Michael Stipe

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."

“When we did Michael’s vocals we were at Hit Factory/Criteria in Studio E. It’s a mid-size control room with two outboard racks at tabletop height with a walkway between the two. In the middle is where we set up his mic stand,” explains Candiloro. “On one side was outboard gear on top of the rack and the other side was Michael’s station with his headphones ready to go. He liked the Fostex T-50s and we used the same pair for the whole record. Most of the time it would only be Pat [McCarthy] and myself in the control room with headphones on while Michael was doing his vocals. He would work the mic — grab it sometimes. He’s very consistent. He’s been doing it for a long time and knows his voice so well. It’s an instrument he’s kept in great shape; he knows exactly how to work a mic.”

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 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”.

“Michael [Stipe] wanted to do all his vocals in the control room; we liked the immediacy of being able to work next to each other,” confides Candiloro. “So I put up a straight mic stand and an Audio-Technica AE5400 with no pop filter and ran that into the John Hardy M-1 mic pre. Although we did the basic tracks on 2-inch 24-track analog, by the time we were recording vocals we dumped everything into Pro Tools.”

“Michael [Stipe] wanted to do all his vocals in the control room; we liked the immediacy of being able to work next to each other,” confides Candiloro. “So I put up a straight mic stand and an Audio-Technica AE5400 with no pop filter and ran that into the John Hardy M-1 mic pre. Although we did the basic tracks on 2-inch 24-track analog, by the time we were recording vocals we dumped everything into Pro Tools.”

“During the recording I really didn’t use much processing at all,” Candiloro states. “On fitting his vocal in the mix, most of what I wanted to hear was his voice naturally. Every so often I used a Waves C4 multi-band compressor if I needed to pull certain frequencies out. With less heavy compression I could get the vocal to breath a little bit more. We were on the SSL 9000J but I didn’t use their compressor, I was using an [Universal Audio] LA-2A. With Pro Tools you can do some quick automation and it’s always going to sound more natural than compressing the life out of something just to get it to cut through. Michael likes plate reverb on his voice, so we used that too.”

“During the recording I really didn’t use much processing at all,” Candiloro states. “On fitting his vocal in the mix, most of what I wanted to hear was his voice naturally. Every so often I used a Waves C4 multi-band compressor if I needed to pull certain frequencies out. With less heavy compression I could get the vocal to breath a little bit more. We were on the SSL 9000J but I didn’t use their compressor, I was using an [Universal Audio] LA-2A. With Pro Tools you can do some quick automation and it’s always going to sound more natural than compressing the life out of something just to get it to cut through. Michael likes plate reverb on his voice, so we used that too.”

At 1:37-1:39 on the live video (Perfect Square 2004) you can clearly see that the mic he's holding has the same ridges near the bottom that the Shure U2 SM58 has, as well as having the same antenna.

Stipe recommends the deck at the end of this March 23, 2017 The Creative Independent interview. It was previously mentioned in the lyrics of "Diminished", while a fictional oblique strategy from the film Slacker is quoted in "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?".

"Diminished"

I'll consult the I Ching / I'll consult the TV / Ouija, Oblique Strategies / I'll consult the law books for / Precedents / Can I charm the jury?

"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"

Richard said, "Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy"

The Creative Independent, March 23, 2017, "Michael Stipe on having multiple creative lives"

Michael Stipe recommends:

• Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
• Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train directed by Patrice Chéreau
• Wire’s 154, and Pylon’s Gyrate Plus
• Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt
• My own tumblr, which serves as my own ongoing mood board for basically everything.

“During the recording I really didn’t use much processing at all,” Candiloro states. “On fitting his vocal in the mix, most of what I wanted to hear was his voice naturally. Every so often I used a Waves C4 multi-band compressor if I needed to pull certain frequencies out. With less heavy compression I could get the vocal to breath a little bit more. We were on the SSL 9000J but I didn’t use their compressor, I was using an [Universal Audio] LA-2A. With Pro Tools you can do some quick automation and it’s always going to sound more natural than compressing the life out of something just to get it to cut through. Michael likes plate reverb on his voice, so we used that too.”

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".

In the R.E.M. episode of Song Explorer documentary, A boss chromatic tuner is seen in their studio, labeled "gtr" ( not bass) at 0:13.

Used for "Überlin", as can be seen in this September 10, 2010 video.

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 the Chronic Town EP, as recalled by producer Mitch Easter in this November 2009 Sound on Sound interview.

"After buying all of this used equipment, the bare minimum you could make records with, I just started up shop. I didn't have any training or professional experience, but having already made tons of four‑track recordings at home on a TEAC 2340 with my friend Chris Stamey — using only an Echoplex and a TEAC device that would switch the four outputs to left, right or centre — I figured, 'Well what's the difference?' It really wasn't all that different. The four‑track had been fantastic in terms of learning how things worked, and I was right in figuring the pro stuff would be the same, except I had to start all over again because it was much more clean‑sounding. This great fur that the old four‑track had put on everything made it all hang together, and so now I had to re‑learn what I was doing.

"I had two 3M tape machines — a classic M56 two‑inch 16‑track and the equivalent M64 two‑track machine — along with a pair of ADS 810 monitors and a Quantum Audio board manufactured in California by one of the very few companies that were still making humble pro‑level consoles. It was a 12‑channel board with an eight‑channel sidecar, bolted together at the factory to custom order. With 20 inputs, 16 tracks of monitoring, three‑band EQ on every channel, a couple of aux sends and a couple of echo sends I thought I was really living. It was an unbelievable leap from anything I had ever used before. Everything worked pretty well and I also bought a couple thousand dollars of good microphones, the showpieces being two AKG 414s.

"Everything was learned as I went along. With the TEAC, Chris and I had originally put two microphones on the drums, which was a good introduction to moving the mics around until everything sounds good, and then later, when we had four or five microphones, we started messing around with individually recording more parts of the kit, and from that I learned a lot about just tuning the drums. The fact that we had no EQ and no nothing made us get the sounds totally with drum tone and mic placement.”