; it's quite creepy. But he's still a gigantic talent, and I really believe he'll make a comeback. There's talk of him doing one of those big shows in Las Vegas, like Elton John or Celine Dion. Why not - he still has millions of fans."

And, of course, it's conceivable that a big-bucks Vegas residency might mean Landis finally gets his hands on those missing $10 million.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

http://www.mjackson.fr/index.php?showtopic=10519
 
Thanks for these articles. I especially like the one with Bruce Sweiden. The guy is a genius at what he does. His work is extremely impressive. It truly was a dream team when Michael worked with people like Bruce, Rod, Quincy, and the rest of them. I'd love to meet Bruce and talk to him about mixing and what goes into creating music. Stuff like that fascinates me and I want to learn more.
 
It would be interesting to hear from Motown era producers, Gamble & Huff, or Bobby Colomby
 
Thank you so much Marie, I have read this before but its so good to re-read such a good positive article. Michael is such a sweetie.
 
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