<P> Neill, Auerbach, and Carney arrived at Muscle Shoals Sound on August 16, 2009--coincidentally 40 years to the day singer - songwriter R.B. Greaves cut "Take a Letter Maria" at the studio, the first hit record to originate from the building . The group hauled a truckload of Auerbach's equipment from Easy Eye Sound System in Akron, as well as Neill's personal gear from California . Neill's equipment included portions of a Universal Audio 610 console (the same desk featured during the early days of Muscle Shoals) and a late 1950s Pultec panning mixer, as well as a 10: 2 Studer monitoring mixer originally designed for classical music recording . The studio was very much a museum when they arrived--they found vintage recording gear that no longer operated, along with photos on the walls of legendary performers, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, who had once recorded there . Auerbach immediately took down the photos, feeling they were distracting decorations . The band put a piece of Plexiglas on top of the studio's non-functional console to hold their own digital recording equipment . The group experienced technical difficulties while recording . However, they were not caused by the studio, but rather by utility work on nearby telephone poles . Some of Neill's equipment was wrecked, including burned - out microphones . Compositions were kept very simple due to technical limitations . Neill said, "Thanks to the Studer mixer, we seldom went beyond 10 tracks ." He occasionally had to resort to digital sources; as the studio's downstairs echo chambers were long gone, Neill attached a mono digital reverberator to the Studer console . He also provided additional guitar and percussion parts during the sessions . </P> <P> The musicians stayed at the Marriott Shoals in Florence and woke early each morning, eating breakfast at a local Cracker Barrel before arriving at the studio by 10 a.m. Entering the sessions, Carney had a negative mindset due to his divorce . He said, "At the time it was really, really difficult for me because I had just split with my wife after a nine - year relationship and the last place I wanted to be was the middle of fucking nowhere in Alabama, sitting in a dark room ." The first song recorded at Muscle Shoals, "Next Girl", helped shape the direction of the sessions . Auerbach's lyrics for the song about moving on resonated with the "bummed - out (and) spacey" Carney, and Auerbach noticed an improvement in his bandmate's mentality immediately after he heard them . Auerbach said, "When he heard the lyrics, he was just so stoked . The rest of the session it was smooth sailing ." "Next Girl" was first cut with Carney playing drums and Auerbach playing bass, without guide vocals or the band's more usual guitar . The group continued to use a rhythm - first approach throughout the sessions, recording a basic arrangement of drums and bass before overdubbing guitar, keyboards, vocals, and percussion later . This imbued several songs, such as "Everlasting Light", "Howlin' for You", and "Sinister Kid", with a bass - driven sound . Neill found the emphasis on bass was also a result of the studio's acoustics: </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> It' 's because of the construction of that building . It's very odd: the acoustics are really different, the control room has this real mid ‐ range' bark', and as a result you tend to mix things a certain way . So much so that when you go out to the car or listen through your ear buds back at the hotel, you suddenly realise,' Jeez, I've done this completely differently .' You realise that it's because of that room that those early MSS productions were mixed the way they were, with the kick drum and bass really loud and present . And there I was, all those years later, doing the exact same thing--just flooring the kick and bass in order to hear it properly! But you can get away with it, because the floors in the main room have a lot of give, they're flexible kind of like a trampoline, and so they were acting like a bass trap, soaking up a lot of the low end . Add to that the bass deficiency inside the control room, and you were forced to add back the lows that were missing in the first place . It was like magic . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> It' 's because of the construction of that building . It's very odd: the acoustics are really different, the control room has this real mid ‐ range' bark', and as a result you tend to mix things a certain way . So much so that when you go out to the car or listen through your ear buds back at the hotel, you suddenly realise,' Jeez, I've done this completely differently .' You realise that it's because of that room that those early MSS productions were mixed the way they were, with the kick drum and bass really loud and present . And there I was, all those years later, doing the exact same thing--just flooring the kick and bass in order to hear it properly! But you can get away with it, because the floors in the main room have a lot of give, they're flexible kind of like a trampoline, and so they were acting like a bass trap, soaking up a lot of the low end . Add to that the bass deficiency inside the control room, and you were forced to add back the lows that were missing in the first place . It was like magic . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr>

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