Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Hypnotic Eye

“We use the Neumann M150 to record Tom’s vocals at the Clubhouse, because it has a tight pattern which diminishes the amount of bleed. You can see the verse lead vocal track, and immediately below it two vocal fix overdubs, because Tom changed a couple of lines, and below that the ‘Voc Amb’ track, which is the ambient mic that I always have set up close to Tom, pointed away from him. If I have to drop in a line, I can add some of the ambience that was on the original vocal mic. I also put that ambience at the beginning of the song before the vocal comes in. The verse vocal has a substantial effect on it, coming from the Decapitator, set on the ‘Old Radio Voice’ preset. Tom has this character in his lyrics, and he felt that it enhanced it to make it more lo-fi. It also meant that his voice sounds bigger in the choruses, when the effect disappears. The verse vocal goes through the 1176 and the MDW, with which I’m just rolling off some low end and adding at 8kHz.

“The chorus vocal is from the same live take, moved to a different track because I applied different processing. It also had the 1176 and MDW. I pushed a lot of 3kHz, to get it to cut through more. Tom sang the chorus part rather softly, because it fit his character, so it needed EQ to come out more in the track. All the vocal harmonies in the track were recorded at Tom’s place. Below the vocals there’s the ‘Vox slap delay’ aux track, which has the Digi Long Delay set at 150ms, and I ran it through the Decapitator, at the same setting as the snare drum.”

“We use the Neumann M150 to record Tom’s vocals at the Clubhouse, because it has a tight pattern which diminishes the amount of bleed. You can see the verse lead vocal track, and immediately below it two vocal fix overdubs, because Tom changed a couple of lines, and below that the ‘Voc Amb’ track, which is the ambient mic that I always have set up close to Tom, pointed away from him. If I have to drop in a line, I can add some of the ambience that was on the original vocal mic. I also put that ambience at the beginning of the song before the vocal comes in. The verse vocal has a substantial effect on it, coming from the Decapitator, set on the ‘Old Radio Voice’ preset. Tom has this character in his lyrics, and he felt that it enhanced it to make it more lo-fi. It also meant that his voice sounds bigger in the choruses, when the effect disappears. The verse vocal goes through the 1176 and the MDW, with which I’m just rolling off some low end and adding at 8kHz.

“The chorus vocal is from the same live take, moved to a different track because I applied different processing. It also had the 1176 and MDW. I pushed a lot of 3kHz, to get it to cut through more. Tom sang the chorus part rather softly, because it fit his character, so it needed EQ to come out more in the track. All the vocal harmonies in the track were recorded at Tom’s place. Below the vocals there’s the ‘Vox slap delay’ aux track, which has the Digi Long Delay set at 150ms, and I ran it through the Decapitator, at the same setting as the snare drum.”

Given Ryan Ulyate’s long-standing involvement with a handful of old rockers, it’s perhaps surprising to find that he works entirely ‘in the box’. However, the fact that he “froze” his system in 2006 means that until very recently he worked with Quad G5 Power PC Macs from that year, running Mac OS 10.4 and Pro Tools HD version 7.4cs11, and 95 percent of his processing was applied with just two plug-ins. All the Tom Petty-related albums he’s engineered were recorded on this system.

“I’ve been very happy using the same Pro Tools system for seven years, because everything works, and I don’t spend my time chasing down the latest upgrades. Once Pro Tools got to version 7.4, all the main really important mix features had been integrated, and any new developments since then have not really been that important for our process. In any case, I value stability over being cutting edge. The two plug-ins I use for most of my processing are the Massenburg DesignWorks Hi-Res Parametric EQ, and the TDM version of the UA 1176, which is not compatible with Macs that run on Intel. I love that plug-in so much that it’s one reason I froze my system in 2006, as well as Tom’s system, which is exactly the same system as mine.

“Over the years I’ve added the SoundToys Decapitator and the Cranesong Phoenix plug-ins to our systems, because they are compatible, but of course many plug-ins have been released over the years, which is the reason why I currently am setting up two state-of-the-art Pro Tools HDX systems, one for Tom and one for me, which we will be running on Mac Pros with three HDX3 cards for each system. But whatever the exact version of Pro Tools we have, I will continue to use it to enhance performances, rather than edit them to death. I am a big fan of the whole digital approach, and of mixing inside a box, not because of the sound, but because of the creative freedom it gives the musicians. It allows us to move very quickly, and I can simply open up a session for a song if Tom wants to fix just one line. That’s something we can do in five minutes. The sound is another issue. All equipment has a colour, and you work with what you have, making your judgements as to what sounds good and doesn’t accordingly. I think people give too much weight to the equipment that they use."

Given Ryan Ulyate’s long-standing involvement with a handful of old rockers, it’s perhaps surprising to find that he works entirely ‘in the box’. However, the fact that he “froze” his system in 2006 means that until very recently he worked with Quad G5 Power PC Macs from that year, running Mac OS 10.4 and Pro Tools HD version 7.4cs11, and 95 percent of his processing was applied with just two plug-ins. All the Tom Petty-related albums he’s engineered were recorded on this system.

“I’ve been very happy using the same Pro Tools system for seven years, because everything works, and I don’t spend my time chasing down the latest upgrades. Once Pro Tools got to version 7.4, all the main really important mix features had been integrated, and any new developments since then have not really been that important for our process. In any case, I value stability over being cutting edge. The two plug-ins I use for most of my processing are the Massenburg DesignWorks Hi-Res Parametric EQ, and the TDM version of the UA 1176, which is not compatible with Macs that run on Intel. I love that plug-in so much that it’s one reason I froze my system in 2006, as well as Tom’s system, which is exactly the same system as mine.

In this source video Mike Campbell is playing a Rickenbacker 325 Capri in black. He tunes the guitar down a whole step, and has been using it on the Hypnotic Eye tour for "American Girl".

Campbell himself mentions the Rat in this September 1999 "Spotlight on a Heartbreaker" interview from the official Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers website.

24) Mark in GA asked: What kind of guitar, pick-ups, amps, any effects pedals, etc. did you use to get the sound for "Don't Come Around Here No More?" On "Don't Come Around Here No More" I used a gold top Les Paul through a rat distortion pedal with a boss octaver and a wah wah pedal through an Ampeg rocket amp.....also used a slide bottle.

On pg. 5-6 of this interview in Tone Quest Report Vol. 9 #5, published March 2008, Mike Campbell states that "Don't Get Me Down" may have used the Rat:

Tom was playing my Strat and I was probably playing the Broadcaster through a Rat distortion, both through the Super Beatles.