Paul Simon – Graceland
The music gear and equipment used by the artists, producers, engineers, and more involved in the making of the 1986 album Graceland.
Music from Graceland
Gear Used On Graceland
Explore the instruments, equipment, software, and production tools used in the making of Paul Simon – Graceland (1986). Click more on each item to see exactly how it was used.
Studio Equipment used by Paul Simon on Graceland
According to this Sound on Sound interview with producer Roy Halee, a PCM3324 was used to record the Hit Factory sessions of Graceland. The result, however, required heavy editing.
At the Hit Factory, Halee sat behind an SSL console, used a Sony PCM3324 digital multitrack, and monitored on United Western speakers which he describes as "unlistenable. They were totally wrong, with no bass and the top end just screaming at you. I raised so much hell there, they hated to see me arrive. I'd ask, 'Can you voice these speakers, please?' and they would, but then another session would come in at night and somebody would change them! Unlike at Columbia, there were no standards whatsoever. You never knew what you were going to hear, and anything you did hear bore absolutely no relationship to what was on the tape. So, I brought in my own speakers — a pair of little Westlakes that we kept there — and everything was fine."
As things turned out, the most laborious and time-consuming aspects of the Graceland project took place at the Hit Factory.
"The amount of editing that went into that album was unbelievable," Halee asserts. "We recorded everything analogue, so it sounded really good, but without the facility to edit digital I don't think we could have done that project. The first thing I did was take the material to New York and put it on the Sony machine. Then we edited, edited, edited like crazy, put it back on analogue, took it to LA to overdub Linda Ronstadt or whoever, brought it back to New York, put it back on digital and edited some more. We must have done that at least 20 times, and if not for digital we could have ended up with just as many generations of recordings."
Microphones used by Paul Simon on Graceland
Avg price: $7,209.28
According to this Sound on Sound interview with producer Roy Halee, the U67 was used to record Simon's vocals for Graceland.
"For microphones, we used the usual selection of tube Neumann 49s, 87s and 67s. In fact, Paul's mic always seemed to end up being a tube 67 thanks to how it helps with sibilance, enunciation and all-around fullness. I tried different mics with him through the years, but I always went back to the standard M49 or U67."
Avg price: $10,385.57
According to this Sound on Sound interview with producer Roy Halee, the M49 was used extensively for Simon & Garfunkel.
"Right from the start, I loved their sound because it had a classical feel," he now says. "It was very beautiful, very legitimate, with these two voices on one microphone. They never worked with two separate microphones, never. It would not work. You couldn't use two [Neumann] M49s, separate those voices and then mix them together."
Halee goes on to explain that the M49 was revisited during the recording of Graceland.
"For microphones, we used the usual selection of tube Neumann 49s, 87s and 67s. In fact, Paul's mic always seemed to end up being a tube 67 thanks to how it helps with sibilance, enunciation and all-around fullness. I tried different mics with him through the years, but I always went back to the standard M49 or U67."