Skeletá, the sixth studio album by Swedish rock band Ghost, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 upon release in late April, a first for the band and the first time in more than four years that a hard rock band has topped the U.S. album chart.
The 10-song collection was mixed by Dan Malsch at IMRSV Music in Stockholm on the facility’s 48-channel Solid State Logic Duality Pro-Station console. Malsch was the mix engineer on Ghost’s previous album and has also mixed the entire catalogue from Ghost in Dolby Atmos.
“The Duality is very clean but has a harmonic drive that you can kick in,”
Malsch, a multi-Grammy-nominated mix engineer who has also worked with Avenged Sevenfold, Gojira and Bowling for Soup, has long had his own studio, Soundmine Recording. Situated in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, the studio features a vintage SSL 4000 E/G+ console in the A Room. He had never used a Duality before mixing Skeletá on the console for three weeks at IMRSV, a former EMI Studio built in 1969. “The Duality is very clean but has a harmonic drive that you can kick in,” says Malsch. “Also, there’s nothing like the speed of working on the Duality – it was a dream and a pleasure to work on.”
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Ghost Skeletá
Working in Stockholm put Malsch in closer proximity to singer and principal songwriter Tobias Forge, the driving force behind Ghost, who would periodically visit IMRSV to make notes and approve mixes.
“I will get the overall sound of a mix within a few hours, but for me a mix is a full day,” Malsch says. “Then, usually, there are revisions. Tobias would come in to listen, and I might have three or four songs ready for him to hear.” After offering some mix notes, Forge, who produced the album under the pseudonym Gene Walker, would be ready to hear the next song. “With my assistant, Basma Jabbar, we could recall a session quickly.”
He also comments, “Basma was a lifesaver. She knew the console really well and would help me with my recalls. We were doing 16-hour days, and she would keep me laughing and make sure that I had food. She’s an unbelievable assistant.”
For local Solid State Logic enquiries, keep reading at Amber Technology.
