Jason's synthesizer didn't have a computer with souped-up programs like Omnisphere on it, he would just do it with guitar pedals, making all the sounds unique. We're like old school like that. Also, [bassist] Tim Lefebvre was just phenomenal to work with. He pretty much nailed every take right on the spot.

Tony Visconti

Categorized in : Entertainment

It is easily overlooked that what is now called vintage was once brand new.

Tony Visconti

brand-new vintage brands

Fortunately I own a vintage brain, and I am alive and well in the 21st century, still making records, still working at an intense pace and most of all, still having fun doing it.

Tony Visconti

vintage brain fun

Marc Bolan had inspired so many people to pick up a guitar and join a band.

Tony Visconti

guitar europe people

I like to work with people who have a sense of putting a song over, and can sing in tune, and with passion. With technology you can polish a turd, but there's still no button you can press for passion.

Tony Visconti

passion technology song

Today's recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago.

Tony Visconti

today science years

Rock and Roll has certainly tried to take its toll on me. I'd rather not talk about my past excesses here, although some hardcore rockers might argue that those excesses were responsible for some great records, but I know which side I came out on.

Tony Visconti

rock-and-roll rocks past

No one else in our family was a professional musician so this took an enormous leap of faith on their part.

Tony Visconti

enormous musician faith

Every time I meet the CEO of a record label I tell them how they did it in the seventies because they want to know. I tell them, "Sign a hundred people! Throw it against the wall and see which ones stick!" And they frown and say, "Oh, we can't do that!" and they start mumbling about demographics and this and that.

Tony Visconti

wall labels people

My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.

Tony Visconti

quick-wit friends dad

I make records with an open mind, I always have.

Tony Visconti

open-mind records mind

The ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play.

Tony Visconti

guitar years son

Pop was initially ignored as a moneymaker by the recording industry. In the seventies they were still relying on Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett for their big hits. You know, most of the budget for the record companies in those days went to the classical department - and those were big budget albums.

Tony Visconti

ignored records albums

I am not a creature of habit.

Tony Visconti

creatures-of-habit creatures habit

I keep reviewing my feelings about the supernatural.

Tony Visconti

feelings

I love Logic Audio and have been using it for years. All my track outputs used to come up on my old board in the same order as in the old Mac G4 - 1 through 32, came up as 1 through 32, for instance.

Tony Visconti

track order years

I think the whole obsession with old gear is completely overblown. You don't need old-fashioned gear to make a great-sounding record. You don't even need [analog] tape.

Tony Visconti

tape needs thinking

In the last 17 years of his working life, my father was finally rewarded with having landed a great job as first, a maintenance engineer, and then a senior locksmith with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Tony Visconti

senior new-york jobs

Today a record producer is even more involved and is often the production's sole musician, one person playing all the instruments one-by-one.

Tony Visconti

records musician today

Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer's job.

Tony Visconti

records jobs directors

You could make some great sounds with technology. That's what recording is all about. What happens in the studio is very magical, and should be, in my opinion.

Tony Visconti

opinion technology sound