Roman Sokal's Interview:
How do you veer between clean, pristine sounds and mucked-with sounds? How do you approach the differences as an engineer, as well as see the different colors as a producer and mixer?
It's all the same thing, really. If a producer is explaining to me something that they want to hear, then it's up to me to figure out their adjectives. That's the joy of the art of engineering. I experiment, and I experiment on my own time. I practice a lot. I use all kinds of weird plug-ins and pieces of gear. Plug it in, try it, and see what it does. So, when I work with somebody, especially when I work with somebody new who tells me they want a certain sound, be it that they use color adjectives, sonic adjectives, or real-world adjectives – like, "I want it to be beautiful" – I go with my intuitive reaction to what they're saying. The more I get to know them, the faster I can figure out what it is they're explaining. The real secret is I have to take my own ego out of it and try and be a palette and a paintbrush for somebody else. It's a real challenge, and it's a lot of fun if I get it right. It's all the same. A dirty sound and a clean sound are just two different adjectives. It's sound. We're moving air. I don't really have a differential.
You came up in the traditional, old school studio way, by being an assistant?
Yeah. I loaded a remote truck for a guy named Brad Pinkstaff. Then, at Silverlake Studios, I worked for a brilliant engineer named Steve Millang. He said, "If you can fix the roof, you can hang out." I stayed with Steve Millang for about six months. Then Val Garay [Tape Op #112] hired me. We met because I was taking pictures of his Corvette for Hot Rod Magazine. We hit it off. He was building a studio called Record One, which became famous and is still rocking – it's Dr. Dre's studio now. It was an amazing facility and was Val's brainchild. I went to work for him as a liaison between the construction crew, and then at nights I was allowed to hang out. Quite frankly, I just never went home and now it's been 44 years.
What gig or gigs have been memorable or challenging? Were there any situations where you had to apply psychology skills?
Well, that's every session. [laughter] The first psychology skill you have to have is patience. That applies to yourself. It's so that the person who is creating can have the space to do that. If you're going to do anything, offer that freedom in whatever language works. For some people it could be, "Why don't we stop and order food?" For some it could be emptying the control room and getting all the friends out of there so they can actually pay attention. Most artists tend to be very, very friendly, jovial people, and a lot of people like to be with them. If somebody has to really focus on something, they're not rude. Sometimes my job is to be rude and empty the control room so they can pay attention. Sometimes it's the opposite. They're not getting it, nothing's happening, and they need inspiration. Open the doors and hope people come to visit. It's all different. The important things to realize are: First, it's not your picture on the cover, so your job is whatever it takes to make that person a better artist than they would have been if you weren't there. The second thing to remember is that as long as you give that effort, whether or not you got a take that day doesn't matter. The takes are not up to us. Takes come from the universe.
Indeed.
Show up, give 100 percent, and do the best you can to be the best you can. It could take a month before you get a song to where you play it back and go, "That's the recording we're going to share with the world." Or it could take three and a half minutes. That's not up to you. The only thing that's up to you is the effort.
And the ability to be prepared to capture everything, right?
My rule is to put everything in record and then go set up the mics. Do it in that order. A first take that comes from the muse or the universe only happens once. It's the first time. It doesn't matter what microphone or tape machine I use. All of that's secondary. What matters is that I captured it. Whatever format I capture it in is going to become what it is. What's going to happen is the next time somebody tries to do that, they're going to want to know the serial number of the Radio Shack cassette machine I used. They're missing the point. The point is to play back inspiration, any way I can. That's my job. With somebody like Neil Young – actually, with just about every artist I work with – they're so good and so inspired. I have such a deep respect for their conduit with whatever their creativity is. My responsibility, if I can give anything to the session, is to always be recording it. Keep something "in record" somewhere, and I'll have it. If nothing else, we'll have the actual idea to refine. We can't get back something that's only a memory; we'll only get back what we think we remember.
What do you think it is that Neil Young likes about hiring you?
Um, I'm lucky! [laughs] I don't know. I don't think Neil goes back to anything. Neil creates with whatever's in front of him, and if it's not working, he tries something else. I can't take anything personally with Neil. Neil loves everyone, but also his purpose on the planet is to be a conduit, and that takes precedence. As long as you can understand that and try to help him, he'll be in and out of your life for a long time. He's not a normal human, but he's worth the effort.
I remember Mark Howard [Tape Op #134] was telling me that Neil Young will only record on the three days prior to a full moon?
Yeah, that's just a target. He always feels really, really creative then.
Have you had other artists who had an eccentric working method?
All of them! Every artist I've ever been gifted with is eccentric. I'm fortunate. I'm the luckiest guy in the world, because I get people who are not normal. People who are obsessed with using audio and performance to communicate an emotion. For some people, that happens around full moons. For some it happens around family events. For others it happens when they get their paycheck, because they're broke and they can only afford to work when they get paid. Some people are more tuned into a calendar than others, but everyone has their quirks. When they're set to go, they're set to go. They have to understand, to really not think about what they're doing is true creativity. When they let it flow, they're not really there. Their instrument is knowing when to stay out of the way of what their body's doing. When that's happening, there's no controlling it. Somebody like Neil, when he feels a lyric, or it's coming, it's him responding to that. It just happens.
You've got a massive discography. Kiss' Creatures of the Night album had that real, trademark big drum sound.
Yeah.
Was it something that you heard in demos, or were there empty spaces that you felt could be filled with a big reverb?
It was nothing that intellectual, I'm sorry to say. I've always experimented with drums, and at that time, I was working a lot with a guy named [Gary] "Shep" Lonsdale, who's a brilliant drummer and a drum tech. He was the drum tech for Jeff Porcaro [Toto] at the time. When we were bored, we would go into the back room of Record One and play with different sounds. Like I said, I always practiced. Shep had a lot of interesting techniques for tuning and mic'ing. We were just curious. The story I got from the producer, Michael James Jackson, was that [Kiss'] Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] had listed all ten of the current top rock records on Billboard. They went to all those studios and those engineers to get a big room sound. They wanted the drums to sound like when they'd stand in front of them in a big room, and they never found it. It was a Sunday morning; they came to Record One, and brought drums with them. I was exhausted. I'd been up all week working on two other records. I was crashed; they got me up, and I went and unlocked the studio. I asked Michael, "What is it that you want?" He said, "We want a Led Zeppelin-style big, ambient room sound." I said, "If I get you the drum sound, can I go home?" He said, "Sure!" I set everything up with what Shep and I had been doing, and they loved it. They hired me to do the drums, and they hired Shep to tune them. We wound up doing the whole album for them. It was a real gas. I loved working for Gene and Paul. They're probably the funniest, hardest-working guys I've been in the studio with. They'd show up early, leave late, and they work the whole time they're there. They're great. The idea was, again, just fulfilling Gene's adjectives. It was not really hard to do. Gene walked up and stood in front of the drums. He had the guy play, and said, "I want to hear this out of the speakers." That's what I did.
How did you end up producing Circle Jerks' Oddities, Abnormalities and Curiosities?
I got a call from [the late] Sandy Roberton, who was helping their A&R guy. They wanted to go into the studio and try to cut live. There weren't a lot of guys doing live recording at the time. Everybody was doing lots of overdubs and building records. Keith Morris wanted to sing with the band. They had a ton of energy. We went into The Sound Factory, and I put them all in the main room. There are a couple songs where Keith Morris sang the vocal with his head in an upside-down trash can, because he liked the sound of it. It was that kind of record. We had a really great time.
Do you prefer recording live off-the-floor these days?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. The most challenging thing is when everybody's playing at the same time, and I am mixing a record live. I try to set the console flat, as a playback function, and I cut everything live. I ride the solos and ride the vocal. It feels great, because there have been so many years of making "Lego block records" that doing one where everybody's looking at each other and forgetting they're in headphones is a joy.
We see that in action in Neil Young and Crazy Horse's Barn film. At one point in the documentary, you say you're going to submix the drums onto just four tracks.
Barn is an attempt at a 16-track record. The safety, the backup, the digital and all that you can do, we did. There are all the independent outputs, but I've never heard them. They're on a hard drive somewhere. The drums went to four tracks. For each guitar, I think Neil went to two, Nils [Lofgren] went to one, bass went to a track, then vocals, keyboards, rooms, and whatever the song was. I mixed it live, and then we're done. When I do it that way, what happens is it's very easy to decide on overdubs or to continue production, because we're always hearing a finished record. If we decide we want to try some percussion, we're deciding on a tambourine part against what the record already sounds like. There's no, "When we get to it," question. We can make decisions much faster. Then, when we're finished that day, the record's mixed that day, and all that happens after that is refinement. We may come back and say, "Oh, I thought the vocal should be a little louder in the second verse." Then we can open up the session and change it. There are two things that happen: One, it's very efficient. Two, we capture all the first emotional, intuitive feelings about parts when we mix that way. That's really easy to do, as long as you've done it a whole bunch, so it doesn't freak you out!
When I interviewed Daniel Lanois [Tape Op #37], he agreed that the rough mix becomes a good snapshot of the day's work.
There's no such thing as a rough mix, there are just different mixes. When you get one that you like every time you play it, that's the one to release. Lanois is brilliant, especially at that. He's one of the smartest guys I know. He understands. I've been a huge fan of his process and his ethic.
Is there anything in particular?
The record he produced for Neil [Le Noise] was one of the most genius things ever. It was such an "of course." According to Neil's crew, he put a separate sound in every room of his studio. A different guitar, different headphones, different echo, and everything. He would open the door, Neil would walk in, and whatever Neil felt in that room – in that space, with those sounds – that's what he would create. It gave Neil full license to explore, and Daniel recorded it. He was there to catch it.
For a music delivery system, are you into the high-resolution world like Neil is?
Absolutely. My favorite way to record and play back is 24-bit at 192 kHz.
I've been a big collector of high-res albums for three years now. My collection is huge.
It's cumbersome now, and that's why people don't do it. But as it becomes easier to store and faster to move data, people will go to high-res. Good analog tape is not manufactured anymore, so what we have is a romantic memory. The tape that is manufactured today does not sound as good to me. It sounds sufficient, but I can't manipulate it. I can't edit it. It falls apart because of the changes in the petrochemicals that they manufactured the tape with. It's prohibitively expensive. Out of five reels, two of them might be cut incorrectly when they slit them in the manufacturing. It's not worth it. The machines themselves, the technologies are sometimes 30 to 50 years old. The pots wear out and capacitors go. It's not reliable. It is no longer a viable recording medium, in my opinion.
Interesting.
Especially when I have to work fast and I'm trying to capture music in the moment. I can't be bothered with dealing with different batch numbers and tape that falls apart. In the end, the delivery mechanism – except for a vinyl record – is going to be digital. My job is to learn as much about the digital medium as possible to make it as good as I can, and that's what I always try to do. I'd rather play back a 192 kHz version of that Radio Shack mic than wait for a tech to arrive to get a Studer to work and get a reel of tape that sort of works, so that I can get an analog recording of an idea that's already happened. It's not worth it.
Do you prefer any digital system over the other? Like [Avid] Pro Tools versus [iZ Technology] RADAR?
I've used all of them, and all of them have merit. I choose Pro Tools because it's everywhere, and what I like to do is work. What I don't like to do is tech. If I have Pro Tools at 192 kHz in just about any studio today, I can walk in and I can start working on the music. If I'm proving a point – by having a fancy A-to-D and D-to-A, a RADAR system, Nuendo, or any of those competitive systems – they're all good, but I don't have the patience. I don't know how to use them quickly! I just want to work.
When you go in as producer, do you have a way of approaching helping them with their songs? Do you help them out with lyrics, or go into melodies?
Certainly, I would help them if they asked. I very rarely offer musical opinions, in terms of writing. If something is blatant, I will wait until we're done with their idea and ask them to please try something different. Usually that will be constructive editing. I may think that a chorus goes on too long, or we need to get to a chorus sooner. Typically, it's not my business to tell them what they're saying or how to sing it. There's a pile of producers that can do that, and they are artists in themselves. Go to them to help with the music and make a production. I'm not a songwriter/producer. I'm there to help somebody be better at what they're doing, if I can. I have too much respect for the guys who can do that.
Your mixes make the vocals very clear and they always have a unique presence.
That's what I start with. So, thanks! That's all that matters. Record making to me is pretty easy. That's why it's embarrassing to do interviews or articles, because so many of the people I've learned from are so talented and so much more qualified to do this job. To me, all I hear is the speaker above my head in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store, and all that matters is the backbeat and the lyric with a melody. That's where I start when I'm helping somebody make a record. I live in the lowest common denominator, and I use the highest quality means to capture it so that there's a shred of a chance of being fantastic when it gets to the lowest quality denominator. Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
That's all that matters. All we're doing is trying to "sell a feeling," as Lamont Dozier said! That's it. It's either grooving to me or it's not. And if it's not grooving, it's my job to stick my hand up and say something. If it is grooving, it's my job to shut up and make sure I can play it back.
Listening to Barn, I noticed there was an intimacy to the mix.
We mixed it in the truck that night for pretty much all of the songs. I went back to the truck for about two days, touched up little pieces, sent it to him, and Neil would listen to it. It was all mixed to a 1/4-inch tape machine, and we were done! The hard part is writing a song, expressing the song, and playing the song all at once, with everybody. Getting everybody in that vibe. The easy part is to stay out of the way and hit record.
When you're doing a mix, do you step in and do something creative?
Oh, of course. That's the art of engineering. If something rips my heart out, and I want to make it special, and I have an idea on how to make it special, that's the gig. That's the beautiful part. That's why we do it. It's fun. One of the best guys to study for creative engineering was Jason Corsaro. If you listen to records from the '80s and '90s, Jason Corsaro's sounds were the most innovative, new trailblazing-weird ways to record that made sense for what the music was. Jason worked with Robert Palmer [The Power Station] and Madonna. He never did anything the same way. Whatever the music they were playing, whatever was the first thing he thought of, he would do that. He would grab the microphones and put them in that spot. He'd put a trash can in front of a mic. He's the best example of what you asked about. He's always been one of my heroes.
You have a wide list of artists by genre and style.
It's all the same – it's music. There is no style of music. Somebody's either being honest or they're not. If they're not, generally it doesn't come out so well. My job is to not be noticed, and then play back what they're trying to do.
