Recently released, the Foo Fighters Concrete and Gold album had its first single, ‘Run’, hit the Top 10 on the Rock Airplay Billboard. Behind the recording at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles was engineer Darrell Thorp and a selection of Lauten Audio microphones – including the Atlantis, Eden, Clarion, and the new Series Black LA-120, LA-220, and LA-320.
‘We had a massive setup for recording the band,’ Thorp says. ‘Part of the challenge was having four drum kits set up at once, a bass station, vocals, keys with two keyboards and pianos, and more than 20 guitar amps – some in the live room and some in Iso-booths. I was using a lot of mics.’
‘For a sonic clarity difference I was having all the background vocals recorded on the Lauten Audio Eden mic,’ he explains. ‘It’s a bit of a sweeter sounding mic, and I was using the Forward switch, so they would always sound breathy, and open and airy, around the lead vocal.’
‘On the song ‘Happy Ever After’, which is the quietest, most acoustic track on the record, Dave Grohl was playing this Harmony solid body acoustic guitar, which is super quiet, but it has a “sound” – so I grabbed a Lauten Audio Atlantis mic and switched on the +10dB gain switch. I was barely rocking my mic preamp, so I had plenty of level to Pro Tools and I was able to get a really good sound. I was also using the Atlantis and LA-320 on guitar amps a lot, sometimes the LA-320 was on room guitar amps as well at about 15 to 20 feet from where the amps would sit in Studio One at EastWest – the room is huge and sounds amazing.’
The Series Black LA-220 mics were used for some of the main tom mics: ‘They were amazing, they worked so well. I used the LA-220s on the Gretsch George Lake kit with a 13-inch rack tom and a 16-inch floor tom.
‘I really do stand behind the Lauten Audio mics,’ Thorp reflects. ‘ I use them a lot. I’m not just a face on an ad and a face on the website. We just did a Foo Fighters BBC Live session and I took an Eden for a mono overhead on the drums, which sounded great. I use the mics all the time when recording.’
More: www.lautenaudio.com
