Editing Rumours (album) (section)

==Recording==
[[File:The Plant - Sausalito - front door 2.jpg|thumb|alt=Large, wooden building with a brown door (showing woodland animals play musical instruments) located in the bottom, centre left, and the large numbers "2200" painted in white above the door, centre-right. Asymmetrical trees with hanging foliage frame the building on all sides, while on the asphalt in the foreground, there are parking spaces and a disabled person sign.|''Rumours'' was largely recorded in [[Sausalito, California|Sausalito's]] [[Record Plant]], a wooden structure with few windows, located at 2200 Marinship Way.]]
In February 1976, Fleetwood Mac convened at the [[Record Plant]] in [[Sausalito, California]], with the [[audio engineer|engineers]] Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut. The three parties shared production duties, while the more technically adept Caillat was responsible for most of the engineering; he took a leave of absence from [[Wally Heider Studios]] in Los Angeles on the premise that Fleetwood Mac would eventually use their facilities.<ref name=SOS>{{cite web |url=http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/classictracks_0807.htm |title=Classic Tracks: Fleetwood Mac 'Go Your Own Way' |last=Buskin |first=Richard |work=[[Sound on Sound]] |date=August 2007 |access-date=30 December 2009 |archive-date=5 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905180747/http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/classictracks_0807.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The set-up in Sausalito included several small recording rooms in a large, windowless, wooden building. Most band members complained about the studio and wanted to record at their homes, but Fleetwood did not allow any moves.<ref name=dvd11min>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=11:50–12:30}}</ref> Christine McVie and Nicks decided to live in two condominiums near the city's harbour, while the male contingent stayed at the studio's lodge in the adjacent hills.<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=31:30–32:55}}</ref> Recording occurred in a {{convert|6|by|9|metre|adj=on|spell=in}} room equipped with a [[3M]] [[multitrack recording|24-track tape machine]], a range of high-quality microphones, and an [[Automated Processes, Inc.|API]] [[mixing console]] with 550A equalisers; the latter were used to control frequency differences or a track's [[timbre]]. Although Caillat was impressed with the set-up, he felt that the room lacked ambience because of its "very dead speakers" and large amounts of [[soundproofing]].<ref name=SOS/>

The record's [[working title]] in Sausalito was ''Yesterday's Gone''.<ref name=ricky60/> Buckingham took charge of the studio sessions to make "a pop album".<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=20:10–21:05}}</ref> According to Dashut, while Fleetwood and the McVies came from an improvisational [[blues rock]] background, the guitarist understood "the craft of record making".<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=04:40–05:00}}</ref> During the formative stages of compositions, Buckingham and Christine McVie played guitar and piano together to create the album's basic structures. The latter was the only classically trained musician in Fleetwood Mac, but both shared a similar sense of musicality.<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=07:00–07:35}}</ref> When the band [[jam (music)|jammed]], Fleetwood often played his drum kit outside the studio's partition screen to better gauge Caillat's and Dashut's reactions to the music's [[groove (music)|groove]].<ref name=dvda/> [[Sound baffle|Baffles]] were placed around the drums and around John McVie, who played his bass guitar facing Fleetwood. Buckingham performed close to the rhythm section, while Christine McVie's keyboards were kept away from the drum kit. Caillat and Dashut spent about nine days working with a range of microphones and [[instrument amplifier|amplifiers]] to get a larger sound, before discovering they could adjust the sound effectively on the API mixing console.<ref name=SOS/>

As the studio sessions progressed, the band members' new intimate relationships that formed after various separations started to have a negative effect on Fleetwood Mac.<ref name=min7>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=07:45–08:55}}</ref><ref name=dvdmin12>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=12:45–13:40}}</ref> The musicians did not meet or socialise after their daily work at the Record Plant. At the time, the [[hippie movement]] still affected Sausalito's culture and drugs were readily available. Open-ended budgets enabled the band and the engineers to become self-indulgent;<ref name=dvd11min/><ref name=dvd32>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=32:55–34:45}}</ref> sleepless nights and the extensive use of [[cocaine]] marked much of the album's production.<ref name=ricky59/> [[Chris Stone (entrepreneur)|Chris Stone]], one of the Record Plant's owners, indicated in 1997 that Fleetwood Mac brought "excess at its most excessive" by taking over the studio for long and extremely expensive sessions; he stated, "The band would come in at 7 at night, have a big feast, party till 1 or 2 in the morning, and then when they were so whacked-out they couldn't do anything, they'd start recording".<ref name=stone>{{cite magazine |title=Bay Area's Plant Marks 25 Years |last=Verna |first=Paul |magazine=Billboard |page=45 |date=8 November 1997}}</ref>

{{quote box|quote="Trauma, Trau-{{em|ma}}. The sessions were like a cocktail party every night—people everywhere. We ended up staying in these weird hospital rooms ... and of course John and me were not exactly the best of friends."<ref name=RSINT/>|source=—Christine McVie, on the emotional strain when making ''Rumours'' in Sausalito|width=25%|align=left|style=padding:10px;}}
Nicks has suggested that Fleetwood Mac created the best music when in the worst shape,<ref name=dvd32/> while, according to Buckingham, the tensions between band members formed the recording process and led to "the whole being more than the sum of the parts".<ref name=dvdmin12/> The couple's work became "bittersweet" after their final split, although Buckingham still had a skill for taking Nicks' tracks and "making them beautiful".<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=16:00–17:15}}</ref> The [[vocal harmonies]] between the duo and Christine McVie worked well and were captured using the best microphones available.<ref name=SOS/> Nicks' lyrical focus allowed the instrumentals in the songs that she wrote to be looser and more abstract.<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=29:20–29:30}}</ref> According to Dashut, all the recordings captured "emotion and feeling without a middle man ... or tempering".<ref name=22min/> John McVie tended to clash with Buckingham about the make-up of songs, but both admit to achieving good outcomes.<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=19:10–20:10}}</ref> Christine McVie's "Songbird", which Caillat felt needed a concert hall's ambience, was recorded during an all-night session at [[Zellerbach Hall|Zellerbach Auditorium]] in [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]], across [[San Francisco Bay]] from Sausalito.<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=41:20–41:45}}</ref>

Following over two months in Sausalito, Fleetwood arranged a ten-day tour to give the band a break and get fan feedback. After the concerts, recording resumed at venues in Los Angeles,<ref name=brunn111/> including Wally Heider Studios. Christine McVie and Nicks did not attend most of the sessions and took time off until they were needed to record any remaining vocals. The rest of Fleetwood Mac, with Caillat and Dashut, struggled to finalise the [[overdubbing]] and mixing of ''Rumours'' after the Sausalito tapes were damaged by repeated use during recording; the [[bass drum|kick]] and [[snare drum]] audio tracks sounded "lifeless".<ref name=SOS/> A sell-out autumn tour of the US was cancelled to allow the completion of the album,<ref name=RSINT/> whose scheduled release date of September 1976 was pushed back.<ref name=brunn110>{{harvnb|Brunning|2004|p=110}}</ref> A specialist was hired to rectify the Sausalito tapes using a [[oscillator|vari-speed oscillator]]. Through a pair of headphones which played the damaged tapes in his left ear and the [[master recording|safety master recordings]] in his right, he converged their respective speeds aided by the timings provided by the snare and [[Hi-hat (instrument)|hi-hat]] audio tracks.<ref name=SOS/> Fleetwood Mac and their co-producers wanted a "no-filler" final product, in which every track seemed a potential single. After the final [[audio mastering|mastering]] stage and hearing the songs back-to-back, the band members sensed they had recorded something "pretty powerful".<ref>{{harvnb|''Classic Albums''|2004|loc=50:30–51:50}}</ref>