Guns N’ Roses Slash has revealed to Japan’s “Rock City” that his upcoming album with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators Living The Dream is his first Pro Tools recorded album after using only analog in the past. Slash indicated that analog albums in the past would cost him $100,000. The new album is produced by Michael “Elvis” Baskette, who previously worked on 2014’s World On Fire. The album was recorded at Snakepit Studios.
“We didn’t do drums [at Snakepit] because it just doesn’t have a high enough ceiling for [that], but for everything else, it’s great,” Slash told “Rock City”. “I mean, it’s only a 16-track board in there, and we did this entire record on that. We mixed over at Elvis’s place in Florida, but other than that, it’s totally functional, and it sounds really good.”
“It’s just too expensive making analog records for me, out of pocket, because in this day and age of making records, the chances of you seeing a return on a record that cost you a hundred thousand dollars or more to make, it just isn’t really cost effective,” Slash explained. “So we did it on Pro Tools and we just bounced everything into 40-some-odd tracks.”
Slash went on to say that he “very concerned” at first about making a Pro Tools album, but his mind was put at ease by Elvis’s assurance that everything would turn out to his satisfaction. “Elvis is pretty much a genius, so he is somebody that appreciates analog recording as well,” Slash said. “He’s one of the best guys at taking a digital recording and making it sound warm enough. All things considered, when I listen to this record we just did, it doesn’t strike me right off the bat as a digital record. So that’s really all you are striving to do — just make something that sounds warm and doesn’t have that digital click to it. So I think we’ve managed to pull it off.”
