Sufjan Stevens Michigan Recording Details

Sufjan Stevens is pretty cagey about his recording process–he didn’t even include credits with his last album. But he did get pretty detailed with TapeOp in issue #70. According to the interview, he recorded his 2003 album Michigan onto a Roland VS-880 digital interface at at 32kHz sample rate (below the CD standard 44.1kHz). Sufjan’s mic locker included two SM57′s and an AKGc1000 which was only used on kick because he found it to be “the worst mic in the entire universe.” Most tracks were recorded to a click track. For mixing, tracks were imported two-at-a-time into the computer’s 1/8″ jack and time-aligned manually.

The album was mastered by Alan Douches of West West Side through a custom Pendulum Audio 6386 tube limiter with Fairchild parts.