In August 2005, Future Music magazine published a story about “21st Century guitarist-producers”. Among the featured artists was Adam Dutkiewicz. What follows is an excerpt from the article, that covers Adam Dutkiewicz’s approach to recording hard edged music. Please excuse any typo’s as I typed this out myself.

SOUND

A graduate of the Berklee School of Music, where guitar was secondary to bass, his main instrument of focus, Adam Dutkiewicz rose to prominence on the rough-and-tumble metalcore circuit as guitarist for his band Killswitch Engage. In 1999, KSE began carving out a niche for themselves with an extreme sonic onslaught that was almost inexplicably melodic, with Dutkiewicz delivering unusually configured stacks of power chords (in drop-C tuning) in precise, saw toothed bursts.

Like bandmate and fellow guitarist Joel Stroezel, Dutkiewicz also employs atmospheric textures in the vein of Pink Floyd or Radiohead, but, he says, “only if it’s correct for the situation and right for that particular guitar part. Big, organic-sounding metal guitar tones, like the Heartwork record [by famed Brit metal mavens Carcass, produced by Colin Richardson and released in 1993], are what I usually go for. Give me thunder in the midrange.”

As producer for KSE and other bands, Dutkiewicz achieves his ideal sound in a decidedly no-nonsense manner. “I never want to compromise the band’s personality,” he says. “I won’t tell a guitarist how to tweak his tone. If you have a nice sounding amplifier, all you need to do is turn it on, adjust the knobs for a few minutes and you’re ready to go. It’s not brain surgery. You don’t need to hook up any fancy pedals, especially if you have a good amplifier. Just push the tubes.”

KEY GEAR

(at Zing Recording Studios, Westfield,MA; Zingstudio.com):
Computer: Apple G4, Pro Tools HD3 Accel Digidesign Reverb One (and other Digi plugins), Line 6 Amp Farm.

Outboard: Urei 1176 LN compressors (for clean guitar only), Eventide 949 (for delay/flange textures).

Mics: Shure SM57, AKG414.

Main guitar: Caparison PLM (custom built in Japan) with Maxon OD808 Overdrive pedal.

Amps: Framus Dragon, Peavey 5150, Marshall JCM800, Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier.


PRODUCTION STRATEGIES

“I usually leave guitars completely dry, unless it’s a part that lends itself to reverb, like an overdub or a texture of some sort. All those staccato guitar riffs need to be tight as hell. You want to hear the stops go to complete silence, which gives the mix that dramatic effect of tightness. I do like the contrast of wet drums versus a tight band – that’s cool.
“When tracking a lot of guitars, tightness come from getting the performances in lockstep. The performances are key, because even though you can nudge parts into place in Pro Tools, it won’t sound the same – plus you’ll look like a jerk if you can’t play your parts live. When you play with precision, your guitar tone seems better. If you’re a sloppy guitar player, no one will think that your tone is very good. It’s a funny tradeoff.

“I will use Pro Tools to help me attain tightness when I’m cleaning up live tracks. The mics pick up tons of bleed onstage, so you need to eliminate as much of the excess noise as possible. In Pro Tools, it’s easy to do that for guitar – you just use the Strip Silence function and edit the parameters so it catches all the staccato parts but chops out the noise where the guitar stop playing. It’s beautifully easy.”

PRODUCTION PHILOSOPHY

Dutkiewicz feels his background as a multi-instrumentalist (in addition to bass and guitar, he also play a mean drum kit) helps him immensely in the studio: “That absolutely gives me an edge over somebody who doesn’t play any instruments. When I’m tracking drums, for example, I can speak to the drummer in drummer terminology. I can explain to the bass player where a part needs to support the harmony a little more or where to play root notes, in his terms. It make more sense all around if I understand what everybody’s doing.

“Berklee definitely sharpened my brain with music theory and technology training, but I learned most of what I know by getting in the studio and being hands on. I started engineering in 1997, and it’s been a slow process ever since, but I’ve been building and growing and getting better at what I do.”

Taken from “We are controlling the transmission” by Bill Murphy, Alan Di Perna and James Rotondi, Future Music, August 2005.

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