How did you get into this whole recording thing that you're doing now?
Well, I play guitar. I've been playing since I was 7. I studied classical guitar for a while at the University of South Florida and they had a recording school, kind of a like a program for electronic music and I got into it. And because I played in bands and stuff I brought all the local bands I knew into the studio, and I'd record as much stuff as possible. Then the school did away with the classical guitar program so I ended up going down to the University of Miami for a while to study with this monster guitar player there. They also had a recording program. Kind of the same thing — I just brought in friends and got as much free studio time as I could possibly get. Probably the spark to everything though was through this friend of mine named Mike Little who was the "guitar guru" in the neighborhood when I was growing up. He turned me onto all the cool players and good music. His band would record and I would hang out at the sessions and watch. I sat around in the control room while they were jamming and I started helping the engineer and one thing led to another. Eventually I thought it was cooler being on the other side of the glass.
And then to the West coast!
Yeah. When I got out of Miami I had a friend that lived out here in LA that worked at Sound City, which to me, is still the greatest studio in the world. We got a place together when I moved out. I was repairing guitars at a music shop at night and worked as a tech at another studio during the day. Then my friend called me one day and said Sound City needed an assistant, so I jumped at it. I worked there as a freelance assistant because there wasn't a lot of work in the beginning. Actually I ended up working at five different studios as an assistant which was kind of cool because I got to learn a lot of different consoles and rooms and also dealt with several types of clients and music. That was the jump from being out of the studio to into the studio.
When was this around year-wise?
I moved to LA in December of '88, got a job two days later at a place called Cherokee, and worked there 'till March of '89 when I started assisting at Sound City.
That is in the valley. Van Nuys, correct?
Yeah. It's fucking tremendous. It's got two rooms. Two great old Neve consoles and the A room is just ridiculous. It's where they did Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Tool — Just tons of cool stuff. Allman Brothers, Badfinger, the first Rage Against The Machine record, Elton John, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Frank Black, Dio — thirty years of mega hits coming out of that room, and, it's such a comfortable place to record at.
What would have been the first gig that you had as an engineer proper?
Well, there were 2 guys that were really instrumental. One of them was Garth Richardson [Tape Op #28] (aka GGGarth) who worked at Sound City quite a bit. We did a butt-load of records together. He was in doing some demos for a band for three days and I think he was doing it for free and I just offered my assistance. We got along and it worked out well so he said, "Alright! I'm coming in with another record — do you want to record it?" So it all started from there. GGGarth has been a great friend. I've learned so much from working with him.
Who's record would that have been?
A band called Surgery. We mixed it at A&M. It was my first SSL mixing experience. And the other guy was Jason Corsaro, who I think is one of the greatest engineers in the world. He's done everything from Soundgarden's Superunknown, which to me is sonically light years above all their other stuff, to the first Power Station record. Also Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and Steve Winwood's Back in the Highlife -and all those old Duran Duran records — more recently he's done stuff with Corrosion of Conformity, Clutch, Kula Shaker, Catherine Wheel- just a sick amount of records that have a real unique sound to them. I assisted him on A Masters Of Reality record and we hit it off. We ended up doing some other mixes together too. Any time he would come to town to work he'd hire me to help him out so I would be his engineer in a way. Those are the two main guys to me. There have been a few others but those two take the chairs.
How did the Kyuss thing happen!?
They wanted to work at Sound City because Chris Goss [Tape Op #63], the guy that produced them, worked there quite a bit — he did the second Masters of Reality record there and I worked on some of that so that's how I knew Chris. I think the guy he normally used as an engineer, Brian Jenkins came down and helped us set up. Actually, I don't even know how I got the gig. I think Brian was too busy and I got the gig because he couldn't do it or however it worked out. It's kind of a blur to me now because it's been so long. I ended up working on Blues For The Red Sun as an engineer and not assisting on it so I'm pretty sure I was independent at that point. The Kyuss records were quick records. We did Blues For The Red Sun in ten days, tracked it in six, mixed in four. When Sky Valley came along they wanted to do the same thing and use the same team at Sound City, but we ended up mixing it somewhere else because it was booked. But basically, it was another two week record.
And from knowing what Kyuss was like live, it's safe to assume it was done mostly off the floor, yes?
Completely man. They were one of the greatest. It freaked me out. It was the first time I'd seen a band actually listen to each other play in the studio. I mean, they'd get set up, totally "VIBE OUT" the room with hot oil wheels shining on the walls, stuff hanging everywhere, incense burning, dimmed lights — then they would just jam. They'd play the same song two or three times and it would be a different length every time because you never knew when the solo was going to come up, if you know what I mean. It was completely visual. That's why those records could be done so quickly too because, well, this is the take! Done! We might do a few overdubs or a quick fix here and there but that's it. It was an amazing experience for me working on those records.
Their last full length disc — And The Circus Leaves Town — I think that one might have been, well... a little overboard? I played it recently for the first time in years and it was almost too pummeling. I had to turn the volume down on that one.
I didn't mix that one — Brian Jenkins did. I only recorded it. It was a weird record to make because they were kind of on the "outs" by then and they had to make one last record. I remember Alfredo Hernandez, the drummer, had a 26" kick drum. It was one of the greatest kick drum sounds I have ever heard.
So around that time I assume you began to develop ideas for set-ups and such — things that would lead to what is now known as your 'sound'.
Well, because I am a guitar player, I hear guitars up front and pretty loud. But I also like a lot of bottom end. Most stuff on the radio nowadays has no low end on it. I like the way old records sound. They're not mastered at excruciating levels because of the limitations of vinyl. With the old records you can turn them up and they still get bigger and warmer. That is what I enjoy listening to and I think my "style" or whatever comes from there. I like bands like Grand Funk, Thin Lizzy, Foghat and stuff like that. Just good rock. There weren't many effects boxes around then either, so engineers had to get pretty creative. Tape slap, phasing, ADT... the real deal... not preset #4OOO in the new 'ultra effect box'. That and probably the fact that I was working a lot at Sound City on an old Neve console, which is a really fat sounding board, would also be a factor in what I like to hear. I do really like upfront sounds too. I tight mic a lot, but in mixing I might use some severely compressed ambience instead of adding reverbs.
You just hit on three points I was going to ask about — the guitar thing, compression and obviously bottom end. It seems like you've almost mastered a way where you can get something that is insanely big yet not muddy and friendly to the ears.
I guess a lot of people tell me that they can hear everything in my mixes. I'm not a fast mixer by any means, although a lot of those Kyuss and Melvins records were 2-3 mixes a day. But to me, panning and riding is the key. A lot of guys are hard left-hard right-center. I still use all the spots in between because there's a lot of room in there. As far as bottom goes, well — I'm not afraid of it! I approach mixing like I am mixing for the home listener with the home stereo. Turn it up and it should get fatter, not distorted. I'm not afraid to turn a knob, but I don't turn it for the sake of turning it either. I'm not afraid to add what needs to be added.
Which brings me to a fine example of what you just said, which would be the Shallow North Dakota record that you mixed.
Shit, I gotta tell ya, Autobody Crusher is one of my favorite records of all time to this day. I still love to listen to it. I remember there were certain points of mixing where I was like, "Holy shit! Someone is gonna turn around and think they blew up their speakers on that one!!!" It was recorded and produced all on ADAT which amazed the hell out of me that it sounded like that, which was really, really good. The band came down with ADATs and I transferred it all to 2". Because there was such a tight budget, I mixed it to 1/4" tape at 15 ips which was fucking amazing. I think every cool old record I've listened to has been mixed down to 1/4" tape at 15 ips.
Well there's more bottom end to begin with when you mix it down like that.
It's exceptional. I think it's the lack of top and the extra bottom that I really love and it just holds everything together. It just fits together beautifully. We mixed the whole thing in six days at a little house called Mama Joe's because there was no budget. The place had a Trident Series 80 with some GML automation, and they had a butt-load of great compressors. I kick that album on to this day and it still gets me pumpin'.
I should mention that it did blow up a pair of my speakers!
It did?! [audible smirk] Sorry. Well, there's a spot in the guitar track on the left side on the first song where I thought the speakers were coming apart in the control room too. Whatever happened — combination of volume and frequency — there was something there...
Was that the album that got you in to working with Fu Manchu?
Actually, I got Brad from Fu Manchu into Shallow North Dakota. I met with Fu Manchu on No One Rides For Free because Kyuss' manager Catherine Enny hooked me up with them. I really wanted to do that record but couldn't because of scheduling. And when it came time to do the next one [The Action is Go] which J. Yuenger [of White Zombie fame] was going to produce, I didn't have time to track that either, so I ended up just mixing it. Then the one after that, which was King of the Road, they asked me to do the whole thing.
On that record, when a tom is hit — especially a floor tom — it seems like the resonance/decay of the hit is emphasized — one huge fucking BOOOOM!
What I do is not necessarily individually compress a lot of stuff, but I add a lot of hard compression back. I'll sub-mix the drum kit (keep the drums up as they are but I'll bus snare, kick and toms — sometimes the overheads and cymbals if I really want to go nuts — down to two channels) and I'll use a Tube Tech stereo compressor across it because it's really quick and punchy and add that in with the drum kit. And a lot of the time I'll add even more extra compression on the kick and snare and bring that back. And then, I'll use super-fast compression on the rooms so they breathe with the kit and give it a motion. A lot of the decay on the toms is usually because of the room itself. I'll fuck around with room sounds quite a bit. Sometimes the mics are really distant, sometimes they're right up next to the drums. One of my favorite spots is right near the floor tom almost like a three-point technique, like a Glyn Johns/Led Zeppelin-y kind of thing. I'll end up using a room mic right near the tom, face it from behind the kit so it picks up smack off the kick head and resonance from the toms. Add in some heavy compression and there you have it
The manner in which you mix — what kind of headroom situation do you get? I'd imagine there's a battle going on with the meters. Is there any specific kind of tape that you use?
I use BASF 900. I like the way it sounds. Usually at +5 over 185 nWb/m on the half inch machine. I used to be a big Ampex 456 fan but I started having a lot of problems with consistency in batches and dropouts and the BASF people have been really great to me. I'm not very good at headroom as a mixer, especially when I add a lot of compression and distortion back in. My faders are usually really low or really high and I use a lot of gain on everything to give it some edge (cranking mic or line trims) so levels are usually pretty hot. I usually put a stereo EQ and compressor on the mix bus and sometimes maybe even two compressors. Headroom is not easy for me. I wish I could mix where the meters were just beautiful all the time at 0 db and everything sounded punchy and aggressive, but I don't know how to do that! In the end, I'll usually turn the input to the tape machine down so as not to completely overload it, making sure the transients are let through (unless tape saturation is a desired effect). I spend a lot of time riding faders to keep the mix moving, putting ambience in the holes, and just making sure dynamics are preserved as much as possible even with all the compression. When tracking, everything on tape is hot except for transient stuff like kick drums where I keep it low so the attack still comes through. I usually like old Neves to mix on because they've got more leeway as far as headroom goes. Old consoles have a lot of iron and transformers in them and are a lot more forgiving before actual electronic distortion sets in. You can leave the meters pinned and nothing happens. But lately I've been into the SSL G+ [series] because it's got a lot more EQ flexibility. It's very clear — I don't use the VCAs — and you can distort it as opposed to the new 9000 series where once you see a red light it's pretty much over!!!!
You always mix down to half-inch right?
