Like their last record, Nouns, No Age’s
third full-length album was recorded
with engineer Pete Lyman at Infrasonic
Sound Recording Company in Los
Angeles. But rather than mimicking the
success of their sophomore album, No
Age decided that this time they’d balance
their energetic musical capabilities
with new recording skills.
“When we tour, we like to play
songs that are more aggressive to get
the crowd going. For this album, we
sat back and realized we needed more
songs that were more progressive, to
yin and yang the album,” drummer
Dean Spunt says.
A two-man operation, No Age
recorded the bulk of the album—title TBA,
out on Sub Pop this fall—live, playing
guitars and drums while also triggering
samples. “We recorded the intro sounds
on ‘Aim at the Airport’ with an Edirol R-
09HR, a handheld WAV recorder, from
the luggage carousel at an airport in
Australia,” Spunt says. “The wave
sounds in the end were recorded with
the Edirol on the beach in New
Zealand.” The guys created other samples
by meshing guitars, vocals, and
keyboards with effects from DigiTech
JamMan pedals and onboard effects
from a Roland SP-555 sampler.
To mic the drums, Lyman set up a
Radio Shack PZM mic taped to the
outside of the control-room window,
an AEA R84 behind Spunt, a Neumann
Gefell UM57 six feet in front of the kit,
and two Beyerdynamic M 160s set farther
away “and spread wide for a more
live-sounding feel,” Lyman says.
For his live tracks, guitarist Randy
Randall used a Sunn Beta Lead Combo,
a Supro, and a small Ampeg bass amp.
“He splits the signal at his pedal board
so a clean line goes to the bass amp,
pre-effects, and the other amps are
post effects,” Lyman explains.
The tracks were captured to a 2-inch,
16-track Otari MTR90 MKIII machine
and then dumped to Pro Tools for
overdubs. And an Otari MX5050 1/4-
inch machine was used for slapback.
“We would mess with the tape as it
was recording and then print back
into Pro Tools,” Lyman says.
After recording basic guitar and
drum tracks live, Randall’s guitars overdubs
involved several amps, including a
Sunn Model T and Beta Lead, a Supro,
and a Fender Champ. “Sometimes it
may be all the amps at once,” Lyman says. “I use a custom Inward Connections
guitar splitter to distribute the
signals. We then switch between the
amps depending on the sound Randy is
envisioning. There are two Coles 4038s
about nine feet back in the room during
most of the overdubs.”
Vocals were recorded through the
UM57 into a Shadow Hills preamp on
the Steel setting, into an API 550A and
a Purple Audio MC77. “During the mix,
vocals were compressed again with an
Inward Connections Vac Rac compressor,”
Lyman adds.
After initial tracks and overdubs
were recorded, they took the sounds
to another level. “They are really into
re-amping,” Lyman says. “We have reamped
everything: vocals, snares, guitars,
drums, samples, etc.”
“We like re-amping with samples to
catch them again to get nitty-gritty
sounds,” Spunt elaborates. “We have a
Supra Amp from the ’60s that we use,
and Randy rewired his first amp called
a Gorrilla that we use for back tunes. I
also have a noise gate that I was getting
into and running complete mixes
through it to get a weird sound.”
The guys sent tracks out of Pro Tools,
into a Little Labs Direct/Reamp box, and
then into the amp. “The amp was then
miked and sent back to Pro Tools,”
Lyman explains. “The re-amped track
was then blended with the raw track, or
in some cases it was totally replaced.”
Lyman mixed through a Rupert
Neve Designs 5088 console, using an
Ecoplate and EMT 250 plate for reverb
and a DeltaLab Effectron, Roland
Space Echo, and Chorus Echo for
delay. During mixdown, he bussed
guitars through two Neve 1064s and
two silver-face 1176s. For more grit,
Lyman used his Standard Audio Level-
Or as a sub-bus on guitars and also
used it for parallel compression on
drums. “I inserted the Level-Or on a
bus and sent the kick and snare to the
bus, as well as the direct out, then
blended them to taste,” he says.
But Lyman’s traditional recording
techniques were often challenged.
“Their approach is completely different
than most bands—they really push me
to try things that I wouldn’t normally
do,” Lyman says, referring to recording
with old cassette players and being
forced to add abundant low end to
guitars. “Sometimes it doesn’t make
sense to me at the time, but I just hang
in there to see how it develops, and
they’re usually right.”