| The sound engineers at OEM Inc. have spent thousands of hours with the original masters of the most
famous songs ever recorded. They use them to create products like Jammit, an iPhone app that allows
you to remix and play along with those original tracks. There are many, many things to learn from
those original tracks. Through a partnership with Gearhead Communications, OEM Inc. engineers are
sharing their discoveries exclusively with Premier Guitar readers in what we like to call Secrets of the Masters |
"Dream Warriors" by Dokken
From the album, Back for the Attack (1987 Elektra)
Produced by: Neil Kernon
Engineered [Assistant]: Andy Udoff
Recorded at: Rumbo Recorders (Canoga Park, CA)
Available in the JAMMIT “80’s Rock Vol. 2” application
Daryl Dragon (the Captain of Captain and
Tennille) boasted that his 10,000 square foot
Rumbo Recorders recording studios nestled in
the asphyxiating San Fernando Valley provided
a low pressure and creative environment for his
clients. Today the building is the kind of multipurpose
hall that gets rented out for wedding
receptions and bar mitzvahs, but in early
1987 that environment of supposed creative
tranquility is where the metal band Dokken
dug in to commit “Dream Warriors” to tape.
A particularly heightened animosity between
singer Don Dokken and guitarist George Lynch
is well-documented during this period of the
band’s history, leading fans to speculate if such
fervor perhaps fueled the strident tones and
fiery performances that would characterize the
band’s sound. It should be noted that “Dream
Warriors” was recorded for the Nightmare
on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors soundtrack.
It was touched up and remixed months later
when the band returned to the studio to
record Back for the Attack, which is the band’s
most successful record to date.
A Nightmare on Saticoy Street?
Let’s travel back in time 23 years by way of two
Ampex 456 multi-track reels of analog tape. The
place: Rumbo Recorders in Canoga Park, CA.
The producer: Neil Kernon, who is most famous
for producing Hall and Oats’ big albums. With
Mike Clink wrestling Appetite for Destruction
into fruition down the hall, Kernon kept
Dokken’s volatile ingredients as separated as
the 36 analog tracks that were used to capture
“Dream Warriors.” Penned by Lynch and bassist
Jeff Pilson, this song is quintessential Dokken
but with the romantic-but-still-tough lyrics directed
toward a scissor-fingered villain instead of a
Sunset Stripper. What better place to wallow in
the self-pity of those “lonely nights” and one’s
thermal propensity to “feel the fire” than in a
slasher flick soundtrack? This song might not be
remembered for being a masterpiece of lyrical
poetry, but the recording is a well-preserved
time capsule of Lynch’s monster tone in 1987.
Andy Udoff must have had his hands full.
Credited as assistant engineer on two highprofile
records being recorded simultaneously
under the same roof may account for some of
the errors in the documentation for this song.
Assuming he was responsible for labeling
these things (as assistants typically were), the
track sheets and the tape boxes were erroneously
dated January of ’86 when it should
have been for the following year. Apparently,
sleep deprivation can cause an over-worked
engineer to consistently misspell “warriors,”
as well. It’s not unusual to have discrepancies
in documentation with older tapes, and in a
lot of cases finding the corresponding track
sheets can be a victory in itself. So with all mislabeling
aside, let’s spool-up the 2" machine
and hear what went down on Saticoy Street.
Exhuming the Boom
The unprocessed drums sound remarkably
good. Not only did Mick Brown deliver a solid
performance, but the separation and fidelity far
exceeded that of previous Dokken albums. Like
many other rock bands back then, Dokken was
on the cusp of a technology and sonic growth
that saw significant improvement throughout
the ’80s. This was most obvious in the drum
sounds of the time. I found kick and snare
room samples on the master tape to supplement
the live drum performance. At that time,
engineers commonly printed a pre-trigger by
flipping the tape around to play backwards
which allowed them to bounce the particular
drum track to an available track through a
delay unit. When the tape was played forward,
that track would be gated and appropriately
delayed in time to trigger the sample loaded
in an AMS DMX 15-80 unit. This would have
been a significant step up from having to get
that overblown sound entirely from the natural
drum kit, and much easier than recording
Brown’s drums in an airplane hangar and then
compressing/gating them in the studio off the
master, which the band has been known to do.
Mr. Scary’s Sweet Revenge
George Lynch’s guitar tracks on “Dream
Warriors” were a pleasure to hear in their
raw state. His signature, chunky eighth-note
chugs and unconventional chord inversions
are the elements responsible for propelling
this song into a fist-raising rock anthem.
The primary axe for these sessions was
Lynch’s original tiger. The pre-ESP original
was a heavy maple-bodied strat-style guitar
equipped with a single Duncan SH-6
Distortion pickup at the time. The amp was a
purple 100-watt Marshall plexi owned by and
rented from Groove Tubes’ Aspen Pittman.
Refusing to sell the amp, Pittman frequently
rented this amp to Lynch for sessions.
The main rhythm guitar parts were tracked in
stereo from a single performance—either using
two separate amps or just different cabinets.
The stereo imaging of this pair is superb, with
nice width in the higher frequencies tapering to
the center for the lower midrange. This was due
to separate mic placements in the room where
a single Marshall 4x12 cabinet was situated. The
phase relationship of these waveforms is impeccable
and this explains why the guitars sound so
full and aggressive in this song. These rhythm
tracks are supported with a single mono guitar
double. The clean arpeggiated guitars, which
are another Lynch trademark, are layered with
a thin, metallic-sounding DI acoustic guitar track.
Photo by Neil Zlozower |
I distinctly remember the “Dream Warriors”
music video that showed Lynch’s wrecking
ball impersonation as he literally tore through
a wall wielding his skeleton guitar—all to the
initial bewilderment and eventual delight of an
adolescent Patricia Arquette. Defiance by way
of a ridiculous guitar solo entrance may come
off as comical now, but this solo is no joke.
Being able to isolate the actual track dry and
audition these nuances in their rawest form
was a privilege worthy of more than Arquette’s
painted-on admiration. I can almost taste the
disdain for Don emanating from those precarious
bends and the disorienting mélange of
well-articulated notes cascading down like
Plinko discs on The Price is Right. Lynch’s tone
is bold and never loses focus, plowing indiscriminately
through the minor string rattles and
pick-noise imperfections that get masked in
the final mix. The boost used in the front end
of the amp was an original square-buttoned
Ibanez TS-808 overdrive pedal aided by the
use of a BOSS GE-7 equalizer pedal with an
accent on the mids being pushed above the
zero point. This solo track is supplemented
with a harmony lead that highlights and
heightens this original performance. There was
additional outro soloing other than what made
it to the final mix, but Kernon extracted all the
good stuff from this track and flew it into just
the right spot to close out the song.
Unsung Hero
Don’s lead vocal was well recorded. Like the
drums and guitars, the track was full of presence
and tonal character that didn’t make it into the
final, sloshy, ’80s-centric mixdown that we’ve
all grown accustomed to hearing. While Don
may be the front man after which the band is
named, Jeff Pilson may be the unsung hero of
this song. Jeff sang the guide chorus vocals on a
scratch track that was used to build the 18-voice
harmony layers constructed later on the tape.
These were combined, consolidated to four
tracks and were then placed into each chorus of
the slave reel. Judging by that and a verse harmony
track labeled as “Jeff” on the track sheet,
I suspect that he may have sung most of these
background vocals. Incidentally, his scratch bass
take (that was most likely recorded live when
the drums were done) was very well thought out
and note-for-note pretty much what ended up
on the master bass take.
The Bitter End
While Captain and Tennille may have professed
that “Love Will Keep Us Together,” sadly, such
was not the case with Dokken. “Dream Warriors”
represents a career peak that was really just the
beginning of the end for the band. Incarnations
with different members and reunion attempts
failed to recapture the magic of Dokken in their
prime. Is it true that all good things must come
to an end? Eventually, the significantly more
popular Guns n’ Roses crumbled apart due to
similar internal band problems and, as mentioned
earlier, the very walls holding up what was
once the infamous Rumbo Recorders recording
studios are now absorbing endless refrains of
“The Chicken Dance” and “Hava Nagila.”
Despite the traditional music industry’s decline
and the seemingly irresolvable feuds of so
many bands, the recorded music of groups like
Dokken will outlive all the egos and attitudes
that broke them apart in the first place. Evidence
of their significance isn’t just immortalized in
the mixes that we’ve come to know, the (nowdigitized)
individual tracks of these master tapes
tell a backstory of their creation that will outlive
the bands themselves, and the fading memories
of those who were involved in their creation.
To see/hear how you can play along to (with
tab) and make new mixes of "Dream Warriors” and other
songs from the original multi-track masters,
check out www.jammit.com
Frank Gryner is a multi-platinum
engineer whose credits
include bands like A Perfect
Circle, Matrix Soundtracks,
Rob Zombie, and Tommy Lee.
Frank’s technical expertise
in audio system design has
been applied to location studios for the likes of
Filter, Perry Farrell and John Paul Jones.
Additional gear info provided by guitar tech and
leading Lynchistorian Gerry Ganaden