Mr. Frusciante
Last modified: 21:19:47 CET on 01 Jan, 2012 |
Do you mainly use filters then, or do you use envelope generators to trigger other sounds too?
JF: Yeah. I mainly use the envelope generators if you want the filter to respond to the hits of your guitar, or the hits of the keyboard. We did a good sound the other day where we were envelope filtering only the echo of the Fender Rhodes. The echo has like a "THOOM!", but the keyboard attack is normal. But the echo is this strange envelope filter sound, and it really created a good atmosphere and it made the instrument sound totally unusual, especially in stereo. It's been really fun on this record doing a lot of processing. I try to use the modular to have that sense of playfulness on the record. I'm a big fan of the way George Clinton produced the first couple of Funkadelic records, and the way Jimi Hendrix was doing things on Electric Ladyland. That sense of playing with the sound of things and when it's on tape - it's not done. There are still many opportunities to create movement in the sound. George Clinton was using a lot of Echotrexes and they both [George and Jimi] were doing a lot of panning and putting things on two different tracks, and having one of them bring a really dark EQ and one of them bright, and going back and forth. Once it's already on the tape, it's still fair game to play with. I try to bring the spirit of what those people are doing. It's not so much that I'm inspired by Kraftwerk or something like that in terms of what I want to do with synthesizer. A loy of times I use it to create feedback or distortion. I try to bring out the human elements of it. It's not meant to turn into some kind of electronic thing, but to bring out the humaness.
Do you run drums through it much?
JF: Yeah, we've done great things with drums through it. You can get incredible drum sounds out of a resonant high-passfilter. There's one moment on the first Ataxia record [Automatic Writing], I don't know how to describe it... [laughter] High-pass filtering can be awesome on drums. We got a cool snare sound on the Chili Peppers album on one section by putting the snare through a comb filter. For me it's hard to imagine making a record now without the modular. I need to change the sounds. I can't stand the static recording thing...
So it's like the ultimate processor then - although I suppose you could do some of the things you're talking about with simple pieces of guitar.
JF: This is simple though! People get intimidated by seeing such a big thing, but I might only be using one or two of these things - it's having them all in one place, and havingt hem all be adaptable to each other and modular and all that.
And having so many different tools?
JF: Yeah! Between this and the effects that I have, that's most of what's available in terms of processing sound in an analog way. To me the laws of a modular synthesizer correlate to the laws of nature in a certain way. A filter is basically the same thing as cupping your hand to your mouth. It's a principle that exists in nature, where they figured out electronic means to produce that phenomena. It doesn't seem like modular synthesis has changed that much since it was invented in the '60s. There's an infinite amount of possibilities, even though there's not an infinite amount of modules that can still be invented.
You seem very unintimidated by technology. You have a great approach to it.
RH: It's fun because John encourages me to do a lot of extreme stuff, whereas a lot of commercial records are so safe sounding. We get to do a lot of different, experimental things and we'll spend time trying to figure that out.
JF: Yeah. On Stadium Arcadium we did a lot of stuff with tape speed manipulation and stuff like processing harmony guitars like we were talking about. We didn't know exactly what we were doing or how it was going to come out sounding - just experimenting. Being in the studio shouldn't be trying to capture what you play. There should be a certain amount of playfulness and experimentation to the possibilities of what you have when you're in a place where you can actually take a moment and have it exist on this piece of tape that can be manipulated and stuff. There are so many possibilities - it's a shame for them to go to waste by just connecting the dots. It's fun to experiment.
I noticed the Oblique Strategies cards on the console. That's a very Enoesque approach with all the treatments and such.
JF: Yeah, he's been a big inspiration. Using the synthesizer not based around the oscilators, like we were talking about - he's definitely one of the main forerunners. If not the forerunner. [It's about] having it be more human and having it be more about those human elements.
