Kirk Hammett Quotes

I've discovered that sheer quantity doesn't necessarily make for a heavier sound; if anything, overdubs make guitars sound mushier.

Darrell is really good in the studio. I mean, he has a real working knowledge of how the process works, and what sounds good coming back over tape, and how the stuff works together.

The first record we made, we recorded and mixed in a day. The second record was recorded and mixed in a week. The third was recorded and mixed in a month, and 'New Wave' was mixed and recorded in six months. It was an epic project.

I'm from the pre-Pro Tools era where you had to meet up with the artist and go over things if you wanted to record a track.

I love to be able to put my hands on a keyboard, to have a guitar and a bass within reach, as well as all the effects.

The studio part, to me, can be pretty laborious. You're inside for hours on end and can be pretty frustrating to get the sound you hear in your head to come out of those speakers.

What producers did was mostly recording in the studio, so it never changed our sound just that much.

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

The whole thing with recording is you have to know when to turn off the tape machine and just stop recording because you want to keep fixing, fixing, fixing, you know?

We spent a lot of time on that record with the sound and recorded it on the Paramount sound stage which is this huge room where the sound is reflected but the reflection is so late and comes from so far away that it doesn't blur the music but gives you a room nonetheless.

Making records is fun. It's not some big statement. You're allowed to make mistakes.

I like home recordings and studio recordings just as much as each other - I don't think one is better - but for this record I wanted to see what I could do in a real studio with real producers.

I've always been interested in what happens in the studio.

My very first records, I was very interested in how you get the particular quality you want out of it, and I began to learn about the engineering and aspects of production and things very early on. I got hands-on with the process and taught myself how to engineer, as opposed to just being a producer who asked the engineer to make it sound nice.

When we recorded our first album sixteen track machines were the thing.

We listened to a lot of Rolling Stones and Beatles records when we were recording. They were really good at not playing loud, but generating really big sounds out of everything.

I realized I liked being in the studio and working on translating the ideas into recordings.

I just spend my life studying the manufacture of sound and picture and my education, if you like, has come from what I've chosen to make sounds and pictures on.

You can do a lot to shape the feeling of a song by the way you record it.

I love loud music. I listen loud, and that's part of how I've learned how to do this. Record softly and play back loud and a whole other thing happens.

I'm on this eternal quest to get the best guitar sound in the world, but my vision of what is 'the best' changes every time I go into the studio. Sometimes my goal is to make my guitar jump out, and sometimes I want it to lay back.

I still fall back a lot on my Les Paul, and there is just no getting away from a Les Paul and a hot pickup.

I don't think we'll ever use the same sound techniques.

You shouldn't really have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound good. It should all be done with microphones and microphone placement.

I've finally figured out how to make a Rodney Crowell record, and that's let it be, leave the mistakes.