How did you end up as a tech?
I worked for a company called Audio Industries Corporation in L.A. for Hal Michael; HM was what he was known as. When I was a kid, I always wanted to make records. I took piano lessons and I had zero affinity for it, but I played the radio and listened to records like a fiend. Sometimes on vinyl albums there would be a picture of the studio, and I fantasized about being in that place where records were made. I didn't see myself in terms of what I would do there, because I didn't know, but it wasn't performing. Then when I learned that there are people who make records...
How did you learn that?
There was this school called the University of Sound Arts, right in Crossroads of the World [in Hollywood]. They had teachers from Wally Heider Sound, Sunset Sound, and Capitol [Studios]. They'd hire some of the greatest engineers in the world to moonlight as their teachers. My friend said, "I'm going to go to this school and become an engineer." There was no way I had money for that, but my friend was able to get me a job as the night receptionist at that school. I couldn't afford the classes, but I could afford the books. One day I overheard a tech talking to a student; he worked for Wally Heider Studios. He was telling them, "You want job security? Don't become a recording engineer, become a maintenance tech. You'll always have a job." I thought, "Well, then that's my career." I bought books and started learning about electronics. I read Modern Recording Techniques, 1st ed., and the Don and Carolyn Davis books on acoustics. Shortly after this process began I saw a "Help Wanted" ad in the Los Angeles Times. It said, "Audio Trainee Wanted." It was for Audio Industries. I applied; I knew nothing, but they liked my enthusiasm. They trained me to be an MCI service technician. At night I was studying my ass off with those MCI manuals and all those electronics books, and then, during the day, they were teaching me to solder, how to wire studios, and how to do simple repairs. One studio I was visiting frequently was Rudy Records, owned by Graham Nash and David Crosby, in Hollywood. They had an MCI console and tape machine that would frequently fail, so I would go on service calls. They asked me if I would leave Audio Industries and be their studio maintenance tech in 1981, and I took the gig. I finally got to fill in on occasion as an assistant engineer, and for the first time I was actually watching sessions happen.
Who was the lead engineer there?
There was an assistant engineer named Jay Parti, who also did some firsting [first engineer]. Crosby, Stills & Nash were working on the Daylight Again album. Stanley Johnston and Steve Gursky were two engineers working on that album. Mostly it was a one-room studio for hire. The Eagles, Bonnie Raitt, David Lindley, Joe Vitale, Mike Finnigan, and people who were part of that CSN, Eagles, and Kris Kristofferson crew would come in.
A lot of great musicians!
The late Don Gooch was an engineer who had been associated with CSN for a long time. Don would kindly allow me to come at night and observe his sessions. One of the first sessions I ever witnessed was the Burrito Brothers, with Don engineering.
Were you picking up session flow, and things like that?
I was starting to see how it worked, learning to listen to music as it comes together, and learning to develop that decision criterion for what constitutes a "perfect take." I'd hear the musicians play it over, and over, and over again. It was clear that the producer was searching for something that he hadn't heard yet. I'd listen and try to match my ear against theirs to see, "Will I know? This sounds right to me. What's the producer going to say?" I was learning the practical aspects of record making, plus I was learning our business. "Who are these people? What do we value? What do we talk about? How do we be in the world?" I could repair the tools, but I was getting a chance to see how people apply them. The first five years in L.A. were a good training ground. The music industry was changing. In 1980, there was new wave, disco, and drum machines. Samplers were just starting to appear, and this notion that, "We don't really need a drummer, because we have a drum machine. And we don't need a horn or string player, because these synthesizers do horns and strings pretty well. All you rock players, you can stay home now." It wasn't a paradigm shift, but there was an attitude shift. New wave was here: The Cars, The Police, and Devo, and shortly thereafter, Prince. And then there was the junior version of the next onslaught coming out of New York, and that was rap. That was just starting to heat up.
Audience: Sitting behind the console, listening to Purple Rain, end to end, what's that feel like right now?
The thing that I noticed now, that I wouldn't have noticed then, is that was one 24-year-old guy. I mean, you hear Lisa Coleman's chords at the end of "Purple Rain," you hear some of the girls [Wendy Melvoin and Lisa] doing background vocals, there's one solo from [Matt] "Doctor" Fink. The rest is one guy, and he's 24-years old. We were all young then, and it's like, "Yeah, everybody's 24-years old. Of course." We didn't really get it. But listening to that, I can't think of a peer. Stevie Wonder maybe? But this is one man, playing all the instruments, writing all the songs, singing all the parts, with no producer and no engineer, for all intents and purposes, because I joined him as a tech. This is what you do when you take a brilliant genius, give him a lot of money, and put him in a room with all the toys. This is what he makes.
Audience: So it still amazes you to hear it all? That's awesome.
Yeah, because you can't find examples of many parallels. When you think about it, you hear that guitar, you hear his incredible keyboard skills, and you realize that, at any given moment on that record, he could do that. He could have filled up that record with virtuoso guitar playing, with virtuoso keyboard playing, and with virtuoso singing. But he'll do ten minutes of just drum machine on "Baby, I'm a Star." Then here's another thing to consider. His lyrics. It's not Leonard Cohen, but think about... he's talking about an "us." I would die for you. Let's go crazy. Take me with you. It's a generous record. He's happy to be alive. He's happy to be 24. He clearly loves people. He's not a sexual predator. He's not talking about "I will conquer you," with that braggadocio of young men. There's us, and we're having fun. That's pretty great. Especially when you consider that he's one guy from north Minneapolis, all alone. He was so alone that he created his own competition. He created The Time and Vanity 6, and it was still all him. He played all the instruments, wrote all their songs, did the whole thing, and then had them come in and do the vocals.
Audience: What kind of preparation did he do to do his vocals?
He just sang them. It's not like he did any vocal comps. The way he worked, he would program the drum machine. A lot of the drumming you hear, like the double kicks, the tom fills, and everything, he's playing those with his fingers. There'd be a one or two bar loop on the Linn LM-1. So there's this loop; he played all the fills on "Take Me with U," the toms, and the double kick on "Darling Nikki" first. He had the entire arrangement in his head as tape was rolling, and he played the whole song in his head. Then the basic keyboard parts would go on. Then bass, if there was bass, or bass synths. We'd stop, I would route the vocal for him, put a piece of white tape on the patch cord to show him where it was, arm the tape machine, put the track on input, and then leave the room so he could do the vocals all by himself. He didn't want anybody there. He'd do the lead vocal himself, do the backing vocals, and then I'd come back in and we'd lay down the rest of the instruments. While he was playing, I could be dialing in sounds, so the mix was pretty much ready to go. We worked with the girls, Wendy and Lisa, Jill Jones, or Susannah [Melvoin] – if we're going to do background vocals. Maybe we'd add Eric Leeds, with horns. I'd press "record" on the 2-track, we'd print a mix, go to bed, and then four hours later we'd start all over again. That's how he worked, every day. Making music was Prince's way of being in the world. If he was awake, we were making music. If we weren't on tour, he was recording in the studio constantly. Every day, even on the movie set. We were at home in Minneapolis, during the Purple Rain filming, just so he could come home and record. During [the filming of] Under the Cherry Moon, I had the Advision Studios mobile truck from London in the south of France. When they were taking their lunch break he could come into the truck, work for two hours, record a bunch of tracks; then he could go back to the set and I would be mixing and editing. He had to be making music. I'll tell you what a typical day was like on tour. Prince would soundcheck from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m., just for fun! Just to play new songs, and to rehearse with the band. He wasn't checking the sound; he just wanted to play Prince would hit the stage again at 8:30, play to 11 or 11:30, come off the stage, get in the van, go to the hotel, shower, change clothes, and then do one of two things: either go play an after party and take the stage at a little club at 1 a.m. I had a second truck loaded up with a second set of gear, so we'd come off stage and either go to a club, set up another stage, and play this after party until 5 or 6 in the morning. Or I would have booked a studio in advance, and we'd go to the studio and record all night. We'd get the tapes, get on the plane, and sleep on the plane; or get on the bus and go to the next city, and do it again. If he was awake, he wanted an instrument in his hand. That's how he lived. He was on fire.
Audience: Who did all the synth programming? Was that all him?
Oh, yeah; that was all him. He hated bringing anyone else in because he worked so fast. It was all 24-track. He could not wait for two [tape] machines to be synchronized. It was never more than 24-track in the years that I was with him. There was no automation, because he couldn't wait for that either! When we'd mix, I'd just hit "record" on the 2-track and do it live. People have asked me about him being a perfectionist. He was not a perfectionist. There was nothing perfect about it. What he was was a virtuoso. He was that fluent on so many instruments that we could go super-fast. There was no perfection involved.
Audience: So, with any other musicians, it was just playing catch-up? He knew they'd slow him down?
Yeah. He knew if he wanted horns, or background vocals, that's when he would have a date. He'd have Eric Leeds and Matt Blistan come in and put on horns, or he'd have the girls come in and do backing vocals. He'd go out and have a date, and I'd do those recordings with other people. Then he'd come back, dump his date off, or whatever. Sometimes he'd bring her to the studio, until she'd get bored and leave.
Audience: He didn't want to go through the painful process of watching people work at a normal pace.
He could. Like the song "Take Me with U," where Apollonia is singing that cold lead vocal. When she joined us she replaced Vanity, who had suddenly split. Apollonia had to be in the movie and on the record. He asked her, "Can you sing?" She said, "Yeah." So he left me in the studio with her to warm up her voice and said, "You record her vocal." She couldn't sing at all! She was focused on acting and was not a strong singer. Prince came in and had the patience to coach her through line by line to get it.
Audience: What's he saying at the end of side one, the backwards voice?
He had a complex relationship with sex. He had a father who was a jazz musician, very religious, and his father had very strong anti-sex views. So when Prince would have a strong statement of lust, like the song "Darling Nikki," it's usually followed by some sort of exorcism, like, "Forgive me, get this out of me." I remember, at that time, when backwards tracked bits in the locked groove of records were thought to be satanic messages. You younger folks won't remember this, but in the '70s and '80s...
We were all going to hell.
We were all going to hell with these backward messages. It's just a piece of tape that was layered, and layered, and layered, and flipped around backwards. I don't remember what it was.
Audience: It says, "Hello, how are you? Fine, fine; 'cause I know that the Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon."
This is his way of asking for forgiveness for having lust in his heart, and doing it in a way that was artistic. Great art comes from conflict, and he was conflicted, for sure.
Audience: Do you think he had the lyrical content in his head all the time, as well?
About half the time he'd come into the studio with a lyric already written. He'd either play a drum kit, or use a drum machine, and the lyric would be taped up on the mic stand in front of him – he'd be reading the lyric at the same time as he played the drums. Usually he did that for pop songs and ballads. If it was just a straight up dance number, he'd lay down the groove first. I'd give him a cassette; he'd play it in the car, write the lyrics, and come back and sing. It was typically a song a day. There were rare exceptions when a song would take more than one day, but it was usually a song a day.
What about some of the songs where we hear strings? Are they real or the Fairlight sampler?
No, not the Fairlight. He didn't have the Fairlight on this record. It's the Oberheim synths. When he got the [Yamaha] DX7 he used that thing to death. On Around the World in a Day it's mostly DX7. He got that right around Purple Rain, so I think that DX7 is on some of those songs. He had a Fairlight for Sign o' the Times.
Audience: How much of the vocal effects were committed to tape?
I'll tell you what went to tape. The Linn LM-1 had little faders on it, mixers, and individual outputs on the back. We'd take the kick out, and the snare, and then the hi-hat usually by itself, usually claps by themselves, but then everything else would come out a stereo mix and go into his Roland Boss pedals, the kind you still see today. That would have flanger and chorus in it. You hear a lot of times the hi-hat is chorused, and it's very wide stereo. So are claps and things on many of these songs. So the chorus, the distortion pedal, the Heavy Metal pedal, the [DD digital] delay, and the flanger. He would click them on and off to dial in what he wanted for the drums. Those effects were printed. The effects on his voice and everything else, no. He really loved delays. Students today, I always see them going for reverb. I instruct them, "Wait, delays! Delays happen before reverb happens." We had several of the Lexicon Prime Time [Model 93 digital delays] with stereo in, stereo out. He loved those things. At that time, we had the Lexicon 240L. We had an EMT 245. At Sunset Sound we had the real echo chambers. But mostly it was delays, real echo chamber, and EMT reverb. That all just went to the mix, but not on the multitrack.
Audience: You were in Studio 3 at Sunset, but you patched into Studio 1's live chamber then?
All the chambers; but the big chamber was the best one, if you could get it. We wanted to build a chamber at Paisley Park, but with real estate, they ultimately didn't do it. Some of those things were recorded at a warehouse. Other tracks were recorded either at Sunset Sound Studio 3, or on an API console at home in the warehouse.
You were working in L.A. as a tech, and then somehow you end up in Minneapolis with Prince installing his console, right?
I heard through Westlake Audio that Prince was looking for a tech, and I just said, "Well, the search is over, because that's my job!" Westlake referred me to his management, and they hired me as a tech. The first thing I was asked to do was pull the old console out of his home studio, install his new API, and fix his tape machine, which, at that time, was the Ampex MM-1200. It sounded so good. That took about a week. He was doing pre-production for the movie, Purple Rain, at this time. I could hear him at the piano. I was downstairs in the home studio, which was just a bedroom, and the piano was right above. I could hear him playing "Purple Rain," "The Beautiful Ones," and "Computer Blue," just waiting for the studio to be finished! I finally got it finished, and the first song he had me put up was "Darling Nikki." He had me put up a tape and said, "Get a rough mix." I said, "Okay."
Audience: Is there a version of "When Doves Cry" with a bass line in it?
The bass is on the multitrack tape, but it was muted in the final mix. It's interesting listening to this record again, and being reminded of how real genius knows when to show it off and when to just be simple. Simple chord progressions are fine; you don't have to be really sophisticated. A simple drum pattern is fine. You can add the complexity in other elements. It can be in the sonic elements, in the virtuoso great guitar solo, the complexity can be in your lyrics. You don't have to show off everything. Keep it all really simple and have one magic ingredient, maybe two. It was smart record-making. I don't know how he knew how to do that, but he knew what he was doing.
Audience: That first Linn drum was all Steve Gadd drum samples, but you could order samples and they'd send you the chips. Did he ever do anything with that machine?
I didn't know that. But did you know that you could pull the chips out of their sockets, reverse them 180 degrees, put them back in, and it would play the sample backwards? He tried the LinnDrum when it came out, but he didn't like that one. Also, the clock on that LM-1 was kind of funky. As it would warm up, it would sort of drift a little bit. It feels a little bit more human than the very rigid, later model.
Audience: There wasn't any sequencing at all, apart from the LinnDrum? That was it?
Oh, gosh; no, that's just him playing it. That was it.
Like on "I Would Die 4 U," he's playing a sequencer-like pattern?
In that case, that was Matt Fink, because that was cut live, and Matt did program that. But Prince, for his own parts, he would just play them. He didn't have the patience.
Audience: Can you talk about working with that live material, and how it changed from the concert to the final mix?
The bed tracks for "Purple Rain," "I Would Die 4 U," and "Baby, I'm a Star" were cut on August 3, 1983, in a mobile truck at First Avenue, the club [in Minneapolis]. I had just been hired by Prince, but I hadn't yet arrived in Minneapolis. That was recorded by David Z [Rivkin], and the truck was the Record Plant mobile from New York [the "Black Truck," with engineers David Hewitt and Kooster McAllister]. We used that one a lot. Anyway, the bed track was cut, but it was drum machines, so there weren't that many open mics. So we brought the tapes back to his home studio. This is all before Paisley Park was built. We could overdub it, add more guitar parts, synth parts, and mix it at home. Before Paisley Park was built, he worked a lot at Sunset Sound.
Do you know why he picked Sunset Sound to work out of?
I don't know. When I joined him, he'd been working there and he just loved it. It was that DeMedio console. When we planned Paisley Park, he commissioned the great Frank DeMedio to build him a copy of that console at Sunset Sound.
Paul Wolff: I built all the EQs for that console when I owned API.
