This is from a special US-paper about engineering, recording and the technical equipment.
The writer watched Simon`s rehearsals for his tour with Bob Dylan in 1999:
´Work begins on arranging ´The Coast´ (from ROTS 1990)... Painstaking, mindful attention is given to each bar in the song while the arrangement takes shape. Clearly in charge, Simon nonetheless takes an egalitarian approach to the task, both soliciting and accepting ideas from the group. -
...Shure Beta 87`s were strapped to tall booms for vocals across the board - with the exception of Paul Simon, who became the beneficiary of a prototype cardioid version of Shure`s Beta 87, the first ever to be used in a live perfomance situation. Why the necessity of such a device? ´Paul writes difficult guitar parts that are hard for him to play while he`s singing without looking to see where his left hand is on the fingerboard´, David Morgan, Engineer, explains. ´The result is that he has a tendency to wander off-axis on his vocal mic. I was looking for something that was more forgiving in these situations.´ -
Durine the final days of rehearsals it was still an open question as to whether Bob Dylan would appear. As a natural alter ego to Simon`s preproduction preparedness, Dylan`s informality brought a spontaneous air to the tour`s possibilities.
´I don`t know - we`ll probably rehearse with Bob the day before the opening show´, says Morgan with a shrug, ´that one will be kind of a shoot-from-the-hip situation. But as for me, I`m just about ready. It´s a pleasure to be here. Not only is Paul a great arranger of notes, he`s a great assembler of human beings. These guys can really play. That`s always the way it is.´ |