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Considering the diverse range of musical styles visited by UK supergroup The Cure in over twenty years of recording, putting together a "Greatest Hits" album must have presented quite an editorial challenge. The compilation follows a chronological tour of the band's best singles, from the early post-punk of Boys Don't Cry, through the wedding reception disco of Love Cats, the beautiful melancholy of the Disintegration period, to the modern Cure era with Wrong Number.
Realising, however, that Cure die-hards would probably already have many of these tracks, the band decided to include two brand new singles, and a bonus CD containing acoustic versions of all the songs. These new acoustic sessions are the first Cure releases to be entirely tracked and mixed within the Pro Tools environment, and the band came to Gearbox to invest in a new system powerful enough to do the job. The core of this system was a bang up-to-date G4/733 with Pro Tools|24 MIX3. Three Apogee AD8000-SE’s s were chosen for audio I/O – with the band citing a preference for the sound.
Gearbox sales manager Andy Brooks' long-term relationship with the band is – according to keyboard player Roger O'Donnell – down to his consistently good advice (and bottom lines!) GearBox spoke to Roger, and Cure front-man Robert Smith, about the new releases and the technology involved.
Roger O'Donnell:
"We recorded [the acoustic sessions] at Olympic Studios straight into the Pro Tools system through the house SSL desk. The engineer for this project was Keith Uddin and we had a special guest: Boris Williams a past member of the Cure made a come back on percussion. Robert took the whole project away and mixed it at home solely within The Cure’s Pro Tools system straight out on to DAT."
Robert Smith takes up the story:
"I asked Keith to keep things as simple as possible. I ended up with Drums across 6 tracks, Boris' Percussion across another 2 tracks – generally left hand-right hand! – Bass guitar/Perry's guitar/my guitar/my voice across a further 4 tracks, and Roger's keyboards across anything from 1 to 3 stereo pairs (to facilitate his hopping around from piano to harmonium etc!). So 'the mix' was really just a very basic level/stereo placement affair. I was confronted in almost every song with 16 tracks of continuous audio, I used very little processing (a bit of limiting mainly) which is why the 'acoustic hits' credit reads "mixed by itself and Robert"! I actually ended up bouncing each mix down to a 16-bit stereo 'master' inside Logic and then burning CD's with Toast to take to Tim Young at Metropolis mastering for that final tweak..."
Although recording and mixing within the Pro Tools environment was a new venture, The Cure had already moved into the digital recording domain (care of Otari RADAR) for the last studio album.
"I defy anyone (including 'Jason the analogue' our drummer!) To guess correctly those 'Bloodflowers' songs that had (for example) drum parts edited in Pro Tools and those that didn't!" With the latest recording, Robert appreciated the time saved by tracking directly into the computer, adding, "…that, coupled with the flexibility of the Protools system would make it pretty much impossible for me to ever go back to analogue recording"
Despite computer-based sequencing having been part of The Cure's armoury since the late eighties – and Robert’s long love affair with Apple Macs – moving to complete reliance on a computer as the heart of a studio could have been a daunting technical challenge. However, Gearbox Pro Tools product specialist Niv Adiri, took a passionate interest in ensuring the new system was precisely configured and installed. He also took time to work with the band to help them tailor their use of the system to their best advantage.
Roger explains:
"Niv's personal involvement meant a painless transition ... its nice to have somebody you trust and that you can call to come down at any time of the day or night."
Robert agrees, adding,
"It's also nice to find someone who is billed as a 'Specialist' not only knowing more about his chosen subject than anyone else in the room (!) But also being patient enough to explain it..."
The Cure "Greatest Hits" is in all good record stores now, with an associated "Greatest Hits" DVD, featuring the bands finest video moments, available also.
For further info on The Cure please visit:
The Cure
As a footnote, GearBox would like to offer a personal thank you to Robert Smith for destroying 'Mecha-Streisand' in our favourite TV show 'Southpark'.
For further information on Southpark please visit: South Park Studios