R.E.M. – Murmur

Used to record Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Reflection certainly had plenty of tracks to offer. Easter recalls that studio owner Wayne Jernigan was also a pro audio dealer at that time and, in particular, an MCI rep. So the main recording gear at the studio included MCI JH24 and JH110 tape machines, and an MCI JH600 console.

(...) Recording to the JH-24 machine at 30 ips, Dixon and Easter tracked every song live, with the other three (gobo’d) bandmembers arranged around Berry’s kit in the main room, though Stipe’s vocals and some guitar solos would be replaced later.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

When the band signed to IRS Records, the label insisted that they record in a 'proper studio,' which to them meant a studio with a 24-track tape machine. I only had 16. So we went to this place called Reflection, which was this really nice studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reflection had an MCI 600 console, an MCI JH24 tape machine, and a lot of great microphones.

Producer Mitch Easter's Gemini II was used on Murmur, according to these five sources.

R.E.M.'s Murmur by J. Niimi (2005)

Peter Buck's workhorse amp—his Fender Twin—was broken at the time, so Easter loaned him his checkerboard-grill Ampeg Gemini II for the session, which was used on most tracks, alongside the studio's little solid state (i.e., transistor rather than tube-driven) Kasino amp. Guitar-wise, Buck had brought his maple-glo Rickenbacker 360, which he had also used on the Chronic Town session.

RickResource, blue330 (Mitch Easter), April 14, 2008 comment on the thread "What about Peter Buck?"

Mr. Buck played a 360 on Murmur, not a 330. And I recall it was the Jetglo one, not the Mapleglo one he had on their first session here in NC. On Murmur, the amps were a little Kasino solid state thing (Pilgrimage only), and an Ampeg Gemini II. No AC30s! They came much later, and the last couple of times I saw them his amp was a small Silvertone.

Mitch Easter

Sound on Sound, November 2009, “REM ‘Radio Free Europe’ | Classic Tracks”

Standing on the left side of the studio, Peter Buck used Easter's own Ampeg, wide open without gobos and miked with an EV 635 or, for some overdubs, a compressed Neumann U47 FET.

Music Radar, June 3, 2021, “Producer Mitch Easter shares the inside story of R.E.M.’s early recording sessions: ‘It was glorious. They rehearsed a lot just because they liked to play together’”

Tell us about the guitar sounds…

“Peter [Buck] played all the guitars. I think he had a [Fender] Twin Reverb then. He used those for a long time. In the session, he played an electric 12-string, but not a Rickenbacker. It was a Fender Electric XII. I didn’t have a lot of recording equipment, but I did have a good guitar and amp selection.

“I told him, ‘You might want to try this.’ When we did Murmur [in 1983], I remember Peter’s Twin Reverb was dead, so that record was done with my 60s Ampeg Gemini II. It’s on every song on Murmur except Pilgrimage. I think the guitars on Murmur are the classic early Peter Buck sound.

“The thing about Peter Buck’s sound that’s really important is he used larger gauge flatwound strings. That’s what made it all work. Those Rickenbacker pickups sound better the more metal you put over them. And you develop a very deliberate way of playing. That’s what you can hear in his playing. You can hear everything he did. He really mastered it.”

[Guitar Player, February 9, 2022, "'A Lot of Bands Simply Wanted to Fit In, but R.E.M. Always Wanted to Be Themselves': Producer Mitch Easter Reveals the Genius Behind the Jangle Pop"]

What amps was Peter using at first?

He had a Fender Twin, and that’s what we recorded with. I remember when we were doing “Pilgrimage” at Reflection Studio in Charlotte, the Twin was in the shop. [“Pilgrimage” was recorded prior to Murmur as a “test” for I.R.S. Records.]

I didn’t have anything with me, but there was a Kasino solid-state amp in the studio, so we used that, and it sounded great. I think some people might faint knowing that we used this little 25-watt solid-state practice amp, but it had a really nice sound. There were oddball things like that.

For Murmur, he still didn’t have his amp back, so he used my Ampeg G-15. That amp and the Kasino are what’s on Murmur. When they came in to do Reckoning, he had his Twin back. But if you’re a distinctive-sounding guy like him, you sound like yourself no matter what.

Used "for some overdubs" on Murmur, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter in this November 2009 Sound on Sound interview.

Standing on the left side of the studio, Peter Buck used Easter's own Ampeg, wide open without gobos and miked with an EV 635 or, for some overdubs, a compressed Neumann U47 FET.

Used on Murmur, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter in this November 2009 Sound on Sound interview.

Standing on the left side of the studio, Peter Buck used Easter's own Ampeg, wide open without gobos and miked with an EV 635 or, for some overdubs, a compressed Neumann U47 FET.

Producer Mitch Easter's Danelectro sitar was used for the Chronic Town EP and Murmur, as recalled by Easter in R.E.M.'s Murmur (2005) by J. Niimi.

Easter brought along his white Fender Electric XII twelve-string guitar (a gift from his father when he turned thirteen; Peter Buck did not own an electric Rickenbacker twelve-string at this point, contrary to fan myth), as well as his trusty Danelectro electric sitar (which Buck had used in the Chronic Town session, most prominently on "Gardening at Night"). Easter's Electric XII can also be heard on many of Let's Active's early recordings.

Producer Mitch Easter's XII twelve-string was used on Murmur, as recalled by Easter in R.E.M.'s Murmur (2005) by J. Niimi.

Easter brought along his white Fender Electric XII twelve-string guitar (a gift from his father when he turned thirteen; Peter Buck did not own an electric Rickenbacker twelve-string at this point, contrary to fan myth), as well as his trusty Danelectro electric sitar (which Buck had used in the Chronic Town session, most prominently on "Gardening at Night"). Easter's Electric XII can also be heard on many of Let's Active's early recordings.

Used to record Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Reflection certainly had plenty of tracks to offer. Easter recalls that studio owner Wayne Jernigan was also a pro audio dealer at that time and, in particular, an MCI rep. So the main recording gear at the studio included MCI JH24 and JH110 tape machines, and an MCI JH600 console.

(...) Recording to the JH-24 machine at 30 ips, Dixon and Easter tracked every song live, with the other three (gobo’d) bandmembers arranged around Berry’s kit in the main room, though Stipe’s vocals and some guitar solos would be replaced later.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

When the band signed to IRS Records, the label insisted that they record in a 'proper studio,' which to them meant a studio with a 24-track tape machine. I only had 16. So we went to this place called Reflection, which was this really nice studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reflection had an MCI 600 console, an MCI JH24 tape machine, and a lot of great microphones.

Used for vocals on Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Mills’ bass amp was miked with a Neumann FET U47 from eight or so feet away, according to Dixon, who says he spent more time on vocals for Reckoning than on anything else. He often gave Stipe a ride to the studio about noon, and they would sing for a few hours in the quiet studio, replacing scratch vocals from the previous day.

“We had Michael sing into a FET 47 — the transistor version of the famous 47 — and it sounded great. It had a good forwardness about it,” Easter says. “The processing on Michael, the thing that seemed to be the magic formula, was a touch of this thing called the EXR Exciter. It was one of those mystery treble-boosting things, and that gave him a touch of brightness.” Also included in Stipe’s vocal chain were a DeltaLab delay, set to only about 16 milliseconds, and a UREI 1176 compressor.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

For the vocals, we used a Neumann U47 FET, and I think a lot of the selection was made by Michael Stipe. He saw the mic sitting there with its perfectly spherical windscreen and said, “That’s cute, let’s use that one.” It just so happened that the U47 was the perfect microphone for his voice. The u47 has a bit of a lift in the upper mids, which brought out the gravelly sound of his voice really well.

The rest of it was really straight-forward. Back then, no one used outboard mic pres. You had an expensive professional console and that’s why you had it. So we just used the MCI console preamp with an 1176 to compress it on the way in.

We tried to come up with a signature vocal sound for that record, which was done by adding an EXR Exciter coming back off the tape. The EXR was sort of an Aphex Exciter copy. We also used these DeltaLab delays, not the blue Effectrons that people remember, but these black DL1 delays that cost more and had XLR connections. It had these two toggle switches that would adjust the delay times in tiny increments; the max delay was like 128 ms. It had two channels so you could set two short delays, which we dialed in to be THE Michael Stipe sound.

If there was any reverb it would have been an EMT 140. The studio had Lexicon 224s and all the new digital stuff, but we thought the 140 sounded better. We used the digital units as special effects for a splatter on the snare drum or something, which was very fashionable at the time. It was all a very late ‘70s kind of approach."

According to Wayback Machine archives of Reflection Sound Studios' outboard gear list (April 21, 2003 and July 21, 2019), the 1176 is more specifically a "UREI 1176 LN Blackface limiter".

Used for vocals on Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Mills’ bass amp was miked with a Neumann FET U47 from eight or so feet away, according to Dixon, who says he spent more time on vocals for Reckoning than on anything else. He often gave Stipe a ride to the studio about noon, and they would sing for a few hours in the quiet studio, replacing scratch vocals from the previous day.

“We had Michael sing into a FET 47 — the transistor version of the famous 47 — and it sounded great. It had a good forwardness about it,” Easter says. “The processing on Michael, the thing that seemed to be the magic formula, was a touch of this thing called the EXR Exciter. It was one of those mystery treble-boosting things, and that gave him a touch of brightness.” Also included in Stipe’s vocal chain were a DeltaLab delay, set to only about 16 milliseconds, and a UREI 1176 compressor.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

For the vocals, we used a Neumann U47 FET, and I think a lot of the selection was made by Michael Stipe. He saw the mic sitting there with its perfectly spherical windscreen and said, “That’s cute, let’s use that one.” It just so happened that the U47 was the perfect microphone for his voice. The u47 has a bit of a lift in the upper mids, which brought out the gravelly sound of his voice really well.

The rest of it was really straight-forward. Back then, no one used outboard mic pres. You had an expensive professional console and that’s why you had it. So we just used the MCI console preamp with an 1176 to compress it on the way in.

We tried to come up with a signature vocal sound for that record, which was done by adding an EXR Exciter coming back off the tape. The EXR was sort of an Aphex Exciter copy. We also used these DeltaLab delays, not the blue Effectrons that people remember, but these black DL1 delays that cost more and had XLR connections. It had these two toggle switches that would adjust the delay times in tiny increments; the max delay was like 128 ms. It had two channels so you could set two short delays, which we dialed in to be THE Michael Stipe sound.

If there was any reverb it would have been an EMT 140. The studio had Lexicon 224s and all the new digital stuff, but we thought the 140 sounded better. We used the digital units as special effects for a splatter on the snare drum or something, which was very fashionable at the time. It was all a very late ‘70s kind of approach."

Used for vocals on Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009, “Classic Tracks: R.E.M.’s ‘So. Central Rain’”

Mills’ bass amp was miked with a Neumann FET U47 from eight or so feet away, according to Dixon, who says he spent more time on vocals for Reckoning than on anything else. He often gave Stipe a ride to the studio about noon, and they would sing for a few hours in the quiet studio, replacing scratch vocals from the previous day.

“We had Michael sing into a FET 47 — the transistor version of the famous 47 — and it sounded great. It had a good forwardness about it,” Easter says. “The processing on Michael, the thing that seemed to be the magic formula, was a touch of this thing called the EXR Exciter. It was one of those mystery treble-boosting things, and that gave him a touch of brightness.” Also included in Stipe’s vocal chain were a DeltaLab delay, set to only about 16 milliseconds, and a UREI 1176 compressor.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019, “Five Sounds With Mitch Easter”

For the vocals, we used a Neumann U47 FET, and I think a lot of the selection was made by Michael Stipe. He saw the mic sitting there with its perfectly spherical windscreen and said, “That’s cute, let’s use that one.” It just so happened that the U47 was the perfect microphone for his voice. The u47 has a bit of a lift in the upper mids, which brought out the gravelly sound of his voice really well.

The rest of it was really straight-forward. Back then, no one used outboard mic pres. You had an expensive professional console and that’s why you had it. So we just used the MCI console preamp with an 1176 to compress it on the way in.

We tried to come up with a signature vocal sound for that record, which was done by adding an EXR Exciter coming back off the tape. The EXR was sort of an Aphex Exciter copy. We also used these DeltaLab delays, not the blue Effectrons that people remember, but these black DL1 delays that cost more and had XLR connections. It had these two toggle switches that would adjust the delay times in tiny increments; the max delay was like 128 ms. It had two channels so you could set two short delays, which we dialed in to be THE Michael Stipe sound.

If there was any reverb it would have been an EMT 140. The studio had Lexicon 224s and all the new digital stuff, but we thought the 140 sounded better. We used the digital units as special effects for a splatter on the snare drum or something, which was very fashionable at the time. It was all a very late ‘70s kind of approach."

In 2001 Wayback Machine archives of the website for Reflection Sound Studios, where Murmur and Reckoning were recorded, the outboard gear lists for Studio A and for Studio C specify the “EXR Exciter - EX2”.

Used for vocals on Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter in the following sources. It also appears in the music video for "So. Central Rain" starting at 0:08.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Mills’ bass amp was miked with a Neumann FET U47 from eight or so feet away, according to Dixon, who says he spent more time on vocals for Reckoning than on anything else. He often gave Stipe a ride to the studio about noon, and they would sing for a few hours in the quiet studio, replacing scratch vocals from the previous day.

“We had Michael sing into a FET 47 — the transistor version of the famous 47 — and it sounded great. It had a good forwardness about it,” Easter says. “The processing on Michael, the thing that seemed to be the magic formula, was a touch of this thing called the EXR Exciter. It was one of those mystery treble-boosting things, and that gave him a touch of brightness.” Also included in Stipe’s vocal chain were a DeltaLab delay, set to only about 16 milliseconds, and a UREI 1176 compressor.

Sound on Sound, November 2009

Standing on the left side of the studio, Peter Buck used Easter's own Ampeg, wide open without gobos and miked with an EV 635 or, for some overdubs, a compressed Neumann U47 FET. Meanwhile, a second FET 47 was used for Michael Stipe's vocals, which he recorded standing on the landing of a staircase positioned just below the control room and above a recreational basement area. "He still had this thing of loving to be invisible,” remarks Easter, "and so he'd go there, turn off all the lights and sing.”

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

For the vocals, we used a Neumann U47 FET, and I think a lot of the selection was made by Michael Stipe. He saw the mic sitting there with its perfectly spherical windscreen and said, “That’s cute, let’s use that one.” It just so happened that the U47 was the perfect microphone for his voice. The u47 has a bit of a lift in the upper mids, which brought out the gravelly sound of his voice really well.

The rest of it was really straight-forward. Back then, no one used outboard mic pres. You had an expensive professional console and that’s why you had it. So we just used the MCI console preamp with an 1176 to compress it on the way in.

We tried to come up with a signature vocal sound for that record, which was done by adding an EXR Exciter coming back off the tape. The EXR was sort of an Aphex Exciter copy. We also used these DeltaLab delays, not the blue Effectrons that people remember, but these black DL1 delays that cost more and had XLR connections. It had these two toggle switches that would adjust the delay times in tiny increments; the max delay was like 128 ms. It had two channels so you could set two short delays, which we dialed in to be THE Michael Stipe sound.

If there was any reverb it would have been an EMT 140. The studio had Lexicon 224s and all the new digital stuff, but we thought the 140 sounded better. We used the digital units as special effects for a splatter on the snare drum or something, which was very fashionable at the time. It was all a very late ‘70s kind of approach."

Used on Murmur, according to these two sources.

R.E.M.'s Murmur by J. Niimi (2005)

Mike Mills had been using a Dan Armstrong bass up to the time of Chronic Town, but Easter lent him his Rickenbacker 4001 bass on an early garage session, and by the time of the Murmur sessions Mills had bought his own. Mills played through the studio's trusty Ampeg B-15, which was set up in the hallway outside the live room.

Sound on Sound, November 2009

This time around, while Bill Berry's drum kit was conventionally miked in the booth — "I'm sure we had an [ElectroVoice] RE20 on the bass drum, because that's what you did in the United States at that time” — Mike Mills played his Rickenbacker bass through the studio's Ampeg B15 amp which was recorded with a distant mic in a small corridor. "I had probably just read that Geoff Emerick miked Paul McCartney from about eight feet away,” Easter says. "We would try stuff like that, and sure enough it worked.”

Used to record Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Reflection certainly had plenty of tracks to offer. Easter recalls that studio owner Wayne Jernigan was also a pro audio dealer at that time and, in particular, an MCI rep. So the main recording gear at the studio included MCI JH24 and JH110 tape machines, and an MCI JH600 console.

(...) Recording to the JH-24 machine at 30 ips, Dixon and Easter tracked every song live, with the other three (gobo’d) bandmembers arranged around Berry’s kit in the main room, though Stipe’s vocals and some guitar solos would be replaced later.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

When the band signed to IRS Records, the label insisted that they record in a 'proper studio,' which to them meant a studio with a 24-track tape machine. I only had 16. So we went to this place called Reflection, which was this really nice studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reflection had an MCI 600 console, an MCI JH24 tape machine, and a lot of great microphones.

Used to record Murmur and Reckoning, as recalled by producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.

Mix Online, February 1, 2009

Reflection certainly had plenty of tracks to offer. Easter recalls that studio owner Wayne Jernigan was also a pro audio dealer at that time and, in particular, an MCI rep. So the main recording gear at the studio included MCI JH24 and JH110 tape machines, and an MCI JH600 console.

(...) Recording to the JH-24 machine at 30 ips, Dixon and Easter tracked every song live, with the other three (gobo’d) bandmembers arranged around Berry’s kit in the main room, though Stipe’s vocals and some guitar solos would be replaced later.

Vintage King, June 11, 2019

When the band signed to IRS Records, the label insisted that they record in a 'proper studio,' which to them meant a studio with a 24-track tape machine. I only had 16. So we went to this place called Reflection, which was this really nice studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reflection had an MCI 600 console, an MCI JH24 tape machine, and a lot of great microphones.

Used for the bass drum on Murmur, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter in this November 2009 Sound on Sound interview.

This time around, while Bill Berry's drum kit was conventionally miked in the booth — "I'm sure we had an [ElectroVoice] RE20 on the bass drum, because that's what you did in the United States at that time” — Mike Mills played his Rickenbacker bass through the studio's Ampeg B15 amp which was recorded with a distant mic in a small corridor.