Production of Need You Now

A Very good and detailed article on the original production of Need You Now by the production team of Paul Worley.

C&P for reference. acoustic guitars, Schleicher used a Neumann/Gefell M582 close to the 12th fret, pointing downwards, and a Neumann U67 placed towards the body of the guitar, pointing upwards. "Both mics are at a 45-degree angles. The 582 is brighter and the 67 a bit warmer. I record them to separate tracks and blend them according to what's needed. I sent the mics through these really amazing Gordon mic pres, and then through a Manley Vari‑mu, with some subtle compression, to add some air at the top. I also used a GML EQ.

"With regards to vocals, for Hillary [Scott: vocals] I used a 67, going into a GML pre, a Tube‑Tech compressor, and a GMP EQ. Charles [Kelley: vocals] was recorded with a Korby 251 and the same signal path as Hillary. To be honest, I was never happy with Charles' signal path, and recently during a live thing for AOL he sang through a [Neumann] U87 and an LA2A, and he liked the way he could sing against the latter. So I'm now using that on him. It gives a warmer tone and helps with Charles' enormous dynamic range. For Dave's [Haywood: vocals, guitar, piano, mandolin] vocal I use a customised 87 with a tube in it, which we call a hotrod, run through a GMP pre and EQ, and then again the Tube‑Tech compressor.

We've developed an interesting technique over the years, with the players doing two passes, then the third pass with mutes on bridges. I'll also crank up the preamps to get a different tonality in the room, and we blend the three passes together to create a bigger sound

"The guitar herd is an idea that was given to me many years ago by Ed Seay, who in turn had been thinking about a technique by Jeff Lynne, on records by ELO and the Traveling Wilburys. It's used for driving, up-and-down acoustic guitar strumming, and Lynne's idea was to sit several players around an omnidirectional microphone and record them several times and stack that as many times as possible, or to take one player and lots of guitars and use capos in different positions and different microphones and you move them around and stack as many guitars as you can. You end up with a stereo rhythm acoustic track that is very powerful http://www.soundonsound.com/people/paul-worley-producing-lady-antebellum

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