Sorry for the delay in response Ecue, I have been laying drum tracks for the last litlle while and it drains me. First things first, I haven't ever done any work for Metallica. The Frank Black stuff was back in 1992, on his first solo album. That was back in the days beforeplug-ins but I can tell you a few things about the recording.
The Pixies had not yet officially broken up. Joey Santaigo was around the studio quite a bit, but I don't remember Kim Deal being there. The album was tracked at the Clubhouse in Burbank, now defunct. There was a big, old Neve desk in the control room, feeding an Otari 24 track.
There are a lot of great guitar tones on that album. The live room had about twenty guitar amps, and there were about fifteen different guitars in the control room waiting for somebody to come along and fondle them. The center piece was a 1950s gold colored Gibson that had once belonged to Elvis.
Eric Drew Feldman produced the album. He was with the Residents, a San Fran band whose heads were shaped like giant eyeballs (at least when they wore giant eyeball-head masks). He used analog synths to great effect- like the intro to "Places Named After Numbers".
Perhaps I don't remember that much about the recording after all. i do remember that Charles (Frank Black) was a sincerely decent person- he actually took me and one of the other guys out for dinner one night. I guess the name Black Francis was a little too subtle for most people to get the joke.
From what I understand they do most of the recordings live to 2 track these days. I wish there was some great technical thing I could relate, but...
Anyway, Doc.