Obviously you're a proponent of tape. But some early White Stripes singles were tracked on an ADAT?
Yeah. The very first Stripes single was on a 1/4-inch, 8- track Otari. The only recorder I had was a 1/4-inch reel-to-reel. It was on the fritz for the next couple of singles, so I had to borrow my friend's 8-track ADAT, which is a horrible format. I took one of those tapes over to Brendan Benson's studio and asked, "Can I just pop this in and listen to it?" And he said, "No, no, no! Don't put it in. You might corrupt my machine!" [laughter] So I thought I'd skip that. In 1999, after we recorded our first album, I got a 1/2-inch Tascam 8-track.
You did your first album on tape with Jim Diamond at Ghetto Recorders [Tape Op #57].
Yeah, unfortunately!
I know you don't want to get into that part [there was a later lawsuit involved], but that first album was on tape.
Yeah. In fact, most of the things I've recorded have been on 8-track, whether it's 1/2-inch, 1-inch or now 2-inch. I like the constriction of 8-track. I like knowing in the back of my head that albums like [The Beatles'] Revolver were recorded on 4-track. If we can't do it on 8-track, twice as many tracks as that, then what are we doing here? I've always been that way when I look at any type of creativity: photography, films, anything like that. Sure, you can spend $200 million dollars on a movie and make it look interesting, but can you do it for $200 bucks? Sure, you can make something look amazing in [Adobe] Photoshop, but can you take that photo for real? That's where I get impressed with other people's work. That's why we work with [filmmaker] Michel Gondry — he makes everything for real. He didn't computerize Legos for us — he made real Legos. That's also where I feel comfortable creating, when there's a limitation and a time constraint, a money constraint or a tool constraint. Anytime I've ever had to mix something in Pro Tools where there's an unlimited opportunity, I just don't like it. It feels really uncomfortable to me. It's just scary. I see other people doing it and I don't like what I see them doing. I don't like the plug-ins instead of real tools. It's so abused. There's one great thing about working on tape and working with the limitations of tape and real, mechanical tools: you don't change things easily. When you're working on tape and recording to reel-to-reel, you don't say, "You missed a beat, but we'll just fix it later." It's even worse in Pro Tools; you'll fix three other things and then there's no soul left in it. I'm not saying it can't be done. I know people who record and don't use plug- ins. They use external, outboard gear and they're conservative with how many tracks they use. But others have 3,000 tracks and an edit a minute.
Obviously one of the things you're thinking is that a classic album didn't need that in the first place.
Yeah, it's tough to have those opinions and stick with it. I'm not dissing how other people work. If it works for you, that's great; but it doesn't work for me. If it did, I would do it because it's definitely easier. I've recorded many albums on 8-track with one engineer. When you go to a bigger studio and record on a 16- or 24-track and you have a lounge, a producer, an engineer, an engineer's assistant and you're editing on Pro Tools, all of a sudden your recording takes twice as long to do because you're sitting around waiting all the time. When I designed my studio I made a rule that no one is allowed to surf the Internet in there. You have to be part of it! There's no walking away; we're all here and we're all working. We're all part of every moment of it.
What about cell phones? I feel clients have become distracted with them while I'm working.
Well, I don't own one so there's your answer! [laughter] You really have to get out of that mindset. There's nothing worse than working in the studio and you come around and everyone is on laptops or cell phones and no one even heard what you recorded. Then you're not working on something together, you're just doing it piece by piece.
I know you did a couple of records in a row with Joe Chiccarelli [Tape Op #14] at Blackbird Studios — a very big infrastructure of a studio. Was the Blackbird experience interesting to you?
Yeah, Blackbird was incredible. The idea was to work in that realm as my struggle. How can I get these tones in that realm with two engineers and two 16-tracks? They have the biggest microphone selection in the world there. We'd out-budgeted every record we'd made in two days! Every album at that point had been $5,000. That was our sixth album we were working on! It was pretty quickly a high-budget thing. I'd never done anything like that and I agreed to try it. I love Blackbird and it felt great, but it's very hard for me to work in that environment. It's very hard for me to create, in the way I create, within that system. It's just not constrictive or centralized enough. I guess I'm in one of those zones where I'm a performer and a producer and I'm looking at things from several different angles. I prefer smaller spaces; for whatever reason it makes me more centered on what's happening. There are not as many distractions.
Blackbird is really something else though.
It's cool. I like the idea of an Abbey Road feeling. I could swim in their microphone collection; it's gorgeous! That's one of the first things Vance [Powell] did after we met [at Blackbird] was show me microphones. Can you imagine having that selection at your fingertips? Having 25 different ribbon mics to choose from, as opposed to having 25 different plug-ins, is so inspiring. I love to figure out what those microphones do and how they're best used. I want to figure out how to place them. [Joe] Chiccarelli and I were making Decca Trees out of ribbon microphones! [laughter]
That's an amazing resource to have.
That's why it's cool to have that studio nearby; I can always rent those mics!
And now you have your own studio space.
Yeah. That was just an empty structure that I could make into whatever I wanted. It was scary at first; the temptation when you're spending money on building a place is that people around you don't want you to take chances. It might not work and you might have to redo it. It might be a big waste of money. But to get character into a room, you have to take chances. Ultimately I said, "Screw it" and I took thousands of chances! "Let's just keep going." It's so easy to make a dead room and add the reverb later. But to really make a room scatter sound in a way that you want, you just mess with the acoustics and see what happens... You can always fix that too! You can add to the construction and figure out what's wrong. But we took so many chances. The first session we had there was with Keith Richards and I just kept my fingers crossed! I had no idea what it was going to sound like with a full band in that room. It could have been horrible. When we first played it back, I was relieved. Jack Lawrence, who plays bass with us on a lot of projects, does a lot of work at other studios too. He told me, "This studio has just spoiled me and I can't listen to music at other studios now. There's something different about this." It was the best compliment and it meant so much coming from him. I thought it felt that good to me, but I thought it was because I was proud of designing it! [laughter]
One thing that hit me, upon first impression, was that it reminded me of Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service ["Sun Studios"] space. It doesn't have that vibe of a controlled studio.
Yeah. I did away with worrying about outside noises. Eliminate that from the construction. If a truck goes by during a take I think it should be there!
Your studio is on the road, but set back.
Yeah, and you can see outside. Not too many studios have that option. I chose to add windows, though they are double- paned. People have noted that it's a comforting thing. There's a lot of trickery that we've added acoustically. There were a lot of details that I'd always thought of, but never seen implemented in studios. I don't want to go into too much detail. I do think there are a lot of unique characteristics in there and we've been lucky to be able to do it.
Vance said you custom built some of the diffuser panels?
Oh, yeah. Everything in that place is custom! I did the upholstery myself with the guy I apprenticed from, Brian Muldoon from Detroit. He came down and we did all the upholstery ourselves. I did all of the cutting, sewing and button making for him and he upholstered. So, that was great. I'd just built my upholstery shop and our first project was the studio. Another great thing, after having been in studios for a decade, was to finally get the equipment that I wanted. The big thing was to have a 2-inch, 8-track; that's what I wanted to get. I was able to talk to [producer] Michael Beinhorn and get one that he'd had made. It just seemed like the perfect thing to do. By the time we recorded on it, I just couldn't believe it. I really don't want to record on any other machine now; it's just so explosively large and huge.
It seems that, along the way, you've really learned about tape speeds, track width and the differences those factors make.
Yeah. Here's the thing with me and someone like [Joe] Chiccarelli — we live in different time zones. The thing I don't think engineers understand about me as a producer is that there are a lot of things I don't want to know anything about. I don't want to get underneath with a flashlight in my mouth and fix a Neve board. Not out of interest — I'm extremely interested in that. But I make sure to keep myself away because if I go down that route you'll never see me again! [laughter] I'll be in my garage fixing amps and I'll get so technical. I have to keep one foot in writing and performing music. I think a lot of times engineers don't understand that with me. They wonder why I'm not touching the faders when we mix. I want them to do it because they know the board so much better than me. I just want to tell them what I want. It's hard to explain that people. I have to watch myself all the time! It's the same reason why I don't collect records. I never have, even though I love making strange one-off versions of what we do. But if I get into collecting records, my songwriting goes by the wayside. It's very dangerous territory. I might start mimicking old, obscure recordings — which I've never done on purpose. It's the same attitude. As part of engineering, you're supposed to know that whole world. I've talked to Jimmy Page about recording and producing; he'll just say, "RCA limiter." He's my kind of producer! We don't talk numbers. It's a Fairchild, not a 670!
People spout out Neve numbers to me and I still don't know what they're saying.
I always say, "What color are the knobs?" [laughter]
Vance mentioned that you monitor really loud. Is that to keep the excitement level up?
Yeah, I've always done that. I've had a lot of engineers leave while I listen — they don't want to stay! I just have to make sure that the tones are there. To listen at half volume is dangerous. Sure, you can get the vocal level in right spot by doing that; and we do that a lot. But to really know what's there... It's like when you plug into a Fender amplifier — you almost have to go too loud to really get that tone. It's easy for me to do that in The White Stripes, but it's harder for me to do it in The Raconteurs or The Dead Weather. I'll push musicians to go louder into that tone too. You can always pull it back or tone it down, but it's impossible if it's not there to begin with.
With something like Wanda Jackson's new record, you've got a lot of players. You must have had a lot of sub-mixing going on. How involved do you get?
For most of that album, the drums are mono. That's a scary decision to make. How much of that kick drum is going to go on that track? It becomes a taste thing. I trust Vance's taste a lot as well, but as a producer your taste is 90 percent of what you're doing. You have to get in there. But the great part is taking that plunge. The drums are going mono; that's how they sound and we can't fix it! There was a video game that wanted the stems from a Raconteurs album. The drums were all mono for the first Raconteurs album and Vance told the guys, "The drums are all on one track. There are no stems for that." They couldn't comprehend that! Nobody does it that way anymore. But now I have less to worry about! If I had 16 drum tracks and it came time to mix down, I'd have five extra days of work just getting the drums right. Once you've made that kind of decision there's nothing to do. It's already on there and you can't take it back. "It's great. Now I don't have to worry about it!"
Have you ever gotten to a point where you're mixing and you've regretted decisions that you've made?
Not too many. It's scary every time and it's just as scary now to take those chances. But I have very few regrets, considering the amount that's out there. The cool thing is that when you go back to the music you love, like going back to old Rolling Stones songs, you can't find a bass drum to save your life! It's there somewhere. When you think of all the songs that you love and you can't even find those certain components — you've always got that to make you feel a lot better about decisions. As long as the vibe makes sense, you've got a lot to play with.
You've taken on producing, but have you thought of working with another producer in the future?
It's got to be the right guy. It's got to be a guy that I'd trust on all those levels, and I can't wait for that to happen. I could see it happening with Nigel Godrich. I've worked with him on some live performances. I like that he likes to record to tape. When I went and listened to playback with him, I really trusted him. I also worked with T Bone Burnett [Tape Op #67] on [the film soundtrack for] Cold Mountain and I really trust him. The only time I've really been produced is with T Bone and with Brian Burton [Danger Mouse] on the new Rome project, so that makes two times I've been produced.
Was working with T Bone a fun experience?
Of course! He's got a great head for real music and it's not a gimmick. He wants something real and he's always searching for it. I love working with him!
You've built your own studio and you have other locations that you work out of, but you've also worked in places that aren't really studios. What do you think of the different benefits, or not benefits, of moving that process around?
A lot of my fans' favorite record, I'm told, is the second White Stripes album De Stijl, which was recorded on 1/2-inch, 8-track in my living room. And I had not one good microphone in my possession! It was all broken 58 Shures. But I did it all myself — I recorded, produced and performed all in that spot. It can be very distracting to do it at home. I do like going to a studio when you've booked two weeks and you have to finish it before that time is over. I've always liked that. When you're at home you can take a month. To me, that's a travesty. I've got to finish it! But one thing that came out of that recording was people really liking that I did it all myself. Maybe more of that can happen, now that I have my own place. Maybe I can get a similar vibe that was on De Stijl, because I don't know what it was that sounded so great! You're always searching for that. I don't know what the tones were on that record that I should try to find again
That's just it; the very mystery of it. The vibe that was in that space at the time and how you felt while you were there is all part of it.
I guess so. I've got to pick it up in this new place. The Dead Weather records sound really vibe-y to me.
I would say! They definitely have a feel. I was surprised, after listening to those records, to come into your space and see how small it was.
It's like with the Wanda record; you can make really large sounds in a small space. There's something about when you get too big in a studio; musicians start to feel like they're in an airplane hangar. The coziness pushes people together, like when you're around a campfire. I've recorded in both, but I've always preferred smaller rooms. We were just talking about that the other day. I did an interview with the BBC about [The White Stripes' fourth album] Elephant. Some of those songs... For example, "Ball and Biscuit" is a huge sounding song. That was recorded in a space even smaller than mine!
At Liam Watson's place? [ToeRag Studios, London]
Yeah. But it just goes to show what can be done with limited space. You can make it sound gigantic and still have that connection with the musicians.
Was working at ToeRag kind of a revelation of sorts for you and Meg? It seems like there was a transition for you to start working with Liam and realize that the process of limitations was cool.
Yeah, it was definitely the studio that everybody from our scene, all the garage rockers, dreamed of recording at. ToeRag was Mecca. You just don't see that kind of recording studio anywhere else. I still haven't seen another one like his. I've seen pictures of old studios that look and feel like that, but not a contemporary one like his. That was just mind-blowing when we were in there. He's a big Abbey Road fan; he has one of the EMI REDD 17 desks. We got done so fast. We recorded the album in 10 or 12 days — we thought, as a nice present to Liam, that we'd go mix the album at Abbey Road because he'd never been there. He was excited but thought he could still mix the album at ToeRag. I agreed. We did the whole album there, plus b-sides. I remember we did 18 songs in one day.
Mixing?
Yeah, that was it. We put it to 1/4-inch and that was it!
You never went to Abbey Road?
No, I've still never been there.
It's an amazing piece of history.
Yeah, I'd love to go. I'd love to build something like that failed reverb system they built.
Oh, the Ambiophonic?
Yeah, I'd love to build something similar. Maybe not in the studio, but in a garage, to construct a reverb chamber in that fashion. If you can get a room without rounded walls, you can do that speaker system idea. I think there's something to that that could be done; maybe it didn't work at Abbey Road but it can work in a different way.
They were trying to pipe sound back in and make it feel even bigger?
They were trying to delay the signal just barely as it went around. I have to go back and read about it. It could have been great.
I noticed you had a speaker and an amp up above the walk-through in your studio.
Yeah, we can re-amp up there — send signals and bounce them around.
Are you thinking of possibly putting a chamber in your property?
Well, I got mad at myself. There was a 200-gallon gas tank on my property, next to the studio, that I got rid of and junked. Then I realized I could have buried it and put a mic and speaker in there, underground. That could've been something interesting. Maybe I'll still go find one and try that.
I interviewed Jack Miller a while back. He worked with Lee Hazlewood on the Duane Eddy records. You know that story about the tank reverb?
No.
They went around looking in yards, banging on metal tanks in Arizona. They found one and put it in back of the studio and put a mic and speaker inside of it.
Oh, wow. That's great!
You should look into it; they have such a distinctive sound.
I want to see the Les Paul reverb chambers at Capitol Records. Those are the ones I really want to check out.
