How did you begin with engineering?
I've been in music my whole life. I was studying piano at age 4. My mother got me piano lessons because I'd hear a song I liked, and then I'd sit down at the piano and start trying to pick out the melodies. I would play with both hands, so I began studying classical piano. When I got to high school age, I was playing in garage bands, doing keyboards, background vocals, and some lead vocals from time to time. As I got into college, and we started doing demo tapes, I never liked the way that they sounded. They never came out of the speakers the way that I heard them in my head – especially the songs I wrote. I thought to myself, "I need to learn what that person sitting behind the console is doing." I had no clue what was going on when they were turning knobs. I understood that pushing the fader up made it louder and pulling it down made it softer. I began going to school for it at Georgia State University, but I was interning at a studio from day one, asking a ton of questions, and learning everything that I could. Pretty soon I was an assistant engineer and I worked my way up the ladder. It developed out of necessity – needing to record my own music.
What was the year of that first demo?
We started doing demos around 1987. In 1989 was when I began going to school and interning.
That was around the era of 4-track cassette recorders. Did you ever do any of that?
I was fortunate in that I went right into formal studios. I figured that if I wanted to do this that I wanted to learn from the best, so I walked into the best studio in Atlanta – which, at the time, was called Soundscape [Studios], and then became Bosstown Recording (owned by Bobby Brown) and is now Stankonia [Recording Studios], owned by OutKast. It was the best studio in town, where all the real records were being made. This was at a time when becoming a recording engineer was not as publicized or well-known as it is today. There was only one academic program in the state of Georgia for recording engineering, and that was at Georgia State University. Now you have all of those programs packed full of people, so you have a lot coming out every year competing for internships and work in studios. In the late 1980s that wasn't the case. I emptied garbage cans, swept the parking lot, vacuumed, and cleaned bathrooms; all of the things an intern is supposed to do. They were gracious enough that once they knew I had some grip on the equipment and I respected it, they would allow me to bring my own bands in during off-hours whenever there was nobody in there – usually between midnight and 6 a.m.
Yeah, I know that shift. [laughter]
That was a big growing experience for me because I made a lot mistakes with the recordings. But it was my own band, and we were having fun and creating.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of formal engineering training?
I got into my internship before any of my recording classes at Georgia State. This was in the infancy of academic recording programs. By the time I got to the actual hands-on recording classes at Georgia State, I knew more than the person teaching the classes. It's no knock on the professors; they were composers more than engineers and they happened to have the studio available – the facility was used as their classroom. They were very good composers, but they were often limited as engineers. I'd ask, "Teach us how to align this tape machine," or, "The different patterns for microphones." They'd say, "Uh, you don't really need to do that. Once the machine is set up, it takes a lot of work." It was clear the instructor didn't know how to align a tape machine. But, as an assistant engineer back then, aligning the tape machine was the very first thing you did the minute you walked in the door. You'd be setting up for a session and align the damn tape machine. You might have to check it a few times throughout the day. I learned everything from hanging out in the studio; going to school was more of a formality. I'm sure nowadays, as the competition has grown, it's important for would-be engineers to look at going to a school because studios have become pickier as to who they're going to let walk through the door. If I was to walk through the door of a studio today – being in the same situation I was in back then, knowing nothing – I would be turned away at the door. There are many people who have some basic learning on the subject that would be much better suited as an intern than I was. I benefited from the era in which I came through the system.
What are the advantages these days of mixing at your home studio or an outside studio?
I don't rent out my own studio. I built it in the basement and only do my own work there. Mixing at home is a double-edged sword. One advantage is that I am home and a client doesn't have to worry about a clock rolling or studio time and accruing a bill. That allows me to take some projects that wouldn't normally have the budget for a bigger studio, since they would have to pay for the studio and then me on top of that. On the negative side, my dogs are here and my wife is here, so it is easy to get distracted sometimes. But I keep focused.
Working with Elton John, who has made 30 studio albums, what have you learned?
Elton is a different beast than anyone else that I've worked with. He writes in the studio – which is not necessarily unique by itself – but when he writes, he will sit down and write a complete song within 30 minutes; start to finish. A complicated song. Generally, I find that the faster he writes a song, the better it is. He gets in this zone, and it's amazing to watch. Sometimes it gives me goosebumps watching him work. I've been working with him 25 years, and it was the same back then as it is now. Even when he wrote the early hits, he'd be done in about 30 minutes and then he'd say, "Okay, let's start rehearsing." He brings his band in right away, they start working out arrangements, and then we begin getting takes. Usually we don't get past three takes before we find the one that works. He is not someone to belabor a process. When it's right, he knows it's right and he moves on. I might have to punch the drums here, or the bass or piano in there, but a lot of times we don't even do that. It's a solid take, start to finish. Then we start overdubbing from that core. With analog we had limited space, and often different parts would have to share the same track – a background vocal filling the space where a lead guitar wasn't. With Pro Tools the options are so unlimited that often you can spend almost all your time trying to sort through what you have with so many parts and takes recorded. But with Elton, once he hears what he wants, he moves on. We're not comping takes together or analyzing one bar versus another. If that's the take, it's the take.
He makes that determination from the feel while playing, or does he listen back?
Sometimes he listens on headphones while sitting at the piano. But, ultimately, he will always come in and listen back on the main speakers in the control room.
Does he know what types of mics he wants? Does he care about that?
Somewhere in between. He leaves that up to me; he trusts that I will make the right decisions for microphones. He has come in before and said, "Is this the same mic we used last year?" which lets me know he liked the sound. He's not naming specific models. His concentration is on performance, and my job is to capture it.
What are some of your favorite vocal mics?
I have a Telefunken [Ela M] 251 that I love. I love [Neumann] U 47s, vintage [AKG] C12s, [Neumann] U 67s, and [Shure] SM7s. I've used all of those with Elton's vocals before. Those are all amazing vocal microphones. I will switch it up sometimes depending upon the song, if it needs a more mellow tone or a brighter sound – depending on the character of the tune. I try to find the nuance and the best fit.
What rack gear do you tend to lean on the most?
I love the old Neve mic preamps; give me a rack of 1073s and I am a happy kid. Some good [Empirical Labs] Distressors, [Universal Audio] 1176 compressors, and some [Teletronix] LA-2As and I'll be able to make a record. It's more about the matter of time rather than the quality of the gear. I lean on the gear that I know I don't have to fight to get a sound that I want. It's my job to be quick, get the band at their creative peak, and keep the energy up. The more time that I spend fiddling with gear, the less time I have dealing with the band. Those pieces of gear; I know what they are going to sound like. I know what they can give me every single time; so if I have them available, I can work extremely fast and I don't have to worry about those aspects.
In what ways has your approach to sound changed and matured over the decades?
Early on, I was very much a gear head. I believed the secret sauce was in this piece of equipment or that microphone. I think it was a period that I had to go through to learn the gear, the studio, and the different characteristics. As I've moved along in my career as a producer, it has become more about the song than the gear, and more about the energy in the room. I don't care how well stocked a studio is, or how pristine the recording is; if it's a bad song, it is a bad song. You're only going to be getting a strong recording of a bad tune. [laughter] There is nothing that you can do. The perfect microphone or preamp is not going to make that song into a hit. I've stopped worrying so much about what piece of gear or what microphone I use, and instead I make sure that I am ready to get the perfect take. When we record guitars, I will usually have a ribbon mic up and a dynamic mic, so I have options to switch between the two. I don't use them both at the same time, usually, but I am prepared to go either way. There have been times when I would prefer one over another for a take, but the one I want is acting up and the guitarist is ready to go, so I don't worry about the mic at that point. It's more important for me to capture the band when they're ready. One of the biggest growing points that I had to get past was focusing so much on my [technical] end. But I had to go through that, and over time I have gained a better understanding of the particular priorities of each project.
What about the current recording zeitgeist irks you most?
The loudness wars – the over compression, over limiting – makes my ears curl a little bit. But I think that escalation is getting a little bit under control now. Many times, I will hear tracks that are dynamically crushed. It doesn't allow the music to breathe. This could be me holding onto the sound of when music became important to me, and when I chose it as a career. Music never seems to get better than the period when we realized how important it was to us. When I was growing-up I was always listening to Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Rush, and Jeff Beck. That is the tail I was always chasing. But music has moved on. Sound is perception. How did the drums sound on a record you totally loved? That's probably what you are trying to capture, initially. Over-compression has snowballed since younger groups grew up with that sound and want to repeat what they know and like, but even more intensely. I wish the bands would allow more air and more dynamics. Soft isn't bad. [laughter] Without softness, there is no loudness. You need both ends of the spectrum.
