You've had the lathe for a little while now?
Chris Mara: It was already restored when we got it, but it took a while to get it up and running.
I know you've been doing some mastering with the lathe, but you have been advertising cutting bands live to the lathe?
Cameron Henry: We've done it a few times. We did one as a trial to see what it sounded like, and it sounded so great that we thought, "We need to start doing this."
CM: The guy that restored it, Chris Muth (he designs Dangerous [Music] gear), knew I had a studio. He said, "The first chance you get, cut directly to it. It sounds phenomenal." I think we are the only studio in the country that can cut directly to disc.
CH: There are a couple of live venues and places that do it, like Jack White's [Third Man Records, Tape Op #82] in town does it.
CM: It's a live performance though.
CH: And it's private. It's not like you can book it.
Do you cut a whole record?
CH: It can be anything. Whatever the artist is comfortable with.
CM: I'm trying to get into the band's mindset that they could come in for a day and do an LP. An A and B side in a day; it's recorded, mixed, and mastered. It's really affordable and sounds awesome, and those two words usually aren't [used] in the same sentence.
CH: Yeah, we usually cut acetates [test lacquers]. Throughout the day the band will be rehearsing their LP side, or their single. Chris will be mixing upstairs; I'll be down here cutting acetates and, in between takes, I listen to what's going down to the disc. I make adjustments as we go. As the band is rehearsing, I'm rehearsing, and Chris is rehearsing, so at the end of the day everybody's on and it's all dialed in.
Everybody's laying it down, all together?
CM: They have to.
CH: There're no overdubs. The sequence of the songs has to be performed live. You can't stop, so they have to get through every song in a way that doesn't have mistakes, or the whole side has to be started over.
CM: We encourage them to rehearse side A and rehearse side B separately. We're talking to bands about coming in for a weekend, working one day on side A, and one day on side B. We're gonna take a mult from the console and record it to Pro Tools so we can listen to it, because we can't listen back to our master. We record straight to the disc. The band comes up, we listen to the take on Pro Tools; once we get one we like we label it and then do another pass as an alternate.
CH: As a safety backup, in case there's some manufacturing problem.
CM: So we've got another ready to go. They'll come out of here with two versions of it.
How long did it take you guys to learn this?
CH: We were somewhat in a vacuum, but we had some mentorship. Chris and I both tracked a lot of records that came out on vinyl, but we didn't cut the masters. So we had the masters, either digital or tape recordings, and the finished product. We could put the masters on and cut our version of those records, and then see how we sized up to whatever the other guy did. We learned backwards that way. We figured out people's processes by analyzing their work.
Reverse engineering.
CH: Exactly.
CM: A gentleman by the name of Hank Williams offered us his time. He owns MasterMix and he used to cut on a daily basis. He came over, and it was like a Karate Kid movie. We spent an entire day without even turning [the lathe] on, and instead talked about what we were going to do tomorrow. He spent a week with us; then he let us go play and we fucked it all up. Then he came back and got it back straight. He kept coming around; he took us from 0 to 60. So, we're not just doing it; we're doing it because of him, Cameron, and Chris [Muth]. All those pieces really came together. We're already beating the lacquers that Cameron and I had other people do, no doubt. It's been fun to learn a whole other process.
What tape machine do you master from?
CH: It's a Studer A80.
CM: Those were made specifically for this process.
CH: It's strictly a playback machine. The lathe actually needs two instances of the audio. This tape machine actually has two headstacks on it. There's a preview head that will go to the [lathe's] computer. It goes through the obstacle course of rollers to the repro head and then feeds the cutterhead. There's no digital delay required. The machine creates the delay by having two headstacks on it. The preview computer analyzes the audio that's coming in (about a second ahead of time) and knows if there's going to be a big bass drum hit, or a big loud part that's going to make the groove sway. It will speed the pitch up so the groove will be further away from the previous one, so they don't run into each other while you're cutting.
CM: Not audio pitch.
CH: Yeah, sorry. Pitch as in speed across the lacquer. The trick is to get as much music as you can on the record without the grooves running into each other. You can be safe and spread them really far apart, but you're wasting a lot of real estate, which means your record would have to be cut quieter. It's always a battle of space versus time with the music, so having this computer allows us to not only separate the grooves when it gets loud, but when it gets quiet it will also cram them in together.
CM: Of course, cutting from Pro Tools is easier because you duplicate a track and slide it over [to create a preview track].
CH: If people want to bring us tape, we can cut records the right way with tape. If they bring us digital, we can cut records the right way with digital.
CM: And the Studer has both 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch heads.
CH: We have to monitor certain frequencies that freak out the cutter head: harmonicas, canned air sounds, and bagpipes.
CM: Sibilance on singers. Real tight harmonies.
CH: Cutting a loud scream in a metal band is fine, but when you get a Bob Dylan-type song with a lot of harmonica it takes a little bit of work. Sometimes it will get distorted because the cutter head is so sensitive that it's cutting grooves that are hard for any playback system to trace back.
CM: We can cut it, but the playback...
CH: Doesn't always play nice. Well that's the nice part about having all of this set up right here. "We need to change those cymbals out; we're getting something that's a little too much for the machine."
CM: Even yesterday I cut a 45, and I cut it too hot. I listened to it, and it sounded awesome. But on the inside [grooves] it started skipping, because there was too much going on. I had to drop the volume so that everyone could play it. We have our turntable set up to be middle of the road. It's not the worst, but it's not the best.
CH: We encourage bands, or producers, to come in here when we cut their masters. They can hear what I'm doing so we can make adjustments on the fly. We did one the other day where I cut it two different ways. It's better that they are involved with that choice when we're here and we can make adjustments, as opposed to waiting until there are plates and everything made. It gets to be expensive and time costly.
CM: And they know they made the correct decision without any pressure.
CH: Because it is the last creative step in the process of putting a record out; the last stage where you can make adjustments, for better or worse.
What model lathe is here?
CM: It's a Neumann VMS 70.
How many of them are still on the market?
CH: They made about 300 of them, so it's pretty rare.
CM: This one was made in '73.
CH: I can probably count on both hands the people I know that are cutting on one.
CM: Well, in the two years I was looking for it, I only had the opportunity to buy four. That was having everyone I know looking for them, worldwide. I turned one down in Switzerland; I turned one down in London; I turned one down in Jamaica. Hank was really instrumental. He helped guide me into which lathe to buy. He helped me turn down purchases. They're hard to come by, but you don't want to buy a shitty one.
Where did you end up buying that one?
