Did ZZ Top sell out?

[The Big Money]

They didn't sell out they just changed their sound. BTW Fandango is a great album. Its a half live half studio album.

[Brooks]

OK, YOU GUYS OWE ME BIGTIME, I JUST SPENT 30 MINUTES LOOKING FOR THIS; IT'S FROM TERRY MANNING (ZZ TOP ENGINEER/PRODUCER), HE SPILLS THE BEANS ON ELIMINATOR. THANK ME LATER...

 

 

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php...sg/3849/0/16/0/

 

 

The full story of the making of Eliminator (the politics, the chicannery, the technical aberrations, the high social drama, the exodus, the payback) is one that I cannot tell. Even if I could, there certainly wouldn't be room for it here! It probably won't even make it into "the book" (or the movie). Just don't forget that truth is often stranger than fiction!

 

However, I will address certain specific musical or technical issues, and I'll begin with your guitar amp question.

 

THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO ROCKMAN USED ON THIS RECORDING!

Not a little bit, not a tiny bit; NOT ANY. I don't know how these stories get started. Billy may indeed have used Rockman at a later date, after I left the situation, but I did not allow it when I was working with him. He did bring one in to try, but I was not satisfied with the sound, compared to an amplifier.

 

The amp used, almost exclusively, on Eliminator was a Legend. This was about a 50 watt hybrid unit, employing a tube/valve preamp, and a transistor power amp. This is the amp which has a finished wood case, and a rattan-type cane grill. It has one 12" Celestion speaker. Legend were later bought by, or at least distributed by, Gibson, but they were independent when we started using them. I still have this amp; it is almost new. A couple of years ago I plugged one of the Eliminator guitars into it, just to see...there was the sound!

 

The guitars were custom built by Dean. Dean were out of Chicago, and were trying to break into the high end (a la Jackson, PRS) market. They were very nice, albeit different, instruments. Subsequently however, they got a contract with Sears to make guitars, so they opted for the big bucks, Korean manufactured, low end market instead. But the ones we used were very nicely made. There were two which we employed. One was somewhat like a cross between a Flying-V and a Moderne shape, very long "ears," and the other was a sort of a warped, pointy Stratocaster-y shape. Both guitars had a single DiMarzio Super Distortion high output pickup, and almost no controls. I don't think there is even a tone control...what would you need one for? They have big, heavy, brass bridge/tail pieces bolted into the body. These guitars were very live, very resonant, and would verge on resonant feedback at all times; they were also very hard to keep in tune because of this. But they were always alive. Billy has the first one mentioned, and he gave me the latter, which I still have.

 

The guitar was recorded with basically only one setup; one amp (Legend), one speaker (12"), one guitar (Deans, the two were almost exactly the same), one mic (AKG 414B-ULS, I still have it) in one position (about 5" from the cone, placed at a slight angle off axis), one mic pre (the SpectraSonics console). 98% of ALL guitar on this album, whether lead or rhythm was done this way. Any variations were from the player himself, who, remember, did not even have a tone control. That's how good Billy was back then. We did use very briefly a small amp by Ross, but we didn't like it much, and I think only a tiny part or two was kept from this, if any.

 

The rhythm guitars were done in a precursor-to-Protools style. Short phrases were played, and then double tracked, onto one set of tracks, and then the chord change/next phrase was played on a second set of tracks. This allowed a seamless transition between changes; since the Deans were so close to feedback at all times (acoustically, through the fairly loud JBL monitors), we couldn't even lift the fingers to change chords! Then I would trim the edges of each section by punching in and out to silence at the beginnings and ends of the phrases (somewhat analogous to "trimming the region" today). This method also "eliminated" to a degree the loud harmonic squeaks between chord changes. The punch in/out points, if done exactly perfectly, made for a primitive cross fade of probably 10-20 ms, and ended up sounding very different as rhythm guitar, sort of like a big train rolling down a track, almost out of control; without knowing how it was done, one wouldn't really realise why it was different.

 

For the leads, as always, there was a lot of punching done.

 

The bass was mostly played either by Billy or by me, and was either a bass instrument, or a Moog Source (the Source was a Mini Moog [rhymes with 'Vouge'] analogue synth with digitally controlled parameters...I still have this, too). Synth chords were played on a Memory Moog (polyphonic Mini).

 

Billy sang great, different vocals, as usual, and the harmonies were done either by Jimmy Jamison or by me.

 

There are a MILLION more things which could be told about this distinctive album, but as mentioned, most of it is probably better left unsaid. But one interesting thing, at least to me, was the recording of "Legs." We had tried it a couple of ways unsuccessfully at Ardent, so I decided to try a new approach. I had a 24 track studio in my attic at home, so I took Billy's lead guitar and vocal home on a 1/2" two track L/R ("samples"). I recut the entire track myself, and then hand flew in Billy's parts onto the track. This meant careful timing of the play button on my MCI 1/2", for each and every phrase, as after a few seconds, they would drift out of sync. I mixed it there through my Soundcraft 1200 console (these were also the mic pre's) onto the MCI 1/2". The multitrack was also the Soundcraft 2" machine, which I really loved. Then I did a totally different version, which became the long "dance mix" later released to clubs, and it is now included in the new box set. Later, I saw a review of this dance version credited, to Jellybean Benitez ...go figure!

 

Well, I guess it can now be told, as long as you promise not to pass it on, but yes, I "played" the drums on "Legs," and in fact, almost the whole album. As mentioned, this song was recorded in my attic, except for Billy's lead guitar and vocal, which came from a previous studio version which was unsatisfactory. (Oh, if I could tell the whole, real story! Maybe someday...)

 

The "drums" were a combination of things. There was programming, on my Oberheim drum machine, and then a multitude of samples triggered in over the snare as well, using an AMS DMX, and very carefully manually trimming the input volume to catch every beat properly. The hat was a sound from the Oberheim mixed with some sampled things and some white noise, then gated and triggered from an arpeggiated spike. Then I one-at-a-time overdubbed certain other drums, some toms, and definitely cymbals. On some of the tracks of the album, I added to the tom sounds with a Simmons electronic kit, just barely mixed under the real ones, for tom 'fatness.' For the rest of the music track, a lot of it was programmed (step programming!) in my MemoryMoog. There was just barely enough memory in it to get a few things, then I'd have to re-program and punch in. I remember on one arpeg-16th sound, there was enough memory to do the whole song, but not to add any chord changes. So I would use a cassette case to hold down the tonic key (wedged in place using the F# black key as a 'holder') and then make the temperament changes with the detuning wheel. Not very easy, with the high technology available back then, but it forced you to be creative! I had to set the amount of detune for one change, then record the two passages, then re-set it for another change, start from the beginning every time, and punch in on the right spot. It took forever! The bass I played manually on a bass instrument, then doubled it in the manner mentioned above with the Moog. The rhythm guitar I played normally with a guitar, run into a Marshall head, then into my Harbinger speaker-booth-box (Ronny Montrose design out of SF). The pads and angel voices came from a Yamaha DX-9...I didn't want to spring for the whole cost of a '7'! The background vocals were done by me and Jimmy Jamison (who is now lead singer for Survivor, and can be seen on a new ad on TV, I think for Gateway or something like that). Jimmy did a lot of great BV's for me over the years. He can sound like whomever you put him with!

 

I mixed "Legs" from my Soundcraft 2" 24 track, through my Soundcraft 1200 console, onto my MCI 1/2" two track...I still have and use that 2 track today. Works like a hay baler, but actually records well...it's the tranformerless electronics version. The Soundcraft stuff I sold to Sun Studios, who put it into the famous old building. U2 recorded "Angel of Harlem" on it!

 

As for the drum fill, I would hate to take any credit as an inventor of a fill! Billy and I worked out most of the fills together...we were very into what type of fills would work in what places. We were expecially fond of the one you mention, and also were trying to find places where a fill could extend into the first couple of beats of the next bar, after a normal fill would have ended. I don't remember if we actually executed this or not...I'll have to listen to the whole Eliminator album now, just to see!

 

Anyway, that's some of the story. Thanks for your interest!

 

Regards,

 

Terry

[Brooks]

(jimmyjazz wrote on Mon, 07 March 2005 10:54)

Q: Terry, this may get into the part of the story you can't tell, but I always wondered why Frank Beard seemed curiously absent on ZZ Top records as they started going ga-multi-platinum. It was blindingly obvious, even to the barely-ZZ-Top-fans such as I, that the drums were pretty much electronic. What happened? I never felt the drums on earlier releases were anything but good, so it doesn't seem to me to be an issue of talent. Was "Eliminator" really just a Billy Gibbons vanity record?

 

 

A: Definitely not a vanity record. It was an attempt to reach ga-multi-platinum status.

 

However, this is indeed part of the story about which I should not speak.

[Del_Duio]

Fascinating find, Brooks! I love reading about that kind of stuff.

[ILSnwdog]

QUOTE (theredtamasrule @ Feb 20 2010, 04:42 PM)

Yes. Major sellouts but, well, it worked for them. They are now a caricature of themselves, hokey and laughable but they sure don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from.

[treeduck]

QUOTE (ILSnwdog @ Feb 24 2010, 02:02 PM)

QUOTE (theredtamasrule @ Feb 20 2010, 04:42 PM) Yes. Major sellouts but, well, it worked for them. They are now a caricature of themselves, hokey and laughable but they sure don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. No matter what Billy Gibbons will go down in rock history as a great guitarist, this is the most important thing.