darrell thorp on Puremix

Darrell Thorp comes back for a second long session of Andrew Scheps's Puremix show, Andrew Talks to Awesome People, which Scheps opens by announcing he became a British citizen three hours earlier. Thorp was Nigel Godrich's engineer for a six-year run, and says watching Godrich wrench on the EQs going to tape changed the way he works for good.

Radiohead come in sideways. Worn out by two years on the road, the band asked for a six-day week in the studio, and on the day off Godrich, having slept 12 hours, would say he was going for a nap. Thorp used to make fun of him for it, and gets it now, after a few years of chasing production work himself. For Thom Yorke's first solo record, Godrich's one instruction was to spend the money on a Pro Tools HD rig at home; later he helped with the arrangements and mixed it in Los Angeles with Thorp assisting. Asked at the end whether Yorke's vocals are full takes or comped in Pro Tools, Thorp says both. Some on the records are Yorke's live scratch vocal, others he overdubbed in the control room and comped himself. Sometimes he sang into an RE20 microphone, and in a couple of live takes a 47.

The rest is the trade. Beck kept shouting for more on Morning Phase, which had Thorp thinking they were heading for jerky, his word for a sound pushed too far. Three or four songs into the mix, Beck emailed him to send everything to Tom Elmhirst, with no conversation. Thorp watched Godrich tell Paul McCartney that his chorus was really the bridge. On day two of the Foo Fighters' Concrete and Gold, Dave Grohl played the rough mix 10 times in his minivan on the school run. “From there on out I was kind of like officially in the family.”