“+12 on every EQ”: how Rumours stopped sounding wrong
Fleetwood Mac tracked much of Rumours at the Record Plant in Sausalito, in Studio B, on an API console with 550A EQs, going to 3M 24-track tape. Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut produced and engineered alongside the band.
The first days didn’t go well. As Vintage King’s write-up tells it, Caillat spent about nine days moving mics and swapping amps and still didn’t like what he heard. What finally fixed it was the desk: opening up the preamps and, in his words, “+12 on every EQ channel.”
For mics, Caillat told Sound On Sound he used a Sennheiser 441 on kick, an AKG C414 with a 20 dB pad on snare and AKG 451s overhead, with the bass through a DI and a 414. Nothing exotic.
Big boosts aren’t a crime
The 550A uses what API calls proportional Q. The more you boost, the narrower the band gets, so small moves are broad and gentle and big moves get more focused. That’s a large part of why you can push one hard and it still sounds like music. If you’ve been told to only ever cut, try a bold boost on something that sounds dull and see what happens.
Watch and read
- Vintage King: The making of Rumours
- Tape Op: Ken Caillat interview
- MusicRadar: Rumours track by track with Ken Caillat
