The album was recorded in Amos’s newly built studio in Cornwall, with Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek engineering the sessions, and it was tracked to a Sony DASH 24-track digital machine with a number of TASCAM machines locked in as slaves. That configuration allowed them to extend recording time beyond a single 24-track reel while maintaining sample-accurate lock, although they noted that the downside could be the time taken to locate takes across multiple tapes.
Piano remained central to Boys For Pele, but it was approached differently from the previous album. On earlier sessions they had relied heavily on Neumann U87s, both in the studio and on stage, simply because they delivered a sound that was round and dependable. For this album they still used U87s on certain tracks, but also introduced AKG C414s on the Bösendorfer grand to alter the way the instrument sat in the mix.
The C414s were chosen because they produced a slightly tighter, more contained sound that worked better alongside drums and band elements without becoming brittle. In some cases they combined a U87 on the low end of the piano with a C414 on the high end, blending warmth and brightness to suit the track. Hawley also remarked that, compared to the earlier record where naturalism was paramount, this album was more compressed and deliberately pop-oriented, meaning microphone choice, while still important, was sometimes less critical than the overall production treatment.
Vocals were generally captured with either a Neumann U87 or a Neumann M 49 valve microphone. The team had developed a consistent vocal chain built around a Focusrite Red 2 equaliser feeding a Tube-Tech LCA2B valve compressor, and this setup was used extensively across Boys For Pele. Although they experimented at times, they repeatedly returned to that combination because it gave them a controlled yet musically coloured vocal that suited Amos’s dynamic and highly variable delivery. They were careful to respond to how she was singing on any given take, noting that her projection could change dramatically from chest-driven intensity to a more throat-centred tone, requiring constant attention to placement and gain structure.
Drums on Boys For Pele were typically close-miked in a conventional multi-mic setup, but the room itself became part of the creative process. The engineers altered the acoustics to make the space drier when needed, and occasionally relied on only overheads or a single distant room microphone depending on the arrangement.
On one occasion drummer Matt Chamberlain brought in a limiter with an unusually long release time, and by placing microphones around the room and driving that unit they were able to create an aggressively sustained drum sound that contributed to the album’s more forceful character. It was a marked departure from the previous record, which had been more about capturing pure acoustic sound; here the intention was often to shape and push the source into something more confrontational.
Monitoring during the sessions centred on Genelec 1037B main monitors, with Yamaha NS10s also in use, and Mission hi-fi loudspeakers serving as an additional reference. When it came time to master, Boys For Pele was transferred to DAT using an Apogee AD1000 A-D converter, and also to TASCAM DA88 to retain full 24-bit audio via a bit-splitting approach. Half-inch analogue mastering was undertaken as well, although the final CD release drew primarily from the digital masters.
In every respect, Boys For Pele reflects a moment when Tori Amos and her engineers deliberately embraced the possibilities of high-resolution digital multitrack recording, large-diaphragm valve microphones, and carefully chosen outboard processing to move her sound into a more expansive and assertive territory while keeping piano and voice at its core.