Armored Saint released La Raza, their sixth full-length studio album, in the Spring of 2010. In Spanish "la raza" means "the race." The term has often been used by the Chicano movement as a way to express pride in their Mexican heritage. Joey Vera [Tape Op #62], the band's bassist and producer used it as a working title for a tune that utilized an Afro-Cuban 6/8 feel — a clear sign of the band's wide musical interest and ever-evolving songwriting skills. John Bush, Saint's lead vocalist, stated that although the band has it's roots in the predominantly Latino area of East Los Angeles, not everyone in the band is Latino or of Mexican decent, including Bush, and therefore it might be more fitting to use the term "la raza" to speak about the entire human race.
If the band meant for La Raza to mean an actual race to the finish line it would still make for an appropriate album title because it accurately describes the recording process of the album. Armored Saint was given a tight budget to work with. As a result, 12- and 14-hour days were the standard. The band had 32 days to record and mix, but wanted to figure out a way to get the absolute best possible recording in the best possible studio for the money.
Gonzo Sandoval, Saint's drummer, had reconnected with Bryan Carlstrom — the engineer that worked with his long time studio partner, Dave Jerden, on the band's 1991 release Symbol of Salvation. I asked Carlstrom about how he came to work the band again. "You know that's an interesting question. About two years ago I got back in contact with Gonzo. The studio was at another location at that point. He came over and we hung out. I expressed to him, 'Oh dude, I would love to make another Armored Saint record if that ever happened.' I was even back then trying to think of how could I come up with enough time where I could just ask them, 'Come in and let's just make another record.' Me and Gonzo talked about it. I think Gonzo didn't think that another Armored Saint record would be happening, but me and Gonzo stayed in contact. Apparently at some point Joey and John started writing and Gonzo told me they're going to be doing another record. I didn't know how or where, but I just told Gonzo, 'Listen, I want to make that record. I really want to do it.' And he talked to Joey and Joey called me and said, 'Well do you really want to do it? I don't know if you could [work within the band's budget].' Me and Joey talked it over and decided it could be done and I really wanted to do it. Things worked out."
To give you an idea of how the record was made I did extensive interviews with most of the band members, as well as engineer Bryan Carlstrom and assistant engineer John Nuss. In addition, I was fortunate enough to work as the drum tech as well as record percussion on two songs. After the drum tracks were recorded I stuck around as much as possible throughout the recording and mixing sessions in order to make observations, take notes and ask questions when appropriate. Basically, I tried to be a fly on the wall. When there was a break in the action and I gauged that people were receptive to questions, I opened up a dialogue.
This article is not a plug for the record. Listeners will have to decide for themselves about the music. As the drum tech for these sessions I had the opportunity to gain a great deal of insight into the minds of the musicians and engineers. Throughout every take and after conversation that I heard, I learned something new. It occurred to me early on that sharing the experience would be a worthwhile endeavor. Moreover, publishing this article in Tape Op's online article section affords me the opportunity to offer more information than would otherwise be possible in a print version — extended interviews, numerous photos, and loads of gear information. Our journey begins with the preproduction and goes through the recording and mixing of the album. As you will see, the album was recorded in a very unorthodox way by using the album demo as a foundation for recording rather than recording scratch tracks. Upon completion of the album Joey Vera stated on his website the following:
"For all of you tech nerds out there, a few quick bits on how we made this one: We used nothing but analog gear, most of which was custom built by Rupert Neve for Bryan Carlstrom. We hit every signal (drum mics, guitars, vocals) with custom or vintage analog gear before recording into Pro Tools. We even used rare vintage amps for most of the guitar overdubs. At mix time, we mixed on an SSL 4000E console and went to a 1-inch tape reel (one of only two on the west coast) for our final masters. Uh... you DO know what tape is, don't you? What does this all mean? It means we spit in the ear of the age of the MP3, teenie, tiny ear bud listening culture that has turned its back on what it means to experience music. This record is FAT. We means, Obese! Full on cardiovascular failure stuff! Old School, Baby!"
PREPRODUCTION
Joey Vera — Armored Saint's Bassist / La Raza Producer & Co-Mixer:
Tell me about the pre-production process.
That's probably the odd thing about this is that there really wasn't much of a pre-production because we never rehearsed as a band. Here's pretty much how it went. John and I wrote the music. We made demos over the course of about 13 or 14 months. Then, when it came time to get ready to plan on making this record we had to figure out what the logistics of it was going to be. The person who had, aside from myself, a [big] job was going to be Gonzo [Sandoval — drums] because he was going to have to perform all the songs [in their entirety]. At that point [he] and I were the only ones that technically did any pre-production for this. I gave Jeff [Duncan — guitar] three or four songs to listen to and to learn to play the rhythm guitars for and then the remainder of the songs I was going to play [rhythm guitar]. Then, for guitar solos I gave Phil [Sandoval — guitar] and Jeff pretty much an even split. You know, Phil plays on these five and Jeff plays on these five. So, everyone got versions of the demos. For instance, the two guitar players got versions of the demo that didn't have anything in the guitar section so that they could, at home, work stuff out on their own, and then when we came into [the studio] all they were gonna play was over sections that they had already been practicing at home to. What me and Gonzo did was that I gave him stems of the songs. I took the [demo] sessions and I created a stereo guitar track, a stereo vocal track, a mono bass track and a stereo drum track. Plus, I gave him click tracks, plus the tempos. I also gave him my version of the "road map" which was basically my description to him as to how I perceived the song arrangement[s] and I would break it down by bars — B section 16 bars, chorus eight bars, that kind of a thing. I would make a road map for him based on that arrangement so that when he listened to the song he could read along and figure out what the parts were. Now, when he got it he made his own interpretation of that because he interprets things differently than I do. So, he would break it down to how he hears it.
But without changing the song per say.
Yeah. I would give it to him in a musical term like this is in eight bars and it's in 4/4 and this is the tempo. This happens for eight bars, this happens for 16 bars, this happens for 32 bars, but he would break it down into a much more simplistic, manageable way for him which is fine. And then once he got all the songs in that form he would practice on his own learning the parts. And he would take some things that I had written in the drum program and sometimes he would use them verbatim, but I told him to make them his own with the exception of certain things. If there was a particular groove that I had written with the bass pattern going against the kick drum I asked him to maintain those sorts of things. But for all transitions and anything that was like a place for him to sort of show his own personality I told him to "make it your own." For the most part he did that, but a lot of times he liked the way the drum program went so he basically would emulate what was going on in the drum program. So, it was a combination of all those things how he came up with his parts. Once we got to a place where he was comfortable we rented a room for him. At first I got the program Sonar and I put it in my laptop. I broke out the stems into a mixer and then we mic'd up his drums. My idea to him was that I wanted him to play to the sessions that I had already created for the demos because some things we were going to keep, like the lead vocal tracks and some of the overdubs. In order to do that he had to play to the existing sessions that I had created in Pro Tools. I wanted him to have an environment so that once we came into the actual recording studio that is virtually the same that he was used to hearing — playing the songs with headphones, listening to click, listening to the rough guitar tracks and bass tracks (which were ultimately being replaced but they were basically the same parts). He was also hearing all the overdubs and he was hearing all the vocals. So he was basically playing along to a finished song. I wanted him to have that experience so once he came in [to the recording studio] it wasn't something completely alien. Normally, a band rehearses and everyone plays in the same room and you play the songs live. [Then] you come into the studio and you're basically setting up another rehearsal situation in the studio. Everybody puts on headphones, we stand in the same room and you play the songs live. We've done that every single record. This time was completely different and he was playing with virtual band members. It was very different in that respect. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be completely alien for him once he got [to the recording studio], which is why we did this playing along with the actual sessions and the stems. When we came to do the session at Tranzformer the sessions were exactly the same as he had been using in rehearsal. You know, we had a few issues with getting the headphones right and loud enough for him to play over in the room, but once we sorted that out...
At the recording studio?
You know it's different equipment. We were feeding him stems coming from the Pro Tools rig and we broke it out into the patchbay. Once we got a decent mix in his headphones then it was basically the same. It was no different than him practicing along in the rehearsal room that we had over the last month. That's a long-winded description of what was involved with preproduction!
Gonzo Sandoval — Armored Saint's Drummer:
Tell me about the preproduction process and how that has differed from the way Armored Saint has done preproduction in the past.
Well, we used to rehearse together as a band, write together, figure out parts and work as a band. This record is being done completely different from anything that I'm used to, but I welcome the challenge. The way we're doing it is songs were written by John and Joey, and they demoed the songs with a drum machine. Joey had sent me the stems of the songs, which are the vocals, bass, guitars and drums, and I uploaded them to my Pro Tools digital audio workstation and I have Roland V-Drums [electronic drums] connected to my computer so I'm able to hear the songs and record the practice. That's one method that's different from the way we used to do things. The other thing is that we recorded the click along with all the stems, but what I do is I make a version that only retains the click track, the bass guitar, and vocals. So, it allows me to preview exactly what I'm going to be hearing in the studio. It's good preparation.
Joey is the bass player in the band, so when he's rehearsing with you in this way is he playing bass along with you?
No. Since he wrote the songs on guitar he plays guitar. So, basically I'm familiarizing myself with the songs and him as the writer. [He] is playing along with me so that we can [practice] live.
I notice in your setup in this stage of preproduction, you have your drums mic'ed and you are listening to the tracks through headphones, and the drums are mic'd into your headphones. Is Joey mic'ed up too when he rehearses with you?
Yes. So we feed it into the Mackie board and we take the master out into a headphone amp, and since I'm going to be recording with headphones, that is the way I'm practicing — with headphones. So that I become very familiar with not only the songs, but the up-close feeling of wearing headphones so that nothing is alien and everything is more natural.
Phil Sandoval — Armored Saint's Guitarist:
(Jeff Duncan is Saint's other guitarist)
Preproduction is different this time around. How has that been for you?
We want to come into the studio very well prepared, knowing what to play and knowing the songs. Having the songs demoed completely before coming in helps a lot.
What are some of the important things you may have learned from this recording process as compared to others?
I think the writing of the material should be done way in advance, like it was in this endeavor. Everybody knows their parts. Everybody knows what they need to play and they know what each person is going to do and what their role is. There is definitely a main person, Joey, that's kind of leading the whole thing, and it helps knowing who the leader is in the recording process. It's very helpful actually. I'm actually very excited of the new album. I'm very grateful and thankful that we're doing it and grateful that I'm part of it.
You touched on how working with the demo helped you to prepare for the recording. Can you elaborate a bit more on how the preproduction process went for you?
I actually got a book and I tried to elevate my playing to another level. I actually learned a couple of new things just by research. I wanted to elevate my playing to a different level because I didn't want to rehash any [of the] things that I had been playing before. Being able to come in 75 to 85 percent structured and leaving room for magical moments... which did happen.
RECORDING
In addition to all of the high-end equipment at Tranzformer Studios, Bryan Carlstrom can never be found without his premium quality cigar in hand. Like the smoke and pleasing aroma of Carlstrom's fine cigars wafting through the air, the recording sessions flowed easily from start to finish.
Since Gonzo Sandoval's birthday was during the first week of recording, he asked Carlstrom if it was alright to bring his PA and have a small gathering of friends over to the studio. Carlstrom obliged and also said that he would like to set up the PA in the drum room and have the drums go through the PA at a controlled level during the recording as a way to enhance the drum sound. One speaker sat on each side of the drum kit, which blended nicely into the room mics [PZM condenser floor mics and a Mojave MA-200 as the overhead mic]. During the recording of the drums we had several snare drums to work with, but on one track we were not necessarily finding the particular sound we were looking for. Carlstrom mentioned he might have something that would work and presented us with an Anvil case. Inside was a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum that can be heard on some of the tunes on the Rolling Stones' album Dirty Work. Jerden brought the snare with him to the sessions when he engineered that album. In addition to using the Black Beauty on two songs, Carlstom generously offered up various combinations of amplifiers and guitars to be used as the band wished.
Tuning drums in a studio environment can be tricky. Drum heads are easily affected by the cold climate of a recording studio, and new drum heads often need some time to adjust to the edges of a drum. Furthermore, each drum's sound has an effect on all of the other drums around the kit. Therefore, each drum must be tuned in a way that resonates well with all of the others. Also, Carlstrom noted that it's difficult to record kits with lots of drums because you need more mics which means you tend to have more difficulty with phase and balance issues.
As the producer, Joey Vera was very particular about the snare drum sound. He likes a snare tuned somewhere in the upper midrange, but does not like to hear any high end ring overtones. On the other hand, Carlstrom liked when we tuned a snare a bit lower for one tune. He stated he likes to capture the low end of the sound and then afterward, enhance it by adding a sample with some high end. I learned a great deal from Joey, Gonzo and Bryan about obtaining various snare drum sounds in the studio. The tones of the bass drums were obtained by switching the pedal beaters from the felt side to the plastic side, as well as using Evans EQPad bass drum dampers and MXL A-55 bass drum mics.
Bryan Carlstrom:
Tell me about the pencil on the vocal mic technique.
Well, that's pretty old. That's just something that I picked up years and years ago from other engineers.
Is it common?
Well I don't know if it is today, but it certainly was 20 years ago. That really is just if you're having a popping issue and the pop screen is not taking care of it, you use a pop screen with a pencil in front of the diaphragm, right in the middle. When the "P" hits the pencil, it splits the energy and kind of causes it to go outward and not just hit the diaphragm straight on.
You used the Neumann U67 for the vocal mic.
Right.
You recorded the vocals in the control room and vocalist John Bush was wearing headphones.
The reason for having him in the control room was just for the interaction between him and Joey [Vera]. That's the way they've gotten used to working at Joey's studio when they recorded the demos and it was just more personal for them to work that way.
What mics did you use for the guitar amps?
[Shure SM] 57s.
How was the mic positioned?
Right dead center on the speaker pointing straight ahead.
What kind of mics did you use for the bass?
Well on the [Ampeg] SVT we used an [Electro-Voice] RE20. And then on the other two tracks they were both DIs [direct inputs].
Would you elaborate on how that worked?
Well, the two directs were two different SansAmps. The three tracks were the bass amp itself with the RE20 on it. Track number two was a PSA 1 SansAmp. Track three was an RBI [rack mounted] SansAmp. The bass amp itself is fairly clean. It just sounds like a SVT. The PSA 1 had quite a bit of distortion on it and then the RBI was kind of in between. It was a little bit of distortion and growl. When I mix I can then fit a blend of what works for the song as far as distortion verses being clean. I can also make one section sound more growly and distorted where another section we may make sound like John Paul Jones, you know, really super warm, no growl at all. Like on that song, "La Raza," it's a semi-distorted bass throughout the song, except in the bridge it suddenly switches to a bass sound that sounds more like John Paul Jones on "Ramble On," where it's just bottom end, clean, in that classic very old bass sound.
Phil Sandoval:
So you guys came in really prepared. You did your homework and worked on your own playing but still had room to be spontaneous.
Yeah. You gotta leave room for spontaneity. On one solo I worked on it for a while and then it turned out to be something that didn't fit the song. I just had to play something completely different. It's good to take direction from people, because you might not be an objective observer of your own playing. Somebody might go, "Why don't you try this?" And I'm the kind of person that's [going to] go, "I'm gonna try it." I'm very open. I'm very much a team player in the band. I will continue to be a team player and that's what it's about. It's being a band. Playing together and making the band sound as good as possible.
Did not doing scratch tracks change the way you felt about the whole process?
Sometimes it's good to let somebody else drive because it's just better that way. I mean James Hetfield [Metallica] does all the rhythms to the Metallica records. Kerry King [Slayer] does all of the rhythms. A lot of people don't know that. I've learned to let other people drive. You know? It's much better sometimes because they can drive the car better than I can. Or it's going to go smoother that way. Why is it going to take time for me to learn all these rhythms when somebody already knows them? Actually, coming in and seeing how they're played, I learned a lot of stuff! I would go home and I would practice the songs and go, "Now I know it.!" So that's good and I think I know my position in the band and I'm comfortable with it. I'm very comfortable with it. So it enabled me to concentrate on my part when I came and I think it went pretty well.
How did you record the guitars?
I went through a Marshall [and] a Bogner with a 4 by 12 Celestion speaker cabinet. I used a [MXR] Phase 90 and a wah-wah [pedal] with delay. It was a very simple, straight, very organic sound.
And you went direct also.
No. I didn't go direct. That's usually used for clean guitars.
Joey Vera:
You recorded a complete demo. All of the instruments, programmed the drums, and John Bush is doing the lead vocals, with you on backups. Did you keep anything from the demo on the final tracks?
We kept quite a bit of things. In particular, we kept the lead vocal for three songs. The reason we did that was because they were good performances and although we could have gotten a slightly better audio sound and signal we opted to just keep the original vibe and performance and just make it fit into the rest of the record. Luckily you don't hear that much of a difference, so that was the biggest thing that we kept from the demos. Everything else we kept was all of the background vocal tracks. We didn't re-sing any background vocal tracks.
It's not like it was done on a 4-track. It was done at your studio, The Bridge.
Yeah... to be honest something that needs to be talked about is that when we first started doing this — John and I writing these demos — we had no intention of using any of these tracks on the end result record. I continued to make my demos in a sort of haphazard way. I like to work very fast. I don't spend a lot of time scratching my head and trying to get the best possible sound for this or that. I plug something, I get a level, and if it sounds good then I record it. I did the same thing with John's voice. He would come over, I would set up a mic, we'd run through it twice and then we'd run the song and start recording it. We did the demos at a really low resolution because in my mind I was thinking I was going to save hard drive space by doing the sessions at 16-bit/44.1 kHz and had I'd known that we'd end up using these tracks on the record I would have done it at a much higher sample rate. I have an HD rig. I could have recorded this at 24-bit/96 kHz, but I opted not to because I didn't know that it was going to end up on the record. So that decision didn't come until much later. Pretty much we were practically done writing when I started having conversations with John about [making] this into a record and to go in and recreate this with the band. He didn't really want to redo the entire thing. He wanted to keep some of the performances that he had. It was at that point when I realized, "Oh shit, we'll have to use some vocal tracks that are good takes, good performances and work around that." Once I realized that we were going to do [the recording] at Tranzformer [Studios] and we were a little bit limited on the amount of time we could spend on actually tracking, I had to go back and refer to certain tracks that we were gonna end up using from the demo. It was a little bit like looking at spilled milk and saying, "Oh, how am I gonna make that work?" In the end you just have to, so we did it. We're doing these sessions at 88.2 [kHz]. So we up-sampled everything into new sessions and we just made it work.
What songs did you keep the lead vocals for, or do you want to keep that off the record?
It's not really that much of a secret. We kept the lead vocals for "Chilled," "Black Feet" and for "Head On."
I would have never known.
Like I said, we lucked out on these three songs where it just happened to have such a vibe that I didn't want to try to redo it.
And you're doing some backgrounds.
I did all of them. It was almost out of necessity at that point... mostly because we just got down to the last days of tracking. I could have re-done backgrounds... not because they weren't done well, but we wanted to redo them so that Jeff's voice [Jeff Duncan — guitar] was in there.
Is he singing of some of it at the end?
He isn't singing on it at all [laughs], but my intention was to have him sing in the end because I wanted to have more variety. As it turned out backgrounds were the last thing in the order of things to do. We basically ran out of time. So I decided to keep the backgrounds because they were good enough for the purposes [and] that it didn't really matter that much. We also kept quite a few guitar overdubs that I had played. For instance, the main clean guitar sound in "Chilled" is from the demo and various other overdubs — little spice guitar parts here and there. Again, it was one of those things where they sounded good enough to use and having to spend two hours setting up another sound and trying to recreate it really just wasn't the practical picture so to speak. We didn't have the luxury of spending extra time just to get everything done.
You guys really budgeted your time well. I was very aware of it.
You have to. The other thing that swayed my decision was that Bryan Carlstrom was pleased with a lot of the sounds on the demo. He said to me, "Why are you gonna recreate this? It sounds really cool. We could spend two hours trying to recreate that, but why? It's already there." I was trusting his judgment, too, you know, so his input had an influence on me in keeping certain things.
Tell me about the recording of the bass. You didn't just mic the amp. What did you do and why?
Well we put a mic, an RE20 on the [Ampeg] SVT cabinet. Then we split the signal into two more places and we went with the SansAmp RBI. We also went into a PSA 1, which is mostly made for guitar but has some bass patches on it. That has nastier upper midrange distortion that the RBI doesn't have. So we combined the three of those things.
And you used all three on all of the songs?
Yep. I knew we would use at least one SansAmp, but once we got here Bryan was all for using three. I said, "Let's do it. No problem." And [with] the guitars we did six tracks of guitars.
Okay. Tell me how you did the guitars.
We did two tracks of Jeff's Marshal, two tracks of the Bogner and tracks of the SansAmp PSA1.
And all of that is recording at once?
No. Six performances. We would plug into the Marshall head and then we'd play the song two times. One goes to the left one goes to the right. And then we'd plug in the Bogner — two more times — one side for the right, one side for the left. The PSA 1 — same thing... two times — one for the right and one for the left. In the end you have six performances of guitar.
That must be why mixing is so intense. You've got 18 channels of drums and six performances on the rhythm guitars.
And three tracks of bass. I mean luckily I only had to play the bass once.
I was wondering if you are looking forward to the opportunity to getting in the same room and playing the songs, because you guys haven't done that yet. Is it a different feeling not having played the songs as a complete unit or complete band until after the recording of the album?
Well, it is different.
But it didn't affect the quality of the recording.
The funny thing is that it used to be a concern when we were younger. We made music all in the same room — that's how music was born with us when we were younger. There's a lot of merit to that and there's something about that that is genuine and you can't fuck with that, but the way that this came about was maybe backwards or the opposite. These songs were born mostly out of songwriting, not performance. I never had a concern, or John [Bush] or any of us really, about what this is beyond actually recording this, as a song. It's actually liberating because we don't have to worry about, "How do we play this live?" or, "How do you recreate this with a band?" John and I talked about it, but in the beginning that was the furthest thing from our concern. We don't care about that. We're making this for the record. This is going to have a record production value to it that is not going to keep us from making it great music to listen to — that we want to listen to. Which is a very selfish way of looking at it, but that's just the approach that we took.
I love it!
Like I said to your earlier question, the only time I have to listen [to the songs outside of the studio] is in my car. It's usually on the way here because at the end of the night I don't want to listen to anything else because I've been listening to music for 14 hours. I'd like 15 minutes of silence on my way home. But I listen on the way in. I listen to music for 15 minutes in the morning and I've been catching myself driving fast, so I think that's a good sign!
THE MIX
When I asked Bryan Carlstrom about how he approaches the mixing process and whether or not he had a general system he followed he responded by saying, "The mixing really starts with the recording. When I'm recording a record I'm recording it in a way that I know it'll mix well... what I need guitar-wise, what I need bass-wise, the drum production, any samples that I'm going to be using and the ambiance that I'm recording around the drums. So when I get done with a project the songs are mixable." Carlstrom notes that he always has the mix in his mind consciously or subconsciously as he goes through the recording process so that when he is finally at the mixing stage things fall into place easily. "As I'm recording a project I'm trying to work on the balances and EQs of things along the way, because in the SSL [Solid State Logic 4000 E/G] I can store setups. I'm gradually figuring out the EQs that work across things so that when I do get to the actual mixing of the record each song is already set up [and] across the board things are coming up where they're supposed to be for mixing, as well as the general EQs. There's going to be some tweaking, but most of that is going to be setup and somewhat dialed ahead of time. When I start mixing, it's really going to be just working the overall foundation of the mix — making it solid, balances, and then adding any effects or production that I'm going to be adding in."
I still wanted to know where square one is when Carlstrom begins a mix. In other words, what instrument does he work with first? "The natural way to balance things for me is to some degree balance the drums first, then balance the bass against that and guitars against that." He also mentions that he is continually "working with the EQs" and "bouncing back and forth" between all of the instruments throughout the mix. Like a fine sculptor, Carlstrom is adding a piece here, taking away a piece there, and then continually standing back in order to see how the overall shape is coming together. "I'm kind of bouncing back and forth like, 'Oh, I need to do a little more of this to the bass. I need to go back and readdress the drum balances.'" Carlstrom also points out that the "multiple layers of guitars and how that balance within those layers" is achieved is by revisiting the "the guitar EQs and the balances within the rhythm guitar tracks."
The mixing sessions for La Raza were very organic. Carlstrom and Vera were not only feeling out how to work with each song, but also how they were to work with each other. In describing how Carlstrom collaborates with others on a mix he states, "to some degree it evolves a bit over the first three or four mixes where it's like I'm learning with each song." As they hit their stride at about the fourth or fifth song in the mix, Carlstrom points out he and Vera "ended up coming back and recalling those first four or five songs just to incorporate what I've learned up to that point. At about the fourth or fifth song is where I really got into not just what works sound-wise, but I was also able at that point to focus on actually sitting down and showing Joey how the SSL automation works, and letting him step in and do those moves because it's a lot more creative. Rather than him trying to explain to me what he's hearing [I can] teach him and let him sit down and actually [run the board]. With the artists that can actually function on that level, I like to do that because it ends up making them a better artist and more of chemistry happens. It just makes them more creative and it makes for a much more creative process. I'm absolutely not one of those guys that goes, 'DON'T TOUCH THAT!' I can't even relate to that kind of thinking. I'd rather teach the guy in the band who has the capacity for it, teach him how the SSL works and begin to tag team. Let him sit down and do his moves and let me sit down and go, 'Okay, let's do this and that...' And then listen to his feedback. Chemistry for me makes records better because if it's just left up to me, with no chemistry, I think it [gets] kind of stale and stagnant. It ends up making me a better engineer. It makes the project better. It makes the artists better at what they do and makes us feel [we can] make better records in the future.
