Insights In Sound 183 – Mick Guzauski, Mix Engineer S19 E3

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I’m here with Mick Gazowski, mix engineer extraordinaire.
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Well, your discoraphy kind of reads like a very very eclectic playlist, I would say. Uh, we have what? Daft Punk, uh,
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Leanne Rimes, Eric Clapton, Talking Heads, Prince, Herb Alpbert. I mean,
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really all over the musical map. So, let’s start with your your humble beginnings. You’re a you’re a kid from
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Rochester. Yeah. Rochester, New York. Not just in New York. And uh as I understand it, you owe your
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early career to Chuck Manion. Yes. Well, partially. Yeah. Um
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tell me about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, could I start with before that? Because start at the very
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beginning. At the very beginning, I was I was born the poet child of farmers and Yeah. Whatever Whatever you want to say, man.
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Now, I started uh doing this when I was in high school. Um, I my first job was
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at a hi-fi store, Bob Hyatt Stereo Center in Rochester. I love it. And, um, I was, you know, interested in
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sound, hi-fi music. It was a great place to work for a kid because it was a good record store because Records
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records and hi-fi. Yeah. And records then were $2 the store, right?
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If you’re an employee, you get them for $160. Oo, the holy grail, man. Any album, they have 20,000 albums in
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stock. always get the new releases and of course you could sample them before they came out, right?
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And then um they had uh hi-fi equipment, everything from um I’d say the low mid
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tier up up till the almost the real esoteric stuff. So we um
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um they had uh a lot of um uh the high-end stuff. There was Morance, uh,
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right? Altech when Altech was the thing, horn loaded systems. And for smaller systems,
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they had a AR when AR was really on top of,
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right? Acoustic research. Acoustic research, Harman Carden, all that stuff. Yeah.
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Yeah. And, um, so, you know, it was a really good introduction to sound um,
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and got to listen to a lot of great records. And I always wanted it to, you know, to make records to re to record to
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be an engineer. So I started the little studio in my parents’ basement. And I
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had um um I used mainly home equipment, used home equipment that I’d get there
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and fix fix up and work. I had like a couple Ampex home recorders, not their pro stuff.
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Uhhuh. And uh you know, it was two track. I built a little mixer and we recorded the band on one stereo machine
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and then bounced through the other direction to overcome the vocals, that kind of stuff. Now, let me stop you for a second
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because I’m I’m I’m fascinated by the fact that even at that stage, you wanted
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to be a a recording engineer. I mean, how did you even know what a recording engineer was at that point? Well, I
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mean, I realized that somebody had to be in charge of the sound on these records. Ah,
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and you know, I mean, so you were a liner note junkie. Yeah. And this was also the Beatles era and I was like fascinated by um See,
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this is when I started at the High Five store and it was 1967. I was Oh, wow. Okay. I was a sophomore in high school. Okay.
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At 15 years old, work the guy who owned the store was nice. Didn’t didn’t mind child labor. Treated us pretty good,
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of course. But um anyways um you know and and some of the you know records
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back then I mean I was just really fascinated by things. I was fascinated by the production of Beatles records. I
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remember um when uh the first Stephenwolf record came out.
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Yeah. What a great recording that was for its time. Punchy, clean. Yeah. You
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know. Yeah. The drums on that record were I mean I listened to them in fact that came up on on a on a playlist for me
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recently and I was really impressed with the the sound of that. Yeah. Yeah. The drum sound, guitar sound,
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everything, the perspective of it. Yeah. And um there were a lot of records made then that still hold up today. And uh
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the but the thing that was amazing about then is um is so many records had so
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much creativity and so many new ideas in them, you know. Um Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was all new
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then. The recording industry, the record industry, and actual multi-track record production was brand new in the 60s.
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Most, you know, eight track was new, right? And not to mention just the the genre itself. I mean, taking chances
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musically and stuff like that, too. Yeah. In fact, I remember um around that same
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era, uh the first Deep Purple album and I was playing this, right?
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Yes. And I was playing this one time in my room and my mother walked in and she said that there was one instrumental
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track and she said that’s a classical piece and they had adopted it for you know and I was like I mean I was floored
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at the time you know but still just thinking back it’s like man they you know they took a lot more chances
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musically at that point I think proh haram with the Oh yeah.
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And there was there was bands back then um New York Rock and Roll Ensemble. Oh god. Yeah. back in the in the
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late60s. Yeah. Yeah. Musically speaking, a lot of great
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R&B back then, too. Yes. With grooves that were just unbelievable because they were they were played.
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That’s true. And a lot of the records that feel good today are samples of a couple bars of those. You know, it’s funny. I was talking to
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somebody about this the other day because they were talking about um friend of mine had just recently gone to
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Abbey Road for the first time and seen that studio. Yeah. And I was talking about that studio and the um if you’ve ever seen
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the original Mottown room. I’ve seen pictures of it. It’s what’s what amazes me is it’s
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really tiny. I mean it’s like the size of a twocar garage and to think you know they had like 12
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14 people at a time in these rooms and they were all as you say playing together live. Yeah.
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Was such a you know they were grooving and I mean you wanted to be louder you had you step forward you know stuff like
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that. And I think the the chances that they took in terms of the technology.
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Yeah. And Mottown was sort of unique. Well, guess it wasn’t that unique back then, but because a lot of companies did
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it, but the engineers built most of that equipment there. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, a lot of the sonic characteristics
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are very unique because the Mottown equalizers, the compressors, you see the pictures that old room,
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those aren’t those aren’t stock tape recorders. I’m sure the the I’m sure the engineers there built the electronics
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for those things. Well, you know, it’s funny. We did a a panel, you know, I I um I I chair AES in
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in LA and so I put together these panels and we did a panel recently on Trident and I came up at Cherokee and we were
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talking about the A- range. Yeah. And I had talked to Malcolm Taft who designed it and he was talking about
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the idea that, you know, he he took a lot of chances in terms of the design. he didn’t do things the way that other
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people did it. And um there was a tech who called him up once and said, “You
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know, your designs are really kind of unorthodox.” And his response was, “You like the way it sounds?”
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You know, it it’s like really in a certain sense, you know, all of these desks, all of these consoles, all of
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this equipment, they were really, as you say, custommade. Yeah. And I think that really enhanced the character of the
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music so much. Yeah. Mhm. So, you came up in this hi-fi store and
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you built your own studio. So, you didn’t have a multittrack in this. No, no, not at the time, but this is the next step about a year later.
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Uhhuh. There was a guy uh his name is Bill Dangler who lived in Rochester and he
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had um I don’t know if you remember uh Century Records. They were like a custom label that had like individual little
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studios all over the country and they made high school band records. Oh, wow. I love it. like the guy the
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guys would go out and record high school marching bands and stuff. Yeah. Just stuff for the kids to buy in
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schools in the 60s. Cool. So, sounds lucrative. So, so anyways, these guys in different
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cities all over would have this stuff and um my friend Bill had one of these and you know, I just called him up one
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day said, “Hey, you know, you’re into recording. I’m trying to learn about it. You know, can I come over and check it out?” So, we became friends. He’s quite a bit
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older than me at the time. And um anyways, he went more into the industrial uh films, you know, training
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video kind of thing. Okay. And he had a Skully, remember Skully? Take he had a Scully 284 track half inch
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machine. And he goes, “Well, you know, if you want to if you want to need stuff copied or dubbed or anything, if you want to do
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it for me, you can just this machine could live at your place.” Oh, mix eyes get big as saucers, right?
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Uhhuh. Yeah. So, I had um so I got this Scully 280. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world then with that.
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And I had a uh um I built a little mixdown console. I bought some old
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amplifier cards. I think it was from a console in that Mercury Records had or something. No,
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data mix cards. Wow. And I I built this. It was It had four four inputs in it. Acro return, echo
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send, Q send, no EQ. It was just it was just a mixer. So it was my four channel to two cued echo.
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You were like Dr. Frankenstein, dude. Seriously. Wow. thing. And then I got a couple of those
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ampex mixers. Those MX35s like we saw in that rack. Yep. I had two of those and then one of the
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transistorized ones. They were in like a little console next to each other. So I had this whole little fourtrack
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studio in the same room. It was fun. Just recorded mostly local bands and stuff in there. And um
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but you were like the only facility available for the local bands basically. Right. Well, there there were a couple others, but they were um they weren’t
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into the what was then the modern kind of music. It didn’t have a you know. Right. Right. Um and then I got rid of those home type
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AEX machines, which if anybody remembers um what how
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bad the home they’re known for good professional recorders, but the home
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Yeah. Yeah. Um, so anyways, I ended up getting um a a couple Reoxes for which
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were nice machines back then and they were 15 amps two track. Wow. So I actually had a real studio then. I
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had the Scully half inch four track and then and then couple nice two tracks. Yeah. Um you were styling. I mean this was like
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what like late 60s early 70s. Uh 69 when Wow. I started in ‘ 67 when I worked at the
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high five store. And by 69 I had the Skully thing. And even better than that
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is the guy lent me a pair of U67s. Oo. Because before that it was Sony ECM22s
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and Sure 57s and stuff. So I had some real mics. So you learned about mic placement early
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on. You really That’s the next phase of it. In ‘ 68 and 69.
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Eastman School of Music, which is in Rochester, had the uh first recording workshop course. It wasn’t a
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degree course. It was a Uh it was a summer course and Phil Raone came up from New York to teach it.
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So I took that in ‘ 68 and 69. The legend. What an experience that was. I seconded a session for him once at at
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Cherokee and I just was amazed at what an I mean what and not just his technical prowess,
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but what kind of a person he was, you know, personal and how he dealt with people, artists. He was amazing. And to be
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around that, that was that was that must have been a hell of a learning brought my interest in it. Sure.
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Plus um he brought well the first year all Eastman had was four tracks in their
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studio. The second year in ‘ 69 they had um they went to eight track. They had eight track 3M machines and little
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custom console built by Suburban Sound. I guess they were the um they were a company in DC that built most of ANRS
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which is Phil Studios consoles. Uhu. Um and he brought up the eighttrack
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safety copies of the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack and we had we had Everybody’s Talking by Neielson to play. We had um
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he he brought uh Valley of the Dallas soundtracks. We had Dion Warwick stuff like
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So this was your first obviously your first exposure to eight track too. Yeah. Yeah. And I only had four at home.
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Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean that was just such a great experience. Um and it was um in
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cooperation with the arrangers workshop at Eastman too. So I mean that was was recording the arrangers workshop
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which was run by another um uh guy named Manny Manny Albam from New York came
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down. Okay. Uh you know so so there were really pros there. Yeah. Yeah.
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Um I mean you got exposure really to some of the highly technical stuff very early on. Yeah. And and back then, back in the 60s
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and 70s, that was like a real it was an important prerequisite to this because Yeah.
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because you couldn’t just buy equipment and have it work for that. You’d have to re you’d either have to build your own
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or repurpose things. Um um you had to know how to fix stuff, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And align and
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and everything. And um um so I had to learn that. And actually, I was going to go to school for electronics. I did go
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to college for a year. uh almost a year and then I just said I don’t like this. I just want to record stuff. I want to
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hang out with musicians. Yeah. And so so um path a lot of us took basically.
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Yeah. So I never I never finished college and I went I went into this and then at the same time the guy I told you
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about before Bill Dangler uh built a studio with him and somebody else built a studio in Rochester, a bigger studio
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and I joined those guys and we got an eight track and then 16 and um so we had a nice little studio there
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for a while from like 71 to like well they were still going when I moved out.
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They’re not there anymore but um but like from 70 I moved out of Rochester in 78. We had that studio um
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uh um uh for that. Now the Manon thing I I
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started out um another friend of mine did sound uh live sound for Chuck Man in
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Rochester back in the late 60s early 70s before he was nationally known and I I
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just helped out. So but you weren’t really into live sound. You were obviously much more into recording. Yeah. Mhm.
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Well, anyways, the second live concert he did, I brought that four track scully down. I mean, this was like primitive
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sound reinforcer. Ampex mixers and everything and how we had it set up. We had one mixer, four channels, rhythm
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section. Wow. Drum drum overhead, bass, piano, guitar.
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Hey, four four inputs, one track. That was state-of-the-art back then, man. you know,
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and then and then uh then track two was the whole string section. This was this
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was a full orchestra. Wow. Track three was a whole brass and woodwwind sections and and track four
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was all the solos and vocals. So this but this was all live. All live. The album’s called Feel So
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Good. It sounds terrible in retrospect. Yeah. Yeah. But for 1969 it was, you know, I
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mean Yeah. Especially I mean since we didn’t And it wasn’t even supposed to be a record. I just thought, hey, you know, I’m working
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on sound reinforcement. I’m going to bring the four track down and record this thing just as an experiment. And so that
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became an album. Then he was with Mercury Records for a few years who insisted on using their staff engineers. So I still was doing
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road sound for him. And um then when he signed with&M, I think that was in 75, he asked me, he goes um he’s
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going to do a full orchestra album at&m studios, studio A. Um, he goes, “Do you
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think you can handle something like this?” And I No way. I didn’t I didn’t think I could at all.
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But I wasn’t going to turn it down. Right. Of course. Say yes, man. That’s been my motto forever, you know.
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Yeah. So, that got me out to LA. Uhhuh. Um, yeah. I went and to&m Studios. Yeah.
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Yeah. And met a lot of people there. And, um, um, was Shelley Yakis there yet?
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No, he wasn’t. That was before him. Uh Henry Louie was there in studio C
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producing Joanie Mitchell. Wow. That was the carpenters were doing not the carpenters the carpenter they were
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building studio D for the carpenters at the time. Okay. It was um um it wasn’t you know I mean
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it was just under construction then. Uh one of those mix rooms remember I think they only have one or two now but they
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had three mix rooms along the side where the booths in A are now Captain and Tanal were working on their
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first record in there. So that was before Daryl built Rumbo basically. So I mean meeting all these people. Oh
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yeah in a Gino Vanelli just finished. Tommy was engineering. Met Tommy who’s
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still a good friend. I’ve been trying to get him on the show actually. He’s always so busy. He’s
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writing this memoir now and everything you know. Yeah. Is it called Yeah. He always said he
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wanted to he wanted to write a book from the engineers perspective called Give Me a Little More of Me.
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That’s perfect. So, you’ve really I mean, you got your start really early on in this stuff. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. And then aside from Manonia and other stuff, I didn’t um it was it
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was when I moved moved to LA, which was in 78 that I started meeting people and it was, you know, it was I actually
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um Chuck Manon’s album, his children of Sanchez album, we mixed at Larabe, which
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is when Larabe was on Larabe in Santa Monica. Sure. Yeah. Um, and I got a tech job there. I didn’t
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have any clients as an engineer, but I knew how to fix stuff. Uhhuh. So, a lot of us got in that way.
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Yeah. So, I got a tech job there, and that sort of kept me alive when first moved to LA. That’s funny. I I got a tech job at
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Cherokee when I first moved to LA. Same thing, you know. It’s like you get in any way you can because you just want to
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be there. Yeah. You know, and then you end up staying there like you just never want to leave in a way, you know?
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Yeah. Mhm. Well, I didn’t stay there too long cuz u um also when I was at Laraveie I um
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everybody was using the keex one gates. Oh yeah. Which um those were interesting.
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Yeah. Yeah. So I thought you know this gate does not hold. It just attacks and then releases and doesn’t do it very
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evenly. Mhm. So I built a very simple gate with the idea of of um of using using a shunt fat
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attenuator. Uhhuh. And um what uh and um and it would it
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would pull the gate of the fat to ground when it opened. But the capacitor would have to charge back up and it would
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charge quite a bit up before the before the fat would start turning back on again and shut the input. So what happened is it had a logarithmic sort of
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logarithmic release. You could the release control would be it would be on and then then it would wait and then
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turn off and everybody loved that. Very geeky of you. Yeah. Uhhuh. Pax 2 did that. But um
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but um but this was in 7879. Everybody who worked at Harvey used this gate for a while. So it was that was you know
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that made me feel good. I like the idea of that. Yeah. And then could have started your own c cottage industry there.
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I know. And I’d made also a device um a couple years later that was basically
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parametric equalizer with a compressor in the in the past band. Wow. To to get rid of harsh vocals like 34k
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and female vocals. Didn’t Orban do something like that years later? Um it was was it Orban? No. Orban had
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the answer. It was uh Brook Siren. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because I remember that was a few
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years later. But I have people ideas, man. But I have absolutely no business sense and and I lose interest after I
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build one. So, well, and that’s that’s part of who we are as artists, man. You know, short
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attention span, right? We Yeah, I know this. Well, so anyways, um I was at Larby for a
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while and then um do you know Jim Fitzpatrick? He’s course from Cherokee.
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He went from Cherokee to Westlake, right? And I knew him from um he was
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from Syracuse, which if anybody know New York is 70 miles street basically. Yeah. He did sound for bands, worked
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with stuff. Then he moved he went moved to New York, worked at record plant for a while and um we lost touch for a
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little while and then he gives me a call. He goes, “Hey, I hear you’re in town. Come on over to Westlake.” So
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Wow. So I went over to Westlake um on Beverly Boulevard. Yes. And um
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the original Westlake Studios. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the original was on Wilshshire. Okay. I I didn’t know that, but I knew
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that they they Beverly was the first studio that was really uh Yeah, the one on Wilshshire was a mix room with a small overdub
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booth. Okay. Um did a lot of great records there other than Really? I didn’t even know they were
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over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That So anyways, but the one in Beverly, they had two. They
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Well, they had one studio then, studio A, and they were building B. Uhu. Um, but I was there mostly hanging
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out and then um, uh, went over there with Chuck Maji because I was still
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working for him and um, it was a nice big comfortable room. Right. Right.
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Yeah. So, um, so, so I went there and then, um, just started meeting people
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there. Um, but you could do that in LA in those days. I know. I know. Always something going on. Yeah.
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So, uh I met um I met in 7879
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I met James Newton Howard there and he produced this album for Valerie Carter that was really good. It sounded great,
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too. Bill Schne. [Laughter] But anyways, um so I go, “Oh man, I love
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you. I love your work. I love everything.” when we got to talking and um James was producing this band
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there called DFK Band Dud Fitigan Creger. Okay. Good record, too. Let’s do that. Huh?
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Yeah. It’s a good record. Never really did anything. It’s I don’t think you can get it on any of the streaming things, but it’s on YouTube.
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Oh, but uh he um he produced that and Andy Johns was engineering.
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Wow. Okay. And um one night Andy got double booked and he couldn’t make the
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session. And uh it was a background vocal session. So um um James asked me
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if I if I wanted to fill in and do the session. And um DFK was on Arc Records,
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which was Earthwind and Fires label. Uhhuh. Uh you know um a division of Colombia.
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Uhu. And that whole crew, George Massenberg was the engineer for Earth, Wind, and
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Fire at the time. Mhm. And he was part of that record company. So I figured I’m going to do this background vocal session could make the
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best rough mix I can. So I didn’t sign I mean Andy went back to do the record and everything but
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Massenberg heard my mix and they called me up to the label’s office and I
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started getting work from that label. That’s how that’s how I started in LA. And that’s how you you know that’s the
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thing about LA and and the industry in general back then was you know and especially because you had you had
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multiple studios going at the same time. You had a lounge you know you could you ran into people in these places unlike
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these days where everything is kind of in people’s houses you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. So you really
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I mean you you not only got a lot of gigs but you got a lot of very diversified gigs musically
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and that was Yeah. And that was the thing I liked because um I like every
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pretty much every style of music as long as it’s done well and as long as it’s creative and
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uh I never like to be in any one bag too long, you know, and which is a problem that a lot of people
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have is they get pigeonholed with one thing and then I did for a long time too. Female ballots. Yeah.
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Oh. Uhhuh. Did Mariah Carey record Oh, man. It’s all I got for years. Yep. But
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but it was a great experience too. Sure. But I really like to do different kinds of projects. Oh,
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that sort of keeps me going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it’s it’s also it’s it’s um it challenges your chops in
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certain ways, you know, to to like, you know, do do different instrumentation and stuff
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like that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. But so now you also came up in an era where we were going as you
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said from eight track to 16 track to 24 track you know that I mean how did that
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change things for you as it was coming up you know? Um
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well or did it? It it did and um um I mean basically
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gave you a lot more control in the mix. Mhm. Um have you having more tracks, having more separation,
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but it also gave you more options which could sometimes be almost you know almost almost a problem in a way. Right.
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Which, you know, I mean it was for me when I first first started. Um when when there was just too too much
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information and too many ways to go. Yeah. Yeah. Um the thing is even with uh even with
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24 track, if it’s a complex production, it’s pretty much laid out for you. I mean, you have to record how you
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Yes. Um, drums, bass, guitars. Yeah. All that stuff. You don’t have like every little sound
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completely separate. So, it was still um It wasn’t It wasn’t doing everything in post like it is now,
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right? Right. Yeah. You still tracked for the mix in that sense. Yeah.
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Yeah. four tracks for John or you you’d sort of get an idea of what the production was going to be, you know,
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talking with the producer and seeing what the whole scope of the thing was going to be and then and that would sort
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of determine how you’d track it, how much room you’d have for the basic tracks. Yeah. Then it got uh um then there was uh when
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synchronizers became pretty reliable and everything, then it’ always be two 24 tracks. You’d have a synthy track and
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Oh, yeah. Um Yeah. And then you’d have basically 46 tracks. Yeah. Yeah. But with that then you’d have um you
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could have your master uh with the rhythm tracks on it and um Yeah.
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And and then and far too many vocal tracks. Yeah. But then you could work on you make a stereo mix of that onto another
26:34
reel and do overdubs on that then mix them back. Oh, dear God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
26:40
and that’s what happened was you started getting to the point where there were really, you know, I’m I’m a firm believer in the power of of limits, you
26:47
know, having to make certain commitments. And when that started, I think when that started changing, that
26:53
changed the way you mix, didn’t it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mhm. So, um, you came up in basically
27:01
the the multi-track era and I mean you you work with a lot of different
27:06
producers, a lot of really I mean legendary producers in a certain sense, right? Yeah.
27:12
Were you not um were you not attracted to the idea of production yourself?
27:18
Not really. I’m not a musician. I’m not a player. I mean, I love music and I think I have a really good feel for
27:25
how I should make, you know, how how to help things sound better, but I’m um
27:31
I don’t know. I just uh I uh I never got a music education, so I don’t
27:36
communicate in musical technicalities like I couldn’t there are producers who don’t. And I look at like guys like Rick
27:43
Rubin, for example, you know. Yeah, I I know. I don’t know. Maybe I could have done it. Too old now. Well, no, I’m just I’m fascinated by that
27:49
because, you know, there are some people who um they don’t like the psychology part of it, you know, like I was talking
27:55
recently with Clear Mountain. Yeah. And I asked him the same question and he said, you know, I just I felt like I
28:00
didn’t want to get into that kind of, you know, and some people really have that sort of separation of left brain,
28:06
right brain in a sense, you know. Yeah. I never wanted to get into that really. Uhhuh. Uh, I mean, I’ve had times when I
28:13
wanted to, but you know, but never really I don’t know. It seemed to be too
28:18
much of a commitment. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah. And you really I sort of like the idea of of being on a
28:25
project. Um, like most of the projects I worked on in the in the 80s and and into
28:32
the 90s was um I’ I’d do the basic tracking session. Somebody else would do most of the
28:38
overdub. Sometimes I’d do the vocal overdubs, then I’d mix it. And that was I really liked that arrangement because
28:44
I’d sort of know what it was going to be before I’d get it to mix. Right. But then you get some surprises. Yeah. Then I get some surprises,
28:51
but I didn’t have to sit through days and days of of synth overdose where my only job would be putting the machine in
28:57
the cord, you know. That’s a slo. It really is. You know, I mean, I when I came up as a second, you
29:02
know, that was one of the things that really in certain ways it’s it you have to build a tolerance for that, you know.
29:07
Yeah. But I mean that was that era was a good educational era for for second
29:12
engineers too because um because I mean you’d get to play with the mix, play with the tracks, learn stuff and it
29:18
would um you know a lot of the guys who did that back then overdub from going from
29:23
seconds to doing overdubs. I mean it was a good education for a lot of people to become really good
29:28
engineers and that Yes. Yes. I mean, I I know I learned a hell of a lot just looking over the shoulder of people, you know, and and
29:34
really that is true. And I think um that well and and that kind of leads to
29:40
my next question for you, which is that now, you know, you’ve come up in the era
29:46
where really everything has changed to the point where now, first of all, unlimited choices. Yeah. to the point
29:53
where it’s it’s maddening where you have, you know, 150 tracks, you know, and comped vocals and autotuned
29:59
everything and stuff like that. Um, how has that how has your how has that
30:05
changed your work or has it? I mean, have you just adapted to it? I guess it’s
30:17
I I’ve gotta say it’s very seldom now that I get to work on something that really excites me because
30:25
it’s it it was the emotion a lot of the the emotions, the imperfections. I
30:31
wouldn’t even call it imperfections. It was the it it was what happens during a live performance or even a partially
30:37
live performance with overdubs and minimal fixing, not being able to move and tune
30:42
the humanity of it basically. Yeah. I I mean some imperfections were great, you know,
30:49
and um and now everything is just I wouldn’t say everything because there still are some great records, but I mean
30:55
mostly pop records, commercial records that everybody hears. It’s it’s so
31:00
mechanized. I can’t I I I don’t even listen to any of this stuff. No. You know, it’s funny. Um
31:06
we were talking recently about this friend of mine and I we were talking about that um recently one of the LA
31:14
modern rock stations. They did a um a mashup of about 10 or 12 songs from the,
31:22
you know, from the current playlist and they could literally fade from one to the other. same tempo, same key, same,
31:30
you know, everything is very uh perfected to the point where it’s not
31:35
really that challenging anymore. And I think, you know, I mean, I have a lot of respect for people who can comp a vocal
31:43
out of, you know, 20 or 30 different vocal tracks and make it sound human. Yeah.
31:48
But there really is something about the the contiguous performance, you know,
31:55
that I kind of miss. Yeah. Me, too. I think both both in the vocals and in the and in the in the track.
32:02
In the track, you know. I mean, it’s funny. Um I was talking to somebody and this is
32:07
quite a while ago, but they were doing a um a remix of um the old Commodore’s
32:12
track Brick House. Oh, yeah. Okay. And you know, he said, I figured it was
32:17
going to be, you know, straight on like a drum machine, you know, straight on the meter and everything. I just put it on the grid. He said, “Man, it’s all
32:24
over the place, you know, and the grid had to stretch and everything because it was a human performance.”
32:30
Yeah. And I think there’s something about that that really is kind of missing now, you know?
32:36
Um I mean, when you’re mixing now, what kind of projects are you getting? You
32:41
getting like autotuned vocals and everything? A lot of that. Um yeah. Um I I mean in
32:48
in in one extreme you get an autotuned vocal where it’s actually just autotuned,
32:53
right? Right. Uh in some cases you get a good performance that has very little tuning
32:58
and some and some fixes. That’s great. And then sometimes you get uh somebody who’s really deep into melodine
33:06
Oh yeah. And and um and can make it and and guys who are good at that can really
33:11
make something sound believable and good. Yes. It’s true. They can make it. It does. It does. I mean, and and Melodine
33:18
is a completely different animal. Yeah. Than, you know, than autotune in that sense. Yeah.
33:23
But now, okay, perfect case in point. One of the most one of the recent things that you did was the Daft Punk record.
33:29
Yeah. Now, that in a sense sounds like it should be completely like machine
33:36
rock basically, you know, like like so mechanized and yet your mix of it and
33:42
the music itself, it sounds it sounds really live. It sounds almost like, you know, like a throwback to 70s disco in a
33:50
sense, you know? Well, it’s it’s it’s played. I mean, it’s it’s all played, but it’s um it’s
33:56
heavily edited, of course. Um Mhm. Uh a lot of the tracks were were um
34:01
ideas when they started and edited together and modified and Uhhuh.
34:06
those guys were great at that. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um and and there’s a lot of played live
34:12
live elements in there other than the basic track. So I mean it’s it’s sort of a hybrid kind of album.
34:18
Well, Nile Rogers basically, right? Yeah. And he was always brilliant at that. I think was Nile Rogers. There was um also Paul
34:25
Jackson, too. Yeah. Um, uh, another legend. Yeah. Um,
34:32
uh, Jr. John Robinson on drums on a lot of it, Omar Hakee on a lot of it, Nathan East.
34:37
Yeah. So, real musicians basically, great musicians. Yeah. Um, and, um,
34:43
um, then then um the mechanization and the syn stuff on top of it, but those guys
34:49
were just so creative with that, too. Yeah. And it wasn’t it wasn’t like everything was sequenced
34:56
and you know a lot of it was a lot of it was played um um a lot of it was modified real sounds
35:02
done through the modular synthesizer with a lot of okay about envelope followers and filters and
35:09
you know and actually modifying sounds with that. Sounds like fun actually. It was sounds like a fun project.
35:15
They did they did that. I didn’t. But even mixing it, I mean, no, mixing it was like pulling that up and going, “What
35:21
the hell’s that?” Right. And then um they didn’t want to use uh
35:27
uh you know, minimum of plugins on it. So um so all the recording was done
35:33
through a console or external preamps and um you know, mostly mostly analog
35:38
gear. Recording was recorded to ProTools. Okay. At 96K.
35:44
Uh and then mixed to analog tape. Oh, okay. Oh, so back and forth between
35:50
old school and new school. Yeah. Yeah. Recorded recorded ProTools and mixed to half inch tape. And these
35:57
guys were um these guys were pretty insane about that because they wanted to mix to three different machines.
36:04
Um just to hear the difference. Just to hear the difference. So we mixed to three. They were uh one was an ATR
36:10
102 half inch 30 amps. The other one was an ATR 102 half inch 30 hips with uh with
36:17
different heads. Not the Ampex heads, but ATR made these um they call them the high flexivity heads.
36:22
Uhhuh. Uh that was the second machine. Then the third machine was at 15 amps half inch
36:28
with the Arya electronics. Wow. Third party electronics. Um I think most of the record came off
36:34
of the 30s with the high flexivity effect uh heads. I think that was pretty much everybody’s favorite at the time.
36:40
That’s nerdy as all hell. Yeah. Oh, and then Oh, besides that, besides that, they um checked the alignment.
36:48
They had the the tech at Conway check the alignment of the machine between real changes. Every real change.
36:54
Wow. And and not just looking at the meters, they brought an audio precision in and Uhhuh.
36:59
Wow. Okay. So, I mean, yeah. So, I mean, it was it was meticulous. Very meticulous. Uhhuh.
37:05
And uh then we ran a back a DSD backup of everything when we were mixing.
37:10
Uhhuh. which was actually my favorite. I’ll bet. Yeah. I mean, you have an interesting little setup here, you know.
37:16
It’s um it it’s very minimal. Yeah. And yet, uh it’s a lot of old school
37:22
stuff. Yeah. You know, well um a lot of the old school stuff. I
37:27
mean, it’s basically the ProTools two HDX cards. This, which is the same as
37:33
the Matrix, but before the I was looking at that. Yeah, that actually is the Matrix, which is made by DAD.
37:40
Okay. And um I haven’t just readged it to make chips, but I got that before.
37:45
Okay, that’s what So it’s actually the same thing. Okay. Yeah. All right. Interesting.
37:50
So, how are you um how are you adjusting to the new reality now
37:57
in terms of like the the kind of work you do now? I mean, because you know, you mentioned earlier that you’re not
38:03
necessarily really loving a lot of the a lot of the modern music that’s coming out now. Um, what kind of work do you do
38:10
now? Um, for the last few months, none.
38:16
Now, I’ve got stuff coming up. I got um but um there’s um some new music and
38:22
actually been lucky to do this because I’ve gotten to do um uh Janelle Monet’s last two albums and um um
38:29
love her and her bass player is is absolutely wonderful. Uh what I was saying about those albums is even though
38:36
they are all sequence and everything, there’s a humanness to them and there’s a yeah, they’re quirky and they’re they’re
38:42
creative and they’re, you know, it’s um so that I enjoyed a a lot. Uhhuh. And um
38:48
you still find musicians who are wanting to do it like that, you know? I mean, even though they’re using all the modern technology and that kind of
38:55
workflow, they’re not being a slave to the workflow, right? Which I think is, you know, it’s
39:01
funny. I mean, if you think back to like when drum machines came out, everybody was sure it was going to replace
39:06
drummers. And then who learned to do the best drum programming? Drummers, right? You know, same thing with synth,
39:12
you know, and I think, you know, even to a certain extent with AI now, you know, I mean, artists who really take it and
39:19
make a new tool out of it, they’re the ones who are going to make it something interesting, I think, you know.
39:24
Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s kind of cool. So, for you now, um,
39:31
well, right now, not doing anything. I’m waiting for some tracks for Janelle’s next album, but who knows when to come
39:36
when it’s going to come. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. Everybody’s
39:42
pretty loose now. And then, um, doing another project for artist from Taiwan. Uhhuh.
39:48
And David Tao. And that’s interesting because he uses it’s all um, uh, all live players, all LA studio guys.
39:55
Oh, nice. um you know it’s um so it’s good sounding stuff um good you know
40:00
good musicians good music can’t understand a word and it’s all in Cantonese but yeah but that’s kind of cool too
40:07
that’s cool but I mean musically it’s good and then um so I mean still getting gigs and I
40:14
truth seven 73 years old I really don’t want to work all the time anymore sure
40:19
I’m happy with just my little room in here I was thinking of doing the garage into a bigger studio but you know I
40:25
don’t know. It’s um this this works. I I would like to have some u you know some
40:32
immersive audio which this was too small for. Sure. Yeah. Um
40:38
I don’t know if I’m a big and I’ve done some Atmos mixes and it’s I was going to ask you about that how
40:44
how you how you feel about that. How I feel about it is it’s a lot of fun. It’s great in a room in a good
40:51
Atmos room. Yeah. and play back in any good atmos room. But I don’t know uh the binaural
40:57
uh renditions of it through headphones or uh it’s when you hear it on a good 7.1.4 system or good
41:04
oh there’s nothing like it 1.6 and compare it to how any consumer is going to hear it with soundbar or
41:11
anything. It’s just you know it’s dollar for dollar on a playback system.
41:20
Um, I think a good stereo system, um, you know, with well-picked, um, uh,
41:27
components in a good acoustic environment is way better than putting
41:32
that same amount of money into a multi- channelannel playback system. Okay, that’s true. Now, have you checked out this uh, the new, what is it, the
41:39
Sony VME stuff? No. That’s interesting because what they do is they map out your head.
41:45
Oh, I have. Okay. I didn’t know what it’s called. Yeah, it’s a virtual mix environment. That is amazing. That is totally
41:53
amazing. They put these little microphones in your ears and shoot the response to your ears. And I saw the the
41:58
demo at was it Namry? Yes. A couple years ago where they’d have uh it was a 5.1
42:04
system, Gen X, nice speakers. And they play something uh and then you
42:10
put the headphones on and they play the headphones. And I swear you have to take the headphones off to see that.
42:16
Yes. Exactly. I mean that’s so I I think that the state of the art now is getting to the point where I mean you know you
42:21
could literally be sitting in you know the immersive room at Blackbird or wherever you know and you could you
42:27
could bring that room into your headphones and that I think might make a difference you know it’s an interesting
42:32
technology I think we are in um what’s that old Chinese curse about may you live in interesting times you know
42:38
it’s now I think things are definitely different yeah actually um do you know the guys
42:44
over at DMI Luca M um you call it I’d love to play some of
42:50
the Atmos stuff over there because did the D puck album in Atmos. Oh, really? Over there. Okay.
42:56
And Janelle’s last album in Atmos over there. Okay. Oh, I’d love to hear that. That’s nice. Have you been in that?
43:01
I have I have I would love to hear some of that stuff. Yeah, that’s um you know I mean there are some really pretty
43:07
impressive rooms right now. Definitely. And the thing that I’m really impressed with the Atmos stuff is not so much, you
43:14
know, like the the whole that you’ve got it all around you, but that you can do a lot now with height.
43:20
Yeah. You know, and that is a separation that you never really could do with stereo, right? you know, and there I mean, man,
43:26
I remember hearing some mixes in um in that Massenberg room at at Blackbird,
43:32
you know, and just thinking, wow, I mean, there’s stuff in in in those mixes that I’ve never heard before on on tunes
43:39
that I’ve, you know, literally grew up on, you know, because you get this separation now that you really never got
43:45
before. So, I think, you know, there there is some future for that stuff. Definitely. It’s just it’s it’s so different.
43:53
Yeah. I mean, I haven’t heard the latest playback systems or anything, but um I still have the opinion that it’s great.
43:59
It’s great for movies and great and great for if it’s going to be played back and
44:05
uh in a system like that. And the um yeah, that Sony 360 thing, too, that was
44:12
that was it was pretty amazing. Yeah. The question is whether or not it can fold down to a stereo mix. Well,
44:17
that’s the that’s the thing. And some of it does, some of it doesn’t. Yeah. Um, you know, and a lot of that again
44:23
depends on the mixer. Yeah. You know, and how it’s done and everything. Yeah. I’d love to do another Atlas
44:28
project because um um I learned so much doing these two and like um you know
44:34
there was so much post in it afterwards that oh you know I could have done this
44:41
and you know um like uh you know I mean it had to be done in a
44:46
certain amount of time and everything and I and you know and I I mean I did take my time on it but now I’m thinking you know oh
44:52
man I could have really with subtle delays made made of bottom to top
44:58
differences, you know, change the ceiling height. Yes. Yes. That’s the stuff right there. That’s the stuff that really impresses
45:04
me, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I was in Clear Mountain’s room recently just listening to some of the stuff that he had worked on. Yeah. I mean, it’s
45:10
just that little nuance. That’s the stuff that I think is really new.
45:15
Yeah. You know, and that’s that’s the new state-of-the-art, I think. So, I’m looking forward to hearing more of that stuff.
45:22
Okay. Okay. So, let me wrap with the with um this question for you, especially because you came up in such a
45:28
different period. What do you tell 15year-old you coming up in this day and age?
45:34
Um man, uh
45:41
I would what would I would say? I would I would
45:47
I would say work on what excites you, not don’t work on stuff you think is
45:53
because I mean that’s sort of that’s I mean you’d be forced to of course to
45:59
make to make a living unless you’re independently wealthy. But the thing is is um
46:04
um aside from the job at the high at the high store, I never had a real job.
46:10
Um I’ve always just done what I wanted. I mean, a lot of times I’d do things that
46:16
I didn’t really want to do within the framework of what right what I what I wanted. Um,
46:22
but um I would say that be it. I mean, just do what you love because that that
46:29
most people are good at doing what they love. Yeah. And suck at doing what they don’t.
46:36
It’s true. It’s true. So, I mean, whatever. I mean, modern music excites a lot of people now and a
46:42
lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, lot it resonates with a lot of people. I I’m from a different era, so it doesn’t
46:48
so much with me. Um, you know, a lot of it does if it’s played and stuff. Uh, but I mean, if
46:55
that’s what excites you, it’s, you know, and and that’s what you love, the love of it makes it, you can make it better,
47:03
you know. That’s Yeah, that’s good advice. Mikazi, thank you for being my guest.
47:10
It’s been a pleasure. You Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to
47:16
hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.