This track tear down will address the production and composition of The Police’s Roxanne. This song was recorded in April 1979 and was written by Sting while they were on tour in 1978. It was produced by Nigel Grey at A&M studios in in London. The studio used to record their album however was recorded in AIR studio's, MontserratIt where they used a Neve desk for all the tracking. Roxanne was their first single released with a big record label and since then has been a rock and roll classic. It made it into the Rolling Stone top 500 greatest hits as well and the top 100 rock songs of all time. Sting wrote this song about a prostitute he saw in France in the mid-70’s that he saw while on his way to The Nashville to play a show. It was the first time he had ever seen prostitutes and was wondering what it would be like to be one of their boyfriends.
This track is is written in 4/4 time signature and has a BPM of 132. The song is in the key of A#major or G minor (relative) and uses a CAGED chord system. The use of ‘sus’ chords is prominent in this song as well as the use of ‘jazz chords’. Jazz chords are usually minor 7th chords and what give the song that almost dissonant sounding reggae feel.The chords used are Gm, Fsus, Dm7, Cm7, Fsus4, Gsus4, Eb5, C5 (power chord). This array of using jazz chords a reggae groove as well as the use of classic rock power chords gives this song an intricate style that was influential at the time and still today people are writing this jazz, reggae, rock fusion music as it has help shape rock and roll. More over the scale used wraps around a pentatonic scale as well as some flamenco as well. The Genre of this song was originally written as a bossa-nova the guitarist, Summers described the bones of Roxanne as “this little gentle nylon-string bossa-nova thing” (AV Music, 2012).
The guitar’s in Roxanne are what makes the song unique with the use of the bossa-nova bass line and playing style. The bossa-nova is a Brazilian style of playing and was mostly used in the 60’s in America (Wheeler, J, 2004). Bossa-nova is traditionally played on a nylon string guitar however it has come to be affiliated with jazz and sometimes blues and rock music also. Using this style for the guitar and bass parts in Roxanne for the police was something different that hadn't been done music in the punk scene they were surrounded by in London. Moreover this style of playing fused with jazz and rock created a unique sound for them where their sound would jump from genre to genre in each song. This was extenuated in the guitar parts of Roxanne by the use of guitar pedals by their guitar ist summers. He used less fuzz on his guitars than other guitarists at the time. The pedals that could find that summers was most partial to using in this album Roxanne was on were a MXR Dyna Compressor , Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress (Rate: 6.5, Range: 8, Color: 3, Filter Matrix switch: flanger setting), Echoplex EP-3 (Mode: Echo, Delay: 330ms, Sustain: single repeat, Volume: 50/50 dry/echo). The guitar he used was more often than not a custom telecaster guitar which are known for their warm treble tones that can be heard in the verse’s of Roxanne and an early 70’s Marshall super lead guitar amp that had a 4x12 Marshall cab.
In the verse of Roxanne the guitars are clean and jangly sounding playing chords on the beat over a 4 bar chords progression. The notes are staccato and on the 7th bar before the end of the verse the chords is played over one bar so that it rings out. The tone is crisp with a little bit of reverb but is mostly dry. There is definitely some sort of out board EQ and compression as the low end is very minimal. There are many sites that suggest the production of this whole song was minimal and was done in a studio what had low quality recording environments such as using egg cartons on the walls to dampen the sound of the room. Even 35 years ago this was a technique that was way out of date. This can be heard in the recording of the guitar as you can hear a tinny sound that would have come from the concrete floors and tin roof that the recording studio apparently sported. As far as the mix for the guitar it is quite prominent in the verses with the clean sound being quiet piecing at times and it appears to be positioned in the center of the mix and not panned at all. There is little information about the microphone used on Roxanne but however the microphones used to record the guitar for the bands following album in 1983 they used a Sennheiser 421 close mic'd to each speaker. Through the chorus and bridge the structure becomes more rock and roll and there is a restriction placed on the guitar that is then pushed a lot further back into the mix.
The vocal processing in this song in minimal a los this is an interesting approach in today's society but think is something that should be considered for my mix I am currently doing for The Jang as they like the processing in this song for the aesthetic. I sounds as though the used of a condenser microphone would have been sued along with some terrible microphone technique from Sting himself. You can hear that the mic is catching very little of the lower register and the strain of his voice is captures in the higher frequencies of the takes. From what I can hear and what I have discovered from reading about the production of ‘Every Breath You Take’ mostly likely they used a AKG 414 on the vocals and used an UREI 1176 to compress the low end. This creative choice by the producer of The Police’s first studio album can be justified "His voice was always fairly dull" states Padgham. In the verses the vocal is quiet distance and then in the chorus sounds quiet compressed where the harmonies dominate. This is an interesting technique I could consider as The Jang use a lot of vocal layering in their songs and this technique of mixing is very effective. The vocal layers a quiet dry and seem to have a high pass filter on them. This is one of the elements I like the most about this mix that I can use in my own production.
More over the drum tracking of this song is quite remarkable considering the production techniques used the snares pop and the hats are very clear with little phase issues. The kick is punch and has a lot of bass end. The microphones used in The Police’s debut albums were mic’d as follows an SM57 on the snare,421s on the toms, Coles 4038 ribbon mic's for the overheads, and 87s as room mic's, placed about 10 to 15 feet away and compressed a little bit. This minimal use of microphones has a certain aesthetic that I like. I think that it makes the sound more real sounding and I believe that this is something The Jang want to capture in the EP.
As for the percussive elements the intro of the song and the verse has a hi hat playing an on the beat 1&2&3&4& rhythm. The snare and kick then come in on the 1st and second offbeat as you can see in the sheet music. This is what adds the reggae element to this section of the instrumentation. Through the chorus the beat switches to a straight 8 a classic rock beat playing the kick 1st and 3rd and and the snare on the 2nd and 4th. This was a popular style of playing during the 70’s and 80’s and can be heard in many other classic song such as Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.
The bass guitar works in this bossa-nova style along with the drums and sits nicely in the mix. I couldn't find much information about the production techniques of the bass in this song particularly but the use of hardwear compression and distortion is evident in the mix. The compression although is present is minimal you can hear the dynamics in the bass guitar when the genre changes from this bossa-jazz fusion to the rock and roll chorus the increase in volume (sound on sound, 2014). This is also a technique that adds to the rock element of this song that makes it sound so classic the driving bass and drums are the bones for this section.
As you can see from the sheet music in the verse the bass plays along with the snare and kick hits on the 2nd and 3rd hits. This is a classic boss a technique when used in rock music. In The chorus the bass plays a classic rock line following the chords progression of the guitar then switches back to following the rhythm of the drums in the versus. Something that could also affect the simplicity of this bass line writing style is that Sting in known for playing bass and singing at the same time.
To conclude, there is a lot I can take about the musicality of this song and how the simplistic production element create a timeless aesthetic that i can use to my advantage with the mixing i am currently undertaking of The Jang’s EP. The 16 track technology as well as analogue hardware and synths are something I don’t practice using often even though it is readily available to me here at SAE. I have used outboard compression on the bass guitar in one of The Jang’s song but I would like to try using it for vocals and guitar the next time I record.
REFERENCES:
Wheeler, J. (2004). Popular Music, 23(2), 229-231. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/stable/3877495
(2018). Retrieved from https://music.avclub.com/the-police-s-andy-summers-on-his-songs-sting-and-bein-1798235391
Roxanne: Listen & Learn. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/roxanne/listen.html
Hughes, R. (2018). The Stories Behind The Songs: Roxanne by The Police. Retrieved from https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-stories-behind-the-songs-roxanne
The Police Calling Card in Roxanne. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/roxanne/calling-card.html
Yorumlar