WCA #066 with Graham Hick

WCA #066 with Graham Hick – Public Radio, Interviewing Well, Dressing for the Job, and the role of a Master Control Engineer.

Graham Hick has been an audio professional for the past 17 years. He is an amateur musician who holds a BA in music recording from Columbia College. He has written for Tape Op magazine and been a featured speaker and panelist at their professional conferences, taught audio production at Columbia College for five years, worked in jingle studios, voice studios, post-production studios, and public radio. He has also done some live sound and even did a stint in Hollywood where one of the sound editing crews he was on was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 (Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen). Currently working at Minnesota Public Radio as a Master Control Engineer, he is able to use all of the skills and knowledge gained in the field throughout his entire career. Now wearing bifocals and taking care of a 12-year-old cat Graham lives a quiet, happy and modest life in Minneapolis. His very brief IMDB film credits page can be viewed at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3476550/

WCA #065 with Brad Brooks

WCA #065 with Brad Brooks

Brad Brooks is that rare quadruple threat of writer, player, singer, and performer. His songs combine the melodic sensibility of Elvis Costello, the best instincts of Wilco and Brian Wilson, along with the orchestral sophistication of Queen. Brooks is rooted in a kind of Victorian California romanticism; and with the release of his record “Harmony Of Passing Light” Brooks joined his peers with the best work of his career. His gift for melody and his soaring vocals remain the most immediately impressive traits of his music. Brooks’ voice can wail like a blue-eyed soul singer, whisper plaintively, croon with just a touch of twang, or soar through the most demanding melodic acrobatics, and he pulls off all of these different guises on “Harmony” without the record sounding disjointed. Rather, it’s an album with multiple textures that still feels unified. Brooks has found the essence of his own unique voice, and been one of the Bay Area’s best-kept secrets for years. He’s also survived stage 4 throat cancer as of last year, and has been in the studio with his live band recording a new record with Adam Rossi at AR Audio in SF, with songs mixed by Craig Schumacher of Wavelab from Tucson. Brooks has also shared the stage with Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, opened for Grammy-winning band Train, Imagine Dragons, and Linda Perry

For this episode Matt talks with Brad to get a perspective of recording from the other side of the glass. Brad talks about his experiences as an artist when it comes to recording.

Check Brad out at: http://www.bradbrooksmusic.com/

WCA #064 with Johnny Sangster

WCA #064 with Johnny Sangster

Johnny Sangster is known for his production and engineering work with Mudhoney, Posies, The Supersuckers, Smoosh, and The Makers, and also as guitarist for the Tripwires, Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, The Dear John Letters, and Steve Turner’s Bad Ideas. Johnny has also served as bassist for the legendary Roy Loney in the Longshots. Originally from Seattle, Johnny Sangster relocated to Europe in 1984 where he led the Copenhagen-based The Sharing Patrol until ’97. The Sharing Patrol recorded for EMI and toured extensively through Europe, Scandinavia, and the former Soviet Union.

Upon returning to Seattle in ’97, he took up engineering full time at Conrad Uno’s Egg Studio, a place well established by Uno’s work with The Young Fresh Fellows, Gas Huffer, and the Presidents of the United States of America. In the period of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Johnny Sangster worked the Posies, the Murder City Devils, the Supersuckers, Zeke, The Fireballs of Freedom, Dr. Explosion, The Makers, Gerald Collier and many others.

In 2001 Johnny Sangster teamed up with Robb Benson of the Nevada Bachelors (whose debut record Johnny had produced). The project turned into the band The Dear John Letters and proceeded to release three full-length albums to significant local acclaim.

In 2002 he recorded several tracks for Mudhoney’s Since We’ve Become Translucent. This led to producing and performing with Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner on his three solo releases: Searching For Melody, And His Bad Ideas, and New Wave Punk Asshole. Johnny also continued to collaborate with Mudhoney on their 2006 release Under a Billion Sons and 2007’s Live Mud.

The latter half of the 2000s was a very productive period, with many records recorded and released. A full discography is available @ www.sangstermania.com.

In 2007 Johnny founded Crackle & Pop! Studio with partners Andrew Smith and Scott Masoner. The studio is a small and affordable place to track and to mix.

Johnny Sangster is currently playing guitar for Tripwires, a band fronted by John Ramberg (formerly of Model Rockets) and backed by Jim Sangster on bass and Mark Pickerel on drums. Since the releases of their debut “Makes You Look Around” and the follow-up “House to House” the Tripwires have garnered the attention of audiences throughout the Northwest and beyond.

Matt and Johnny discuss parenting, studio overhead, retirement, and Johnny’s studio space Crackle and Pop!

WCA #064 also features part 2 of a series of discussions on acoustics with Realtraps general manager James Lindenschmidt!

Links for part 2.

http://realtraps.com/p_minitrap.htm
http://realtraps.com/install_mt.htm

WCA #063 with Joey Sturgis

Joey Sturgis is an educator, speaker, and fixture in the emergent modern rock music pantheon producing, engineering and mixing bands such as Asking Alexandria, Of Mice & Men, We Came As Romans, Blessthefall, and The Devil Wears Prada. He took his passion for drums and guitars and combined it with his love for understanding how things work and how to do things more efficiently. And he built a career with it. When other bands started hitting him up about how he was recording, he knew he had discovered something special. Joey Sturgis Tones develops, simplifies, and ultimately makes available the tools necessary to execute the creative visions of musicians, producers, and songwriters from any walk of life. Joey is indeed, a new breed of music professional.

Matt and Joey discuss the many aspects of Joey’s music world and his skills as an entrepreneur.

Links for Joey:

WCA #063 also features the first of a series of discussions on acoustics with Realtraps general manager James Lindenschmidt!

Linkes for James and Realtraps.

The filtered pink noise listening test we spoke about is here:
http://realtraps.com/lf-noise.htm

Realtraps room setup strategy is here:
http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

WCA #062 with Maor Appelbaum

Maor Appelbaum is a mastering engineer and musician. After working as staff engineer (mixing, recording and mastering) for famed record producer Sylvia Massy Shivy at Radiostar Studios in Weed, California, Maor moved to Los Angeles where he opened his private mastering suite.

Maor has had the pleasure of mastering recordings for major international acts such as: Faith No More, Yes, Walter Trout, Eric Gales, Starset, Ill Nino, Dokken, Fates Warning, William Shatner, Gus G, Common Kings, Sepultura, Yngwie Malmsteen, Halford, Fight, Armored Saint, Lita ford, Seven The Hardway , Marco Mendoza, Angra, Treponem Pal, Wayne Hussey, Therion, Cynic, Nekromantix, Butcher Babies, Billy Sherwood, The Top Chops and more…

He has mastered the works of well-known music producers such as: Matt Wallace, Mike Clink, Mike Plotnikoff, Bob Horn, Ben Grosse, Bassy bob Brockmann, Toby Wright, Justin Gray, Roy Z, Sylvia Massy, Gilby Clark, Warren Riker, Ryan Greene, Ulrich Wild, Fabrizio Grossi, Logan Mader, Stan Katayama, Ben Schigel, Mark Lewis, Jacob Hansen, Tue Madsen, Eyal Levi, Jason Suecof, Thomas Lang and more… Also, he does mastering for unsigned artists of all genres from all over the world.

Maor has an extensive background with the international music industry – He is well aware of the various music styles and sounds that are developing vastly as the today’s technology develops.

To Maor, being a mastering engineer is the best way possible to combine his love and passion for music, with his various skills- objectivity, subjectivity, and technical & artistic prowess. He finds pleasure in his job, more than anything, thanks to the variety of music and sounds he gets to master from all over the world.
It is a profession he takes pride in, and masters.

Maor speaks with Matt about moving to the the United States from Israel and the challenges he encountered, his economic philosophy and working with clients.

http://www.maorappelbaum.com/

Articles by or about Maor.

WCA #061 with TW Walsh

TW Walsh is a solo artist, musician, songwriter, and mastering engineer. As a mastering engineer, TW Walsh has over 700 projects under his belt, including work for Sufjan Stevens, Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie), The Shins, Cold War Kids, Pedro the Lion, David Bazan, Starflyer 59, Kristin Hersh, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Damien Jurado. As a songwriter and recording artist, TW was a member of Pedro the Lion, Headphones, and The Soft Drugs and has released several solo albums including his most recent “Fruitless Research”.

Our discussion covers family, touring, mastering, as well as building his own control surface! Enjoy.

WCA #060 with Brian McTear

WCA #060 with Brian McTear

Brian McTear is a nationally respected record producer, musician, and the owner of one of Philadelphia’s most revered independent recording studios, Miner Street Recordings in Fishtown. In the 18 years since he moved to the Philadelphia music community, Brian has worked with countless local artists like Dr. Dog, Kurt Vile, and The War on Drugs, as well as national artists like Sharon Van Etten and Joan Osborne, whose grammy nominated album “Bring it on Home” he mixed in 2011.

McTear is also the founder of Weathervane Music , a non profit arts and culture organization whose mission is to advance independent music and the community that surrounds it. In 2010 he created and launched the organization’s flagship series, Shaking Through, a documentary series that takes place in Philadelphia and captures the recording studio performances of 7 – 10 select independent musical groups each year as they each record one song in two days. .

Weathervane’s membership program has allowed thousands of music fans, musicians and home recording enthusiasts, in countries all around the world, the opportunity to download and remix the beautifully captured Shaking Through recordings. More recently, Weathervane has been developing a program to provide teaching materials for college and university recording programs, a project that will change the way future engineers learn to record music.

Brian and Matt chat over Skype about Miner Street and Weathervane music as well as the music business as a whole. Special thanks to WCA listener and Weathervane Music member Bob Bailey for his many messages that finally got Matt off his ass to check into Brian and his amazing ventures!

WCA #059 with Tardon Feathered

WCA #059 with Tardon Feathered

Tardon Feathered runs an audio operation that keeps recordings alive. His Mr. Toads transfer business specializes in bringing back audio off of media made on machines that are no longer made or very few people have. Whether it’s a priceless family 3″ tape recording, that lost bandmaster on the 8 track, a live recording on a videocassette that doesn’t look anything like VHS, or even 78 rpm records, he is equipped to transfer most anything. These days, it’s not too big of a stretch to include digital sources such as floppy discs, Syquest, Jaz, DVD-RAM, and MO drives as near-obsolete formats because of the difficulty in finding any units to play them back on. Tardon is able to handle simple projects like the transfer of priceless 16, 33, 45, and 78 rpm recordings, to complete restorations of tape libraries (including tape baking and splice replacement!) and transfer them to whatever digital format you need via the highest quality signal chain available. It would be near impossible to make a list of the formats he is able to work on, but I think you get the idea. You can hear some of his work on the site Wolfgangs Vault where Tardon helped digitally transfer the entire catalog. Want to hear a Little Feat show from 1975 or a Police show from 1979? That’s all possible due to Tardon’s expertise in outdated formats and how to handle them.

Matt went out to Vallejo, California to talk with Tardon and his trusty dog Verna about his recent move out of San Francisco and the nature of his business.

WCA #058 with Jim Scott

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.

WCA #049 with F. Reid Shippen

WCA #049 with F. Reid Shippen

You gotta love this guy. I asked him for a bio and I got this…..

“I hate bios. Bios suck. For more information about me you can visit my website at http://www.robotlemon.com/“

So in an effort to have a little bit more info here’s this…. F. Reid Shippen is a New Jersey-born, Nashville-based, highly motivated, completely caffeinated multiple Grammy® award-winning producer/engineer/mixer.

Matt and Reid talk family, work/life balance, his power supply to his SSL, interns and much more. Listen in and enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American audience! -Matt

WCA #048 with Bill Simpkins

WCA #048 with Bill Simpkins

Bill Simpkins started in a music career by teaching guitar at the age of 16. In the early 1990s, he started recording his own projects and other bands mostly in the local hardcore punk or straight-edge metal scene with some ADATs and a Mackie mixer. He then worked for several years at Binary Recording Studio with regional bands, eclectic audio projects, orchestras and films.

In 2001, Bill graduated with a degree in Mathematics and became a software engineer but still did audio part-time. In 2011 he created Alpenglow Sound Studios in the downstairs of his house and has been mostly mixing and recording local/remote artists and doing part-time software engineering.

Bill may be best known for his blog titled “aediaries” that aims to present highly-filtered information and useful philosophies for those who don’t want to sift through endless forum posts and opinions.

He enjoys climbing, snowboarding and surfing. He sings and plays guitar in the heavy metal band “Slavemason”.

Some of the artists Bill has worked with are over the years are: AeTopus, Spindle, Jae Apollo, Dig the Particulars, Regan Mckinnon (Little Kingfisher), Amy Hindman, Kastle King, Clambake, Celestrial Navigation, Medici, Skeptoid Podcast, Mcknarley’s Rant, Phil Kelly, Jayhawker, Andy O, Hakon Sveinsson, G8a, Dana Lyons, Big Sur …

Bill and Matt talk about having a day job and still running a recording studio, Martin Birch (Producer Iron Maiden), how engineers can do better by there clients, and the role of quality equipment.

https://www.facebook.com/AEDiaries

http://billsimpkins.com/

http://www.alpenglowsound.com

http://aediaries.com/

WCA #047 with John Vanderslice

WCA #047 with John Vanderslice

John Vanderslice (born in Gainesville, Florida) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and recording engineer.

He is the owner and founder of Tiny Telephone, and Tiny Telephone Oakland, Bay Area analog recording studios.

In 10 full-length albums, and 5 remix records and EPs, Vanderslice’s songwriting is characterized by deeply personal and political lyrics and the use of experimental analog recording techniques. His declared musical influences are diverse, ranging from Neutral Milk Hotel and Radiohead to Public Enemy and Henry Cowell. He has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Mark Kozelek, St. Vincent, and John Darnielle.

He is currently a full-time producer and has worked with The Mountain Goats, Teen Daze, Spoon, Strand Of Oaks and Sophie Hunger.

Matt and John sit down for a chat in Tiny Telephone studio A where they discuss borrowing money, the opening of Tiny Telephone Oakland, smoking pot & climate change. After all that…they go out for amazing Mexican food in the Mission District of San Francisco.