Article Preview - Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Renaud Letang

Aided by its memorable video and starring role in an iPod ad, Feist's '1234' has been a refreshingly different worldwide hit. Renaud Letang was behind the (vintage) desk during the recording and mixing sessions.

Paul Tingen

"What is cool," muses Renaud Letang cheerfully, "is that I'm considered a bit of a dinosaur here in France, but that I'm new and fresh for the British and Americans. I'm not old, but I've worked in the French studio industry for 18 years and I'm established here as a big-name producer. But outside of France people are just getting to know my name, so it's a really different experience for me. It's funny."

Renaud Letang was speaking from Studio Ferber in Paris, where he works "seven to eight months per year". Born in 1970 in Iran, of French parents, Letang began his studio career working as a tape-op in a small studio in Paris at the age of 18. After six months, in 1989, he moved over to France's leading studio at the time, Guillaume Tell. He worked there for three years, and the seeds for his international outlook were sown during that time when Paris, and particularly Guillaume Tell, became a fashionable place to record for Anglo-Saxon stars. A presumably wide-eyed Letang found himself in the same room as the likes of Phil Ramone, Prince, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and others. "It was crazy, crazy, crazy," he says, recalling the unrelenting influx of foreign stars.

In 1990, concurrently with his apprenticeship at Guillaume Tell, Letang began working as Jean Michel Jarre's engineer, both live and in the studio. He remained with the electronic musician until 1999. After leaving Guillaume Tell in 1992, Letang quickly spread his wings as an independent engineer and also increasingly as a mixer and a producer. His name can today be found on whole swathes of French hit recordings in all kinds of different genres, ranging from French chansons to world music, electronica and hip-hop. He's also built up a considerable overseas pedigree, with artists such as Peaches, Beck, Jamie Lidell, Mocky, Gonzales and Feist.

The success of '1234' was boosted by its memorable video.

Gonzales, n e Jason Beck, hails from Canada, but moved to Europe and currently lives in Paris, where he set up a production duo with Letang called VV. It was through Gonzales that Letang met Canadians Peaches, Mocky and Feist. "Gonzales and I co-produced Feist's Let It Die album and also got her signed to a record company," recalls the Frenchman.

Gonzales and Letang went on to co-produce the follow-up The Reminder, which featured the hit '1234'. Helped by its appearance in an Apple iPod Nano commercial, the song, and subsequently the album, has been a hit in many countries, and resulted in four Grammy Award nominations for Feist.

The Numbers Game

The Neve A646 desk at Studio La Frette, where most of the tracking for The Reminder took place.

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