The Making of Dream Theater’s A View From the Top of the World

It certainly does not suck to be Dream Theater. Founded 37 years ago, the band continues to cast a mammoth imprint across the progressive-metal field. Starting back in the days when musicians could fund their art by selling records, Dream Theater has amassed more than 12 million (and counting) album sales. But even in today's streaming era, they are a powerhouse, logging more than 1.3 million listeners a month on Spotify alone.

As influencers, it is mind blowing that every one of the members – drummer Mike Mangini, guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, and vocalist James LaBrie – is a bona fide icon of their chosen instrument, each accumulating scores of interviews and/or articles in the music and music-gear media. Furthermore, if there was ever a criteria for charting an artist’s relevance to the music listeners of the moment, a Grammy nod is a pretty darn good indicator. Well, Dream Theater just scored its third Grammy nomination for “The Alien” – a best metal performance for one of the lead-off singles from there recently released, A View From the Top of the World [Inside Out.]

Given their continuing and colossal status in the music industry, you'd think these guys would be recording albums in posh studios overlooking the Mediterranean every year.

So not true.

Produced by Petrucci – with engineering and additional production by James “Jimmy T” Meslin – A View From the Top of the World was recorded at the band’s DTHQ [Dream Theater headquarters], which is basically a “home studio” not much different conceptually than the personal recording spaces used by countless personal-studio creators. No craft cocktails served on the pool balcony at the end of the day of recording. No cathedral-sized studio spaces. No Roman-inspired mega tubs, huge steam rooms, and massage areas in a cavernous bathroom complex.

In fact, while DTHQ is populated by a lot of cool gear most home-studio geeks would love to own, it's probably just as cramped as when you cut tracks with your band in a garage or rehearsal space. The studio facility shares real estate with an office, a rehearsal space, and gear and tour storage.

“To be totally honest, any decisions about how big the studio might be we're already made for us by the limitations of the space,” says Meslin. “The infrastructure we took over was a pre-existing machine shop, and the previous owner had built out office areas alongside a big warehouse work floor. We decided, ‘This Area is good for gear prep for touring and storage. This area can function as a production space and studio.’ We only build walls for the live room, for everything else – except for outfitting lounges and kitchens with decor-type stuff – we just moved in and tweaked the space. The studio was built with soundproofing and room tuning in line, of course, but the live-recording room isn't very large. It's 300 square feet at best. They squeeze in, but it gets the job done. The space isn't going to give you that big-room sound, but with a little engineering trickery, you can get a cool, punchy sound out of it.”

With enormous credit to all involved, A View From the Top of the World does not sound like the product of a 300-square-foot studio environment. The scope of the album’s songs is skillfully amplified by the production’s cinematic sonics and overall frequency spectrum. This is a masterwork to be sure, and everything from the guitar, bass, and keyboard tones to the dexterity and melodic ideas of the players is rendered in thrilling, big-screen-style audio. Driving the grooves is Mangini and his kit, and the drum sounds explode with clarity and impact. If industry audio-engineering and production awards were given based on a “sound versus floor space” equation, I’d wager that Petrucci and Meslin would win everything in their path.

Given the album’s seeming “big-studio” limitations, A View From the Top of the World is the perfect project to open the new year's Modern Drummer Recording Special. The work is a real-world account on the value of focusing on “how to,” rather than “why I can’t” – especially as a lack of confidence can tank a home-studio production faster than hiring aardvarks as session musicians.

Providing MD readers a balanced offering of encouragement and education was made possible by Mangini and Meslin – who were kind enough to share some deep knowledge on how those magnificent drum sounds were coaxed out of such a small space. Mangini's death-defying chops aside, the recording strategy involved engineering smarts, choosing the right drums, tuning the kit, positioning microphones, savvy deployment of signal processing, and the difficulties of each band member getting sounds that work harmoniously with the sounds of the other players.

Modern Drummer: When you started to build the studio, did you tailor it to how Dream Theater typically records, or did you start with a more conventional studio arrangement and tweak it as the band used it?

James Meslin: the band is shoved into a small space. I'm sure they'd like more room, but other than that, the studio is definitely tailored towards them – the band itself and the individuals who make up the band. The biggest advantage is that we have all of their resources under one roof. Mike can say, “Oh, that drum I used on such-and-such a record is sitting in a storage area that's close by. I can just grab it right now.” We also have a gear inventory within arm’s reach, as well. The guitars on the walls are John’s Music Man’s, the amps are his Mesa/Boogie’s, the drums are Mike's Pearl’s. So, even if it's a microphone, a preamp, a plug-in, or something else, we can say, “Oh, man – that would be cool to use,” and there it is. The whole studio is kind of personalized in a very specific way to the members of Dream Theater.

MD: Mike, you have your own home studio, so when you did the new album at DTHQ, were there any changes you had to make as to how you approached the recorded sound of your kit?

Mike Mangini: It was huge. Massive change was needed, and it was happening over time. Jimmy T [Meslin] was with us all the time, so we were able to talk a lot and develop what I'm looking to do – especially because it's my drums. Also, he worked with me on my solo stuff, so the whole concept was able to evolve over time. When we got into the studio, we both knew where the sound was supposed to go. In my own studio, I try to make the drums sound how I hear myself. But when you're working in a group situation, you're not going to get that. It's not going to be the same.

MD: How come?

MM: What happens is you put all of these things into a big melting pot. People are putting their own two cents in, and trying to help out, and it all comes together into this thing that's a group thing, not necessarily an individual choice. At least not completely.

MD: I got it. In your studio, it's your equipment and you can do everything just the way you want to. Where you’re recording in someone else's space – especially with a band – you have to interface with the engineer, as well as the rest of the band members.

MM: Can I just put a picture of a smile in the magazine for that answer? [laughs] Let's just say my drums sound on A View From the Top of the World was evolution by will. For A Dramatic Turn of Events [2011], I walked in, played the drums, and left. I didn't have any say about anything. Absolutely zero. I've been engineering for a long time, and it's a very hard thing to want something to sound a certain way, and initially, it just doesn't work out for various reasons. But everybody on the whole team is learning and evolving. Having Jimmy T here allowed me a chance to voice what I would like. And, thankfully, we all worked together to get the sounds right. It's like a team win. I'm a sports guy, and there's nothing better than jumping up and down after you win a game. You know what I'm saying? On some of the other records, I don't sound anything like me really. On this record, I do sound like me.

JM: From my perspective, there's a big difference between recording yourself versus making a record. We go into a Dream Theater writing session with the mindset that we’re making a record. It's not just a drum performance. There are definitely complexities in navigating the soundscape of any record, but in Dream Theater, each one of the guys will fill up a different space sonically within the same minute of the same song. John Myung is a six-string bass player, Jordan's synth patches are all over the place, and Petrucci's tone is an all-encompassing wall of sound. So, you have to find a balance of getting the drums to sound like Mike's intention, but also fit against four other guys who also have the same personality of “I know my sound.” How do you give everyone a bit of that? I think what has matured over the years is that we've all done enough trial and error to have the foresight now to know which sounds work within the context of a full-band mix.

MD: The Dream Theater soundscape is very dense, and I think that, in some instances with other bands facing the same type of challenge, the decision is made to kind of screw the drummer in a way. It's like to fit in the bass or keyboards, he or she might not get the huge Bonham-inspired kick they want. Or if a saturated guitar tone is eating up the mid-range frequencies, then the impact of the drummer’s cymbal work might suffer.

JM: Right. You don't want that to happen. For Mike's kit – to be able to have the options available to ensure specific parts could be heard – it was all about microphone coverage. For example, we have four different mic resources to get a general kick drum sound in addition to a ribbon mic that was used to capture some ambience. That ribbon track was just crushed with compression, and it sounded disgusting on its own, but blended with the other mics it provided that woof. Same with the mic we placed inside the kick that captured a sharp tick. When Mike is doing his really fact kick patterns, we’d favor that mic. Having choices was key, and we probably went excessive on the mic coverage to ensure we had the right sounds available for the mix. But with Dream Theater, you know that not only is every song going to vary regarding the sonic and performance landscapes, but moments within the songs also change a lot.

MD: Mike, with all of those mics on the drums, did you ever look at the positioning and think, “Gads, how am I supposed to play around all of these obstacles?”

MM: The placement of anything doesn't matter to me. I'm a bit of an anomaly there – which is why engineers usually end up being my friends. They'll worry about where they are putting the mic – if it's in my way – and I'll say, “I don't care.” I always defer to the engineer. Jimmy T – I can't remember a situation where I've asked you to move on microphone.

JM: No.

MM: It’s kind of like when Bill Parcells, the great coach of the New York Giants football team, would yell at a player after he made a great play: “That’s why you lift all those weights!” I'll never forget that, so when it comes down to mic placement, I know I can work with anything because that's why I practice.

JM: Mike lays out his kit pretty ergonomically, so it's pretty wide open to get mics into the places we wanted.

MD: I'm still curious about the evolution of your drum sound on the new record. It seems to entail your experience from previous records, which you’ve said was limited regarding what you could make happen. Then, there is your own home-recording process, where you're the king and you can get whatever you want. So how did those experiences inform the early discussions you had with Jimmy T about what you wanted to hear from your kit on A View From the Top of the World?

MM: Great question. It encompasses everything, I think. But, first, thank goodness that with all the recording I was doing at home, I was still objective enough to realize that I was asking Jimmy T and a couple of other guys to help. It was never all me. And before we worked on the new album, Jimmy said this to me with emphasis: “We are making an album for Dream Theater. Let's not forget that.” So, when we discussed “my” sound, we felt it was a little too brash for a Dream Theater record. We needed to tone it down a bit. We are telling you exactly how it was – the objectivity in our discussions together and the realization of what needed to happen to make my sound work with the other sounds.

MD: What were some specific tonal decisions, then?

MM: Well, we didn't want the drums to have too much air because we’re doing a million notes at times, and having a big room sound would muddy things up. So, the drums have to be tight, but not so dampened down than it sounds like I'm playing a refrigerator box. Then, it doesn't sound like drums.

JM: We never had the mindset of fixing the drum sound in the mix. We took about three hours for setup – mic placement, cables, patching, etc. – but once we put Mike behind the kit, recording was generally easy. Basically, it was just a good drummer, playing good drums that were tuned well. In the studio, Mike is especially good with his execution – the consistency with his attacks and velocities and so on. And it’s a real drum performance. It’s not robotic or resampled. It feels locked and polished. A lot of that is in the performance – all the other stuff is secondary. Later on, you can season it and take the drum sound wherever you want it to go, but it all starts at that core performance.

MD: You never “season” the sonic recipe beforehand to match the mood of a specific song?

JM: I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. The thing about Dream Theater in general is they don’t know what the next song is going to be. Everything is fresh. A lot of what you hear on the record is Mike’s performance during the writing session. Once a song was done, Mike would live with the recordings for a while, and say, “I want to redo this, or I could execute this better.” But a lot of it is just off the cuff. What happened off the floor was kept.

MD: When you reviewed your off-the-cuff performances and wanted to re-do a part, is it a challenge to ensure the drum sound is exactly the same when you punch in a section perhaps days later?

MM: The consistency of the gear is so important. You change drum heads or the temperature changes, and suddenly something sounds different. But my gear is so consistent that I can punch into a section days later and it sounds the same. The Remo heads I use always produce a steady and uniform sound. Pearl deserves a lot of credit, as well, because they put a lot of work into their shells. During any overdubs, Jimmy T never said, “Dude, what’s wrong with that drum?” They always sounded the same. I’m so happy about my drums that it’s unbelievable.

MD: Back to your comments on people’s perceptions versus the reality of how the band works – the songs are so complex that I’d assume they are painstakingly worked out in pre-production. But there is no pre-production process for Dream Theater. For your drum parts, creation and production occurs simultaneously.

MM: Yes. Stuff is being written on the fly and recorded on the fly as we go. A lot of what you’re hearing on the album is not only from the writing session, but sometimes it’s a first take.

MD: Just so I’m super clear about this and it’s in your words, not mine, the band writes as a group because it wants that live feel from the drums. At that point, Mike’s parts are recorded for posterity, but the other instrumental performances are overdubbed to Mike’s tracks.

JM: Yes. During the writing session, we capture the drums in their full capacity. The drums are recorded with the intent to keep them. Petrucci, Myung, and Jordan go direct and use impulse responses during the writing sessions and 98 to 100 percent of their parts are recut. For example, when Petrucci comes in to record for real, we’re using his amps and five or six mics to capture the right sound.

But the influence of Mike’s playing – even with a lot of it being off the cuff or a first instinct – drives a lot of the overdubs. For example, John Myung might change up one of his bass fills to catch something Mike is doing with the toms. It often happens that they missed something during the writing session, but once they hear the part Mike printed, they’ll want to fit right into that puzzle.

MD: I assume that it’s magical and frightening to be playing in the moment, and your muse or the music inspires a part that almost seems impossible, but you pull it off for the recording. Then, whenever you come back to the material to perform it live, you’re like, “Uh oh, did I do that?” You have to learn your own part.

MM: It’s crazy. That’s the funny thing about this discussion, because it speaks to a vital attribute of what we do as a band that’s real – not what anyone thinks happens, but what actually happens. There’s this idea that I am more about the whole math thing – some kind of science-project approach. The opposite is true. Jimmy T knows that the reality of what happens comes from intuition, improvisation, and art. It does not come from the technical side. Just because I have the ability to describe and repeat what I played doesn’t change the fact the part happened from just playing. I didn’t know what it was until I played it. That comes from being a musician, period. We don’t calculate a lot of it.

If you think about it, on every level, from capturing the sound, to playing it, to the orchestrations – these are really complex things to pull off. But, to us, it ends up feeling like it’s a simple process because we’re all on the same page and we all respect each other. The music just flows.

JM: On my end of things during the writing sessions, it’s knowing when to record. You don’t want to just roll 24 hours a day, because you don’t want to use too much disc space. But on the other hand, when there’s this moment where they land on an idea, you want that documented. It’s about not interrupting the flow but being able to play a part back to them. They’ll go, “Do you remember that thing we did?” And then each one of them will describe it a different way. Hopefully, I’ve got that part down and marked it, so I can ask, “Oh, shucks. Was it this?” And they’re like, “Yes, that’s it.”

MD: It’s hard for me as a fan to listen to all of your drum parts – the cymbal textures, tom fills, and so on – and pick favorites. They’re all outstanding. But from your perspective, were there any essential parts you wanted documented on the album?

MM: The most important thing to me for these tracks was to get the non-kick and snare notes heard so that the final mix would not have the kick and snare unnaturally louder than the between notes. In a room for real, the metal [cymbals] is significantly louder than the kick drum.

Those hits I do on the metal are truly louder to the point that they are the ones that cause hearing damage. That’s why every generic hearing aid I’ve come across boosts 2.5kHz. I didn’t want to struggle to hear those notes that are not just louder in reality, but that I have always played on every album. Without hearing them as loud as they really are, I end up feeling like I’m a drum machine hitting kick and snare notes in space, and not the drum music and are that I actually created. Balancing the modern-day trend of slick album production versus the less slick, but real ‘70s-era sounds loaded with groove and the drummer’s soul is quite an undertaking. It isn’t easy.

Also, it isn’t the timing that makes a drum part sound like a machine – it’s the perfect, inhuman velocities of sound replacements used in the post-tracking stage that are mixed louder than the tom and cymbal hits that get this inhuman outcome. Although it’s not the best perspective for today’s album production, the reality of my drumming is heard best in the room mics. That’s the real me.