The Creative Music Recording Magazine
Mark Ronson Uptown Special & Amy Winehouse Jackson Browne Production & Politics Richard Dodd Tom Petty’s Wildflowers Bob Ludwig Master of Mastering Nick Launay Lou Reed, Kate Bush, Nick Cave Jim Sclavunos Bad Seeds, The Jim Jones Review Caribou Dan Snaith at Home Rich Williams of Burl in Behind the Gear Music Reviews w/ Genesis & Bruce Springsteen Gear Reviews
Issue No. 105 Jan/Feb 2015
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Hello and welcome to Tape Op 12 Letters 16 Rich Williams in Behind the Gear 20 Genesis 22 Jackson Browne 26 Nick Launay # 32 Jim Sclavunos 105! 38 Dan Snaith of Caribou When we’re recording music, it always feels like there’s never 42 Mark Ronson enough time. Whenever I finish a mix, or an entire album, I
46page Richard Dodd always think, “But what if we’d had more time?” We could explore more possibilities. We could spend 54 Bob Ludwig longer on a mix. Track more vocal takes, looking for the magical 62 Gear Reviews performance. Maybe the artist should have practiced more? Should we have taken a few days off between tracking and 80 Music Reviews mixing? It seems as if every mix project I get ends up tracking 82 Larry’s End Rant overdubs up to the last minute, no matter how far in advance they book the session. But I also must be highly aware of the Bonus Content: days allotted for sessions, and find ways to get the work Richard Dodd done on time and at the highest quality possible. Genesis’ Mike Rutherford When we plan to use a commercial recording studio we “book time.” Our budget is dependent on how much time Online Only Features: we estimate for a project. If we record at home, we Russ Terrana’s might consider the sessions unrestricted by time, but we all know we have to “set Motown Mix Magic aside” time in order to have the time to do the recording. Because music is an art based in time, it takes time to write and create, and it takes time to capture and manipulate in the studio. Do you have enough time to get done what you needed? Can the project be completed in time? It all comes down to time. It always has and always will. How will you spend your time?
Larry Crane, Editor “Time isn’t holding up Time isn’t after us Same as it ever was” -David Byrne
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com The Creative Music Recording Magazine Editor Larry Crane Publisher &!Graphic Design John Baccigaluppi Online Publisher Dave Middleton Gear Reviews Editor Andy “Gear Geek” Hong Production Manager & Assistant Gear Reviews Editor Scott McChane Contributing Writers &!Photographers Cover art by plazm.com as part of a collaboration with Fort George Brewery and the forthcoming “Tape Op Overdub IPA”
14/Tape Op#105/Letters/(Fin.) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com and I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. Then one day I thought to myself, “I’m going to try a Behind The Gear transformer on the front end of this thing and see This Issue’s Tester of Transistors what happens.” We spent a ton of time getting the by Larry Crane transformer right. Ultimately that turned into the B2 Rich Williams Bomber A-to-D. The B2 Bomber evolved into the Mothership. The Mothership was something that we’d all been dreaming about in the studio for many years. Finally there would be “no compromise” recording. I describe my Mothership to people as something beefy that’s a really solid thing, as opposed to accurate. Totally. The thing about recording music is there’s no such thing as transparency. From the first moment sound goes into a microphone... tell me which microphone is Burl Audio, under the direction of from Ensoniq. Creative, the company that made transparent? Then it comes out a speaker. Which speaker owner/designer Rich Williams, has SoundBlaster cards, bought E-MU and Ensoniq, and is transparent? None. Everything in between is supposed developed some of the best new recording then merged them. That pissed off all the engineers to help the signal along from the microphone to the equipment over the last eight years. at Ensoniq, so they quit. We’re talking a bazillion lines speaker. We all know that it takes a lot of magic tricks to Their mic preamps, summing amps, and of proprietary assembly code, and no one knew how it get music to sound the way that it does out of speakers. control room monitor are top-quality. worked, except the original engineers. I recommended The transformer takes an electric field, turns it into a But the company is best known for their that they go to a native system back then and just do magnetic field, and then back into an electric field. With analog/digital conversion units, like the outboard converters. They just end-of-lifed Paris, and hot levels the magnetic field acts like a shock absorber, B2 Bomber series and the B80 Mothership with it, my job. Universal Audio used to be on the just like it does with tape, dynamic mics, and speakers configurable converter. west side of Santa Cruz. I immediately got hired at UA that have coils. At nominal levels, the transformer is as a part-time contractor, which was great. I was incredibly linear and clean; it’s actually more true than What led to you designing recording building a new studio – that meant I could run my transistors. Transistors add a lot of tonality to music. A equipment? new studio, and also work. My first project was to turn lot of people don’t realize that. Not only does every I went to UC Santa Cruz and got my degree in computer the UAD-1 card into an optical recording device, integrated circuit op-amp sound different, but also every engineering. I got into music, and after a while I had meaning that you could hook up anything that spoke transistor sounds different. My goal was for Burl Audio to a band. For 12 years I was the lead singer and ADAT to a UAD-1 card and record with it. I did this be the Neve or Studer of the future. songwriter of Burlacticus Undertow – it was original project in exchange for an 1176, an LA-2A, and some What was the concept behind not putting psychedelic funk rock with go-go dancers. After 2-610s. When I first got this gear it was like an transformers on the output of the college I got a job working in Silicon Valley in the explosion went off in my head. This was real gear. This Mothership? early ‘90s for a video compression company. I was in was what you needed in order to make real records. I Well, that’s a great question. Usually the outputs require my early twenties and making good money, but I was was lucky enough to work with their analog designer even larger transformers. Why is that? Because your miserable. I went to recording school at CRI at the time, John Henson. He really opened up my output impedance is much lower than your input [California Recording Institute] in the Bay Area, and eyes to discrete analog circuits. When they were impedance. For instance an output impedance on a I was lucky enough to learn on a Neve console and a designing the 6176, they wanted to put A-to-D in typical audio device is 20 to 100 ohms. The input Studer [tape deck]. I ended up leaving Silicon Valley, there. What we determined was that there just wasn’t impedance is anywhere from 600 to 100 K. That’s why took a vow of poverty, and started my own recording enough room to do it right. you typically see smaller transformers on the inputs of studio in Santa Cruz. Yeah, that’d be pretty tight. devices. You’ll notice that Burl input transformers are Always a great idea. I was lucky enough to create the product, the 2192 [2- much bigger than your typical input transformer. It’s I was in my twenties, so I could still afford to be poor channel ADC]. I listened to every single capacitor and the same way on the output. Our output transformers for a while. I started back when the new small, budget integrated circuit op-amp on the market. I really are typically much larger and have more linearity on the studio was a new concept. I had a Mackie board and wanted a converter that stood up to the 1176 and the low-end. I really wanted channel density; and I wanted [Tascam] DA-88s. What I quickly realized is that I 2-610. It took a lot of time to tune it and get it to something where you could get tonality on the input, couldn’t get the same sound with that setup as I sound the way that I got it to sound, because it turns but mostly preserve the linearity on the output. could when working with the Studer and the Neves. out that things sound best a lot of the time when Instead of having a transformer, what But you were running a studio? they’re on the verge of a complete meltdown. What I kind of circuit is providing the output? It was initially called Butt Cheap, and was $15 an hour. did was to figure out that magic point where it still It’s a direct-coupled circuit, meaning that there are no I got tons of clients. It became Paradise Recording in sounded good, but didn’t burst into flames. I ended capacitors in the signal path; and it’s a discrete op- 1997, at a modest $50 an hour. Once I had gear up designing a multi-channel mic preamp for UA amp with the fewest number of transistors that you upgrades, I was booked solid. I approach recording called the 8110, and then the 4110. John had left the can possibly get away with. Those transistors I from the artists’ standpoint. I relate with what the company, and I was the sole hardware designer, both painstakingly listened to. band and the listener want to hear. I am not a “turn analog and digital, for UA. Universal Audio’s obviously When you say that you listen to the the crank” kind of recording engineer/producer. The gone in a different direction: the 2192 is no longer transistors, transformers, and other property that the original Paradise Recording was on offered, and neither is the 8110 or the 4110. The next parts, what’s the process for you? sold early in 2001, and I had downtime while I was step for me was to start my own company; Burl Audio. We test all the circuits in real recording situations, with all building a new 1500 sq ft studio. I needed to find One of the sales and marketing guys from UA had left, instruments. I almost always start with kick drum, snare, some work. I applied at E-MU [Systems] in Santa Cruz so we consulted with him and asked what Burl should high-hat, overheads, bass guitar, guitar and vocals. I and got a job. Paris [recording software] was the main do first. He said, “You’re known for A-to-D and D-to- was never happy with how the 2192 sounded when competitor with Pro Tools back in the ‘90s. Paris came A. Do another converter.” The 2192 was hard to beat tracking guitar. The harmonics never seemed right to me. 16/Tape Op#105/Mr. Williams/(continued on page 18) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com The BX1 input transformer on the B2 ADC and Mothership was the holy grail for me on guitar [recordings]. It finally sounded right to me. For months on end I was soldering in new transistors, plugging them into the circuit, tweaking the bias currents – and then listening, and listening, and listening. But all of that work that I did can now be applied to multiple products. What was it like going from working for others to the process of setting up your own company? You’re immediately stricken with severe poverty. That went on for a long time. The flipside is that it’s amazing, because you finally have the freedom to go with your gut and design what you truly believe is the right thing. If you work for another company, designs are done by committee; and then they’re constantly beating you up about the cost of the product. They want to dumb it down. It’s amazingly gratifying when you sell your first unit for your own company. When the feedback starts coming back and it’s positive, you know that you did the right thing. Until 2011, Burl Audio had no real office. I worked and designed out of Paradise Recording, with prototypes being used in recording sessions. Do you still have a bunch of recording equipment at the Burl shop? Yeah, we have a studio. When the Mothership was finished, I decided that I was going to go on a studio tour and do A/B comparisons across the U.S. and Europe. I went into East/West, Ocean Way in Nashville, Electric Lady in New York, London, Paris, and all across Europe. I’d just worked for two years getting the Mothership going. I was stoked. I was in Paris on Ramine Parsivand’s barge [studio] on the Seine river, drinking wine, and I said Ramine, “This is the most relaxed I’ve felt in years.” Little did I know at that moment the building that our recording studio was in was on fire! I got a call at 10 a.m. Paris time, and the phone just kept ringing and ringing. It was Will [Kahn] on the other end telling me that the studio had caught fire, but not to worry about it because we had insurance. I took that insurance settlement and bought 2.5 acres in Bonny Doon, California [near Santa Cruz]. We run the company out of a barn, and we have a recording studio in the basement of the house that will ultimately move into this 4,000 square foot barn. We also brew our own beer up there, so you can have beer on tap while you’re mixing you’re record. That sounds good to me. Do sessions still go on? Oh, yeah. But we have limited time right now. How long has Will been with the company? Since we launched the Mothership in 2010. There’s me, Will, Kevin [Dickey], Gabe [Lobaugh], and then a few other guys doing assembly. We have about ten people, or less, total. It’s still a small company. Have you got some new product ideas on the way, at this point? We’ve got more products than we do time to put them out. I used to allude to what we were going to do, but then people got disappointed when we changed course. I would love to just design analog products from here on out, but for us, and for our company, we have a lot to do on the digital side still for the future. r
The thing that struck me in talking to Jackson Browne, as the 40 minutes I’d been promised passed the 90 minute mark, was how much he cares; not just about the state of the world we live in, but the details of the songs he writes and the records he makes. Browne recently released his 14th studio album, Standing on the Breach, and it’s on par with any of the classics in his canon. Backed by the band he’s had for over a decade, and recorded at Browne’s own Groove Masters studio, the album mixes the political with his gift for melody and intimate, yet universal, truths about loving, losing, as well as struggling in and with the world. I caught up with Browne as he wrapped up a series of summer shows before heading back out on the road in support of Standing on the Breach.
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com I know that you took production credits mic’d the neck of the lap steel and put him in an iso Some of the songs were about being on the road. There were very early on in your career. How did booth away from the amp. I thought I’d be getting more so many great takes I’d hear on the road and think, “Holy you know that that was so important? of the acoustic sound. It was a National lap steel, so there cow, why didn’t they put that on the record?” I thought I wasn’t conscious of that when I started making records. I wasn’t much going on, but you ended up hearing a lot of that I could do it because I could record everything on guess the first sessions I ever attended were ones where extra sound. He only did one pass, but it was incredibly cassettes. I thought I’d make the whole thing and master they were recording my songs. At the very first one, they solid, and at the end it was a very triumphant moment. the cassette. I’m not the only one who’d ever thought of were trying to cut three songs in three hours. I could see Then I knew what I wanted, but very often you don’t doing it that way. Bruce [Springsteen] and Little Steven that these guys were an incredible team. At one point I know what you want. But really, my becoming a producer Van Zandt did it around that same time for the Gary Bonds was trying to tell the drummer to adjust something that had more to do with me not wanting to produce. I wanted record [Dedication]. They figured out that they had the he was playing. Don Randi, the piano player, said, “Come to find it myself, because I’d been around sessions where sound they wanted on the record, right there. The cassettes over here, kid. Come sit down next to me.” There was a there was somebody trying to influence things. I kept had a compression on them. My idea was to simply try to way that people in the studios did these arrangements. telling my manager that I was afraid of guys coming in capture the road experience. Just record everything. I’d I realized that any one guy could make the thing really to supplant my ideas and emotional truths with ones of even record conversations and hilarious things that people come alive. The next session I went to, Jim Keltner was their own. I didn’t want to be a passenger! So that’s how said to each other. I’d have people walking around with the drummer. I got to meet and know some of these that happened. cassette machines. Various players would put a stop to it people, and I realized that they all have their singular It seems very insightful for a young guy to and tell us to stop chasing them around. They wanted gifts. It was like being in a candy store. “Who should we know that he needs that control. Are whatever happened on the road to stay on the road. I was get to play on this? Ooh, let’s get this guy.” Those early you a control freak? going to do a bunch of songs that had already been records were made that way. I had the good fortune of A little bit. But I also like things to just happen. I have recorded that I thought needed to be redeemed and played getting to make my first record with Russ Kunkel and definite preferences. I’ll rule out certain things. I have a a bit better. I thought we could update the songs. Right Leland Sklar. I later got them to be my band for Running keyboardist [Jeff Young] who’s a really great pianist, but away, we listened back to some of them and realized that on Empty. I’d been calling them for sessions for I might not want that on the record. I sometimes prefer we should just do the new songs. They were fantastic. To individual songs. There were a bunch of players around, the simplicity of the way I play something, even though do a bunch of new songs on a live album hadn’t been done and I wanted to try them all. the guy is the most soaring and beautiful organ player. before, really. Most live albums were a celebration of an These are the people you would want to Sometimes I don’t know until I hear it. I may sound like artist’s popularity, like a “best of” collection. play with; not just because they’re great a control freak, but I want a certain emotional truth to Now you’ve got your studio, Groove Masters. players, but because you’d also want to be brought to bear. I’m not so much of a control freak I interviewed Graham Nash and David be around them. that I need to dictate what other people do, but I need Crosby recently, and they talked about Yeah, I know. It’s true! When I was young, when Keltner was something from them that is a genuine performance. it like it was this secret clubhouse. playing on one of my songs that Johnny Rivers was Only certain players will be able to bring this about. When, and why, did you start Groove recording, he was like, “You wrote this song? No kidding? Danny Kortchmar and I have become really good friends. Masters, and why do you keep private? It’s cool!” He was very friendly. Jim’s always been that At the very beginning, I had him playing on a song and We didn’t want to put out ads, mainly because no one wants way. Not just to me. I’ve seen him do it with lots of other he was playing a bunch of licks and whatnot. I wasn’t to work that hard. [laughter] It’s like a project room. You people. He’s a special player. He’s like Yoda in the studio. ready to hear that kind of playing. I like that on all kinds can get in there if you only have one day’s work, but it You can’t get him to do anything twice. You could try, of songs, but I didn’t hear it there. I knew I didn’t want helps if you know what needs to get done. It’s not a mill, but it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t happen. I felt really somebody else to make those choices for me. I knew that where people are in for three hours and then out. There’s lucky to play with him. I began to feel extremely the key to getting to do this was a manager and record not an hourly rate, and not even really a daily rate. So it’s fortunate when I started putting together a “best of” a company that let me take my time. I listened to my private. Some people really need a private place to work, few years back and looked at the credits. It’s like a second record [For Everyman] when one guy mixed it and where they’re not going to run into a random assortment pantheon of the best players. it didn’t sound quite right, so I had to go back. “If you of other bands or people. Although, I hear about people From your first record [Jackson Browne] don’t know, nobody knows.” That was the basic axiom. running into each other at Ocean Way [Recording], and I you were essentially saying, “Let’s do it David Geffen [Asylum Records] was great. He’d let me think, “Shit, that’s not happening enough.” For me, I get again,” or “I didn’t like that,” to these turn down some of the most famous producers that he to see people coming in and out. But I don’t hang around amazing players. You’re essentially wanted me to work with and simply allow me to go after in sessions. I make myself scarce, unless I’m invited. telling Jim Keltner, “This is what I it myself. It took me a long time to learn certain things, What do you have in there? want.” Was that intimidating? but at least I learned it in my time. We’ve got several 24-track machines. We’ve got Pro Tools. All No, because he’s such a great presence. The first session I did A lot of producers can get the best the new digital equipment, as well as the coolest old with Jim Keltner was for the song “These Days.” He had arrangements and the best hooks; but you gear. I started buying stuff right away because I wanted taught drums in the same music store that David Lindley knew, in your songwriter brain, where to be able to do what I was doing in the studio on the taught banjo at in Pasadena. They were old friends. David you wanted to take them and what you road. The first thing I bought was a couple of [Universal Lindley had not only played on that second album [For wanted it to sound like when it was done. Audio] LA-2A [compressors]. I started buying mics when Everyman], but we’d already been on the road for a year Yeah, I think you’re right. I think that’s a part of it. The they would come up. We tried to apply everything we together. I decided not to bring a band out on that tour, songwriter was ascendant in those days. Maybe it’s been were doing in the studio in the ‘70s and ‘80s to the road. because everybody I tried was not really up to the level that way for a long time, but at the time it was a new Working with Greg Ladanyi on Running on Empty was the of David. We went out, the two of us. When it came time deal. A lot of people were singing; but if they’d written first time that I had a recording engineer in the front of to make a record, we knew we had to add something the song, they had the mandate to sing the song. house. I’ve done that for a long time now, where the complementary to what we were already doing. That’s my That carried over to how I wanted to treat it, and how front of house mixer is also my recording engineer. way into songs and producing, knowing that, under I wanted it done. Let’s talk about the new record. It’s been a certain conditions, things can happen when you get the Your fifth album, Running on Empty, while since Time the Conqueror [2008] right people together. David played lap steel on “These was tracked live, as well as on buses, and you have a studio at your disposal. Days.” The original track sounds like an organ. He’s hotel rooms, and such. What was the Why so long between the last record and playing these pads on lap steel. For the solo, we first impetus for this? Standing in the Breach?
Mr. Browne/(continued on page 24)/Tape Op#105/23 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com My relationships, my family, and things took me away. I’ve we’re kind of a new country. We may have a great deal a whole political context that song takes place in. I wrote been more or less productive at different times in my life. to offer the world because of our own belief in ourselves, the English version and I think it speaks very strongly to I had to become more industrious to get this album our belief in our freedoms, and ability to invent new people in the United States. There can be freedom only made. I started writing it in the Galapagos on a trip – I solutions and pathways. Yet, despite all that, the forces when nobody owns it, but we do act like we own it. We went there with a bunch of oceanographers. It took me that rule our business practices and our political do act like we’ve got to dispense our freedom, like it’s a a while to finish this song, but it started being about approaches are very old. They’ve been in place for product that we manufacture and we’re going to make it ocean pollution. I put as much into the writing of the centuries. Like the song “Standing in the Breach,” I available to the people of Afghanistan. The reality is a songs as I ever have with anything else, but not in the wanted to make reference to Haiti, a country that little bit tougher and harder to take. The problem lies in context of record making. More in the context of living started out as a colony that threw off the yoke of slavery our proprietary attitude towards it, like it’s something and trying to find out an approach to certain topics that and became the first free country. They did it by that we invented. We didn’t invent it, and we often don’t I figured were important to me and, I think, important accepting a debt, and they still owe that debt. What’s even practice it. There’s a lot of political context behind to life. It’s not easy to write a song about plastic really going on in that country is the perpetuation of the some of these songs. pollution. Like who wants to hear that? Nobody! Then inequities that gave rise to slavery in the first place. The There are many things that the listener again, if you go surfing, and I do occasionally, you get in song tries to refer to that in a way that would help can take from these songs about the the water and there’s all this plastic shit floating by you, people take it into consideration. The more we wake up, state of the world. And, for some, maybe and you realize that the ocean is filling up with plastic. the more we’re still in a dream. I want to write songs it will spur them to act, or at least think. Finding a way into a subject like that for me was really that are thoughtful and consider the problems that we Yeah, I think it corresponds to your own understanding. I’ve worthwhile but involved a task. I don’t want to preach face. I’m not trying to have a song offer the solutions. written songs that were more polemic or overtly political to, or harangue, people. I want to catch their interest. The solutions lie in our individual choices, the way we in the past. I still sing those songs, but there’s so much It’s the same with “Standing in the Breach.” It’s really live our lives, and what we decide to do in the world. more nuanced information that I have about [these about an earthquake, but right away it turns into a song When I look at the reports coming from Syria, Ukraine, issues]. And it doesn’t really apply exactly to the about poverty and endemic inequity. But I’m not really Iraq, Israel, and Palestine – if I were a doctor, maybe I situation. I’m not trying to write another broadside or trying to write a rock essay – I want to write a song. would be able to go work with Doctors Without Borders. polemic. I’m trying to refer to these things that One of the challenges for a lot of artists is We have to do something. I never really felt like I was a everybody’s going through, and to refer to them in a way trying to find creative ways to write musician that didn’t ever have a stake in the world. that, at the heart of it, is the idea that I’m glad to be about getting older, and to relate to an Sometimes I try to talk myself into that, like, “Nobody’s alive now when these problems need to be solved. If I audience that’s getting older. It seems going to fault you if you just write your songs, play your could be anywhere, I’d want to be right here. Talking that you’ve always had an old soul. Your shows, and treat this like it’s a job.” But I guess that’s with you about this is interesting. It’s a part of my songs do seem to have a timelessness the music that’s always meant the most to me. Paul process that I generally don’t get to talk with anyone about them. McCartney was incredibly insightful as a young man to about. It’s a decision not to be too overt on the political Well, I grew up listening to old people singing. I grew up write “Eleanor Rigby.” It was incredible to suddenly side. But I have my moments where my point of view or listening to Mississippi John Hurt, Louis Armstrong, and thrust that view of life and of death into a pop my beliefs are pretty pointed. Mose Allison. Even Bob Dylan, when he was really young, environment that had never had that kind of topic I’m curious how you listen to music these sounded like an old man. He was channeling a lot of talked about. I grew up with The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the days. Do you still like vinyl? As an artist these older players and cultivating [their sound]. These Stones, and all the folk music and Appalachian music as you must have a strong opinion about it. days, people think it’s an old person’s perspective – a my heroes and teachers. I started taking a longer and Well, I like vinyl. In the recent years I’ve taken the trouble weary perspective – but I think it’s him emulating the longer time to finish songs. I like simple songs too, so to try to get my record player and vinyl system going. I people he grew up listening to. If you grow up listening there’s something of a paradox in trying to write a got my vinyl together, and I like listening to music that to those old people, well, that’s the great thing about simple song about something that requires a lot of way very much. It’s hard to get a good vinyl pressing the folk music. Many of the great artists are old men. But engagement with a subject. But there’s so much more way that we used to do it. There used to be a system of hopefully you’re gravitating toward what you know, too. humanity in music that comes from people who are getting references and approving them that’s basically You seem to be talking about the same singing about the truth of their situation. not even in place [anymore]. I don’t know how anybody’s things with the same set of eyes, but How long do you allow yourself for getting vinyl done now. It used to start in analog and from the perspective of 2014, which is these things to gestate, both in the stay in analog, but now nobody does that. I like vinyl a obviously very different to 1974. writing and in the studio? Are you lot, but at the same time I do like the really high-res I was reflecting on that the other day. I remember a very writing right up to the last minute audio. I like CDs. You can’t even find a CD player; nobody world weary business guy asked me in 1994 if I was when you do the vocal, or at some sells them. I listen to CDs in my car, and I listen to vinyl. surprised by the corruption in the world. I told him I point are you just done? I know that high resolution has rendered the digital was. I really was. He was probably a fairly corrupt guy. I’m always arguing with myself about the song during the domain almost as good as analog. I got a demonstration But I’ve realized that so much of what we’re production of the record. I change things around, or try of the high-res audio and I’m so glad that people will encountering has been endemic in the world, and that other things. I do that during recording a lot of the time. have an alternative to MP3s. That sound makes things go things have been that way for a long time. When you Sometimes on the record there are older versions of the down the tubes. I found somebody in a high-end record start reading history, you realize that the forces really at lyrics that are slightly different. On this record, the songs store who sold me a really beautiful Marantz CD player. play in the world are business forces. There are many got written and they may have evolved as the songs got It’s kind of an antique at this point, but it’s one of the examples of the kinds of corruption that we encounter tracked; but, as a producer, it’s about getting the record best sounding things in the world. r in daily political life. It’s been there all the time. We’re to reflect that the meaning is really in the way it’s played.
Throughout the years, Nick Launay has worked with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, PiL, Gang of Four, Lou Reed, Kate Bush, making, I would be hired solely as an engineer. But I To me, a good producer – of artists and bands who write Midnight Oil, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade ended up playing a larger role, regarding making their own material – is someone who, after listening Fire, INXS, Talking Heads/David Byrne, decisions about arrangements and so on. So when the intently to their demos, can then take the songs and and The Band of Skulls. Here he discusses album was finished the artist kindly credited me as co- transform them into the best and most engaging why raw sounding records take as much producer – Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke, for versions imaginable. At the same time, they can get the work as polished ones, why live albums require a different mixing approach – and example. best performance the artist can perform at that point in why he prefers small drum rooms to big I remember a quote from you where, on a their life, without losing any magic that may exist in the ones. And beyond all of that: the idea of superficial technical level, one might raw demos. A bad producer would be someone who fails capturing an enthusiastic performance. say the bands like those two are not to grasp the essence of what is good about a song. Or, very good, but you’d found out they if working with a band, ignores what’s unique and You’ve worked with artists that produce were great musicians. special about the chemistry of that group of people, themselves, like Kate Bush. Often an I think there are two types of musicians: The first are the and imposes his or her ego onto their recording. artist is too attached to the music to ones who go to school and learn how to technically When you worked on Midnight Oil’s carry out the dual role. What does it play their chosen instrument. The second are the type Earth and Sun and Moon, the band take to make it work? that just feels music, and does the best they can with changed to an “indie” type of sound, I think if the artist is established enough and have their their instrument to express what they feel; learning away from the polished ‘80s rock style finances in place, they can simply choose to produce along the way, and driven mostly by the mood they of their hit records. their own album. The only other decision-maker would want to achieve. I prefer the second type. I find that I think having made a few adventurous sounding albums be the record company, depending on their musicians who have been taught the “proper way” with them in the early ‘80s – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, participation. Whether they can actually succeed in tend not to experiment as much, because in the 1 and Red Sails in the Sunset – and the band then doing so successfully depends on their understanding teaching they were given rules. Most great musicians making two very polished sounding albums after that of the technologies, as well as the confidence to that inspire us often don’t know exactly what the – there was a strong feeling from us all to want to arrange their own songs. However, most talented chords they are playing are called. Much to my surprise make something that sounded very raw, honest, and artists know that they will benefit hugely from an and delight, I found even someone as famous for their warm. It was more a decision based on sound, and outside opinion and perspective to bounce ideas off of, skills as Eric Clapton didn’t know what chords he was involved just as much effort and production tricks to so they will usually choose someone who aesthetically playing when asked by other musicians in the room. I make it sound “raw” as a polished “produced” album. has similar taste, or someone who has made albums think it’s true to say that some people, like Johnny The equipment used, and way of getting there, is just they admire. Sometimes – as in the case of Kate Bush Marr and Warren Ellis, are born into this world with different. For example, we did not use click tracks. We and her album The Dreaming – they will choose to have fantastic gifts and dexterity; and, with practice, their had the whole band play at once, capturing all a good engineer who can get the sounds they’d like to passion of music becomes extraordinary. instruments together without replacing anything in the hear on their album. Often, in my early days of record What constitutes a good producer? basic backing tracks. 26/Tape Op#105/Mr. Launay/(continued on page 28) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com In contrast, The Swing by INXS – which what’s coming next. I really wanted to create the tour and I do some other album. We then return to the you also mixed – sounds like a typical illusion of being in the room on the night, paying studio fresh and know exactly what we need to do to ‘80s record, with polished tones and particular attention to Lou’s amazing voice and finish the record. digital reverbs of that era. Were you charisma. Lou was truly an amazing person, and a true You’ve been working recently with Band trying to create a cutting edge vibe innovator. I will miss him enormously. of Skulls and Arcade Fire. It seems to back then? Fernando also mentioned that on me that they are sometimes I was very young – 22 – when I made that album and was Animal Serenade, apart from using mimicking the sound of their heroes completely driven by enthusiasm – as I still am. My the main speakers of the studio, you in the ‘70s and ‘80s. How do you aim, at the time, was to make an album that sounded used the Tivoli Model One radio prevent a band from sounding like a fresh and different to anything I’d ever heard before. speaker for mixing decisions. retro version of something that was The truth is there were many producers trying to do Lou gave me a Tivoli AM/FM [mono] radio as a present. I greater originally? that. We were all going out of our way to get our hands had never heard of them before, and was amazed at I think every band I’ve worked with is influenced by on the latest recording technologies. Looking back, the sound from such a tiny speaker. I often like to something, or someone; but there is also a natural many of those albums had similar sounds, because we monitor through various different speakers, so I used want to not repeat what has been done before. I point were all receiving the few new gimmicks at the same it as an alternative to see how the balance could be it out to be discussed when things do sound a little bit time: the Eventide Harmonizer, AMS and Lexicon improved. Lou was very into technology and too close to the influence. There is a big difference Reverbs, and [Yamaha] DX7s. This lead to what we now inventions. It was a lovely gesture to give me a Tivoli between mimicking because people don’t have any know as the ‘80s sound. With The Swing, musically we as a gift; I still travel with it and use it often. fresh ideas, versus wearing your heart on your sleeve were all very influenced by our favorite bands at that You seem to view rental equipment as an and doing things with admiration for the style of time, Talking Heads and XTC. A lot of the ‘80s sound integral part of a studio production. artists who’ve come before. I think the bands I work comes from the use of very primitive digital reverbs What do you usually rent, say, for with have a tendency to be original, but want to and digital delays, and in some cases the more recording Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds? capture a vibe that moved them in the past. advanced analog delays, which I still use to this day. Renting extra equipment from outside the studio depends How do you encourage a band to dig up The sound of that era was very much to do with the very much on what equipment comes with the studio the energy and enthusiasm of their limitations and need to push what little outboard chosen. I usually choose the studio mostly based on its youth again when making a record? equipment we had into doing something spectacular. acoustics and vibe, but tend to prefer to use studios I usually simply remind them that it has to be fun. I also You mixed the Animal Serenade live that have vintage Neve or API consoles. With recording ask them to think about the reason they chose to be album by Lou Reed. The show was a band like the Bad Seeds or Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I find it musicians and form a band in the first place. To me, if recorded on a DAT multitrack and, very necessary to use mic preamps that can handle it’s not fun making the records we may as well not do according to co-producer and bassist extreme dynamics, because these bands tend to play it. I really believe you can feel the enthusiasm when Fernando Saunders, the captured from very quietly to very loud at any given and you hear the music back. signals sounded a bit thin. unexpected moment, so I will often rent Neve 1081s When you’re producing a band you go I’m very sad Lou passed away recently. I was very and Urei compressors that can handle the extremes. I into the rehearsal room to work out fortunate to spend time with him after he asked – also rent an assortment of tube and ribbon mics. Mix- the songs. What time span do you ordered [laughs] – me to help him mix this album. My wise, these days I use a lot of plug-ins combined with usually schedule for this part? first conversation with him was when he woke me up unusual vintage external outboard equipment. I use a For an album of 12 songs I will usually go into rehearsal at 6 a.m. one Sunday with some questions he needed lot of tape echoes, like an Echoplex and Roland Space for up to two weeks. I think time spent in a rehearsal answered immediately. It was like an inquisition. He Echo; also Eventide harmonizers, Furman spring room, learning and arranging the songs, is time well was fascinated with technology and asked me, with reverbs, and other characterful gear. I don’t rent even spent; and it saves a lot of money that you would his incredibly low, demanding voice, “What equipment an eighth of what I used to rent in the ‘80s. I still love otherwise spend in the expensive recording studio. The are you going to use on my music?” He warned me the sound of analog effects best, but the truth is that usual process is that I will receive demos from the before answering that there are two types of opinions, with Pro Tools’ plug-ins there are so many new band, which I will make notes on. I will then go into “Other people’s,” and “his,” and he preferred to go possibilities that didn’t exist before. the rehearsal studio with them and pull the songs with the latter! Apparently I answered satisfactorily to With Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, you’re apart, trying all my and their ideas, sometimes his taste, and was on my way to help with a smile. It’s working with really fast creators. reconstructing them completely. At the end of the day, true the live recording was a bit thin, due to the low When is it good to actually take some if the original arrangement feels better we will go back bit-rate digital format, but it was actually very well time and let the material mature? to that. It’s more a case of using the rehearsal studio recorded. Lou quite liked elements of the sound of the Nick Cave has set up a very unique, but deliberate, to be able to try every idea without pressure, or rough live mix from the night, but it wasn’t balanced situation in that he’s chosen to surround himself with running up huge costs. We then go into the studio well enough to release. I thickened and warmed a lot very unique musicians, all of whom have a similar prepared, and all the band needs to do is concentrate of the sounds, using various pieces of tube equipment aesthetic. They can all go into the studio with very on performance. that I could get my hands on. I also used a lot of little rehearsal and just start playing the songs, which How do you set up a session? Do you take vintage Roland Space Echo RE-301 on things. I like naturally develop into something pretty special within much time before the band arrives? the way those are inconsistent. Distortion makes two or three takes. For example, with Dig!!! Lazarus Yes, in some cases I do go into the studio a day before things sound more organic. Dig!!! the basic tracks took just four days, and the band arrives in order to set up all the microphones How does the process of mixing a live overdubs took maybe another three days more. Same and fold-back systems so the band isn’t waiting around album differ from mixing a studio with the Grinderman [side project] records. Usually, if getting bored. I feel it’s very important that the band record? after three takes it’s not sounding good, the song is come in relaxed and have fun making the record. Mixing a live concert album is very different from a normal scrapped or approached again another day with a Nothing is more boring than sitting around waiting for album. The flow and continual feeling of being there in completely different feel. I think the process of doing technicians to plug in cables. It makes people anxious the audience is important, so I’ve found it best to get things very quickly keeps things fresh and very natural. and impatient, when all they want to do is play their an overall sound for the whole gig, then go back and Usually we will do the basic tracks with live vocals for instruments. I go to big extremes to make the sessions refine detail on each song, while keeping in mind a few days, then take a month or two off while they flow, and to gain momentum and enthusiasm.
28/Tape Op#105/Mr. Launay/(continued on page 30) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com For the Midnight Oil record 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you recorded drums and cymbals separately. Your goal was getting a huge drum sound with lots of compression, but without the artifacts this would cause to the cymbals. 10, 9, 8... was recorded at Townhouse Studios’ Studio 2 [in London], which had a very unusual stone recording room. It’s not a huge room, but the floor and all the walls are made of a very hard rock, so everything played in it sounds very, very, loud and trashy – which is great for snare, kick, and toms. But cymbals sound unbearably harsh, to the point where it’s unpleasant. So the only way to keep the bombastic room sound – which is truly a magical thing – is to record the drums without cymbals, and then overdub them later, in order to have control. While the cymbals were left out, the hi-hat needed to be tracked right away. The hi-hat is, of course, a very important part of creating a groove and so it needs to be played at the same time as the kick and snare. My solution for this was to make a sound- damping tent around the hi-hat by using microphone stands, blankets, and a lot of sticky tape. It looked quite ridiculous, but worked well. What skill level does a drummer need to be able to pull that off? The trick is to keep the drummer happy. Not telling them they cannot hit cymbals is actually very simple: remove the real cymbals and replace them with fake plastic ones that make no sound. These are available for a film and television work, or you can make your own by covering real cymbals with blankets. This way the drummer has something to hit when he feels the urge. the In contrast to many other recording engineers, you’re quite fond of recording drums in smaller rooms. I do prefer small live rooms to large ones. I find that with small rooms the slapback off the walls is very usable, because it’s still in time enough with the groove to be able Profle to place very loud in the mix. Whereas with large rooms, the slapback is simply too long and distracting, and “Esse quam videri.” therefore unusable. Also, if the room is too large it simply sounds like reverb, which to me is not as interesting as a Favorite green vegetable: Brussel Sprouts small wood room with character. Favorite Beer: St. Bernardus ABT12 Let’s look at the communication with artists. Best studio lunch: Fish tacos from Baja Burrito How do you avoid misunderstandings, because everyone may be talking in his or Last movie I saw: Guardians of the Galaxy her own terms? My greatest accomplishment: I always found that when working with talented, creative My kids got all the musical references in people it’s a huge benefit to listen to their ideas and find The Blues Brothers out what is going on in their crazy minds. It is their record after all. I find that in order to get my ideas through to They’re all great but if I had to pick one piece them, with my impression of how I think their ideas could of Retro gear I'd go with the 2A3 EQ. best be realized, it’s important to communicate clearly. It’s on every vocal I mix, and it’s great on When things are explained clearly, it’s much easier to get things done because everybody is on the same page, with almost anything I record as well. the same goal. I’ve been very lucky, in my time, to have It has a great character. worked with some truly gifted, original, and eccentric artists. I do believe that one of the reasons they keep coming back -F. Reid Shippen (Keith Urban, to work with me is because I listen and communicate well. Lady Antebellum, Ingrid Michaelson) I feel it’s very, very important, and respectful too! r www.retroinstruments.com
36/Tape Op#105/Mr. Sclavunos/(Fin.) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com A Fruitful Decade: Caribou’s Dan Snaith on the Evolution of His Recordings by Dan Duszynski photo by Thomas Neukum
The ease of modern music software has allowed for the creation of an abundance of average, homogenous, electronic records; but over the last 14 years, Dan Snaith’s project, Caribou, has consistently stayed above the fray. Here’s a peek into Dan’s musical mind, and a look into the tools he uses to bring his ideas to life.
Are you in London now ? it as a DJ thing, but more as a looping, multitrack There are four of us onstage with one laptop, two MIDI Yeah, I’m in my basement studio room at home here. arrangement tool. That hasn’t actually changed so controllers, and a bunch of MIDI foot controllers - Is that where you made the new record? much. I use a fair bit of VST synths now, in complement they are all connected to the same instance of Yeah. There’s a drum booth in the corner, a Fender with the external synths. I have lots of friends who have Abtleton Live. We can all control one another’s reverb Rhodes with a pile of cables on it, a couple of lovely desks and consoles, but I’m tracking a maximum sends, filters, mapping and arrangement, or changing modular synths, a [Roland] Juno-106, and an EMT of three or four channels. If I’m doing a drum kit or the sound of what somebody else is playing. I’ll have turntable. That’s it. something, it’s pretty stripped down. It’s just me in control over the arrangement, and I can skip to When you were in Tape Op #37 [2003] here, so I don’t need to track a whole band or anything. another section. Even though we used the modular you were still called Manitoba, just I can get good sounds without a lot of gear since I go synth for a lot of sounds on this new album, I love before you released Caribou’s Up in through things one at a time. the Ableton Live setup so much that we will convert Flames. How has your recording When did you switch to Ableton Live? all the parts to software, just so we have that process changed? Probably 2007. flexibility to play songs differently. I don’t think we I’ve always recorded at home. Back then it was in a Did you use it on the album Andorra [in could travel with a lot of this gear anyway. The things corner of my then-girlfriend, now-wife’s, bedroom 2007]? that we gain from having that internal setup live are with a little bit of equipment in it. I had the same Actually, no I didn’t. That was probably still ACID. I more valuable to me, even if it doesn’t sound quite as Fender Rhodes, the same piles of records. I didn’t didn’t even have MIDI then. There was no MIDI on good as the real synths. have any outboard [gear]; I still don’t have much. I the interface, so I just had to play everything, For the live show are you on a click, or is didn’t have any synthesizers, aside from a Yamaha sometimes while I was tweaking the filters at the Ableton keeping up with you kids’ organ. I didn’t have a proper audio interface. I same time. It’s only recently that I’ve had what would somehow? now have a couple of API preamps and things, but be considered a “barely acceptable” setup. [laughs] It’s a bit of both. Most of the time there’s a click, but back then I had nothing. I was plugging a mic into In the last interview, you said that not only the drummer is hearing it. We need something the microphone input on a laptop. using MIDI contributed to things keeping time for when it would be too difficult just It’s still a pretty minimal setup. The sounding more human. Are you still by listening. There’s no rolling backing track – computer is where you’re doing most trying to incorporate that kind of everything is played by us – but that could mean of the work. feeling? triggering a loop. There are other times when the I’ve always used lots of software, but that’s something Yeah. All the tracks are made to a grid now, but I click stops in a song... maybe I’m playing a keyboard that has changed so dramatically in the last decade. I definitely use quantizing sparingly. I only do that if I part by myself and that’s kind of dictating the tempo don’t think I was using any VST synths. Was that even want a really metronomic feel. for a while, and then everyone joins in. When it needs a thing then? I was using [Sonic Foundry’s] ACID. It’s What’s your integration of Ableton Live to lock in again, the drummer uses a foot controller very similar to the way I use Ableton Live – I don’t use into your live performances? to start the click on the beat. 38/Tape Op#105/Mr. Snaith/(continued on page 40) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com From Dan’s interview in Tape Op #37 in my modular synth too. I love spring reverbs. To be guess I’ve put in enough time that I know how to get “When I was 13, I stole a sampler from my school, got a honest with you, the convolution spring reverbs what I want on the modular, and it sounds way, way computer, and hooked them up to our family computer. I sound really great to me. Sometimes I compare the better than the software. The filters are incomparable. think one second was the longest sample you could store real spring to the software and I prefer the software. So there’s a lot of it on Our Love? in the sampler. The music I was making around that time I have lots of friends who have an idealistic, or Yeah. The glassy digital sounds; that’s the strength of was way better than the stuff I make today – it was serious nostalgic, attachment to physical equipment; I feel the software [synths]. There’s no reason to do that on fucking nerd prog rock, because I was into Yes around that it’s not entirely evidence-based. I would like to think the modular. Here’s an example: the first single, time and all my tracks were about four hours long. It’s that I’m rid of that; and I that I can just choose “Can’t Do Without You,” starts off with an ARP 2600 been a slippery slope from there, down to nerdy between software and hardware, based on the sound. emulation soft synth and, as the song builds, you get electronica, as far as I can figure.” The technology is getting better and those detuned weirder polyphonic filter-opening Interview by Chachi Jones. better... sounds. Those are all programmed on the modular. Are you changing tempos on the fly? Yeah. Even four or five years ago, the software was way I’m turning the dials and bringing it in and out of There’re times when I’m playing by myself and the click behind on things like convolution reverbs and the tune and adding FM [frequency modulation]. That’s doesn’t exactly match. We are all trying to feel out filters for VST synths. It takes so much more typical. I’ll start with the software, something that’s tempo and the drummer will restart the click on the processing power than it used to, and they are easy to pull up and pick out chords that I like. When downbeat. We’ll all be off for a little bit, and slowly modeling things that are more non-linear and in- it needs more richness, I’ll turn to something that I come together. I miss seeing live music where the depth. It’s getting harder to tell between the real can mess with a little more. tempo fluctuates. We even have a song now where playing and the software. All the Sound Toys delays So you record the MIDI into Ableton and the guitarist/keyboardist has a fader that controls the are amazing. If you’re on a PC, there’s this free plug- send it back through the modular tempo and he changes it throughout the song. If we in called Nasty DLA - it’s a Space Echo emulation. while you tweak it? want to feel like we are rushing, we can get that, Ableton just released a Max for Live delay [Dub It has a [ADAT] Lightpipe in it, and it comes with even though certain things are sequenced. Machines] that sounds great. I use the new Roland software that converts MIDI-to-pitch and 1-volt per What about recording in Ableton Live? Space Echo pedal when I’m DJing sometimes. I’ve octave CV [control voltage] information. That’s the I use it exactly like I might use Pro Tools. Lots of people always toyed with getting a proper tape delay, but I way of bridging out from the computer. The original jam out the arrangements. You hit record and fire off have a really low tolerance for having to fix things. idea with [the previous album], Swim, was to build clips, and it remembers all that. I’ve done some tracks I’m just not technically minded. All the friends I know one of these, but it took me so long to figure it out like that, but generally with Caribou I think more in with old Space Echoes; those are constantly in the that the album was already done. [laughs] I put out terms of composition, rather than a jammed-out track [repair] shop. I’m lazy. a record under the name Daphni [Jiaolong], and that on the records. The live show has more of that kind Why spend the time when you can just was very hands-on with the modular synth. By the of approach, such as, “What happens if we mute this? pull up a plug-in... time I got to the new Caribou record, I finally What if we jump to this section?” On the record, I’m That’s always been important for me, because I don’t understood how to use it. r thinking much more in terms of a conventional write the music and track it later. I need things to be
40/Tape Op#105/Mr. Snaith/(Fin.) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Mark Ronson Sonic Travels Mark Ronson got his start as a young DJ in NYC before going on to work with Amy Winehouse, Nikka Costa, Lily Allen, Macy Gray, Saigon, Adele, Paul McCartney, Duran Duran, and many others. Mark’s own albums have showcased his work, featured many guest singers, and even spawned a hit with Winehouse’s cover of The Zutons’ by Larry Crane “Valerie” in 2006. His recent album, Uptown Special, features vocals from Bruno Mars and lyrics by novelist Photo by Michael Chabon. Co-producer credits go to Jeff Bhasker, and even Tame Impala’s Leann Mueller Kevin Parker [Tape Op #95] makes an appearance.
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Growing up, your stepfather was Mick the gigs, and second you just love doing it so much. – a little bit of playing and understanding Jones? Like why wouldn’t I love to do this? Over the course musicianship – that I was trying to forge my own Yeah. Mick Jones from Foreigner, not Mick Jones from of three or four years I made a name for myself, character. I thought, “If I mix up some of these The Clash. playing in hip-hop clubs downtown. At first it was things, at least it’s becoming my own thing.” I think You always have to delineate that! more underground rap stars, like DJ Premier from that’s what it became. Mick and my mom aren’t married anymore. He’s an Gang Starr. Then suddenly Biggie [Smalls], Jay Z, Puff So you started using more instruments awesome musician. He was an amazing producer [Van Daddy, and people like that were coming to our low- in the studio? Halen, Bad Company, Billy Joel, The Cult]. He had key, downtown New York spots. Puffy took a shine to I got infatuated with putting live instruments on my some great partners, like Thomas Dolby and [Robert me and liked the way I DJ’d. I was really good at a first record [Here Comes the Fuzz]. It was a John] Mutt Lange in the ‘80s. Those Foreigner hip-hop set, but I was also really good at digging for combination of having hip-hop beats chopped up records, and how amazingly pristine and clear they the breaks. If there was a new Busta Rhymes song, and getting Questlove to play drums. Those elements are, were part of the reason that I think rock radio like “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” I’d started coming in. Finally, sampling a song by the exploded in that era. It was taking from the ‘70s, make sure to find the original steals and cross- Dap-Kings on my first record opened up that building on everything that Led Zeppelin, The samples to put in the set before I dropped the track relationship. When I met Amy [Winehouse] a couple Beatles, and The Beach Boys had done. But, all of a in. That was a process, digging and trying to find the years later and we did the demos for Back to Black, I sudden, there was this new multitrack technology samples. Puffy would take me around the world with played her some Dap-King recordings and figured we that they could really take advantage of. A lot of that him to DJ spots while he was on tour, and Jay Z should bring those guys in to play. I did my shitty gets a bit of a bad rap. I listen to the vocals and started booking me to play his parties. That was plug-ins to try to make things sound old. I knew the arrangements on the first [self-titled] Foreigner around the same time I was introduced to Nikka differences in drums would make something sound record, and I’m always blown away. You sometimes Costa through Cheeba Sound, this label on Virgin. new or old, but I definitely had no knowledge of the forget how great sounding it is, even though it That was my first record. I was producing a lot of mic’ing and all the glorious, amazing things that I wasn’t critically acclaimed at the time. shit. I had an [Akai] MPC. I’d been learning for a long found out about in Daptone Studios when Gabe Knowing Mick was making a living in time to make beats, but that was for my DJ sets. I’d [Roth, Tape Op #59] was getting drum sounds. I’ve the music biz, did that influence you play Biggie, EPMD, Rufus, Chaka [Khan], and AC/DC had maybe three musical moments in my life when in a way? in my sets and blend them together. This [label] guy I’ve felt like I’m floating while hearing something, I definitely was on the path where I would have done it was like, “I don’t know if you can make music; but if just having an out of body experience. One of those either way. My real dad wasn’t a musician, but I was you can, and it’s the same way that you piece moments was walking into the control room at obsessed with drum kits from the age of 2. I had a together sets with these influences, that’s what we’d Daptone on day one of tracking Amy. Gabe was at the mini drum kit; I’d wake up in the middle of the night love this girl’s album to sound like.” desk getting drum sounds, and we were listening off while my parents were having parties and I’d play air Did you have music lessons before this? the repro head. It was even more spooky because I drums in front of the speakers to whatever was Yeah. I’d played in bands from the age of 14 or 15. I had was watching Homer [Steinweiss, drums] through the playing. I think I was on the way. We had one of the my high school band [with Sean Lennon] called the window and it wasn’t in sync with what he was early AKAI 8-track recorders that ran on Betamax Whole Earth Mamas. Our singer named us playing. I was hearing the most beautiful drum tapes that I taught myself how to use. He had a spontaneously on stage one night. We were three sound. I don’t mean “beautiful” in the sense of Synclavier [early digital sampler/synthesizer] in the white kids and two black dudes, all city kids. We were pristine. It was like the sound that I heard in my house, which was wild. I would take songs that I heavily influenced by 24-7 Spyz, Living Colour, and head, that drum break that I’d been searching for - loved and recreate them on the Synclavier. It can all that Black Rock Coalition music that was and here’s this guy playing it live in a session, and probably be traced a little bit to the covers record happening in New York at the time. We’d play all-ages he’s going to be able to play fills and do whatever we [Version] that I did later. I loved the songs so much shows, but we’d also get on the bill at Wetlands want. We’re no longer beholden to this one bar loop. that I wanted to get inside and see what made them opening for Spin Doctors. We were also at Desmond’s Here’s this incredible drummer and amazing engineer, tick. The version was a bit different, because I was Tavern, and up and down Bleecker Street. We had a with the best sound ever. That was it. When I walked changing the arrangements and adding certain little following of like 30 or 40 high school kids. We’d in the room, I wasn’t thinking it would change my colors. He had an [Akai] S950 [sampler], and when I also have rappers come up on stage, but we were just life. It was just too much to even take in. I learned got into hip-hop in high school there were three kids playing loose jams. That’s when I was getting into so much from Gabe and [guitarist] Tommy Brenneck, who rapped, so they’d come over and I learned how hip-hop and I figured out that I wanted to start who has Dunham Studios. I learned everything from to make beats. He had two S950s, and I didn’t know DJing. I loved hip-hop; but I didn’t really like playing them, pretty much. how to sync them. I wasn’t that knowledgeable with it with this band and I couldn’t rap, so I figured I’d Even with Uptown Special, it seems like the equipment, so I’d get the loops as close to a DJ. Then I got an [Akai] MPC and taught myself there’s an attempt to make the live tempo as possible and hit “start” on both machines sampling, chopping breaks, and a lot of that shit I musicians sound like they’re part of at the same time. One time this kid, who was a love. At the time, when you said the word “producer,” an older record, sonically. rapper, came over and told me that it was the same I was thinking that my favorite producers were DJ I guess... I don’t know if it’s because that’s my first concept as DJing, and that if I really liked it I should Premier and RZA. I didn’t know a thing about mic’ing instrument, but it always starts with a drum sound for try the process. It’s blending and matching beats. a drum kit. I would just mic a vocal with my Audio- me. An average guitar sound cannot ruin a song the You were a teenager heading to Technica mic in the bedroom if I had rappers come in way a bad snare can. Picture any of your favorite songs downtown New York and DJing, back to record. What was cool is when the Nikka thing and put some ‘80s gated reverb on that shit. You can in the day? came around I got to start re-exercising the process imagine it in your head. It’s ruined. I’m not saying I Yeah, when I was about 17 or 18. I’d listen to Stretch of playing and being a musician. Not that I was was still doing that one mic, just a [RCA] 77 on the kit, Armstrong, Funkmaster Flex, or Red Alert on the radio especially great. We had the luxury of working with as before. It’s evolved. But I’ve learned how to get and try to teach myself routines by listening to them. Pino Palladino, Questlove, and all that on the record. those sounds in my head, a little bit. The best thing, I wasn’t pushy, but I was super eager. I’d DJ for That’s when I realized as a hip-hop producer, I was obviously, is when you discover whole new sounds. I’m nothing. I literally took my turntables and speakers never going to be as good as DJ Premier, or any of not necessarily ever trying to recreate an era, like, “Oh, in the back of a taxi in the middle of a snowstorm to the guys I idolized, strictly on a beat basis. I realized let’s copy this record.” It’s just when it starts to sound a bar to play. I’d do anything. First you want to get that by combining the other things I was decent at good, when I get the crack on the snare and I feel like Mr. Ronson/(continued on page 44)/Tape Op#105/43 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com it sounds like a record. It doesn’t have to be a record from That room is totally unique. the ‘60s or ‘70s. It just starts to sound like a record. What It’s just magic. It’s magic sonically, and magic from a was great about going to Royal [Studios, Memphis, Tape creative-vibe place. You want to sit down and start Op #44] and recording there was that it was a different playing everything. It’s amazing. It was so cool to go setup. I could no longer fall on my go-to knowledge of down there and be cut off from everything. I have that where to put the kit, or how to mic it. It was fucking same MCI 500-series [mixing] desk at my place in harrowing the first day. I was wondering if it was a bad London. I fell in love using it on drums. I just love that move. Maybe I couldn’t get that sound that I wanted desk, the pres, and everything. It was funny to go there. It sounds ridiculous to say in a place where they’ve 4,000 miles away to Memphis and be sitting at the recorded [Al Green’s] “Love and Happiness,” but same desk – the same color and everything. everybody’s laying around, and you’ve got the drummer So many American records were made hitting stuff for three hours. The first day of recording is through those consoles back then. always the most terrifying anyway. I love the fact that on Yeah. I found an old ad from Billboard for the first one. this record there are a lot of songs that have a wider sonic Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Bee Gees are standing together palette. There were more mics on the drums. It’s like an over it, posing. Yeah. [AC/DC’s] Back in Black, Saturday evolution of what we’re doing, and it’s also nice that I’ve Night Fever, all the Sly and Robbie shit [at Compass leaned so heavily on Gabe and Tommy’s expertise on other Point Studios]. That’s probably where I heard about it, records. I think that having to do it myself this time, and from Sly and Robbie, and the Tom Tom Club. That’s what just being forced to do it, was great. made me want to check it out. All the English engineers At Royal were you working with are kind of grumpy, like, “Oh, why don’t you get a real the engineer, Boo [Lawrence “Boo” desk?” But I think it’s great for me. Mitchell]? What was this road trip you and Jeff took? Yeah, of course. Boo knows the tricks. But I have to start How long of a time period was that? from scratch. It’s not because I’m micromanaging. I just It was about ten days. We started writing the record, and have to have my hands on the EQ and the board, turning there were a couple of songs that we imagined having the knobs. Even if there were somebody psychically this young, Chaka Khan type voice on. One was kind of linked to my hand, turning the knobs how I wanted it, it a “You Got The Love” era and the other was a “Do You wouldn’t be the same. Boo was extremely valuable with Love What You Feel” thing. Jeff is this fucking eccentric everything I did. He could hear certain things and know character. We had these two songs and Jeff, late one when to suggest changes. He has such a fucking good night, said, “You know what? We’re going to do this vibe too. It was awesome. I’d never been to Memphis thing called the Mississippi Mission. We’re going to before, and I’m not an Elvis nut, so it wasn’t on my drive to Mississippi, to the roots of America.” Jeff’s a bucket list. Me and Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced the Berklee jazz dude who’s toured with gospel bands, and record with me, stopped in Memphis and went to Sun he has a love, like mine, of American soul music and Studios. It was amazing. They have this great young R&B. We were going to go to these churches. We engineer, Matt [Ross-Spang]. It’s so cool that there’s thought about how we could put it into reality. All we someone there who knows the shit and is excited to get did was call a lot of churches in the South and see if [the studio] back up to snuff. We recorded there one we could go on a trip through Mississippi to hear night. We had another night off and we went to visit people sing. We didn’t say that we were auditioning Royal. First of all, Memphis just completely bowled me people. That sounded obnoxious. We just wanted the over as a town. I was completely taken by it. I was like, trip for ourselves. We saw so many good singers. We “Holy shit, I’m feeling something quite heavy.” Jeff and went to New Orleans, Baton Rogue, Memphis, St. Louis, I went into Royal, and I was just like, “Jeff, we’ve got to Little Rock, and Chicago. It was just amazing. In come back here to record the album.” Jackson, Mississippi, we discovered this singer, Keyone
44/Tape Op#105/Mr. Ronson/ Mark and Bruno Mars • photo by Florent Dechard anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Wonder Harmonica cliché bedroom genius vibe. I think that to have Stevie Wonder played harmonica on the intro to Uptown somebody else record him, or be a little produced, was an Special. It started with some crazy ideas that we didn’t even interesting experience for him. At one point while he was know if we could turn into a song, but we managed to. It there myself, Jeff, Michael, Andrew Wyatt, Keyone, Emile inspired these chords and melodies that I never would have Haynie, and Kevin had this creative vibe going around. written otherwise. They have the original bongo machine Your albums have a varied feeling, with from [Ann Peebles’] “I Can’t Stand the Rain” at Royal, and all the different singers. In what ways of course as soon as people see it, they figure they have to do you also look at the project as a put it all over the record. There’s this jam with Jeff on an whole in order to find cohesion? old Moog and a Rhodes going through the same amp. Kevin On this record, I really wanted to make sure that we didn’t is playing these really loose drum fills, and I’m playing the do that. Everyone on this album is on at least more than bongo machine. It was always my dream to open the record one song. I think, because I wrote the bulk of it with with Stevie playing harmonica on this song. It sounded like Jeff, and most of the lyrics with Michael, that it already such a wild pipe dream. I found out a way to get it to his has a pretty solid ground of cohesion; plus recording in people; they said he really dug the song, but he was on the Memphis and having the same main group of musicians. road so they couldn’t guarantee anything. Then, a week ago, There are definitely two opposing forces. There’s this I got a phone call and they’re like, “What is this thing you thing that we set out to do, which is a jazz, solo, R&B- want done? What album is it for? Send me the ref again. based album, with lyrics that tell rich stories. Then Send me something sketching out the melody you want Memphis got into the record. I guess that DJing in Stevie to play, and book me a studio on Thursday in clubs, so much of my shit is still informed from my DJ Chicago.” I booked CRC [Chicago Recording Company]. In years. The meat and potatoes of your set, playing in a the meantime, I’m thinking, “What are the odds that Stevie black music club in New York in the ‘90s and 2000s, was Wonder is going to go in on his day off to play this?” The funk, soul, disco, reggae, and hip-hop. Those are all whole day on Thursday I’m recording a band at Avatar things that always fit together in my palette; regardless Studios for a film score, and the only thing I can think about of how foreign, or disparate, they seem to other people. is whether or not he’s gone in yet. They email me and said, That’s what I’ve been doing for 25 years. “He’s arriving now.” At 11:30 a Dropbox link comes from an Your TED Talk about sampling got a lot of engineer. It was too overwhelming to think that my favorite attention recently. musician, singer, songwriter, and harmonica player was Yeah. They asked me to give an overview of music from the playing this song. I listened and it was such a beautiful last 30 years. I started freaking out and reading all performance. He got inside it. It wasn’t just like he wanted these books that everyone reads to get inspired. But to knock it out and get out of there. It’s so weird and then I was like, “I’ve got to talk about something that magical to hear. We’re all such sons of Stevie, harmonically. I know, and not give some lecture on the analog to You can hear it in everybody’s music. digital revolution.” I think that the most important thing in modern pop music was the advent of affordable [Starr], who had this incredible voice. It was the voice digital samplers. I wasn’t setting out to make an we were looking for. She was the coolest girl we saw. impassioned defense of sampling either. It’s just that The trip was so amazing. It was a treat, going to this is what it is now. All our music comes from this, and churches and hearing people who could sing that well. this is how it happened. First of all, it was terrifying You can be atheist, agnostic, super religious; no matter giving a TED Talk, because you want to sound smart. You what... if you like soul, rock, funk, hip-hop – all the shit have to talk to people who have no idea about your goes back to that source. Sitting in that place, you have subject matter, but you also don’t want to be to put aside your views about church and everything. condescending to those who know about sampling You better respect this, because without it, all that shit already. There were so many things I was worried about you love doesn’t exist. getting fucked up, but I’m glad that it seems to have Exactly. The roots of it all. You also did a resonated well. My engineer at my studio in London is lot of work with Kevin Parker [Tame a young kid out of engineering school, and he said, ”We Impala] on this record, right? watched your TED Talk when I was in music class at Yeah. When we went to tour in Australia with him three years university.” I think it’s awesome that something you ago, we got to be friends. I have so much respect for him. did, talking about what you care about, can become a When we started writing some of the songs with Michael tool for teaching people. r Chabon, the author who wrote all the lyrics, I was demoing them out. Kevin was into the project. He came
Mr. Ronson/(Fin.)/Tape Op#105/45 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Looking Back at Tom Petty’s Wildflowers Even among recording, mixing, and mastering engineers, Richard Dodd’s career has been a unique one, covering many styles of music. His work began in the early ‘70s and continues today. In that time he’s recorded hits like (Carl Douglas’) “Kung Fu Fighting,” and artists such as Boz Scaggs, Stephane Grappelli, George Harrison, Clannad, Roy Orbison, Wilco, Green Day, Steve Earle, Delbert McClinton, Robert Plant, the Travelling Wilburys, Freddie Mercury, Placido Domingo, and the Dixie Chicks. On this occasion I had the opportunity to join a group of attendees at a Welcome to 1979 Recording Summit, where we had a listening party (off a DSD, Direct-Stream Digital, master) of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers and then a live interview with Richard to discuss his mixing of this Grammy winning album.
by Larry Crane photo by Sundel Perry flower art by Rocktuete anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com How did the job come to you? You told me There are not a lot of effects or room What happens with that fight? earlier that Jim Scott [Tape Op #75] ambience on the lead vocal, but Well, the keyboards and percussion lose out quite heavily. wanted to mix it. sometimes you get a bit of a sharp When Rick left, did you pull it all back Yeah, and he would have done a fantastic job. I know, consonant or an edge to that. Is it also down a little bit? How would that work? because I copied most of his rough mixes. I came to it like that on the CD or the vinyl version? I’d go in and get it to a point either when I’d call and let cold, having not heard a thing. The smartest thing to do It’s even worse, I think. Tom and Rick know it was ready to listen to, or they’d was listen to any roughs that existed [in order] to know Was any work done to attenuate that? give me a time, until three o’ clock or something. what was on the multitrack. “Crawling Back to You” was No doubt they did some in mastering. Would they leave you alone to get set up? the first song that we mixed. But this is a straight cut, except for the Absolutely. If I ever requested to be left alone, it was never Did they pass it around to anyone else to compression and fades? denied; but I was being paid a daily rate, so they wanted mix before you? Yeah. It was early days for this DSD thing. The idea was that it done in a day. Not to my knowledge. I think it was a simple thing where it was going to be as good as analog. I didn’t have any You had a day per song to mix? Tom said, “Richard’s mixing it.” instructions or requests, other than, “Let’s have it on DSD!” Yeah, really. It was only ever one day, unless we failed on Did you have a relationship with Tom Twenty years ago my ego was even worse, and I assumed a mix, which I think was only the one song. Petty before that? that what I’d done was good enough for everybody else. I So you had a couple of weeks? I did both the Traveling Wilburys records and then [Tom wasn’t comfortable enough in the environment to make I was originally booked for two weeks. It took four weeks, Petty and the Heartbreakers’] Into the Great Wide Open, any judgment calls, so I just did transfers. because we mixed 23 songs. It was meant to be 22, but through Jeff Lynne [Tape Op #92], though I didn’t have When you were mixing it, did you have on one I set up Tom at his house [to record] and he anything to do with Full Moon Fever. We got on well, and any compression on the mix bus? ended up putting it on the record. That was Tom consequently Tom made the assumption that I’d be Generally a pair of black face [URIE] 1176s. recording on an ADAT, and Mike [Campbell] coming over mixing it. Linked? to put on some extra acoustic guitar. Tom came in with What monitors were you using? No. I would have linked them, but they didn’t have the link his ADAT, and I remember him saying that he needed to Depends on who was in the room with me. If it was Rick box. I just put some program [music] through each one edit out a bit. That was a learning experience. Do you Rubin, the producer, then it would be [Yamaha] NS-10s to see if they locked up similarly; if they did, then great. remember ADATs? extremely loud. The studio we were in, Andora, was a I don’t do very much half-left, half-right panning. It’s I avoided them like the plague. very dead, smallish control room. To get them to work, usually left, center, right, and incidental stereo. If it’s There were two ADAT machines, and there were two they ended up using two Studer 600-watt amps, each going to pull [the stereo image left or right], it’s because remotes. The [Alesis] LRC – Little Remote Controller – mono – one amp on each side. something’s happening. and the BRC – Big Remote Controller. The BRC you Nothing caught fire? I did notice the guitars would be could use for editing. You could program it to do all Nope. The other set [of monitors] were Tannoy PBM 8s. If you completely panned left or right. these edits. They weren’t working out. I discovered put the two [monitors] together, you end up with an Yeah. Because of that, you can hear it. If it were muddied that Alesis had very cleverly covered their tracks. approximation of what we just heard, without any low-end. by the middle, you might miss it. It’s a nice way to mix Based on the timecode, you’d give it an enter point How did the record arrive to you? for me. It helps with mono comparability, to some and an exit point for the edit, and the edit would go On 24-track reels. On some of the songs there ended up degree. It’s ironic because the half-left, half-right is the wrong. When you’d go back to investigate everything; being two reels. The ones with strings we had slaves for, best way to make it mono compatible, but I don’t know. the numbers all correlated on both machines, and you and those are also the ones that we used automation for I think it becomes compatible because it’s out there and couldn’t figure it out. Eventually I wrote down my edit on the mix. Everything else was mixed manual. exciting, so it’s probably mixed a bit too loud, which numbers, and, lo and behold, after it went wrong, it Did anyone here notice the tape hiss makes it compatible. updated the request with new numbers. What it did occasionally? What console were you using for this? was apparently what you told it to do, but in fact it Yeah. I’ll take responsibility for everything, except for the That was a Neve 8078. We were mixing to [Ampex] ATR- was lying! I solved that problem by mixing the track fades. I didn’t do the fades that you heard there. That’s 102s, a 1/4-inch and a 1/2-inch. We mixed to both from first, then dumping it on to 1/4-inch, and editing it part of the system of going to DSD. It was kind of a bit [Studer] A800 MKIII multitracks. in ten seconds. That was a struggle. iffy. Everything had to be done remotely on a 16-bit Who picked the studio? The only ambience I hear on this album version, and they’d apply it. Sometimes it would work I did. are a couple of drum tracks and the out all right. Did you move to another studio at some strings. The DSD version is off 1/2-inch tape point? The strings were dry too. Just the room. masters? I did for one song; I think one of the ones from side two, You mentioned the rough mixes Jim had Yeah, the 1/2-inch masters. at what I know most recently as Cello. done, but was there an overall So when you put this together, you EastWest. mandate from Tom and Rick to keep obviously had to sequence it to put it in Thank you. In Studio Three I did a mix of one of the songs. things dry and present like that? the right order. I think it was because we couldn’t get anyone to like the They’d been influenced by Jeff Lynne, either directly or Yeah, Sony did that. They had a setup at Airshow Mastering mix I had, so they had me try it somewhere else. indirectly. Jeff had shown them that if it’s good, it in Boulder, Colorado. It was very comfortable. The How attended were the mixes? How often doesn’t need anything. I think that Jeff gave him some monitors weren’t known to me, so I did the obvious was Rick there? confidence to do that. When you’ve got somebody as thing, which was nothing, with the exception of one He was there when everybody else had signed off. When good as Tom Petty, they do the effects into the mic, you track with a kick drum. They’d really extra-compressed it Tom was happy, Rick would come in and then Tom know? They sing the effects. Not too many people know in mastering for the CD, and I made the call that if the wouldn’t be happy. how to do that. public heard this, they’d get used to that; and it had In what way? Were there any overdubs you had to do become part of the vibe of the song, so I mimicked the Well, he would be happy, but he would be less happy. He during the mix sessions, like they’d mastering compression. had it the way he liked it, and Rick would come in and hear something and want to fix a part? Stephen Marcussen mastered the original just want everything louder, basically. That’s the truth. No. Pretty much working with Tom, he’d change vocals CD for that. You’d start with drums louder, then, of course, the vocal because he changed the lyrics. That’s the reason. He did. has to be louder, and we can’t lose the guitars. Not because of pitch or a take? Mr. Dodd/(continued on page 48)/Tape Op#105/47 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Well, there have been occasions when he hasn’t been on The album sounds timeless as well. dreadfully overused. The worst are the ones that we rely his game, but generally you change it because it needs That’s probably because of one thing that you brought up on. When you rely on a piece of gear to make the music, to be changed, not to perfect it in any way. Nowadays, earlier, the lack of effects. That helps a lot. That record that’s a bit iffy for me. It’s not like an instrument. I out would come the pitch correction. sometimes gets quoted as having a great drum sound, don’t think it’s an instrument. It’s surgery, and it should You didn’t have that? and they name the track and ask how I do it. I’ve been be a last resort. It’s all cosmetic surgery nowadays. No, it was the next one [Echo] that we had the pitch in a situation where I’ve told them everything I could Tighten it up. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. We correction available. We didn’t use it, but we had it. It remember Jim did, and certainly everything that I did, can fix it. Of course, we don’t really fix it. We just make was a standard analog in, analog out Antares Auto- and Jim’s confirmed all that. My wife was like, “You’re it less ugly. Tuner. It was handy. giving away all your secrets!” But it doesn’t work that I think critical listening is a difficult These arrangements, in a lot of cases, are way. Those tricks aren’t even going to work for me on thing. very sparse. Did you find they came another day. And guess what? They wanted all their Yeah. There are two words we use a lot, “listening” and together easily, or were there things tracks to sound that good. It’s the same players, in the “hearing.” We don’t often use the right one of those you had to do to massage them into the same environment. It just doesn’t work sometimes. two, in any given circumstance. right perspectives? Things like tempo, and everything that’s going on Sort of like phase and polarity. I think, if there was any input from me... the challenge I around it, affect the sound of a given instrument. Yeah. We’re listening to this, but I’m hearing all the things was given wasn’t to sort out the content. It was to Absolutely. That’s one thing this record I did wrong or could have done better. It’s completely satisfy two masters, Tom and Rick. That was the excels at. There’s not a lot of clutter. different. challenge. Occasionally, but very rarely, you might There are quite a few songs where Going back to my obsession with the subdue a track to make one other part louder, but, as Steve Ferrone, the drummer, has a ambience and the tracks that do have you know, there’s only so much room for it. If there are lightness but also an accuracy to the drums… Those are obviously room two guitars in the same place, you might need to get where he’s putting the beat. mics you brought up in the mix? rid of one. Sure, but he’ll still keep it edgy. He has a great sound. Yeah. I do recall that the processing that was initially The vocals sound like they used a Also, this isn’t a Tom Petty and the done, and that I may have, in some cases, overdone, is condenser mic. Were you adding any Heartbreakers record. This is the most of the ambience. Obviously it’s real ambience, but top end to it? second Tom Petty solo record. You it’s not sourced so much from a room mic. I think the I didn’t like the console that much. The EQ sucks on the weren’t dealing with a band dynamic. overheads were pretty much turned off. It’s all snare. Neve 8078. But the general mix bus was good, so I’d Howie didn’t have any input on the mix. Benmont [Tench] Fortunately the people recording the snare knew how patch in past the EQs, in most cases. I would definitely would have loved to have some input on the mix, but to record a snare. There’s more than a half-inch put some more limiter on the vocal. he wasn’t invited. Nor was Steve. Mike [Campbell] was between the skin and the capsule, which gives you a Do you remember what it was? always a great asset to me. If I needed to get through little more opportunity to work with it. There is more than one limiter? to Tom in a different way, I could get through via Mike. Did you add any ambience with plates? So how many 1176s were there? Mike’s fantastic. He’s a very impressive player, and a Nope. Four. I’d typically have two for the mix, one for Tom, and lovely person. Nothing? then another in case I needed it. With the vocals being so up front and Nope. The bass guitar holds up in the picture present, did you have to apply any de- You’d probably done records in that era really well, and the notes feel even. essing on the lead vocal? with lots of reverb. That was a real bass player [Howie Epstein]. I should have done that, shouldn’t I? I love reverb; but only when I choose to use it. I don’t Do you remember having to do anything to I didn’t think it was too bad. like it as a process of going, “Oh, and let’s add reverb.” the tracks to get them to sit in the mix? The funny thing is... isn’t it great how the sequence we I can definitely recall back in the ‘70s when some of my I remember wanting to, but the best thing to do was just have is considered the sequence it was always going to clients would say, “Hey, any chance of some echo on to leave it alone. It had its place. Sometimes you put be? There were 22 songs, but there are only 15 on the this?” Reverb, echo; it’s all the same. too much effort into something and create a problem record. It was never going to be that sequence. I think Americans tend to describe reverb trying to make it better than it is. You can always make Exactly the order you mixed in. as diffuse echoes and echo as discrete it different. At some stage, everyone was happy with The last one could have been either very early or very late repeats. the way it was. I felt that my job was to find that place. in the recording or mixing. It’s just the way it is. Bad You’re right, and I agree with it. But in England, Before I was given the job of mixing, someone had said day, good day; it’s the style of the song. everybody said to stick some “echo” on it. It was really [the album] was ready to mix. So, under those There’s a looseness too; like some of the a euphemism for “cover it up.” circumstances, you can believe that they do want to talking before songs, or the endings Did you work with Tom Petty after these use everything that they recorded. They were happy of others, or the little ragged keyboard sessions? with it, which is where Jim’s roughs came in really things. Was that intentional? After Wildflowers? Yeah. Well, there was lots of residual handy. It was an example of where Rick was happy with Oh yeah, definitely. The fact that it’s there was stuff from Wildflowers, like Saturday Night Live, Europe, it, at least to a degree, where he’d gotten to the point intentional. and television. He did a movie soundtrack [Songs and that he said, “Yeah, the song’s there.” That was a The recording process has become a game Music from “She’s the One”], and some of these mixes challenge to find that place. It’s great when you do. of control over the years. You saw this made it. We did [the album] Echo after that. I mixed You know when you’ve got it. trend appear through the ‘80s as things that. I recorded two songs on The Last DJ, and I mixed I ran into David Bianco [Tape Op #104], got more gated, quantized, cleaned up, and mastered that record. the initial engineer on these or replaced by machines. I always Audience: On “You Wreck Me,” did you do sessions, at the AES show last month. I wonder if we have to remind ourselves any master fader automation for told him we were going to be doing that music is being played by humans. bumping up the choruses? this interview. He said, “Oh, tell him It’s amazing how it’s changed, isn’t it? Some of the things Not automation. That’s manual. I was laughing at the fact his job was easy, because I did such a that we have, and still use today, are great. Others are that I can remember every bit of that. Well spotted. It’s good job.” those that we use just because we have them, but that hard not to, but you’re right. I agree with him. sort of thing’s always been the case. Some are just Did you have a mixing assistant?
48/Tape Op#105/Mr. Dodd/(continued on page 50) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Yeah, Rick and Tom. They’re pretty good. I’d give them a Punch-Ins Audience: You said Rick or Tom would little line or mark [on the console, by the fader], and I’d I was the guy that did the impossible drop-ins and drop-outs. come in and want changes. What was it under-do it because I’d know they’d go above it. Somebody would say, “Isn’t it a pity we can’t drop in that like listening through their ears? I’ve worked with people like that. word?” I’d always answer, “Why not?” Just doing a punch-in Were you ever challenged to get the As a mastering engineer, I get versions with a vocal up .3 was an event on the machines themselves, starting out on performance better in a manual mix? dB. We couldn’t draw a line on the console at that point! Scullys. You’d need a pencil. You’ve got to flip input one You’re bringing back so many memories. Yes, there was a The difference between one line and another is 2 dB. switch, switch it from sync to record on the other, but you’d challenge to get it better. I’d give them the mix, and they’d They’d always overshoot that. So would I! have to have the master record and play button in as well. discuss what they liked and what could be different. Then Make it rock. You’d have to have a pencil under your belt holding one of we’d do one big average. I’d do one like that, hopefully. Of It’s the fun of it. We used automation on the tracks that those buttons in so that you could pull it off. I had a serious course, that’s imposing changes upon what I’d learnt. I have got strings. Otherwise all 24 tracks were full, medical procedure a few years back. Apparently I was awake know I had to re-compute and make some judgment calls. because there’s no room for code anyway. during the procedure, and some of the drugs they give you If I’ve got to do X, I can’t do Y. I’d have to give the You had to have SMPTE time code to lock would induce amnesia. I was thinking after that, “Where impression that they heard the changes, because they’re the reels. were those drugs when I was tracking vocals in the ‘70s?” going to come in and know what they’re listening for. Some Anything that was 24 tracks was a manual mix. Just so I could forget I went through all that. You had to of the moves I made didn’t get made, and I then learnt that Audience: I was wondering if you could stay with it until they got it. they weren’t that necessary. What helped was always comment on the drum sound on “You little squash track, which would kind of be the snare agreeing with them. Not being a yes-man, but it wouldn’t Don’t Know How It Feels.” overcooked as a track on its own, kind of how they want serve any purpose if I’d immediately said to them, “You You know, I think Jim Scott’s responsible for that. Are you it to be in the mix. Given that it’s 24-track, that’s quite can’t do that.” I wouldn’t ever say that. It was always a a drummer? an expensive thing to do, just to use one track. So they case of, “Oh shit, I’ve got to find a way of doing that.” Audience: Yeah, so I liked it loud like know that’s the one that will be burned. You can recreate Often I’d say, “Could we do this to achieve what you want?” that. it, almost. I say “almost” because it’s derived from a That’s my chance to influence what went down on the mix. Well, I don’t need to tell you that it starts with the player, [live] send of the mics available. It would be a specific If I didn’t say anything like that, my job was to give them what he has to play, the environment he’s playing in, blend to a Fairchild, or whatever they felt was necessary. everything they wanted. On the other side of it, when they and the state and tune of his gear. After that, it’s down I’ve done it too. Of course on the mix, you don’t have a came in to listen to what I did, I was rewarded with the to us to capture that. In this instance, we’re talking discrete set of mics. You have a blended set. That would fact that they came in with absolute confidence that I’d about a great drummer, with a reason to be there, in a be the one, if you’ve really got some balls, you’d get rid done everything they’d asked me to do. If they came in and pretty good environment, with a great engineer. That of. You try to recreate it before you do. liked what they heard, it was because I’d managed to would have been a Neve 8028 at Sound City, along with How many tracks were the drums, achieve their requests. If I didn’t, then maybe they weren’t Jim Scott and David Bianco. Really, that is the sound. It’s usually? so necessary. As long as they came in with a smile on their dry. Both of those guys have a method of recording a About six. faces, or a, “That’s great, and now we need to…” (which
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com was always the case), then we’d do that. To inspire enough At least seven. It seems to be a case of, “Let’s Thanks to an opinion about the President, I got loads of confidence in them to make them believe that they were decide later how many mics to use in Grammys for it. It was nice working on that project. It sold going to hear what they’d requested, and then like what the mix.” millions of records worldwide, and two comments from the they hear, job done. Sometimes it is deceit, yeah. You’re right. On this particular recent project there were seven public came to me. A college professor in California was Audience: Do you still use a lot of 1176 mics on the djembe. For anyone who can’t work out how disgusted at what the waveforms looked like. The other one limiting on your 2-bus? you’d even do that, there’s one underneath, two really close was a listener who complained because he could tell that we If I could, I would. I’m not employed to mix properly to the hands, two above the drummer’s head, and two in didn’t use the most expensive wire available, and did I and anymore. It’s in the box. the room somewhere. All for a log with a bit of skin on it! Blackbird Studios know that “you can buy this cable” that “Properly.” I like that. It’s a joke! For an electric guitar apparently you’ve got to we obviously didn’t use, because he could hear that. I’m glad Well, that’s the way I feel about it. If I were to mix this use more than one mic and, in many cases, more than one I don’t have his ears. again, I wouldn’t attempt for a second to do it in the amp. The amps need at least two mics on them, as well as He also heard that you were using the box. Nowadays any mixing I do is in the box. I would try their requisite room mics. You can have one guitar pass wrong masking tape to label the faders. to emulate the effect of 1176s on the 2-mix if I could; with 12 tracks. My favorite was a ballad where the drums Indeed. However, I was put in my place again on the same but, as you very well know, mixing in the box is nothing were on 23 tracks. Track 23 was a sample! Apparently 22 project. There was an issue with mechanically making that like mixing it... let’s be fair... the old way. It’s a different wasn’t enough to get it right – they still needed to use a CD. They were having some pressing issues. I went to the judgment call. This could easily be taken the wrong way sample. That doesn’t mean to say there’s not talent out pressing plant in Terre Haute, Indiana, and had a really good by Jim and Dave, but the easiest things to mix are the there, it’s just suppressed talent. There is money in the learning experience there. I didn’t know that stampers had things you’ve recorded. I like to think that I’d have business, but it’s not being focused in the right place. I use different sounds. Digital stampers. To oversimplify the recorded it well, so consequently mixing it wouldn’t have samples to try to cover up distorted recordings. There’s one situation: the more errors, the worse the sound, and the been any more difficult. Or it would have been as easy track on there that came across where you could hear the worse the stamper, the more the errors. They pointed out to as mixing this was. I don’t know everything that’s rebound where the high-pass filter hadn’t been put in on me that they were pretty pleased, because they tested me recorded in the whole world, but everything that I come the mix. In the environment I was in, that didn’t happen. on different ones, and I got it right. I was feeling pretty across now is crap. It’s really unprofessionally presented, In a situation like this, you can attempt to reproduce the cocky about getting it right, and they pointed out to me that and it’s a nightmare. I spent 30 minutes getting error that the mastering engineer caught – and I didn’t. I one of their clients can only have material produced on one [Wildflowers tracks] ready to mix on some of the difficult just transferred it. But I get tracks sent to me to mix that of their machines, because he doesn’t like the sound of any ones where there were 48 tracks. Otherwise it was five are on tape like that. There’s no reason for that, except of the others. They wouldn’t tell me who it was. minutes. Now it’s five days to put something in a incompetence. It’s not like they’re in the red. Some twerp You do a lot of mastering now too. position where you can consider it mixable. That’s a lot either mic’d it up wrong or used the wrong mic pre, and the Mostly, now. to do with incompetence, a terrible lack of decision- signal path is completely wrong. What’s the quality of mixes that you get... making, an unnecessary djembe, and so on... How many You also mixed and mastered The Dixie what kind of issues do you hear on the mics do you need to record a djembe? Chicks’ Taking the Long Way album. deficient side?
anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com “We can’t find the masters. We have MP3s, though. Will that work?” I had that two weeks ago. Really? You had to restore tracks from MP3s? Well, you can’t restore it; but, yeah. That’s not just indies. This was an indie, but major labels will send you a compilation that spans over ten or twelve years; but they can’t find any masters because it was on a format that doesn’t exist anymore. Or it was turned in, but nobody checked to see if there was anything on the drive. Really! They send you commercial CDs to rip from and re-sell. There’ve always been issues with record labels and management of masters. Well, every time they do a remaster, they’re trying to find the original tapes. Indeed. It’s so funny that the only way you’re going to rely on getting the version that the public’s used to is by using the commercial version of the CD. Even if you get the masters, you might not get the notes from the mastering engineer about which versions he cut between to get what he did. They’re gone with the wind. r Visit tapeop.com for more from this interview, as well as another complete interview with Richard we did several years ago.
52/Tape Op#105/Mr. Dodd/(Fin.) http://tapeop.com/interviews/105/richard-dodd-bonus/ anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com If someone has mastered 8,000 to 9,000 world, and re-record it back into digital through an even I read that when transferring some ‘60s albums to date – many of them rock and pop less-good analog-to-digital [ADC] Sony converter for CD and ‘70s records to digital for the first DNA – they are probably doing something – first the Sony PCM-1600, then 1610 and finally the right. Bob Ludwig started cutting lacquers time, some engineers kept EQ settings at A&R Recording with producer Phil Ramone 1630. For a while, as everything was 16-bit – even for originally meant to accommodate [Tape Op #50] in New York. Later on, he post-production and mastering – simple level changes vinyl. Do you think that’s part of the worked for Sterling Sound and Masterdisk, sounded dicey in the digital domain. Digital equalization problem? eventually founding Gateway Mastering in 1992, in Portland, Maine. His credits was initially so horrible and brittle; no one would use it. Well, what happened was merely a matter of economics. include just about anyone you can imagine – The PCM-1600 converters were a “ripped from the Mastering engineers had always mastered with the vinyl Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, Lou Reed, textbook” industrial design converter that had all those disk in mind. When they made mastered, equalized tape Jack White [Tape Op #82], Queen, Metallica, sound qualities you describe. Some great digital Megadeth, The Band, AC/DC, Radiohead, and copies for cassette duplication, it contained all the Elton John are only a few. Bob was kind recordings, like the Rush’s Moving Pictures CD, were engineering optimized for vinyl; which means making enough to tell us about cutting lacquers, recorded with it; but the artists and producers mixed sure the inner bands had adequate top end to counter early digital times, his approach to a while listening through its output, so they adjusted EQs the diameter equalization losses inherent in the physics remastering job – as well as the relationship between sound quality and music. and levels to accommodate the sound of the converter. of vinyl disks. Sometimes the very lowest bass The invention of the CD meant that there were now tens frequencies were somewhat “mono-ed” to make the I recently listened to Beck’s Sea Change, of thousands, and then millions, of DACs being sold and groove easier to cut, and to prevent skipping from the and it reminded me of how much all R&D went into developing better DACs. I remember groove thinning out. CDs only sold 800,000 copies total bottom end a CD can actually when there were no more than a handful of ADCs in all for the USA in 1983, jumping to 5.8 million in 1984, to incorporate. Some early transferred of New York City! The analog to digital converter took a over 100 million by 1987. CD sales didn’t exceed vinyl CDs – or digital recordings, for that while for developers to really pay attention to it. In my until 1992. The Dire Straits Brothers in Arms CD I matter – are missing low end and front- opinion, it wasn’t until the middle 1990’s that some mastered in 1985, one of the very first albums recorded to-back depth. really first-rate converters were invented. The first Sony on the Sony 24-track digital machine, was the first CD I There are a lot of reasons for this. I started working with digital editors, which were necessary for creating the CD mastered that was totally mastered for the CD medium. digital in 1978, when I mastered and cut a recording for masters, did not have dither. Even their manual It was also longer than the vinyl version. That original Telarc, for vinyl, on the Soundstream digital machine. suggested passing through the -60 dB area of the fader version had to be mastered in the analog domain, in Until the invention of the Neve DTC-1 digital domain as quickly as possible to avoid digital distortion when spite of how great Neil Dorfsman’s mixes were. Please re- mastering console in 1987, and the Daniel Weiss BW- one had to do a digital fade! The widespread use of buy my latest all-digital remastering of it; it’s how I 102, there was no way to master and stay in the digital dither – which makes low-level digital go from horribly always wanted it to be. domain. One always had to play back the digital master distorted into extremely low distortion, and gives the Some remasters of old albums shoot for a through a not-so-great Sony PCM-1610 digital-to-analog ability to hear sounds below the least significant bit, contemporary “bright and loud” converter [DAC], do all the mastering in the analog was a major leap in the improvement of CD sound. sound. How would a flat transfer
Bob Ludwig From Medium to Message by Nicolay Ketterer photo by Peter Luehr
54/Tape Op#105/Mr. Ludwig/(continued on page 56) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com benefit today – due to modern Mastered for iTunes I originally mastered. I’d love for people to hear the converters, playback electronics, etc. – Apple’s attempt to present better sounding audio, Mastered recently re-mastered early Bruce Springsteen titles that in comparison to the first CD version for iTunes (MFiT), has been brewing behind the scenes since are Mastered For iTunes [MFiT] from the 24-bit sources, some 30 years ago? 2008, when legendary mixer Bob Clearmountain [Tape Op especially Darkness on the Edge of Town, which is one of In the past 30 years, every aspect of the recording chain has #84] and Betty Bennett, co-founder and CEO of Apogee my favorite albums by Springsteen. Those analog MFiT dramatically improved. I have five different analog playback Electronics Corp, approached Apple’s Bill Stewart to discuss titles were transferred using the Plangent Processes [Tape electronics from which to choose for the playback of the concerns about the lack of fidelity of the music sold in the Op #94] to lower the FM distortion, as well as correct wow masters, including a Studer A820 and a modified Ampex iTunes’ store. Apple took the criticism to heart and began an and flutter on those early tape machines. I think the ATR-102, with both balanced and un-balanced outputs, as 18-month project to improve the quality of the Apple- difference is quite amazing. [see page 80] well as the discrete Class A Aria solid state electronics and encoded AAC iTunes files. During this time, many audio Where do you draw the line between noise the Esoteric Audio Research tube electronics. I recently engineers devoted time and hours to assist in the project. removal and “sound reduction”? mastered Elton John’s 40th Anniversary Edition of Goodbye Soon Maureen Droney, Senior Executive Director of the For me, even the best de-hissers can cause artifacts that Yellow Brick Road; that involved choosing the correct 1/4- Producers & Engineers (P&E) wing of The National Academy have to be traded off with the amount of de-hissing. On inch tape playback head. There are two standards for 1/4- of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS, i.e., the Grammy sparse intros or final chords I might throw in a few dBs of inch tape: the USA head, which has a 2 mm guard band organization), became involved and things were in motion. hiss reduction, if it gives me more than I lose. Even when between the left and right heads, versus the European 0.75 Apple started using 24-bit masters (instead of 16-bit CDs), mastering a new recording, there are often small ticks and mm head – which was used when they recorded Goodbye combined with new Apple encoding programs, to create mouth noises that are annoying. By selecting only the Yellow Brick Road – so reproducing the tape meant that these new iTunes files. In 2012 Apple rolled out the Mastered tick, which can be a fraction of a millisecond long, and there wasn’t the extra bass bump that would have for iTunes program. The materials from Apple include a remove it with intelligent de-clicking software, it is 100 happened with a mismatched playback head. The new technical white paper and a set of software utilities. These percent impossible to hear an artifact. I use programs like Transparent Audio cables I use throughout the studio tools allow the mastering engineer to do test files using the Sonic Solutions NoNOISE, Cedar, Waves, or iZotope, simply pass more musical signals than even their original newest Apple encoder algorithms, check for clipping and depending on the problem. I recently removed the bleed cables did when I first outfitted Gateway Mastering with intermodular peaks, and more. Obviously, there are different of a click track coming through the artists’ headphones them in 1992. The Apogee Symphony, Pacific Microsonics, technical requirements for the MFiT program, and these during the ring out of a guitar note using iZotope RX 3, dCS, and Horus converters I use are truly superior to what applications assist the mastering engineer to meet the new but I’m sure the Cedar Retouch or Algorithmix reNOVAtor we had 30 years ago. My [SPL] 8-channel analog console is guidelines. If a band is on a major label, the label can could have done it as well. I would never try to draw a a state-of-the-art design, with 124-volt DC rails – facilitate the MFiT files from the mastering engineer and click away [on the waveform]. I know it works sometimes, something unheard of 30 years ago, and still almost never Apple. Independent artistes and small labels need to find a but often the waveforms are so complicated that it would pushed to that extreme in most audiophile designs. It never mastering engineer who is on Apple’s Approved List of MFiT be impossible to draw out the click without further distorts. The [Merging Technologies] Pyramix workstation is Mastering Engineers. That engineer can then advise artists as eliminating the good part of the music. Good restoration also state-of-the-art. In addition, our studio is properly to which integrator can convey files to Apple. The software looks at the problem area of the tick, does an FFT grounded; we run the studio off huge batteries and create advantages of the MFiT masters are many: MFiT files sound [Fast Fourier Transform] evaluation of the music before our own 60 Hz AC power. better than those generated from a CD. Additionally, Apple and after the tick, and creates an interpolation of what Let’s talk about the starting point for a will keep your sources (24-bit files) in storage. But in the age would have probably been there. If one owns several remastering job. I think the term of Pono, and more talk of higher resolution music being pieces of restoration software, usually at least one of them “master tape” often gets confused with delivered to consumers, how does this bode for MFiT? will solve the problem. the actual mastered tape. When -Garrett Haines
58/Tape Op#105/Mr. Ludwig/ anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com It’s totally different. When I was cutting vinyl we would set aside especially quiet blank lacquers to use for classical projects. Also, due to the annoying ticks and pops of vinyl, the classical labels tried to get the best quality out of their pressing plants. In the digital world of classical music, the loudness wars are not applicable for the most part, although sometimes a classical client has been as desirous of as loud a record as the pop people! Most classical projects are like mastering for Will Ackerman, the founder of Windham Hill Records, and the most subtle changes to anything is easily appreciated. Let’s look at the mastering credit, which is still missing on some big records today. Mastering engineers were almost never credited until 1972. That’s five years of my career with no stats; and those were big records – Jimi Hendrix, Sly & the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin, etc. With The Band, my only credit is on the Moondog Matinee album, where it says, “Mastering as always... Bob Ludwig,” or something similar. Figure I do four to five albums a week. That’s 200 albums per year and 8,000 to 9,000 albums in 45 years, which seems right. I’m fortunate that my next job isn’t dependent on credits from allmusic.com. Sometimes the record company itself forgets a credit, and thus allmusic.com has no idea who did what. New engineers trying to amass a proper resume can be frustrated by months of work on a project and then not being credited, with little recourse. The Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing has an initiative called Give Fans the Credit, because of the very poor crediting situation in the industry as a whole. Bob Ludwig’s Pono Thoughts I think it is wonderful to have people look at their white iPhone earbuds and think, “Is this all there is? Is this as good as it can get?” So when people read of all the money that was raised to launch Pono’s product, I’m sure some will get interested. When they hear of the $400 price tag of the Pono [playback device], or the $2,500 price of the Astell & Kern [AK240] high-end DSD player, a lot of them may not be interested, of course; but they will no longer blindly accept that what comes with their smart phone is as good as it could be. My concern is that high-resolution audio is an ecosystem: if one plugs the old Apple white earbuds into a Pono, or anything else, the poor quality of the earbud will neutralize the good qualities of the player. There are presently no accessories on the Pono website. Hopefully Pono will choose an appropriate earbud and headphone to use with the Pono player that will allow it to sound superb. Consumers do need to be further educated about what high-resolution audio is, and how important great headphones, earbuds, and speaker/amplifiers, along with a great DAC, are. Each one is critical, and when you own good-quality pieces, the whole can sound really great and satisfying. Pono is using a converter chip developed by Ayre Acoustics, who are very highly regarded in the audiophile world. I think that was a very good choice for an audio partner. The large files will be a concern to people used to iTunes downloads. Even a lossless ALAC [Apple Lossless] file is three times the size of a 24-bit “Mastered For iTunes” file. Since you mentioned The Band – when you started working with them, there was a problem with cutting the Music from Big Pink record, right? Like all hot LPs, especially back when there were a lot of bad playback cartridges out there, songs with a ton of bass on them would make the records skip. So it was always a question: what percentage of cheap turntables would skip, and would the returns from that hot cut be acceptable? I cut reference disks on Music from Big Pink, and when the union disk cutting engineer at Capitol Records in New York cut it, he put an 80 Hz high -pass on the cut. The Band wasn’t happy, and I got to master most all of their records after that. The Band, the one with the brown cover and their photo, is my favorite. That original LP is apparently highly cherished among vinyl collectors. You’ve mastered many Lou Reed records, starting with his experimental 1974 Metal Machine Music album. For many listeners, that’s just noise, but it is also considered groundbreaking by avant-garde fans. When I was at Sterling Sound and heard Lou wanted to work with me on his next album, I was thrilled. When it turned out to be Metal Machine Music I didn’t bat an eye, as I came from the Eastman School of Music, and I loved contemporary music. For me, this was a continuation of electroacoustic music, like Iannis Xenakis’ composition Bohor in 1962, which I mastered in 1970 for Nonesuch Records with Mr. Xenakis in attendance. I did a lecture at Eastman a while ago on the continuum between classical and rock music, and played examples of Bohor and Metal Machine Music for the audience. I asked them which was classical and which was rock, and no one could distinguish the difference – which was my point entirely. The original Metal Machine Music version was in Quad. It was cut at RCA studios using their new Quad cutting system at 1/3rd speed. 1/2-speed cutting wasn’t possible quite yet! Half-speed is now marketed as an “audiophile” technique for vinyl enthusiasts. What’s the difference to cutting lacquers at full speed?
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This should be a book chapter! Half-speed cutting was a technique apparently developed in Europe to get better high-frequency response, back when cutter heads were not able to withstand the heat that high frequencies create on the coils. The problem is that the RIAA cutting and playback curve [which radically changes the frequency response to work on vinyl] is not a simple curve. When cutting at half-speed, one has to re-adjust the RIAA curve to make it play back correctly at full speed. Halving it involves adding extra, strong, equalization in the chain, which adds ringing and all the other bad things equalizers can do, especially in the analog world. Also, if a cutter head was mechanically flat down to 25 Hz at normal speed, at half-speed it effectively is only good to 50 Hz when played back at normal speed, so it is definitely a trade-off. In 1968, when I worked at A&R Recording Studios with Phil Ramone we did half-speed cutting on some projects where the trade-off was worth it. The Neumann SX 15 cutter head wasn’t very linear. After the invention of the Neumann SX 68 cutter head, which was so much better in every way, there seemed to be no more big advantages to half-speed cutting; certainly no longer a clear advantage. There were several places in the USA that cut using the JVC system. When quad collapsed and was no longer used I figured they promoted it as an audiophile product. They had to do something with those lathes! Again, half-speed cutting is simply another engineering tool. Do an A/B test of half- speed and normal cuts, and decide which sounds better! r
60/Tape Op#105/Mr. Ludwig/(Fin.) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com the 600800, and there was no issue with the signal-to-noise ratio, even with high gain on the preamps. I had to use my TB Audio best tripod boom stands because the budget stuff was not TBDD 500-series chorus going to work, except for straight-up positioning, due to the Brian Horvitz is the proprietor of Boston area–based TB weight of this mic. I still had one near-miss even with the Audio. Brian produces DIY-inspired analog gear, some as kits good stands; luckily there was a wall very nearby. and some ready to go. His TBDD is a “modern I asked to review a pair of 600850 mics because I was implementation” of Roland’s classic Dimension D rackmount anxious to try Blumlein pair and mid-side stereo mic’ing with chorus, crammed into a dual-width 500-series module. Wow! two mics of the same model. I’ve written about mid-side, but That’s a fairly insane undertaking, and the TBDD’s guts bear in all the years have never experimented significantly with that out — two identical, very dense boards, beautifully Blumlein. I’m sold. This is my new favorite way to capture a assembled. The circuit uses NOS (New Old Stock) analog room or close-mic a stereo source. I don’t know how much of bucket-brigade delay chips — the same ones found in the this comes from these particular mics, or just the Blumlein original Roland units — but according to Brian, he designed technique in general, but I kept getting an acoustic sphere of the rest of the circuit to be quieter than the original and, of truth every time I tried it. It seemed to capture a circle of air course, to run within the power requirements of the 500- Monoprice around the source, somehow hearing the room a little bit, but series spec. The TBDD was originally available both 600850 Lollipop-Style condenser mic not too much. It captured the most accurate sense of location assembled and as a kit, but the kit was a 20-hour build, so This multi-pattern, large-diaphragm condenser mic is hefty and distance I’ve ever heard from stereo room recordings, now it’s only available as an assembled product. and appears to be very solidly made. It does not ping at all other than maybe with my Crown SASS-P stereo PZM, which The TBDD’s front panel is clean and simple. A five-button when flicking any part of the mic with your finger. The all- captures way too much ambience to be practical in most switch bank is a worthy tribute to the Dimension D buttons metal shockmount — which comes with extra elastics — is indoor situations. In one case, had we played around more for Modes 1–4 and Off (which, on the TBDD, can be set for well designed and does not sag with the mic at any angle. The with the physical setup, I don’t think there’d have been a true bypass or not, via an internal jumper). Other controls mic screws into the mount directly, and adjusting the final need for any close mics to get a full-sounding recording. include a mono/stereo input switch, a blend knob, and a direction of the mic is a little tricky; it’s a process of turning What was remarkable to me is how good the 600850 ten-segment LED meter. the mic while loosening and tightening the thread on the Blumlein pair made my living room sound — much better So how’s it sound? Lovely. Like the Dimension D, the TBDD mount, and the threading is a little sticky. There is no other than it really does. There was slight ambience but not the is wide and interesting, but subtle compared to a lot of mount included, and I am not aware of another mount that boxy ambience I expect. Group vocals sounded really great. chorus effects. It’s a nice way to push an element — like a would work. The mic is about 10’’ in height. It comes with a When singers leaned in closer, they were very present. I have backing vocal, a reverb return, or a rhythm guitar — back decent flight case. The frame and grille of the lollipop head is not tried it yet, but I think even a lead vocal would work well. in the mix while leaving it audible. You can also use the mirrored gold, and the mic body is black. The only branding is Even bass amp sounded good. Blumlein pair recording with TBDD to “stereo-ize” a mono track. The result is mono the Monoprice “M” logo on a glued-on badge; it doesn’t the 600850 sounded so involving that I got sucked into just compatible, though depending on the mode, you’ll lose actually say “Monoprice” anywhere. The gold labeling is listening to the fresh recordings when I should have been some or a lot of the chorus effect when summing to mono. engraved. I like the way it looks. In my studio, my 600850 pair doing other things. Collapsing to mono sounded fine too, I loved the TBDD on bass for that ‘80s goth thing. Mostly, I came to be known as the “Monopops.” Two musicians maybe a little beefier, but no issues with phase cancellation. preferred it on clean sources — chorused distortion is pretty simultaneously said “Wow!” when they first saw them. Another Amazingly, a single mic captured more muddy ambience than nasty — but in one mix, it did great stuff to a semi-crunchy singer was intimidated by the pair of mics configured for mid- the Blumlein pair with the mics in figure-8 mode. Magic. staccato rhythm guitar. side recording and did not want to sing into that setup. Mid-side recording was also successful with these mics. I did I compared the TBDD to Universal Audio’s Dimension D In listening tests, the 600850 was remarkably similar in some experimenting with mid-side mic’ing a lead vocal to give plug-in by recording a number of sources through identical character to the previously reviewed Monoprice 600800 mic mixable stereo air, and this worked well enough that I want to settings on each chorus. The results were remarkably similar. [Tape Op #96], but a little bit brighter. Measurements suggested experiment more. In any regard, the 600850 “Monopop” works On bass and drums, the TBDD seemed a little richer (maybe the same thing, with uncannily similar traces — despite my well as a cardioid lead vocal mic for the male and female voices I hit its input hard enough to create some mild distortion), imprecise setup — with a little more high-end energy shown I tried. So one could nix the side mic anyway if you want to and on female vocals and acoustic guitar, the UAD plug-in on the “Monopop” trace. This is remarkable, because shining a try this. I also tried mid-side with acoustic guitar, but far had a bit more “air.” But honestly, it was a very close light into the lollipop head, the 600850 does not look like it preferred the Blumlein pair. Mid-side can sometimes feel contest, and I’d feel good about using either. Of course, you employs the same capsule as the 600800 does, and the physical slightly like it’s pulling my ears out from my head. can track through the TBDD with zero latency! And the chambers around the capsules of the two mics are completely I took a peek inside the 600850 and was greeted by three TBDD’s blend knob is a great feature, both for tracking and different. Like the 600800, the 600850 manages to be bright separate through-hole circuit boards and a shielded mixing. I found myself doing lots of partial blends to get without being harsh or sibilant. Regardless, I still preferred the transformer. It looked like it would be easy and fun to mod. subtle shimmer. raw sound of a 600800 pair for drum overheads due to the The parts were not name-brand, but looked to be upscale I emailed Brian a few times during this review, and he 600850’s extra brightness. On the flip-side, using two 600850 based on certain clues, like an oversized low-value coupling was fantastic. He replied quickly with detailed, clear, mics in a stereo pair on steel-string acoustic guitar was capacitor that was obviously not electrolytic. It was not technical answers. better — really, really nice — and configured in a Blumlein immediately obvious how to open the lollipop head to peek Obviously the TBDD isn’t for everyone. It’s not cheap, and pair, they are my new favorites for this task. at the capsule, so I quickly stopped trying. you only get one “instance.” If you work entirely in the box, Switching patterns while the mic is powered up produces a There are other brands of multi-pattern mics out there; most it probably shouldn’t be your first analog purchase. But if minor thud/crackling for a second. Then, curiously, the mic is are more expensive, but some are cheaper than the 600850. I you do a lot of analog mixing, or you’d like a really nice line- muted for a couple of seconds after switching. Also, it takes am tempted to try some more to continue the Blumlein level chorus, or you like using gear that nobody else has, or a few seconds for the mic to come up when first turning on adventure, but I had such a good time with these mics — and maybe you like gear that only an obsessed individual would phantom power — presumably from capacitors charging up. just viscerally enjoyed the results each time so much — that design and build, check it out. Compared to a vintage Rejection from the sides in figure-8 mode is really good, I want this sound regardless of what else is on the market. For Dimension D on eBay, the TBDD is a few hundred bucks better than on my Shure KSM44. Same with rejection from the example, while my Shure KSM44 is a quality offering too, I more, but it’s also much smaller, and it comes with 35 fewer rear when switched to cardioid, which is even much better personally liked the “Monopop” a lot more, even though the years of wear and tear. than on the fixed-cardioid 600800! Practical noise Shure is more expensive, and getting another KSM44 to ($865 MSRP; www.tbaudiogear.com) measurements indicate that the 600850 is just slightly noisier complete the pair is outside of my budget. The Monoprice –Scott Evans
Gear Reviews/(continued on page 64)/Tape Op#105/63 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com always sounds great, and the mics captured all of the lovely Audio-Technica thunderous tone when he was going for the toms, and solid AT5045 side-address condenser mic detail when he was playing with brushes. My Daking preamps Is that a ribbon mic? Is that a square capsule? Those are very clear with an extended top end, and I find them are just a couple of the things I heard clients ask when great for dynamic, ribbon, and other mics that tend to need seeing the new Audio-Technica AT5045. In a world of a bit of top and clarity added. The AT5045 mics need no such copies and recreations of classic pieces of gear, it is help. They are super clear on their own, and though they nice to experience pleasant surprises in design and sounded great in this pairing, because of their inherent truth, function. With the recent introduction of its 50 Series, especially in the top end, I found I liked them with darker, Audio-Technica turned a few heads. It is a well- more “leathery” mic preamps for a rich tone with great clarity received line that has found many high-profile users and midrange. Because it was convenient, I had Dave do all singing its praises. The newest member of the line is his percussion overdubs — shakers, tambourines, agogô the AT5045, a side-address, large-diaphragm condenser bells, a bag full of empty bullet casings and chains — into mic that, like its older sibling AT5040 [Tape Op #95], the AT5045 mics. The sounds were great, with plenty of detail sports a rectangular capsule. Unlike the multi-element and smoothness across the frequency spectrum, save for a capsule in the much larger AT5040, which is made up slight presence boost that was appropriate for all of these of an array of four smaller diaphragms, the AT5045’s instruments. Everything sat well in the track, even sans capsule employs a single diaphragm, the company’s compression and EQ. largest, but due to its long-and-thin rectangular form On acoustic guitars, both a Gibson Dove and a Taylor 510, factor, the capsule still manages to fit into a compact, the AT5045 through a Burl Audio B1D preamp yielded pencil-type mic body. excellent results. The sound was impressively full-bodied and I received a matched-pair AT5045P set for review detailed with a lovely smooth top-end that cut through (Serial #0000!), and one of the first things I did was without any harshness. Of course, both are beautiful look at the included frequency-response measurements. sounding guitars and the preamp sounds great, but that is My experience in the past has been that you get the exactly the point. I heard back a very nice representation of standard sheet of the specifications that’s typeset and what was there to be captured that was leveraging the printed for all mics of that model. In this case, that was character of the signal chain. not so. Each mic was measured individually and had its It was very easy to make placement and tonal choices when own individual sheet. The mics in this stereo pair were using the AT5045. There was rarely a situation where I was close to identical, but ever so slightly different in recording an instrument and then making adjustments after certain frequency areas, as expected for anything the fact to make it fit. In several situations, I could hear electromechanical. So small are these differences that every detail so clearly that it was almost alarming. I doubt your dog could hear the difference — I I would be remiss if I had not tried the AT5045 out on a certainly couldn’t. But it reminded me that these are vocal. One thing to remember here is that a microphone this handmade mics crafted with incredible care. Notably, articulate is going to capture what you put it in front of in the graphs of each mic’s frequency response show a all its nakedness. Sometimes the truth hurts! On a nasally slight rise from 1 kHz on up, with a dip in the 5-7 kHz singer, the vocal is going to sound — yep, you guessed it — range where sibilance can be harshest. nasally! On a great singer with good technique and tone, this When I first opened up the box, I was surprised by mic shines — very open, with a nice clear top and full body. the mic’s diminutive size. I expected something like an Sometimes however, you do want a mic that will flatter, or AKG C 12 when I saw the AT5045 in pictures. In reality, compensate for deficiencies in, what is being recorded. On a it is only 7’’ long and about as big around as the tail duller source, the AT5045 is a good choice to bring out some end of an SM57. The gun-metal and grey-blue finish is additional detail or add a touch of clarity. quite attractive, and every detail of the trim is I felt like I had run this mic through its paces, and it meticulous, with smooth edges, perfect fits, and performed well across the spectrum of uses. Most of this seamless connectors. In hand, the mic feels great, with review was already written when a friend asked me to put a substantial but not overwhelming heft. Moreover, the some bowed upright bass on a recreation of Miles Davis’s “In included shockmount uses an ingenious locking-clasp a Silent Way.” It was a really great test for the mic because design. With the shockmount threaded onto a stand or there was plenty of low frequency information to be boom, the mic can be pushed right into the clasp from captured, and the bowing presented an opportunity to hear the front and then be locked securely into place with some string buzz and articulation. Based on everything else the turn of a small lever. It took me a moment to figure I used this mic on, I heard exactly what I expected. Loads of out how this worked, but I quickly fell in love with the detail and full-spectrum frequency response. I had to move concept and design. The pair of mics came in a single the mic a few times to find the sweet spot between detail foam-lined molded plastic case with cutouts for the and blend for the track, but once I did, the track sat nicely mics, windscreens, and shockmounts. and required virtually no further tweaking. I will say as a precursor to the specifics of use, that My studio partner Martin Feveyear [Tape Op #28] also took listening to the AT5045 on all sources, especially the AT5045 pair for a test drive, and not surprisingly his first acoustic instruments, was like being in the room. comment was, “These mics are very articulate.” They were Putting the mic where I was hearing the best tone got used on a variety of sources, and as is the case with any mic, me very close to what I was hearing in the room. they were stylistically appropriate for some things and not for I immediately wanted to get these mics up on drums. others. He did mention he thought the AT5045 would shine On a session with drummer David Revelli for Seattle on snare for the right genres and found it solid for use on local Tom Eddy, I used the AT5045 pair with Daking mic Dobro and vocals as well. Martin also recorded Barrett Martin’s preamps in a Glyn Johns configuration, as an option (of the Walking Papers) bass marimba using the AT5045 pair along with a traditional overheads setup. Dave’s kit with Vintech 473 preamps and was very impressed. “I really 64/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 66) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#105/65 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com like these mics!” He noted the extended and clear low almost anything, from one channel to several dozen, giving end, smoothness of the top, and was very complimentary NonLinearAudio me just the right amount of thickness, clarity, and of the midrange. Often when reviewing products, you are Flexiguy FG500 preamp/DI bandwidth. They work great with all types of mics, from in a bit of a vacuum, so it was nice to have a solid set of (500-series) ribbons to tubes, and hold up well. The workflow is ears verify my findings. In a galaxy long ago, it was not uncommon to spend a amazing — no more thinking about single tracks, but If you have the luxury of owning some different flavors day or two getting a snare drum sound on a big-budget rather, how does this all sound. The focus is on mic of mic preamps, it is always important to try pairing mics record. Numerous drums were carted to the session and the placement and then the musical concept as a whole. When with different preamps. If something is not working on a pounding “thwack” would begin. The rest of the band was the concept and the sonics come together, I find you have particular source, swap the preamp, swap the mic, try a probably nowhere to be seen as the engineer and assistants great music. For me, the single mic preamp is an invaluable different amp, get a new singer! With the AT5045, I was EQ’ed away, with different mics and placement. All waited tool to get there. When we installed our Tree Audio 500 able to get an appropriate and desired sound for just for the producer’s Oohs and Ahhs. After sonic nirvana was Console three years ago, the API 512 and 312 modules we about every source by moving the mic, trying a new found, the bass and guitar players would show up and get had on hand went right into the new 32-channel board. preamp, applying a bit of compression, etc. There is no their tones scrutinized with microscopic precision, putting Since then, our pair of Neves and our small assortment of single “magic bullet” piece of gear, so finding up various cabinets and mics and pulling out guitars like tube preamps have rarely been used. combinations of gear that work in a variety of situations ice cream flavors. Throughout the process, no one It is this philosophy of capturing music that’s embedded and for a variety of styles of music is important, especially mentioned mic preamps; you used what was in the console. in NonLinearAudio’s Flexiguy preamp design. It’s interesting if you are just beginning to build your arsenal. Alas, many of the world’s greatest recordings were done that the first Flexiguy was the 8-channel FG8000. They were The AT5045 mic is true to the source. With its ultra-thin with the console preamps, as they had been for years. going for the full-on, “what happens when you record with rectangular diaphragm offering terrific transient response Fast forward to the last decade, and the number of mic a bunch of these at the same time” experiment. How do and minimal resonance, the mic sounds very open, while preamp choices on a session has exploded. Now it’s often these things play together? When I first tried the FG8000, its high SPL handling and compact form factor make it the mic preamp that is getting scrutinized, like evidence at I started with seven channels on the drums — kick, snare, suitable for drums, guitar amps, and even sources on a crime scene. Many studio owners feel the need to have hat, overheads, and stereo room — and then overdubbed which you would want to use a large-diaphragm numerous flavors, and I can’t remember the last session I’ve a mono piano. Drums and piano tend to be good test condenser but can’t find room to squeeze in a larger mic. been on, either as a player or producer, during which there subjects for mic preamps, due to their full tonal spectrum Audio-Technica is pushing the boundaries of sound and weren’t at least half a dozen different preamps in use. as well as their percussive transients. What first struck me design, and with the 50 Series, the company has created Switching devices like the Manley MicMAID and the Radial was that the Flexiguy preamps sounded really good, but an affordable high-end line of mics that will be valued in Engineering PS4 Cherry Picker [Tape Op #94] even allow you didn’t blow me away as if someone had just sewn a third any studio for a variety of applications. The AT5045 is to audition different preamps before having to commit. ear to my forehead and I was hearing things I’d never heard absolutely worth a listen. Obviously, lots of great records are made this way and will before. They sounded useable and subtle and forward and (AT5045 $1399 street; AT5045P matched pair $2499; continue to be. But for a number of years, I’ve preferred thick, like a great stereo system, as they captured the www.audio-technica.com) working with a single mic preamp, rarely using outboard instruments and the nuance of the performance. There was –Geoff Stanfield
66/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 68) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#105/67 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com together well. I started sneaking the Flexiguy preamps in on drums, bass, and guitar, and then finally committed to doing 8-track sessions with only these preamps. I pushed up the faders on playback and was astounded by how well all the instruments consistently mixed together, like a delicious meal at your favorite diner. I soon had 16 of the Flexiguy FG500 modules stuffed into our console. Their black faceplates and big, red, hand-painted gain knobs looked really bad-ass. What the heck was going on here, and why was I able to capture rock bands, jazz trios, and string players — all with excellent results? NonLinearAudio is the brain meld of John Klett and Jens Jungkurth. A visit from this pair is like getting a house call from Frank Zappa (if he was a gear designer) crossed with both The Marx and The Funk Brothers. Klett is one of the best techs on the east coast and formerly led a supercool band called the Hawaiian Pups. Jens is a young audio designer who came up in the studio world and has developed gear for Purple Audio, Hairball Audio, DIY Recording Equipment, AwTAC (where he leads design and engineering), and Eisen Audio (his own company). What makes NonLinearAudio unique is that John and Jens retained a musical sensibility that is the ethos of their design philosophy. They don’t give a shit about how it looks on the scope or that you’re not supposed to put this transistor into that circuit. If it sounds good, then they’re on the right path. The Flexiguy was born out of a desire to make gear that is both standard issue and unique. Employing a ZUTT input transformer and John and Jens’ own design for the custom output transformer, the Flexiguy is seemingly straight-ahead with gain, polarity reverse, 20 dB pad, phantom power, and 1/4’’ DI input. But things get very interesting. A mode button lies above the gain knob, and it serves two purposes. First, it’s what they call a “winky” level indicator — a very accurate single-point “meter” going from a dim green at −30 dBu all the way up to peak-level red. Even more fun are the two available modes. Mode 1 with the button out provides gain from 6 to 65 dB. The input impedance goes lower as gain is increased, making for a more saturated and thicker character. As gain is reduced, input impedance rises, and the sound becomes more open. In Mode 2, the gain range goes from 20 to 70 dB, but the input impedance remains constant. The sonic imprint becomes wider and more 3D. One of the little secrets of the Flexiguy is the pad switch, which works in both modes and with the DI. This changes the impedance to a 1200 Ω load. You still have plenty of gain, but this switch can really help tailor your sound depending on the mic. It might sound counterintuitive, but on some sources, say a single Coles 4038 ribbon mic [Tape Op #15] on a close overhead, the pad’s resistor imparts a certain muscle to the tone while smoothing out and amplifying the lower frequencies. With just a little hint of kick drum mixed in, I’ve had amazing results with a two- mic mono drum sound. I also have to mention the DI. In short, it is one of the better DIs I’ve used, especially for overdriving a signal. I’ll often use the DI for keyboards, and I’ve yet to find a better stompbox for distorting a Rhodes or synth. One minor problem I’ve run into is that the three silver switches on the faceplate — for polarity, pad, and phantom power — can be hard to see in low light, although the bottom half of the “8” in the “+48” label does have an orange LED indicator ingeniously incorporated into it. The Flexiguy preamp has just the perfect amount of variables, without confusing the user, and is so seamless in operation that, after 5 minutes, I began to understand all of its possibilities. I’ve never seen a mic preamp operate in this way, and it gives the user enough flexibility (pun intended) to capture anything from string quartets, to booming drum sets, to walls of guitars — all of which hold up beautifully when mixed together. I know several producers that have swapped out other preamps in their 500-series racks, utilizing Flexiguy pairs for overheads and vocal overdubs. The numerous engineers and producers that have worked in our room since the Flexiguys have been installed have really taken to these, often foregoing the APIs and the outboard preamps. As we do a lot of tracking of bands playing live, we have enough album projects under our belts now to feel like we found a powerful and useful tool. Overdubs sound seamless, and come mix time, I’m using much less bus compression, already feeling like the tracks are wonderfully glued together. I think these guys may have just invented a new hammer. ($850 direct; www.nonlinearaudio.com) –Bobby Lurie
70/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 72) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#105/71 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Phoenix Audio Amphion Loudspeakers Nicerizer Junior summing mixer One15 & One18 studio monitors Last year, Phoenix Audio, well-known for their history of servicing vintage Neve gear, Natural, musical, clear, detailed, open — these are all buzzwords that you hear in studio monitor debuted the newest addition to their line of summing mixers. While their flagship speaker talk. The search for new monitors can be daunting, and wading through opinions of various Nicerizer 16 Mk 2 brings the functionality of a small console to the form factor of a models can be convoluted and frustrating, often leading you in circles. With so many great options racked summing mixer, the new Nicerizer Junior presents the same summing circuitry, available to choose from, the decision is not an easy one. But what if it could be? but with a slightly reduced feature set at a significant cost savings. Amphion Loudspeakers has been designing and manufacturing high-end speaker systems in The Nicerizer Junior takes up two rack spaces and shows off Phoenix Audio’s familiar Finland since 1998, but only recently has offered a professional line of studio monitors. Audio forums black faceplate and vintage-styled, glossy red aluminum knobs. The rear panel provides are buzzing with stellar reviews of this line, so I decided to contact the company to learn more. The two DB-25 connectors for 16 audio inputs, and two stereo pairs of XLR connectors for replies I received were nothing short of the pinnacle of exceptional customer service, and I mean outputs. An IEC power connector and voltage selector complete the sparse layout of that in the most unhyped way possible. Communicating with the founder of the company, Anssi the rear panel. The front panel provides 16 of the aforementioned knobs, with finely- Hyvönen, was perhaps one of the best parts of this experience. He is genuine and sincere, and at no spaced detents to control panning for each input, as well as a button providing +8 dB time did I feel pressured to make a purchase. He asked about the details of my listening space and of boost for each input. Two additional knobs control the mix output levels for stereo what characteristics I wanted in a monitor so that he could recommend a model that would best outputs A and B. The use of the mixer is straightforward. 16 inputs, which can be any suit my needs. With that, I was first shipped a pair of the One15, along with an Amphion Amp100 combination of stereo pairs or mono sources, sum at unity gain or may be individually power amp, and later upgraded to the One18 — each time on a 30-day evaluation period, fully bumped up by 8 dB, and all inputs are summed to both Mix A and Mix B, which have refundable (less return shipping). separate level controls. It couldn’t be much simpler than that. The One15 and One18, like all of Amphion’s studio monitors, are 2-way speakers. In the One series Phoenix Audio believes in the sonic qualities that discrete, Class A electronics impart (which also includes the One12), a waveguide-loaded titanium dome tweeter is matched with a on audio, and the Nicerizer Junior employs transformerless, discrete, Class A circuitry single forward-facing midrange/woofer, which in turn is augmented by a rear-facing passive radiator, on each balanced input. Large, custom-wound audio transformers and discrete, Class A mounted on the back of the cabinet in line with the woofer. In the Two series, the Two15 and Two18 amplifiers produce each balanced mix output. The unit will happily accept balanced each have two forward-facing midrange/woofers and two corresponding rear-facing passive radiators. or unbalanced sources without any loss of level or increase in distortion. Each stereo The woofer-like passive radiators are completely out of the speakers’ electronics, and they move with output can produce levels of +26 dBu, which will easily drive professional A/D the front woofers’ excursion, purely by the forces of air pressure within the sealed speaker enclosure. converters to full scale, and I never overloaded the Nicerizer Junior’s input stages, even The low end, which has a similar roll-off to that of a ported design, is super tight and extends well with hot levels coming out of my Pro Tools HD interface. beyond the listed specs. The included literature states One15’s frequency response as 49 Hz – 20 kHz I typically mix in the box, but I do utilize a handful of outboard processors — ±3 dB and One18’s as 48 Hz – 20 kHz ±3 dB, but I measured the usable low-end extension in my especially ones with transformers and tubes — to color some individual analog inserts. room to be lower. The One15’s SEAS aluminum woofer is 5.25’’ in diameter while the One18’s is 6.5’’. I like the idea of a summing amp because running parallel buses ITB, especially with The crossover point for both models is 1.6 kHz. The black cabinets strike a sophisticated contrast to outboard compressors and EQ, can create complicated routing and latency issues. Also, the white waveguide surrounding the tweeters, and the speakers look the part of a professional I have long been searching for a single stereo-bus processor with a wide enough tonal studio monitor (think NS-10M). Amphion sources most of the materials locally in Finland. range to cover all the styles of music I work on, from orchestral music to hip-hop and When listening to the Amphions, one cannot help but notice the superb phase-alignment and EDM. A few processors have stood out as excellent, most notably the Rupert Neve imaging qualities. The depth and naturalness to these monitors is not something that I’ve come Designs Portico II Master Buss Processor [Tape Op #89], but few summing mixers have across before, having had several of the usual high-end suspects in my room. The “space around a shown themselves to provide a wide range of tonal options. The Nicerizer Junior (and note,” as some call it, is obvious. The separation of elements is clearly defined on the Amphions. presumably the mac-daddy Nicerizer 16 MK 2) does an excellent job of providing not These speakers are fast — like really fast. The low end is punchy and tight, with plenty of detail. only clean and utilitarian summing, but also allows for a wide variety of coloration and The top end is open and natural, also with plenty of detail, without being harsh or overly bright. saturation effects. I actually found the Nicerizer Junior to provide a much wider sweet These really are non-fatiguing speakers and are a pleasure to work on for long periods. They don’t spot and tonal range than even my favorite large-format analog mixing desks. color your mix in any way; they let the music just be... natural. Also, I am finding I am using less While mixing, hitting the Nicerizer with low to moderate input levels, and not compression and EQ with the Amphions. In fact, setting compression has never been easier because pushing the output fader too much, produced a very transparent mix with seemingly the fast and transparent nature of these speakers makes compression results easy to hear. enhanced midrange clarity. Electric piano, ambiences, and background vocals seemed The One18 is less opinionated than the One15. That is, it tends not to steer you in any direction. to widen out and sparkle a bit more than in the ITB mix. When the Nicerizer was It offers a natural and honest representation of the music, and it makes a great all-around workhorse. pushed slightly harder, the upper mids seemed to compress and soften a bit, which Powered with the Amphion Amp100, there is plenty of headroom for tracking and detail for mixing, set the snare and lead vocals slightly back into the mix, while the stereo size and without the system sounding clinical. The One15 leans a bit more forward than the One18, making frequency range remained full. Pushing the mixer very hard (running all inputs at +8 dB it a great nearfield mix tool. Being smaller than the One18, it logically presents a smaller soundstage. and turning down the output fader to around 12 o’clock) provided super fat console- However, this little guy is super punchy, arguably more so than the One18. And it goes low — lower style distortion reminiscent of Neve or API channel saturation. This type of saturation than you would think for a speaker of its size. sounds huge, buzzy, and fuzzily-distorted, but rarely gets harsh or irritating. You won’t Monitors are often very room dependent. Aside from the excellent phase and image response, find that type of drive in any software plug-in. The output transformers on the Nicerizer another defining characteristic of the Amphions is easy placement. That is, both models seem to provide a very slight low-mid push and sub-bass rolloff that bring a polished sound to interact with the room very well, and are not quite as picky as others have been in my space, most mixes. although the One18 seems to need a bit more care than the One15. Frequency response No matter the style of music, I found that I could drive the Nicerizer at different measurements (using the very capable Room EQ Wizard software with 1/48–octave smoothing) levels and achieve many different colorations. In my DAW, I wound up creating eight resulted in surprisingly even plots. stereo master faders, each routed to a stereo input on the Nicerizer, so that I could Speaker choice is subjective and one of personal taste. Objective descriptions have their place, but easily adjust the overall drive of each input to the summing mixer, and then I adjusted in the end, you can never know for sure unless the speaker is in your room and you are working on the output fader on the Nicerizer as needed. Having two different stereo output faders it. The Amphions are no exception. These monitors perform well above their price range and are an on the Nicerizer provides the additional flexibility of routing one stereo mix output incredible value for such refined tools, arguably one of the most critical tools for mixing. The mixes back to the DAW, and the other mix output to the monitor controller or even a I complete on them are translating well to other rooms and playback systems, and I’m producing compressor and/or EQ for parallel processing of the final master. I’m sure there are the best work of my career. plenty of other uses for the dual mix outputs. If you are on the fence, email Anssi and have a chat. If nothing else, at least you will have an Overall, I would have to say that the Nicerizer Junior provides as much or as little exemplary customer service experience. If you demo a set in your room, it’s very likely you will keep coloration as you could want from a summing mixer in an extremely well-built and them, as I did the One18 pair. And if you don’t already own an amp, consider the Amphion Amp100, fairly priced box.($1999 street; www.phoenixaudio.net) a 100 watt Class D amp designed specifically to work with the One series. –Adam Kagan
74/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 76) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#105/75 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com that doesn’t absorb sweat or skin oil and is easy to clean. complement to nearfield monitors, since its bass response is Gear Geeking w/ Andy… Importantly, the earcups offer the best seal I’ve ever pretty much as good as it gets. Even if your monitoring setup When I saw Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum perform at the Paradise experienced — even with my eyeglasses on. includes a subwoofer, unless your room was purposefully Rock Club in Boston in 1986, the bands were loud enough to Third, there’s a multi-articulating headband with various designed with perfectly effective bass-trapping, room cause physical pain to my ears. The high frequencies were joints and arms to precisely position the earcups over the ears. resonances will reduce the accuracy of the low-end especially piercing. Later that night, I knew I was in trouble The center of the headband is padded with the same vinyl and reproduction in the room — not a problem if you’re listening when I couldn’t hear my pee splashing into the toilet. The next memory foam as the earcups, and there’s a tension knob there on the Mo-Fi. morning, I visited an audiologist. Unsurprisingly, a hearing test that varies how much squeeze is put on your head. Leading to Included with the headphone are two straight cables. The confirmed the damage to my ears, but I was hopeful when the each earcup is a near-parallel, 4-bar linkage, which was inspired shorter one is perfect for use with an in-pocket mobile device, doctor explained that I should expect most, if not all, of my by the double-arm suspension designs of Formula One racecars. and a three-button iOS-compatible remote is mounted in-line. hearing to return within a month. I was given a handful of Between each linkage and earcup is a pivoting secondary arm Both cables terminate in a skinny, case-compatible 1/8’’ foam earplugs and the advice to wear the earplugs whenever I with a ball joint for independently tilting and automatically connector. A 1/4’’ adapter is included, as is a two-prong airline attended a concert. A month later, I returned for a follow-up adjusting the camber of each earcup to the ear. On a car, the adapter just in case you want to go back in time and fly on an test, and thankfully, my hearing tested normal. Since that suspension works to optimize the contact patch of the tires as outdated jet. If you do, make sure your time machine has extra show, I’ve always had earplugs or hearing protectors close by, the car turns, leans, and reacts to the changes in road surface. room, because the Mo-Fi doesn’t fold up for travel. The donning them not only at clubs, but also when I’m traveling Similarly, the “suspension” on the Mo-Fi keeps the earcups in headphone fits into a large carry pouch, inside which is a pocket by airline, using power tools, motorcycling, or doing anything line with your ears, no matter the size and shape of your head. for holding the cables and accessories. that puts stress on my hearing. I even keep headphone-style Every moving part and joint moves smoothly in a well-damped ($350 street; www.mofiheadphones.com) –AH earmuffs on my mixing desk so I can put them on when I’m manner, and Blue took great care to make sure there is no entering the live room while a band is warming up. I’ve tried mechanical resonance. My son commented that I looked like I Waves many different styles of hearing protectors — custom-molded, had an alien insect on my head when he first saw me wearing EMI TG12345 Channel Strip plug-in active noise-canceling, silicone-flanged, even cotton- my Mo-Fi headphone. I agree that it looks like some crazy alien The legendary TG12345 consoles made by EMI are very reinforced beeswax — but I always fall back to disposable tech, but apparently, these aliens are experts in luxury materials rare and scattered around the world, from England to foam plugs. Foam plugs work best for me, and plus, they’re and finishes. In reality, the Mo-Fi is a result of a 3-year Brazil. If you have scratched the surface of recording cheap, so when I inevitably drop one and it gets stepped on, development partnership with AWOL (www.awolcompany.com). history, you know the impact that EMI and Abbey Road I can always pull out a backup earplug from my pocket. My Now that we’ve covered the major innovations, let’s talk Studios have had. Even if you have never heard of the favorite brand of earplugs is Howard Leight about sound. I’ve owned my Mo-Fi for many months, and on top TG12345, you certainly have listened to or have (www.howardleight.com), and in particular, I prefer the MAX of all the casual listening I’ve done on it, I’ve also used it on knowledge of The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Pink Floyd’s line. I have yet to find an earplug — of any type or many critical listening sessions, as well as spent some time Dark Side of the Moon albums. (No? Please go to jail and technology — that protects my ears from broadband noise playing test tones through it. do not pass go.) better than MAX. For example, one of my motorcycles throws a The Mo-Fi is not at all a “lifestyle” headphone for the street The TG12345 was the next generation console lot of boomy, turbulent air at the bottom opening of my and subway crowd, and therefore, it’s not stupid bassy. Bass following the REDD valve desks that were employed at helmet. Even though I ride with the quietest production helmet from 200 Hz down is what I would call “emphasized” — like Abbey Road Studios in London. The TG12345 was a (Schuberth C3 Pro), the noise, especially at low frequencies, is going through a 5 dB linear-phase shelf EQ — but, it’s the modular solid-state recording and mixing console that tremendous, and the only earplug that allows me to enjoy all- clearest of any headphone in my collection. Driven with a good introduced compression and limiting on every channel, day riding is the MAX. When I go on a weeklong tour, I bring headphone amp, I can hear the fundamental tone of bass notes along with expanded EQ features. The result, in short, along a dozen pairs with me. As with any of these style with less harmonic distortion than I hear from my other was a console with more clarity and functionality across earplugs, I have to carefully roll up the MAX plug and insert it headphones, even at 20 Hz. When the Mo-Fi is driven from an the board. properly, but I’ve found that the contoured shape of the MAX anemic headphone output (like on a mobile device), the Waves partnered with EMI/Abbey Road on TG12345 makes it less finicky; I get a perfect seal pretty much every harmonic distortion easily swamps the fundamental for low bass Channel Strip, a plug-in that models the features, time. MAX earplugs are available in three different sizes, with notes — until you turn on the headphone’s built-in amp, and componentry, and tone of TG12345 MK I, the very or without a keeper cord. There’s even a two-color, two-ended then, the harmonic distortion drops away. With music, the bass console used by The Beatles. Does it sound like the real MAX that is smaller on one end than the other — convenient is articulate and punchy, a testament to the superb drivers and thing? I have no idea. But it certainly harkens a tone for industries that need to provide earplugs to employees. For electronics, as well as to the perfect earcup seal. that your ears will find familiar if you have spent any concert-going, the MAX earplugs work too well, so my other The midrange sits back slightly from the bass, but it’s there time listening to the aforementioned classics. go-to from Howard Leight is the Matrix. Unlike the shaped and represented with clarity. Harmonic distortion in the critical You can use this plug-in on individual tracks, the MAX, the Matrix looks like a straight piece of Slim Jim that’s 300 Hz to 1 kHz region is exceptionally low, which explains why master bus, or all of the above. I got the most out of it been cut down to size (and dipped in bright paint), and the midrange, despite playing backseat to the bass, sounds so by using it on every channel in the session. By using the instead of rolling it up, you just shove it into your ear. The clear and doesn’t get lost. EQ and compressors of TG12345 exclusively (instead of Matrix allows significantly more volume through, so music The treble has a bump in energy at 4–6 kHz, and then from other plug-ins), you start to appreciate the “sound” sounds far less muffled, and you can easily make out what your 7 kHz on up, it’s essentially shelved down a few dB. The associated with the original console. Of course, if you friend is saying to you between songs. It too is available in response then starts to slope off further at 14 kHz. Crucially, want to take it a step further in working towards a true three different sizes. Both the MAX and Matrix lines are phase response is near linear from 20 Hz all the way to 16 kHz, classic sound, you should return to (or buy if you haven’t “workplace” products that are usually sold through industrial which is the upper limit of my hearing anyway. yet) Recording the Beatles [Tape Op #53, #56] and read suppliers. I purchased mine from Amazon after I first visited Keep in mind that we all have differently shaped heads and closely the explanations of the techniques employed and the Howard Leight website and ordered free samples of various ears, and therefore, your experience with this or any other the gear used. Oh, and also, get a second job to help pay models and sizes. Howard Leight also has earplugs that are model of over-the-ear headphone may differ from mine. for the gear you’ll need, and while you’re at it, buy marketed to consumers, but I haven’t tried any of them. ••• Therefore, I think it’s prudent to listen to any headphone before yourself another lifetime to actually search for and find Regrettably, the title for the Phoenix Audio N90-DRC/500 making a purchase. With that said, here’s my recommendation. the gear and then learn how to use it. Ding! Time’s up! compressor/gate module review in Tape Op #104 (page 45) If you need a headphone that will force you to work hard But I digress. had the company name cut off in both the paper and electronic to rid your mixes of sibilance, the Mo-Fi is not it. On the other The TG12345 plug-in is visually divided into three versions of the magazine. The error was corrected after the hand, if you prefer a headphone that sounds big and full, sections — Dynamics, EQ, and Master — and there is a issue went to print. If you downloaded the magazine before without the midrange getting lost, the Mo-Fi should be on your routing switch that allows you to choose the order in the fix was made, feel free to download it again to receive the short list, especially if you appreciate all of the innovative which the signal is fed through the Dynamics and EQ correction. Our apologies to Phoenix Audio. –AH engineering invested in its design. Also, the Mo-Fi is a perfect sections before entering the Master section.
76/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 78) anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Introducing the Single Fin Studio Group; four recording studios designed, built, and operated by engineer/producers. All these studios share the common goal of helping working musicians create great recordings with quality equipment and excellent rooms while keeping rates affordable. Each one of studio group these places is unique, but they all follow the same singlefinstudiogroup.com philosophy of hosting comfortable and creative spaces in facebook.com/SingleFinStudioGroup which to make excellent records. twitter.com/SingleFinStudio NEW YORK NEW OTADMARIN COUNTY PORTLAND
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Single Fin Remote Rig now available! Record your next album anywhere... we come to you! 16 channel UA Apollo Converter • 10 channel vintage Spectra Sonics console • 4 channel vintage RCA tube console mics, pres, etc. We can set up for you to record yourself, or provide an engineer. Email [email protected] for more info anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com The original channel compressor/limiters in the Subtle use of the Drive feature emphasizes the initial TG12345 were fixed at 2:1 and 8:1 ratio to simulate the transients of certain sounds — especially percussive compression characteristics of the Altec/EMI RS124 and elements — and helps them cut through the mix. Conversely, Fairchild 660 respectively, the two dynamics processors aggressive use of this feature on electric bass yields really cool used heavily by the engineers at Abbey Road. The plug- fuzzy tones that can really be brought home with the in features the same 2:1 compressor ratio and a 7:1 for compressor. If this was all TG12345 could do, it’d be worth the the limiter, and it has a fixed attack, selectable release money. However, moving into the more extreme settings of settings, the Hold feature that was on the RS124, and Drive (50-100), I hear a tonal filtering effect that could be fun the useful additions of a sidechain high-pass filter and a to automate. On electric rhythm guitar, I like the Drive feature Mix knob for parallel processing. If you are familiar with in small doses, but less so in extremes. I think with the right the records that came out of Abbey Road in that era, you guitar/amp/mic/preamp combination (or even better, a DI), will know the sound of this compressor. Its classic squish cranking up Drive on a solo could be great and even is addictive and very fun. My favorite applications are reminiscent of some of the guitar solos on Abbey Road. compression on guitars and limiting on drums and piano. As is the case with many things, less is more. And The EQ is split into three bands, each with a variable although TG12345 is far from having a limited control ±10 dB boost/cut. Treble features a 5 kHz bell for boost set, it has fewer options than many modern plug-ins and or a 10 kHz shelf for cut. Presence is a semi-parametric gear. I personally love the predetermined frequency, bell with a center frequency that’s continuously variable attack, and release settings found on many older and from 500 Hz to 10 kHz. Bass is a low shelf fixed at 50 Hz. now emulated pieces of gear. They were chosen for a The Master section sports knobs for Drive and Noise; reason, and more times than not, they get you where you the former simulates overloading of the input electronics need to be quickly and musically. for adding harmonic distortion, and the latter brings up TG12345 may be viewed by some as simply a plug-in to noise and hum. A Spread knob works in conjunction with recreate classic sounds, and because of that, wrongly an internal mid-side matrix to change the balance dismissed. It certainly does a good job of injecting some between the middle and side channels by changing the vintage vibe, but abuse of the tool set makes for some side level while leaving the middle constant. The Master fantastic modern and aggressive sounds too. I turned a section also has an L/R/Mono/Stereo monitor switch; static drum machine into an absolutely crushed, vintage-style VU meters that are selectable for input, distorted, pumping beast using only TG12345. Each turn output, and gain reduction; peak-hold meters; polarity of the Drive knob brought out new tones, harmonics, and inversion switches; and channel selectors for L/R. (Some character, with subtle but useful variations in each. When of these features are understandably unavailable when used on a stereo track, the Spread feature was really vibey you instantiate a mono version of the plug-in.) and brought yet another dimension to the sound.
78/Tape Op#105/Gear Reviews/ anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Speaking of Spread, it was fun to play with this on the master fader on a completed mix. It can be used to widen the stereo field of a mix or bring things closer to the center for a more mono feel. The features of TG12345 are useful on individual tracks, and it can bring some degree of cohesion to a whole mix when the plug-in is used across the session. I typically mix using a combination of outboard gear for the heavy-lifting and character-defining elements, and plug-ins for light-duty applications. It was fun to rely only on TG12345 for all EQ and compression tasks, working as though the TG desk was all I had in front of me. The results were solid. I found the combination of TG12345 on each track in concert with analog summing and mix-bus processing even more of a win. TG12345 Channel Strip provides a great set of tools that can help create classic or new tones for your mixes. For $100, you really cannot go wrong. When you want some vintage vibe across the “board” or just need easy-to-use EQ and compression that sound great with no fuss, TG12345 will fit the bill. ($99 street; www.waves.com) –Geoff Stanfield
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Gear Reviews/(Fin.)/Tape Op#105/79 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com Bruce Springsteen The Album Collection Vol. 1, 1973- 1984 The Boss’s first seven Columbia albums are included in this eight CD box, newly remastered and packaged in miniature LP covers (also available as an LP or Mastered for iTunes). Mastering ace Bob Ludwig [see page 54] worked from original master media. For the masters that were on analog tape, the transfer used Jamie Howarth’s Plangent Process (Tape Op #94) which recovers and locks to the bias signal, eliminating most of the mechanical artifacts of tape transports. The remasters impacted by Plangent are the first four albums (Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. through Darkness on the Edge of Town) and Nebraska. The River was mixed to Sony 1600 digital (as proudly noted on the original LP cover) and Born In the U.S.A. was also mixed to digital. Sony’s release announcement says: “Five albums are ’remastered… for the first time ever on CD,” meaning this is the first reissue since the original 1980’s CDs were out. Born to Run and Darkness… received deluxe CD/DVD reissues in more recent years. Ludwig said he worked with 96 kHz, 24-bit files after the Plangent transfer and did his work in the digital domain. He transferred to 24-bit for the digital albums. The first two albums, Greetings… and The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, –recorded at Brooks Arthur’s 914 Studio in Blauvelt, NY – sound better than the original LPs (which are indistinct and treble-shy) and CDs (which sound like what they are – quickie dubs into early-era CD mastering systems). Springsteen was a fine songwriter from the get-go; his arrangements and lyrical scope were very ambitious for a young buck from the Jersey shore. Born to Run still might stand as Springsteen’s best album, as far as songwriting and coherent musical vision. But this version sounds similar to the 30th Anniversary three-disc reissue, with the Plangent Process bringing out a few more details in the percussion and reverb. It was recorded mostly at The Record Plant in NYC. It’s not actually such a great-sounding album so don’t expect miracles. Still, I would have preferred less midrange and more dynamics. The CBS Mastersound gold CD from the early ‘90s is less crunched, but the tonal quality of the new remaster is better. The original LP is a dark mud-fest. The ideal sound would be the Mastersound dynamics with the Plangent clarity, as well as the tonal balance of this new version, minus a couple dB in the midrange. Darkness on the Edge of Town has tonal qualities similar to the decent sounding original LP, but more midrange (for better or worse). The dynamics are slightly crunched, so it’s more in your face, as the original CD sounded washed out. It’s a hard-rocking follow-up to Born to Run, recorded at The Record Plant in NYC. The River and Born in the U.S.A. are improvements over the original CDs. They sound modern, with punchy bass and vocals that are close and detailed. These albums – mostly recorded at The Power Station (now Avatar Studios) in NYC – were huge hits, and the remasters refresh the sound to something closer to what was heard in the control room. The gem in this box is Nebraska. Recorded on a cassette 4-track Tascam 144 Portastudio, it was mixed to cassette on a Panasonic boombox and backed up to a 30 ips, 1/2-inch, 2-track. Plangent eliminated the artifacts of the 1/2-inch tape, so now we’re left with what came out of the Portastudio, with some expert EQ tweaking by Ludwig. This album is a great collection of songs, realized by Springsteen solo (no E Street Band). And it’s never sounded better. (brucespringsteen.net) -Tom Fine
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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#105/81 anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com All In by Larry Crane I opened my commercial recording studio (Jackpot! Recording) in 1997, after years of simultaneously having a busy home studio while working day jobs to pay the rent. Making this leap to a full-time recording engineer/studio owner was terrifying. I remember thinking I was making a big mistake; what if nobody booked the place? How would I find time to work on the recently started Tape Op Magazine? My home studio was run as a part-time, small business. I basically used money from these sessions in my basement to pay for new recording equipment, and, in the meantime, I didn’t turn a profit. But I’d been getting busier over the years and it felt like now was the time to move it out of my home and into a commercial space. I’d partnered up with songwriter Elliott Smith, once we both realized we had the same studio space plans in motion. Having a partner also gave me some leeway on having to buy as much new gear, as well as freeing me up a bit from covering the entire rent and filling the calendar by myself. We found a space to lease, built a wall and sound treatments, and moved our gear in. I had taken out a small loan from my grandfather and maxed out several credit cards. When we had an opening party, a friend brought over a mutual acquaintance. Our conversation went something like this: Her: “You are so lucky! You are so lucky! You are so lucky!” Me: “Uh, okay.” Thinking about it later, I was annoyed. “Luck?” I was putting my life on the line and she calls it luck? As it turns out, luck came and went, but hard work and sacrifice got tangible results. In the early years I worked as long of a day as a client would demand, for a flat $250 fee that included myself and the studio time. During one session I was a I also worked my ass off. I would engineer a 12-hour session, eat a burrito, little too free with my information and I told a client what my rent and utilities were sit in my office for three hours (post-session) editing Tape Op, and then go see each month. That conversation was uncomfortable: bands at EJ’s, Satyricon, or La Luna. Hitting the clubs obviously helped get my Him: “Dude, you must be making bank.” mug out there, and many musicians knew I was running a new, affordable studio. Me: “Uh, it doesn’t feel like it.” Yep, networking is also part of the job, albeit often a fun one. At 2 a.m. I’d make Of course it didn’t. At the time I was paying off $30,000 in startup costs, and my way home and pass out from exhaustion, only to wake up in the morning and fronting the printing bills for Tape Op on the same maxed out credit cards. With 250 repeat this process. Oh yeah, sometimes I’d also have a gig to play, or end up paying subscribers and basically no advertising in the mag (this was before John driving several hours to the printers to drop off artwork. Days off? What are those? Baccigaluppi partnered up with me), you can gather that I was losing money on this I won’t make a super direct correlation, but my first two marriages did fall magazine venture. apart during this time. I stopped playing in a band. I’d been warned by Greg Freeman (Tape Op #1) that friends would stop calling me to do stuff on weekends or to attend parties because they would assume I was too busy, and he was correct. It also seemed like every time I had a freelance engineer in and tried to take time off that that would be the moment all the equipment would break down. Life feels a little less hectic these days. When John came aboard and helped turn Tape Op into a legitimate magazine, he took a load off of me. I had never quite gotten into the flow of layout, printing, and distribution. Nowadays, thanks to him, I get to focus on interviews, editing, and travelling to conferences for the mag. We have a wonderful team of people that help out. I even have dates permanently noted in my calendar in order to set aside time to assemble a new issue. Luckily, all the sacrifice also led to a stable studio situation, and I have even been able to hire employees to help with managing the studio and assisting on sessions. Even with all of this in place there are months with enough empty days that we are barely covering expenses. There are also times where I work ten-hour days for several weeks in a row with no days off. Remember, this is 18 years in for me now. Why am I telling you this story? Because some of you may be in similar situations. Possibly you are on the precipice of “hobby becomes job” like I was. Maybe you are just starting out and need to know how much of your life you need to put into this world to succeed. Or perhaps you’ve run a small studio for years but it looks like others have it easier (hint: they generally don’t). Or maybe you simply wonder why friends stopped inviting you out! It’s not an easy path, but I’m not sure I’d want my life any different than it was and currently is. You need to be fully immersed in this world and ready to make sacrifices if you want to see things happen. I’m glad I did it. r
Thanks to my dad, Richard Crane, for taking the photo of Elliott and me.
82/Tape Op#105/Larry’s End Rant/ anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com anthony (at) formulapr (dot) com