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Category: WCA Podcast

WCA #058 with Jim Scott

WCA #058_JIM SCOTT_2016-01-25

WCA #058 with Jim Scott

This interview with Jim Scott was recorded live at the Focal booth at NAMM 2016 was fantastic.  Jim is best known for his large body of work as an engineer and his work as a producer with the American rock band Wilco.

Jim has worked as an engineer with a range of other rock music artists, including Dixie Chicks, Tom Petty, Sting, the Rolling Stones, Roger Daltrey, Crowded House, 7 Worlds Collide, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lowen & Navarro, Jack’s Mannequin, Ron Sexsmith and many others. Scott won a Grammy Award for his work as an engineer on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ benchmark album Californication (which he also mixed), as well as for engineering Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, mixing the Foo Fighters’ One By One, doing engineering work on Santana’s Supernatural, and getting three Grammys for his work on the Dixie Chicks’ Taking The Long Way. He also mixed Matchbox Twenty’s “More Than You Think You Are” which reached a no. 6 on the US Billboard 200 and had two Top10 singles on the US Hot100.

In 2013 he participated in the movie Sound City, by Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), along with many others such as Paul McCartney, Butch Vig, Neil Young and Tom Petty. The movie was about the Neve console and its many visitors over the years, through the studio of Sound City, which by the way was where Nirvana’s Nevermind was recorded.

Jim and Matt discuss doing a job well no matter what that job is, including scrubbing toilets. They also discuss shrinking budgets and his Neve console.

Photo by Kerry Rose.

WCA #057 with The Pellicci Brothers

WCA #057 with The Pellicci Brothers

The Pellicci brothers Jay and Ian, spent  13 years as staff engineers at Tiny Telephone  working with bands like Sleater-Kinney, Deerhoof, Birds and Batteries and Rogue Wave. Since then they have expanded their recording universe and have joined Eli Crews and John Finkbeiner  in a  partnership at New Improved Recording. While they still work at many other studios including Tiny, New Improved acts as a sort of home base. Since coming on board at NIR, they have given the studio a complete makeover that included replacing the AMEK Einstein with a lovely highly customized  5316 series Neve and added burlap covered acoustic treatment on the walls. The brothers came to the Bay Area on a family vacation when they were kids. During that vacation their father stumbled upon a job opportunity in Silicon Valley and the family ended up staying and living in Fremont, California.

Matt and the Pellicci brothers discuss the studio makeover, their deep devotion of time and money to the recording world,  and the Neve console that is the centerpiece of New Improved.

WCA #056 with Josh Roberts

WCA #056 with Josh Roberts

I’ve known Josh Roberts for over 20 years now. He’s humble, fun, and one of the best human beings I know. He doesn’t waste time trying to impress people. To highlight that he doesn’t even have a web page, bio, Facebook page etc… He’s passionate about making records and is really good at letting people be themselves. I’ve been in a couple studio situations with him, I’ve toured with him and he was at my wedding. The guy is honestly in many ways from another time period. As a live sound person he has done sound from bands like the Squirrel Nut Zippers to politicians.  As a studio rat he has worked with many including Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto. Santo, his new studio is a true incarnation of what Josh is about.  Josh is a dear friend who I’ve learned a ton from over the years, so it with great pleasure I hand this interview over to the WCA audience to hear. Cheers, Matt

WCA #055 with Ben Bernstein

WCA #055 with Ben Bernstein

Producer/Engineer Ben Bernstein has worked extensively as a music producer and recording engineer. In recent years Ben has been working in game audio as a sound designer & project manager. He has also mixed several documentary films, online ads, and interactive in-app ads. Working with  Disney Mobile, Pyramind Sound, KFOG , Microsoft as well as numerous Bay Area bands, Ben keeps his audio world diversified. Ben is also an incredible in-demand live and session bass player who has taught at the famous Blue Bear School of Music.  Matt joins Ben at his home studio (Petting Zoo) for a chat that took place on New Years eve.

WCA #054 with Sebastien Richard

WCA #054 with Sebastien Richard

After getting his audio education Sebastien Richard  took a position as the head audio engineer at Coast Recorders in San Francisco and quickly became a mainstay in the crowded San Francisco audio world. Sebastien went on to spend a few years in NYC and Prague where he toured and helped produce some of the biggest pop acts in the world. He then returned to San Francisco  to become the lead audio engineer for the legendary Cafe Du Nord and opened up  Mission Recorders, an up and coming recording studio that has the claim to be one of the few in the city with an all original issue Neve console. He also is FOH for various venues including Slims, Great American Music Hall and The Chapel.

Matt and Sebastien discuss running a studio, building your own equipment, touring, corporate audio and the ability to mix for 5000 people after having surgery!

WCA #053 with Darrell Thorp

WCA #053 with Darrell Thorp

Darrell Thorp is a seven time Grammy Award winning (OutKast, Radiohead, Switchfoot, Molotov, Beck) producer, mixer, engineer with over 18 years experience under his belt and many multi platinum records to his discography.  Darrell moved to Los Angles in 1997 after a 4 year service in the U.S. Navy and started interning at smaller studios and eventually worked his way up to an Assistant Engineer at some of L.A.’s prestigious studios such as Track Record, Conway, and finally Ocean Way Recording.  It was at Ocean Way recording that Darrell meet famed Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.  Shortly after meeting Godrich, Darrell became his full time engineer and ended up recording Beck’s “Sea Change”, Radiohead’s “Hail to The Thief”, Paul McCartney’s “Chaos and Creation In The Back Yard” and many others.  Currently Darrell is splitting his time between mixing various records and projects and producing.  Darrell has had the pleasure of being the principle recording engineer on Beck’s “Morning Phase” which granted him 3 additional Grammys for Best Engineered Album, Rock Album of the Year, and Album of the Year.

Matt and Darrell talk about his time in the Navy and its influence on his recording career, the influence of Nigel Godrich, pacing yourself in the studio as well mixing in the box.

WCA #052 with Robert Preston

WCA #052  with Robert Preston

After 10 years working as a sales rep for a pro audio and recording equipment distributer, Robert Preston  made the plunge into recording full-time by opening a recording studio (GetReel) and locating it inside a rehearsal facility (Secret Studios) surrounded by bands! As one would imagine  Robert gets a lot of business directly from the many bands rehearsing in the building, since it’s  easy for them to take their gear down the hall to GetReel. After 10 years in the first incarnation of the studio then 13 years in the “new” studio, Robert continues a steady stream of work.  As Robert says, “I still love working with and recording bands and singer-songwriters and helping them with their projects and visions of their music. I come at the recording process from a player’s perspective. I’ve built the studio with the players in mind, and I think it shows.”

Matt and Robert dissect Robert’s recording situation and talk gear, money, location and the pros and cons of growing.

WCA #051 with Peter Doell

WCA #051 with Peter Doell

Peter Doell is a senior mastering engineer at Universal Mastering.

Growing up in a house filled with music Peter studied the ʻclassicsʼ by day, but escaped to play – way underaged – at night in bars & clubs to gain the requisite “chops” – playing rock, blues, and jazz throughout high school. Although entering college in a pre-med program, he quickly re-found his musical bearings, and graduated with a degree in Electronic Music Composition! Upon completion of his degree, he went on to be a journeyman musician and engineer, and after several years working in recording studios in Boston, relocated to LA in 1980. His entrance into the recording scene there was facilitated by his technical background, and got a staff position at Capitol Studios as a studio tech. But he quickly got “in the trenches” – in sessions there, recording everyone from Prince, Frank Sinatra, David Lee Roth, the Stray Cats and Miles Davis along the way.

The lure of films took him away from Capitol after 15 years, and he took a staff position at Sony Pictures Entertainment doing scoring. While there, his efforts were heard in films like “Black Hawk Down”, “The Patriot” and “Road To Perdition”.

Then he felt a desire to return to sound-only media – and has been a part of Universal Mastering Studios in Hollywood for the last 10 years. While there, Peter has mastered hundreds of projects for the likes of Robin Thicke, Fergie, Steve Lukather, WAR, Marilyn Manson, John Waite and many more. While just a few years ago, much of Peterʼs schedule was filled with mixing the music for Rock Band  and Guitar Hero video games where artists from the Universal roster were being featured. Nowadays, he still mixes a few projects, recently for artists such as Toby Keith, Rachel MacFarlane, Rhiannon and Otmaro Ruiz.

The recording scene nowadays has changed so much in the last decade. Peter has seen many of the old-guard first-call studios – AND engineers – fall by the boards as the new wave of record-making takes hold. But sitting at the “finish-line”, or Mastering, gives him a very valuable insight into what has become paramount in the making of modern recordings. He is here to share some of that with you.

Matt and Pete discuss age, what makes Universal Mastering special, working at facility versus working as a freelancer, low-end management, Pete’s new video series The Star Chamber, and the brilliance of Al Schmitt.

WCA #050 with Larry Crane

WCA #050 with Larry Crane

Larry Crane has been involved in music since the late seventies, when he self-released home recordings of his own music. Since then he’s been a musician, record producer/engineer/mixer, Tape Op Magazine founder and editor, book editor, studio owner, archivist, disc jockey, small label owner and even a record distributor employee.

From 1994 to 1997, Crane ran Laundry Rules Recording, a home studio in his basement in Portland, where he recorded artists that include Versus, Stephen Malkmus and Cat Power. Since 1997, Crane has owned and run Jackpot! Recording Studio, Inc., a busy mid-sized studio in Portland, where he has worked with artists such as Sleater-Kinney, The Joggers, The Decemberists, Jenny Lewis, M. Ward, The Go-Betweens, Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie, The Thermals, Stephen Malkmus, Quasi, The Portland Cello Project, Jason Lytle and Richmond Fontaine.

Crane has spoken on and moderated panels about recording for TapeOpCon, South by Southwest, North by Northwest, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Potluck Audio Conference, Indie Music Forum and College Music Journal. He has worked in the past as a record label owner, radio station music director, disc jockey, record distributor employee, freelance music journalist and band manager. Starting in 1984, he has been a bass player in several bands, including Elephant Factory, Vomit Launch, Sunbirds, Foggy Notion and Flaming Box of Ants.

Larry and Matt talk about almost 20 years of Tape Op Magazine, his experience running Jackpot! Recording, the symbiotic relationship with pro audio manufacturers, working at other studios and a little business advice.