The Creative Music Recording Magazine

Kyle & Jason Lehning

Gary Paczosa

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Three engineer/producers based in Nashville
discuss working w/ Nickel Creek, Alison Krauss,

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Waylon Jennings, Randy Travis, Good Old War,
and Mat Kearney.
Mew
Copenhagen’s Finest il
Kim Rosen
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of Knack Mastering
James Demeter
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in Behind the Gear

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Issue No. 108

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July/Aug 2015
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Hello and
welcome to
Tape Op
#108!
12 Letters
14 Mew
22 Kim Rosen
28 Kyle & Jason Lehning
38 Gary Paczosa
46 James Demeter in Behind the Gear
p a g e

50 Gear Reviews
70 Music Reviews
Gratuitous Bob Dylan photo by Elliott Landy
74 Larry’s End Rant How can we not run a classic photo like this
Bonus Content: when it’s sent to us?
Kim Rosen See Larry’s review of The Basement Tapes on page 70

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Gary Paczosa
Kyle & Jason Lehning

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Mew
Online Only Features
Tom Mark - Working with NRBQ & Carla Bley
As I was putting this issue together I was also moving into a new office. I
feel lucky to finally have enough room to set up a shelf specifically for archive
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materials, such as magazine back issues, records by my old bands, and lots of
hard drives. Yeah, hard drives. Some contain data from old issues of this
magazine and others have backups of my own music, but a majority of these
drives contain Pro Tools sessions from various projects I’ve recorded and produced
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over the last six or seven years. Unlike many recordists, I’ve been recording
digitally for only a little over a decade. When I began using Pro Tools, I assumed
that the artists I worked with understood the importance of backing up their
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data. I would usually keep copies of a session for a year, or until I saw a CD or
LP released. It wasn’t until a client (who had lost all their data a year after a one-
day session) threatened to make me re-record them for free that I began keeping
backups (on RAID or multiple drives) of every one of my sessions. Now I have a
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stack of hard drives in my office. I would have never kept

analog tape copies of all my work back in the day.
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Imagine the expense and the space needed! But now

the questions arise: How long do I need to hang onto this data? What do clients
expect of me? Where do I store all these drives? The digital age has changed our
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workflow, our art, and our expectations. But it also has opened up all sorts of
confusing new problems to solve.
Like Bob Dylan before me, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in Nashville
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over the past few years. I really like the city’s diverse community of musicians,
engineers, producers and studios. And, as this issue is going to press, I’ll be at
the Summer NAMM show in Nashville. Check out the interviews in this issue with
Kyle and Jason Lehning and Gary Paczosa for just two examples of the Nashville
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music community.
Larry Crane, Editor
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 The Creative Music Recording Magazine

Editor
Larry Crane
Publisher &!Graphic Design
John Baccigaluppi
Online Publisher
Dave Middleton
Gear Reviews Editor
Andy “Gear Geek” Hong
Production Manager & Assistant Gear Reviews Editor
Scott McChane
Contributing Writers &!Photographers
Cover art by Kevin Seidel • Seidelworks.com and Reclinertheband.com
Alex Maiolo, Paul Heartfield, Craig Alvin, Miri Stebvika, Eli Crews, Garrett Haines,
Adam Kagan, Tom Fine, Dave Hidek, Geoff Stanfield, Dana Gumbiner,
Joseph Lemmer, Will Severin and Chris Koltay.
www.tapeop.com
Dave Middleton

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Editorial and Office Assistants
Jenna Crane (proofreading), Thomas Danner (transcription),
Lance Jackman (accounting@tapeop.com)

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Tape Op Book distribution
c/o www.halleonard.com
Disclaimer
TAPE OP magazine wants to make clear that the opinions expressed within reviews, letters and

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articles are not necessarily the opinions of the publishers. Tape Op is intended as a forum to
advance the art of recording, and there are many choices made along that path.
Editorial Office
(for submissions, letters, CDs for review. CDs for review are also
reviewed in the Sacramento office, address below)
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P.O. Box 86409, Portland, OR 97286 voicemail 503-208-4033
editor@tapeop.com
All unsolicited submissions and letters sent to us become the property of Tape Op.

Advertising
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Pro Audio, Studios & Record Labels: John Baccigaluppi

(916) 444-5241, (john@tapeop.com)
Pro Audio & Ad Agencies:
Laura Thurmond/Thurmond Media
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512-529-1032, (laura@tapeop.com)
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415-420-7273, (marsha@tapeop.com)
Printing: Matt Saddler
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@ Democrat Printing, Little Rock, AR

Subscriptions are free in the USA:
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Subscribe online at tapeop.com

(Notice: We sometimes rent our subscription list to our advertisers.)
Circulation, Subscription and Address Changes
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will be accepted by email or mail only. Please do not telephone.

We have an online change of address form <tapeop.com> or you can email
<circulation@tapeop.com> or send snail mail to
PO Box 160995. Sacramento, CA 95816
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See tapeop.com for Back Issue ordering info

Postmaster and all general inquiries to:

Tape Op Magazine, PO Box 160995, Sacramento, CA 95816
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(916) 444-5241 | tapeop.com

Tape Op is published by Single Fin, Inc. (publishing services)
and Jackpot! Recording Studio, Inc. (editorial services)
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10/Tape Op#108/Masthead
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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/11


I’m writing to comment on Allen Farmelo’s reply to a
reader’s comment [issue #107] on his “End Rant” about
PONO [#106] and its impact and relevance on music
consumer culture. The reader comments that any
advance in digital audio format and playback devices
only becomes significant if the transducers that a
consumer uses can do justice to those advances.
Farmelo answers with an agreement, and then a little
blurb about “the re-popularization of hi-fi listening
culture,” in which he weaves in a comparison between
Beats by Dre and Starbucks. I have been out on tour for
the last couple of weeks, walking the inevitable green
mile through the blur of hotel lobbies, airport
concourses, and music festival merch promenades,
soaking in the front line of the consumer-culture
battlefield. The whole while, Mr. Farmelo’s statement
I know you get lots of
“thanks” emails all the
time, but I wanted to
extend my own personal
thanks from a current
“non-recordist’s” angle. I
haven’t recorded any
music for about a decade,
since my career in software
development took over, but I
still read Tape Op religiously. Beyond still
loving music and loving reading about the experiences of
my engineering and musician heroes, what brings me
back to Tape Op is how it really is about the creative
process. Whether it’s recording music, taking
photographs, or producing software, the creative process,
the challenges we face, the motivations we have, and the
habits that evolve are much the same. I find that good
music and good software both come from good
collaborations. With music, it’s collaborations between
the artists, recording, and production team. With software
it’s the product team collaborating with stakeholders, user
experience, and development teams. But ultimately you
have to create an environment where people can feel
comfortable doing what each person does best. Reading
After last issue’s letters about analog tape recycling, at
the suggestion of reader Fritz Lang, I dropped a line to
GreenDisk to pick their brains on the subject.
“We have readers curious about recycling used analog
recording tape. Does the tape really get recycled in some
way? What about flanges and hubs? Thanks! –LC”
Unfortunately, video and analog tapes are
complicated items to recycle. There is no universal
recycling method for these types of tapes. Some
recyclers (GreenDisk included) will degauss the tapes by
running them under electromagnets to wipe/erase any
data on them. Most often, after being degaussed, they
are either warehoused or incinerated. Some recyclers
might be willing to take the time to separate the tapes
from plastic hubs and flanges and recycle those parts.
Other recyclers might ask that only the hubs and flanges
be sent, without the tape.
April Jordan <greendisk.com>
Check out GreenDisc’s Technotrash Cans and eMedia
Recycler services. -LC
I just wanted to say thanks for the outstanding
interview with director Denny Tedesco on The Wrecking
Crew film [Tape Op #107]. Early in my career I was
fortunate to work at Wally Heider Recording (Hollywood)

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about Beats and Starbucks has been bouncing around Tape Op at one point made me a better engineer, but now as a tape op behind Bones Howe [#64], and was able to
in my head, and I am just writing to say that it makes me a better product manager; and ultimately watch The Wrecking Crew work many sessions with
I think he has nailed it perfectly! You can (cheesily) a better person. So, thanks! Bones and The 5th Dimension. At the time I was not

pose as a coffee snob, and point to a better cup of
coffee than the airport Starbucks. You can pose as an
audiophile and turn up your nose at the gangs of kids
with little red Beats cables hanging out of their ears,
but either way it does represent the emerging idea that
people really do care about the quality of what they
consume and are willing to shed some cash to prove it!
I am optimistic enough to imagine that the mid-grade
coffee of Starbucks has helped raise coffee quality
awareness, and I extend that optimism to imagine that
the huge amount of care that I put into the audio that
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Sam Bennett <swiftbennett@me.com> truly aware of what I was experiencing, but immediately
recognized the sound I had heard on hundreds of
Thank you! I have an artist friend who always says, “I records in my collection. Their ability to
can’t read your magazine because I have no idea what pretty much “get it” on the first take
the articles are talking about.” I feel the magazine has astounded me. Bones would always do at least
ever really cracked an issue. -LC
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more of a human component, and I always wonder if he’s three or more takes just to get the Crew to “tune in” to
the song, wisely knowing the licks that were not written
on the charts would then come out of the players – like
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Hey Larry... nice article on the Wrecking Crew. Too bad magic they always did! During all those sessions I never
a recording mag can’t mention that its engineer Chuck once saw anyone complain about anything – truly
Britz at Western, with Brian on page 20. Bill Pitman is professional players. Working with Bones was always a
in the back. pleasure. I learned a lot about the music business,
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comes out of my studio is not all going to be dumbed Clarke Rigsby <CRigsby@asu.edu> recording, and editing from him – a true gentleman and
down into 128 kHz MP3s, and absorbed on random,
Oops… Oh, man. Thanks. We were under the wire getting friend. Denny has done an amazing job of presenting his
low-grade earbuds. Thanks, Allen. I smile to
photo captions added and identifying everyone in the photos Dad’s musical legacy, and the history behind all of those
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myself a little every time I walk past a damn Starbucks! incredible hit records.
was not always easy. Chuck was a legend, of course. -LC
Andrew Gilchrest <Goatsound@yahoo.com> John Golden <www.goldenmastering.com>
I enjoy Tape Op’s cover art every time. It’s consistent,
Just had to say I think you’ve done wonders with So nice to see the Allen Sides article [Tape Op #106].
represents the content well, and always looks cool!
the magazine. I only did a half dozen or so projects at Ocean Way in
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Always inviting the audio enthusiast to dig in. Just

Ty Ford <www.tyford.com> the ‘70s and ‘80s, as the darn place was hard to get into
wanted to say great job!
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and always booked! It was a great studio to work in, and

I really enjoyed Tom Fine’s piece about the Church
mic [“The Legend of the Church “CineMike,” Tape Op
#107]. I owned one for a while, but sadly had to sell it.
I had lusted after it ever since I saw one in Jim Webb’s
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Derek L. Rolando <derek.rolando@teleresources.net>
very well run, and Allen was a terrific host even though
I’m a longtime subscriber to Tape Op. I got your card he wasn’t there very much. How he managed that I’ll
never know. He’s also a very direct and honest guy,
at an AES show a couple years ago, and now I’ve decided

which was well rendered in the article. I especially liked

amazing mic collection. (Jim Webb is the pioneering
film soundman that brought 8- and 16-track dialog
recording to film using Stephens recorders – most
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to give you a shout! I want to say thanks to Tape Op for
the part about getting George Massenburg mad, which
turning me on to Audio Power Tools in Brooklyn. I found
was always a fun thing to do…
out about them a few weeks ago, via their open house
Warren Dewey <warren@turn33.com>

notably on Robert Altman’s Nashville.) I like spotting event that was posted by Tape Op on Facebook. I live in
Church mics in films and TV shows. One hangs over Elvis’ Manhattan, but it’s totally worth the trip to deal with
these guys. They stock great gear, they have an amazing Send Letters & Questions
head in Jailhouse Rock and a couple are very prominent
demo room, and they really know their stuff! to: editor@tapeop.com
in Some Came Running starring Frank Sinatra. They can
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often be seen on The Jack Benny Program whenever Tom Burns <www.reallyhorriblemusic.com>
there were musical guests. There are even several Church
mics visible when Lawrence Welk was a guest!
Hey everyone, do check out our active Facebook page
<www.facebook.com/TapeOpMagazine>, as well as all the www.tapeop.com
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Jeff Kreines <kinetta.com> bonus content on the <tapeop.com> site as well! –LC Bonus content online!!!
12/Tape Op#108/Letters/(Fin.)
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 Formed 20 years ago in a suburb of Copenhagen,
Mew was first in a wave of indie bands to come out of
Denmark. While their earliest recordings may hint at
more challenging music to come, nobody could have
anticipated that they would eventually create some of
the most complex pop music ever made. Their songs
effortlessly blend indie pop, prog, electronic, dance,
and orchestral rock. The band wasn’t afraid to play
with time signatures, nor were they restricted by
convention, only to reveal themselves after multiple
listens. Slots supporting R.E.M. and Nine Inch Nails
have elevated their status further. (R.E.M.’s Mike
Mills once told me that “The Zookeeper’s Boy” was
one of his favorite songs of the last ten years.) They
have been extremely active in the recording process,
and have released many video snippets of their
creative methods, going so far as to include a bonus
DVD detailing the making of ...And The Glass Handed
Kites with their concert film, Live In Copenhagen. The
2015 release of the album + – marks the return of
bassist Johan Wohlert, who amicably departed in 2006,
reuniting the unparalleled rhythm section that is him
and drummer Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen, along with
guitarist Bo Madsen. I sat down with singer and multi-
instrumentalist Jonas Bjerre to discuss their history
and surprisingly diverse collaborations, as well as the
new album’s journey from defunct auto garage, to the
basement of a piano shop, to a high-end facility, to
eventually helping to resurrect a legendary
Mew
Copenhagen studio.
Copenhagen’s Finest
by Alex Maiolo
Photo by Paul Heartfield
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14/Tape Op#108/Mew/(continued on page 16)
What was your first experience like in a
proper studio?
There was a guy who came to one of our shows who was
running a studio. He was a cool guy, and he came to
visit us when we were recording the first full album.
He did his recordings on Super VHS, had the whole
studio in his house, and was really into the Amiga
computer. He didn’t believe in PCs or Macs; he wanted
to keep it all on the Amiga. It had these programs
that had four tracks called FastTracker. We’d just take
sounds from different computer games and make it
into music. Some of them are on the A Triumph for
Man re-issue as bonus tracks.
Where did you record A Triumph for Man?
Here in Copenhagen, in a studio called El Sound; like
Electric Sound, but people like to joke and call it “El The whole approach to recording Mew
SOUND,” like it’s Spanish. I’m not sure if it’s there
anymore. It was small, but it sounded great compared
to what we were used to. I think they had a small He was probably most influential on the first record. We
Trident console. Morten Bue was engineering. He was
cool and he helped a lot of bands like us who were
coming out at the same time.
How did you end up getting involved
with Damon Tutunjian [of the
Swirlies] at that time?
We saw the Swirlies at a festival and just loved them. It
was massive and you could hardly hear the vocals,
but they made a huge impression on us. We talked to
[bassist] Andy Bernick afterwards. Later, from reading
magazines, we figured out that Damon was their Where was Frengers recorded?
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engineer and recordist. He wanted to have Rich
Costey come over to do our record with him, but he
couldn’t get him at that point, so Damon came by
himself and did it with us. He’s been involved with
the band ever since, and he’s always done something
on most of the records. He did backing vocals on
“156,” and a guitar part on another song on [our
third album] Frengers. On our second record, he did a
spoken word part, which was cut out on some of the
releases. I think it’s only on the first issue of that
album, because it’s silly. He did a guitar part on [our
fourth album, …And The Glass Handed Kites’]
“Apocalypso”. We feel like if he’s not involved, we’ll
jinx it. We have our own little studio, and he has a
lot of old gear there.
and Swirlies records seems very
different!
had our own idea about what we should be, as a
band. I always did things like singing in one register
and then doubling it with falsetto. We were very
inspired by bands like Swirlies, as well as lots of noise
rock bands like Dinosaur Jr., but I don’t know how
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much of that comes through. I think that Damon
made that record a little more explosive sounding. He
had an influence on the drumming as well, doing
these weird breaks where you’d do a snare march on
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the one, which is also very evident in Swirlies.
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A lot of different places. We wanted to work with Rich
Costey, but the label wanted to make sure that it was
going to sound “right.” First they flew him here to do
one track, which was “Snow Brigade.” We did that at
[Copenhagen’s] Sun Studio, which is where we
worked on the new record, only it’s called STC Studios
now. Doing that track with Rich was a real revelation.
We never knew we could sound so big. It was just
really a massive sound, which fit that song well. They
were very happy with it, so we decided to do three
more tracks. Rich was supposed to fly here, but 9/11
happened and changed a lot of the scheduling. We
ended up flying to L.A. and working in a studio in the
valley, which had a Neve. We did “Am I Wry?”, a new
version of “She Came Home for Christmas,” and a
couple of B-sides. The label was still happy so we
recorded some more over here, while [simultaneously]
mixing it in a place called Ridge Farm in the south of
England, which is closed now. It’s a legendary place.
Queen and Black Sabbath worked there. Rich had also
worked there with Muse. I don’t think you can tell,
but it was a long process to do that record. We were
getting good reviews and were respected, but the first
two records sold very few copies. “Snow Brigade” was
our big break, and the entrance into a totally
studio in Venice Beach to meet with him, and they hit
it off. He was renting an old warehouse, with a huge
open space with a stairway up each side; one leading
to a little lounge area, and the other to the control
room. The big room sounded good for drums. He made
this little tent for me for doing vocals, and I recorded
in there. It had a little bit of damping, but not so much
that it sounded tight.
Is that where the documentary that
comes with the Live in Copenhagen
was shot?
Yes, that’s it. Michael did quite a lot. He even got mixed
up in the arrangements of the songs, like suggesting
we should maybe change a chord for the chorus. He
gave us a little more finesse in places, and he did even
more so on this new record. He’s been following the
writing process from the beginning on + -, so we’ve had
his input the whole way. He’s super honest, and doesn’t
sugarcoat things. I think that’s what we need.
During pre-production on …Kites, how
did you decide to string the songs
together? And how did you ultimately
record it so that it would work? What did you learn from making that
During the mixing of Frengers we were listening to record?
[Genesis’] The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway each If you’re not completely prepared, it always takes a lot
and we spent a couple of days together. He did
vocals on two songs. He also did a guitar solo that
we had to cut out because it was too long for the
song, which was a shame, because he’s a great
soloist. One of the songs he did was, “An Envoy to
the Open Fields,” and I didn’t have any vocal parts
figured out. It’s this really complicated piece of
music with time signatures all over the place, and
I had to come up with the part he was singing
while he was there. That was a bit challenging, but
a lot of fun.
J Mascis and Mew
“They were big fans of mine. I had met them in
Denmark when I was playing over there. It was fun to
record in Venice Beach with Michael Beinhorn, who is
an interesting guy with some cool gear. He had
something like 30 germanium mic pres. Also, he had
this Marshall amp he had rented. When I told him I had
the exact model he seemed surprised. ‘That’s a $10,000
amp!’ Well, it wasn’t a few years before that!” [laughs]
- J Mascis <www.jmascis.com>

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different place for us. It put us on the map. One of night. I think we wanted something more progressive longer than you anticipate. But there was a really
the magical things about working with Rich for the on the next record. We already had done songs that nice, free feeling we got from shaping and figuring
first time was seeing how he’d mic up guitar amps. ended up in a different place from where they started. things out in the studio. That’s why we made our own

He split the signal using a splitter box, and he’d use
four different amps. He ran white noise through
them, and then moved the mics around until there
was no phasing. That really punchy sound comes from
that multi-spectral recording. We’ve been doing that
ever since. A lot of producers do it; but we’d never
heard of it before, and I don’t think that anyone was
Obviously you decided on the running
We knew at least which three or four songs would run You guys are good about actively
doing it here in Denmark.
How did you end up working with
Michael Beinhorn [Tape Op #84] on
…And the Glass Handed Kites?
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Songs like “Am I Wry” splits in the middle, where we studio, eventually. We wanted to use it as a
play the middle section backwards and then go into composing instrument. We decided that songwriting
an outro. It has very little repetition. We really liked is most important. If you have a good song, you can
that and thought we should do that to an extreme, always make it sound the way you want, and you can
order in advance?
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making a whole album where the songs do that.
play around with it. We have a couple on this record
that we shaped by using weird effects, but I think
that just writing a good song is a good starting point.
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together, even though we didn’t have the whole showing your recording process.
picture. We knew some in advance, but figured out What made you decide to do that?
other things along the way. “Why Are You Looking Bo was always filming stuff. We were afraid the
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We’d moved to London. We’d been touring a lot with
Frengers, but wanted to try to write a new album
quickly. Frengers was a mixture of older songs, as well
as some of the first stuff we’d written with new ideas.
Grave?” didn’t have anything connecting it to the
song before it [“Chinaberry Tree”], but I figured out
that there were three notes that the two scales had
in common. Johan and I sang those three notes as a
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documentary might demystify it a little bit, but
eventually we decided that it would be nice for us as
well, like a little diary or memory that we can keep. It
shows that time and situation we were in. There was a

We set up a studio in the kitchen of our house in chord, and that swept over into the beginning of the lot of worrying going on at that point. ...And The Glass
London. As we were writing, we decided we wanted the next song. That was the most makeshift transition Handed Kites was a lot more hard and dark sounding;
record to be one long progression of songs, but we that we had. we had no idea how people would receive it.
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didn’t know who we wanted to produce it. Looking Speaking of “Why Are You Looking They say fortune favors the bold. What
back, I can’t believe anyone ever agreed to work with Grave,” how did J Mascis end up brought you back to Rich Costey for
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us based on our demos, because a lot of them had no singing on it? No More Stories…?
vocals. I just played them out on the piano. We We were obviously big fans of Dinosaur Jr. Bo met him I think we view things as moving in a zigzag pattern. We
approached Rich, but he was a bit hesitant and didn’t when we were still kids. J was walking around the wanted to do something a little softer sounding. We
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think the songs were done. They weren’t. We wrote a
letter to Michael and sent him some songs, but didn’t
hear back from him. We spoke to a few other people,
and had some interview sessions at our house. We had
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center of Copenhagen looking confused. [envisioned] a really tight drum sound having almost
Apparently he had lost his luggage and needed to no room on it. We talked to Rich, and he was really
buy some clothes. Bo lent him some money to buy into that idea. He had just moved back to New York,
some t-shirts, and he invited us to the show. Bo which is a lovely place to work. We started out at

our hopes set on Michael; we wanted it to be a big- gave him a Mew t-shirt and he played the show Andrew Taub’s Brooklyn Recording. It’s a pretty cool
sounding rock album, [and we liked] the guitar sound wearing it, which was a big deal for us. Later we’d studio, with lots of weird old instruments. We did
he got with bands like Korn. Also, he had worked on bump into him playing the same festivals, and he most of the basic tracking there, had a month break,
many different types of music. We were considering just was always really nice. We went to see him in L.A. came back home, and did some recording in our
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producing it ourselves, back in Copenhagen. Then the when he was playing solo and asked him if he’d studio. Rich’s engineer, Charlie [Stavish], came with
night before we had to make the decision, Michael like to come do some background vocals and us, and we recorded a choir and some other
called us and said, “Yeah, I heard the demos. It seems guitars. He said sure, but that he was on tour and instruments. Then we went to Electric Lady for more
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interesting. Let’s talk.” Johan and Bo went to his would have to come back afterwards. He came back recording and mixed it there.
16/Tape Op#108/Mew/(continued on page 18)
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Johan had left by then. Who played bass
on that record?
A few different people. Bastian Juel, who played with us
live for many years after Johan had left, played on a
lot of songs. Damon played on “Introducing Palace
Players.” He does this really complicated thing that
just works. Bo plays some bass on it as well. It was a
very different record to make, because it was the first
one we did without having a bass player during the
writing process. It took us a while to figure it out. I
ended up playing a lot of roots, and essentially
stopped playing guitar. I almost felt like there wasn’t
a need for it, and I’d rather find out root structures
to sing on. I mostly wrote on a Korg synth, which
made it a very different process from what we were
used to. The songs are quite different sounding.
It’s very different from …Kites. You
attribute it to writing as a three-piece?
A lot. We had some really interesting results from having
to work like that, but it was definitely difficult, and
it took longer to write. Even just having someone play
root notes [on bass] as you’re writing is such a helpful
thing, as well as making the groove happen. We had Frank’s a big advocate of 5.1. Did he
this really sloppy feel that we wanted to have on
some of the songs, like a really laid-back backbeat, so Oh, yeah! Did you know he’s mixing all sorts of Broadway
not totally satisfied, so we ended up moving to Studio
A. The difference was pretty stunning. Michael does
this thing where he puts a pair of really big, stadium-
sized, subwoofers in the room and he sends the kick
and snare back through them. We’d never done that
before. We didn’t do it with him in L.A. because we
were having some problems with the studio next door
– complaints about loudness, because we recorded
super loud. I’m glad we could do it this time. It makes
the whole thing sit really powerfully, and the room just
sounds so massive.
Michael Beinhorn and Mew
“I had no prior knowledge of Mew before coming
onboard to produce ...And The Glass Handed Kites,
which is generally how I prefer to work with artists
anyway. Their music struck me as a rare combination of
engaging, confusing, clever, and complicated. I was
captivated and compelled. I saw my role as trying to
adjust the ratios of those ingredients until they felt just
right.” – Michael Beinhorn
<www.michaelbeinhorn.com>
employ any new techniques?
Urei 1176 D compressor. The second mic was an
[Audio-Technica] AT5040, which we sent through a
Rostec [LMA8] preamp. Those are very fast and sound
amazing. I think we also used a dbx compressor on
that one. The third mic was a Wunder CM7, which I
really like, also going through a Rostec, and I think
directly into the DAW. At some point we were trying
to use all three mics at once, but I was moving
around too much, making it virtually impossible to
stay phase-aligned. I predominantly used the 251 on
the leads. I shifted between all three for doubles and
harmonies. Finally, for some really loud, high-pitched,
almost screaming layered vocals, I used a Shure SM7,
which is my favorite mic for that kind of thing. I
think, depending on what sound you’re after, there
are definitely pros and cons to recording vocals in a
dead room like that. On this album it was something
I really wanted to do, because I liked how it sat in
the basic tracking. It seemed to fit the album very
well. I ended up doing my own comping. I sent the
results to Michael, who would write very detailed
notes for me like, “Can you try to hold that note a bit
longer?”. After awhile we had gotten to a place where
I could do most of it by myself. When it came to
harmonies and counter vocals, he was a great help

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it worked really well in those cases. Otherwise, doing musicals? We tried out these new SoundField too, because I tend to try out a lot of different stuff.
any rock songs, you’ve got to have that interaction microphones and got quite experimental. Oftentimes it’s too cluttered if I use all of it. So, as
between the bass player and the drummer. I read that you guys did pre-production usual, he was a good second pair of ears.
What was it like having Johan return for the new record. What did that Do you strive for pristine takes, or can

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for + -? Did you have to start any entail? you accept one that feels good, even
songs over in order for the bed We had spent a month with Michael here in our own if it’s not perfect?
tracks to feel right? studio – an old car repair garage. It was disgusting I try not to be too picky, in terms of pitch, because it
We got Johan on board long before we started laying
down tracks. Silas, Bo, and I had worked on the songs
for a good while. A lot of the songs had started to
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when we took it over, but we washed and painted it.
We started with a Lynx Aurora, but then we got two
[Universal Audio] Apollo Duos, which are great, and
becomes an obsession for me. I also have this idea
that I have to sing really high to convey the melody.
I have a few songs on this one that are a bit lower
came with some plug-ins we were interested in than what I’m used to. I decided not to try
ma
take shape, but we had fallen into the same way of
writing as we’d done on No More Stories... [their fifth experimenting with. overdubbing an octave higher on every song, because
album]. We all like that album very much, but we did Did anything you guys started at the I always feel inclined to do that.
not want to repeat ourselves. I was visiting L.A. and garage practice space make it to the Who is the guest vocalist on “Night
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had dinner with Michael Beinhorn. He had some great record? Believer” and “Water Slides?”
input on the process, as well as creativity in general Well, we did most of the writing there, apart from vocals, It’s Kimbra. Rich Costey was mixing and co-producing
and insights into what’s wrong with music today, which I mostly wrote at home. We also did a bit of her album and asked if I’d sing on her song, “The
which I agree with. It was quickly decided that he writing in a house in Sicily, back when we were trying Magic Hour.” It’s a beautiful track, and I jumped at
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should produce the album with us. He’s changed a to pinpoint what we wanted to do. We had hoped to the chance to do. She is a brilliant force of creativity,
little bit. All he cares about is creativity, and he has get the practice space into shape so we could do most and actually sang some backing vocals on “Interview
a very free way of thinking about it. He’s definitely of the record there, but we were not able to get a the Girls” as well.
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not in the music business for the money. One of his good enough drum sound. And there were too many Any other guest players on the record?
early, and best, suggestions was that we needed a standing waves for bass, even with a lot of wall We actually opened up a bit to co-writing on this album,
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bass player. We’d had some people come in and play coverings and bass traps. Guitar parts were another
bass for us, as we were writing, but nothing had really matter, and Bo ended up recording most of them
panned out. So Michael gave us the last little push there. At one point we were located in different cells:
Bo doing guitars at our space, Silas doing percussion
ny
which is something we’ve never done before. Not on a
grand scale, but Russell Lissack came over to visit us in
Copenhagen for a few days and recorded some guitar
parts “My Complications.” He’s an amazing player, and

we needed to reach out to Johan and see what he

was up to. Within a day or two it was like no time had out in this really cool place near Copenhagen called Bo had wanted to work with him for some time. We first
passed at all since he’d left the band, and everything the Ninth World, – they have a ton of weird met when we did a tour in the United States supporting
was back to the way it was always meant to be. percussion stuff out there - and me doing vocals at his band, Bloc Party. Nick Watts also contributed to this
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With Michael back was Frank Filipetti
involved again too?
Yes, he engineered the drums and bass at STC Studios. Bo
laid down scratch guitars; I did scratch keyboards and
tu
home. We ended building a soundproof booth at my album, both in a recording and co-writing capacity. He’s
apartment, set up a few mics, and did my vocals a very talented man, and he brought a lot to the song
there. It’s very comfortable for me to work at home. “Cross The River On Your Own.”
If I want, I can get up in the middle of the night and Both you and Michael are into modular

vocals where needed so we could get an idea how the record. You don’t really need a studio to do vocals, so synths. The middle transition in
track would work. We were hoping to record in Studio it’s silly to rent an expensive space. The main vocal “Rows” sounds sliced up in an
C, and it did sound pretty sweet there; but it’s a small mic was Michael’s old [Telefunken E LAM] 251, going interesting way, with arpeggiated
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room and it wasn’t quite right. Frank and Michael were through an old Tube Tech MP1A, a dbx EQ, and his parts driving some songs.
18/Tape Op#108/Mew/(continued on page 20)
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 Michael brought his Serge [modular synth] system, which
was used a bunch of places on guitars. Bo was playing
guitar through his long chains, with multiple amps,
and they put the sum through the Serge to create
these bubbling, ethereal soundscapes. We added a bit
of electronic percussion and drums in places too,
some of which went through modulars. It takes forever
to set up patches, so it was a fine balance. The
arpeggiated synth was mostly an Analogue Systems
modular, although we also used soft synths in a few
places. We ran drums through all kinds of equipment
at one point, but eventually it just became too boomy
and chaotic for the tracks.
With such dense music, mixing must
be tough.
Mixing is always frustrating. I always feel like it’s a
compromise, so that’s my least favorite part. Even
though it’s wonderful to hear the song sounding great,
I always feel like, “Oh, but you can’t hear that harmony
anymore.” A lot of what we’ve been doing over the years
has been pretty dense, so I guess it suffers sometimes
when you’re not getting the idea across clearly. It does,
but there are always little things that go missing.
You seemed to have some hold ups with
mixing. Who ended up mixing what

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songs and where?
We brought back Rich Costey. We had fun making the
album, but we did take our sweet time. The deadline was

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pushed back quite a number of times. This obviously
makes it hard to meet with other people’s schedules.
Rich is a sought after and busy mixer, so we had to do
it in a few bulks of time. We didn’t go to L.A., but we

il were able to listen at night. We would communicate

with Rich and his assistants over Skype, with the nine-
hour time difference. It was pretty cool, and he did a
ma
great job, as always. We finished up at Grapehouse
Studio in Copenhagen. Christian Alex Petersen mixed
one for us there, which we kept because it sounded
totally right for the song. He’s a young guy, extremely
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dedicated to his craft and so very talented.

How did you end up at Grapehouse?
We first met with Freddy Albrektsen and Christian at
another studio called ToneArt, where we went to record
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piano parts since it’s located underneath a piano store.

We really clicked with them, and we got Christian to
come and engineer at our own space for the guitars.
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Later on they left ToneArt and bought up this legendary

studio in Vesterbro called Grapehouse. They got it totally
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in shape, with a beautiful sounding board. We ended up

recording a bunch of stuff there too, and Christian did a
great mix. r
ny

Read more from this interview, and more from Michael Beinhorn,
Damon Tutunjian of Swirlies, and Christian Alex Petersen at
<tapeop.com>.
ro

<www.mewsite.com> <alexmaiolo@tapeop.com>
Special thanks to Rob Thomson and Adam Daly.
bonus article:
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http://tapeop.com/interviews/108/mew-bonus/
20/Tape Op#108/Mew/(Fin.)
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 Kim Rosen built up her mastering skills and
reputation at West West Side Music, before
branching off in 2009 to set up her own Knack
Mastering in Ringwood, NJ. Since going out on her
own, she’ s worked with Title Fight, Sarah Jaffe,
Jeff Bridges, Braid, The Barr Brothers, Bettye
LaVette, Basko Believes, a vinyl remaster for
Superdrag’ s Headtrip in Every Key and even a
Johnny Cash remake of “ Bitter Tears” .
What led you to be a mastering
engineer?
I was young. I didn’t have any kind of college going on. What
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I had a lot
of music in my youth – [mainly] musicals and Going in and deciding what I wanted to do. There was an When I’m hiring a mastering engineer
performing and a lot of show tunes.
What kind of instruments did you play?
I didn’t. I sang and I tap danced for twelve years.
There was a lot of music in my family, and I always
loved it. When I got around the age where my
peers were already graduating from college and I
had done essentially nothing, I thought it would
be a good time to figure out a profession. I knew
nothing about audio engineering, but I was
interested in it. I started thinking about going to
Berklee [College of Music].
You’d have to major in an instrument as
well.
KIM ROSEN
KNACK MASTERING
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22/Tape Op#108/Ms. Rosen/(continued on page 24)
I didn’t even get as far as applying. At around the same So when projects came through the door,
time, someone I knew from my hometown, would it be like, “Do you want to work
Northampton, MA, was asking what I was up to. I told with a new person, or work with Alan?”
him I wanted to get into the music industry, and he There was so much volume going through that studio, so
put me in touch with Alan Douches [Tape Op #31]. there was a lot of opportunity. Bands would come in
Alan was looking for an intern and preferred someone with a few songs, and they trusted Alan when he told
who he could train from the ground up. I was excited them I could master. I’d work the day shift doing
for the opportunity and moved to NJ. I went in there production, then Alan would leave and I’d stay all
knowing nothing. Alan wrote down step-by-step night doing masters. At first it wasn’t much, but it
instructions for what to do in Pro Tools, how to got to be a lot and I’d be there until one or two in
sequence and prepare files and everything. I started the morning mastering. That’s what you do. You go
catching on to the production side of things really fast. in on the weekends. That’s the best way to learn, by
were the hardest learning curves working as much as possible. You learn the most
for you? when you’re getting in there and making mistakes.
engineer [Jesse Cannon] there at night doing some I want somebody who’s already made a
tracking and mixing. I didn’t go in knowing I wanted thousand of those mistakes.
to master; I just wanted to be involved in whatever You’re always learning. Every project I work on, even
was happening at the studio. I remember assisting a today, is different. New technology, new ideas.
session with Jesse, and it was this crazy young band. People who don’t have much experience can
I remember thinking, “I can’t deal with this.” I didn’t sometimes approach music in a very abstract way
want to hang with a bunch of guys and babysit or that nobody else ever thought of before. Back then
micromanage them. I spent a lot of time at night all I had were my ears. My goal then was the same as
listening in the mastering room and doing production now: make the recording sound better without
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work, bouncing projects down and finalizing things. I screwing anything up. You’ve just got to use your
loved listening to all different kinds of music. That’s ears. That’s the big hurdle, knowing how to listen.
when I started getting into mastering. Within a year How would you help someone improve
and a half I was taking on my own projects. his or her listening skills?
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photo and interv
iew by
Larry Crane
@h
with Craig Alvin
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It would be to listen to a lot of different kinds of music, It was all of a sudden. In hindsight, it was time to go but I don’t really equate lots of gear with doing
even music that’s not to your taste. I remember the out and do my own thing. But it was scary. There’s better work. It might enable me to work more
first time I recognized reverb or delay on a snare. It a lot financially to invest in your own mastering efficiently. If I want to patch something out, I
had always been there, but I’d never actually room. I figured I’d start out mastering in the box. I currently patch it out behind the desk. I can
recognized it in something I’d heard a thousand got a lot of encouragement from my clients telling bypass the Avalon, but I can’t bypass the Fearn.
times before. I really don’t think I could explain to me that I could do things that way. There are plenty So if I really want it out, which I rarely ever do, I
someone how to listen better. My best advice would of people who can master in the box and are great physically patch it out. But, for me, there’s
be to listen in the same place, in the same with plug-ins, but I wasn’t able to do what I wanted something about everything that goes through my
environment, a lot. Then you’re getting the same at all. I broke out the credit cards, scoured eBay, chain that works for me. I also have a TC
feedback every single time, and you can start to make and built my chain little by little. It doesn’t take PowerCore 6000 [DSP processor]. It’s great, but I
sense and interpret. much. Good converters and the right pieces, put use it very little. It’s nice to have if I need M/S
What kind of advice did Alan give you? together the right way. [Mid/Side processing].
I try to remember what I was taught, but there was no You built a building on your property When my clients are asking me to
real instruction. I just watched and absorbed, and right behind your home? recommend a mastering person, they
then came up with my own way of doing it. In the Well, at first it was in my living room. I’d wake up, and ask who might like their band. I feel
early days I’d have a really hard time. I’d get a less there it was. It went great, and the business was like it doesn’t really matter.
than stellar mix, and I didn’t know how to get it growing, so I figured, “Let’s build a room.” It’s It doesn’t matter, but it does. Even if it’s not something
where I wanted it. I would ask if Alan could master attached to the side of the house. It’s a great room. that you’d listen to on your off time, it needs to be
it and let me watch him. He’d work on it and then I’d It has windows! something that you vibe with or something that you
go back to it at night, do my own thing, and try to Do you have many attended sessions? can find some kind of a connection with. I might not
match what he did. It’s a lot about knowing how far No. But that seems to be the trend these days. People listen to hardcore or punk rock all the time, but I can
you can take something. Much of the time you’re used to love it. It used to be that you had to bring certainly connect with it when I work on it. [I’m
limited by what you’re given. Being able to say, the tapes in. Now there’s no bringing anything. It’s able] to find that energy and rawness of a live
“Okay, this is it. I’m done,” and not spending three instant. It’s always last minute. Mixing or tracking performance. Knowing that I’ve worked on music like
more hours mastering is key. You have to know when “took too long.” The label wants it in a few days, or theirs before might be enough to make them

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it’s really as good as it can get. a few hours. It’s not even scheduled ahead of time. confident that I’ll know what to do.
You’ve got to stop somewhere. It’s all unattended. In my opinion, it’s better for the Craig: Is there a style that you feel like
In those early days, I probably spent longer than I client to listen in their own environment anyway. you’re really well suited for?

needed to; but that’s something you learn with time.
Did Alan QC [Quality Control] your work
initially?
Yep, just about everything I did, in the beginning. I
remember the first time I mastered something on my
own. I think it was a single for a friend of mine who
was an electronic dance music producer. He sent me
this EDM track, just one song. I mastered a couple of
versions of it, and I must have spent three or four
hours on it. I was totally zoned in. I gave it to my What kind of monitors are you using?
friend; he loved it and thought it was awesome. I I have ProAc 140 Mk2s. I love them. I also use the little
There aren’t many people who can go into a
mastering room they’ve never been in, know what
they’re hearing, and be able to make good judgment
calls. Some people can, but for most people it’s not
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what they’re used to. I’d rather have the client listen
on their car stereo, or home stereo; wherever they’re
used to listening to. They’ll make better calls on what
ma
I’m doing, and they’ll be happier with the final
product. That’s the goal.
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I’m well suited for really great mixes! That’s what makes
me happy and gets me going on a session; mixes that
sound like I don’t want to do anything! Even when I
don’t want to do much, those are the moments that
really push me as a mastering engineer; to find a way
to do something while doing nothing. Early in my
career, I’d always thought how easy it must be to
work on a nearly perfect mix. I’ve found it’s just a
different challenge. How do you elevate that sound
without messing up the mix, the imaging, and the
dynamics? There are people on the other side that

remember leaving the project up and open for Alan Pelonis [Sound Model] 42s for referencing. I started send tracks to mastering and want it to sound
to listen to, because he wanted to hear it. I was off with Alon 1s, which are an older speaker. They different. They want to get that feeling like, “Oh, my
nervous about what he might say. I came in the next worked for about a year or so, but I really needed to gosh. They just made it into a completely different
@h

day for work late in the afternoon. He called me into
the control room and handed me a glass of wine. He
said, “Cheers to your first successful mastering
session!” Then he gave me a pair of Sennheiser
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take a step up. I went and listened to the 140s, and record.” I’m not about that, unless I’m specifically
they were it. Just perfect. I listened to the more asked to do it. I assume the mix comes in as it was
expensive ProAcs as well. They sounded good, but I intended to be.
felt some kind of connection with these speakers. When I send something to mastering, I’ve

headphones, which I’ve had ever since. HD 580s. Speakers are a really personal thing. The most got it really close. I just want them to
Good reference. important thing is that you’re intimately familiar with double-check and assemble it.
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That seems like a really valuable way to whatever you use. Sometimes I’ll go to changing the settings on my
start off your career. What are some of the key pieces in converters. There are settings on my Lavry Blues:
Yeah. He’s got a really great, and well-deserved, your rack? analog saturation and digital saturation. You can
ny

reputation. There were a lot of different genres of I have a Fearn VT-7 [compressor], which is the turn that on or off so it clips them more, and then
music going through; but he always had, and still cornerstone. I have an Avalon AD 2055, the non- I can bring in my PL-2 to keep it from clipping.
has, his finger on the pulse of metal. I’ll always be mastering version of their parametric EQ. It’s a Things like that don’t involve adding EQ or
extremely grateful to Alan for giving me the pretty soft EQ, but there’s something about how it compression, but it’s still having an effect and
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opportunity to find, and now actually do, what I love works with the Fearn that’s really nice. I also have doing something good. A lot of times, that’s what
every day. a Pendulum PL-2 [peak limiter], and a pair of Lil I’ll play with on those occasions when I don’t want
How long did you work at West West Side FrEQs from Empirical Labs. Converters make a huge to do much, but I want to do something to elevate
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Music? difference. I have Lavry Blues. Then there’s the it in some way.
Seven years. 2002 through 2009. Metric Halo interface that’s kind of the central What are some of the things that would
What prompted moving and opening nervous system. It handles my routing and be good advice for people building a
your own place? monitor control duties. There’s always a wish list, studio?
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24/Tape Op#108/Ms. Rosen/(continued on page 26)

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 Hire your acoustician early in the process. We didn’t enlist
the help of an acoustician until after we’d planned on
the location of the room and the size. We did a lot of
research... but if you’re building a studio or a room,
and you’re able to connect with somebody to help you
design the inside, do that before you build the room
and put in the studs. Figure out where the doors are,
where the windows are, and what kind of floor you’ll
use. Because it’s [my workspace] attached to the
house, there’s a door that goes into the house, and
there’s also a door that goes from the studio to the
outside. We naturally put them in places that made
sense to us. When we handed it over to Chris Pelonis,
who helped us design it, he asked, “Can you move the
door?” We said, “No, we can’t.” We could have just
moved the door when we were building and put it
farther back in the room. Once we said no, he was like,
“Okay. I’ll just work with what I’ve got.” We’re just
about done with the treatments and putting
everything in. I’m in the room and doing good work.
That’s a testament to really knowing your space. One
thing I get from a lot of clients who do things
themselves is way too much low-end. To me, that’s a
flag that they’re doing things in a space where they’re
just not hearing it. Your biggest budget should be on
your room acoustics.
How do you deal with revisions?
The good thing is how I start a project... I start with one
or two songs. I go through revisions with those initial
tracks, until the client is happy. Sometimes there will
be no revisions on the initial mastering. Sometimes
there will be, and then I have a better idea about how
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they’re expecting the project to sound. If there’s one
round of changes, I do it for free. Anything beyond that
gets billed hourly. I can’t remember any time that it’s
added more than an hour of extra time. I always
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process two pairs of tracks. When I’m recording in, I
process my mastering, and then I process a set of
tracks without any final peak limiting. If they want a
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small EQ change on some track, I’ll bring up the track
that’s not peak limited and make that change in the
box. Then I’m done. If they want a broader change Last year you got to meet Ryan Freeland
across the board, such as having everything a little bit
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louder, then I’ll recall my settings and do it that way.
How do you deal with the business of It happened because of this summit last year. I was on a
running this, plus dealing with the
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clients and the work coming in…
It’s all me! That is what working at the studio really
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prepared me for. I wore so many hats there and was so
busy. I’d be there at 9 or 10 in the morning doing
production work, office work, billing, scheduling…
everything. Now I’m turning a corner where I really need
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help. Answering emails the right way can take a big
chunk out of your day! I don’t tend to have problems
with billing. The way I have it set up for the majority of
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clients is, “Here’s your invoice; when you pay me, I’ll Read more from Kim’s interview at <tapeop.com>.
give you your full sequence for review.” But that’s also a <www.knackmastering.com>
hard thing to wrap my head around. Like most mastering
engineers, I’m kind of a control freak. I’d rather know
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that I’m the one doing it, and that it won’t have to get
redone because something got screwed up.
Craig: What do you think about
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mastering shootouts?
26/Tape Op#108/Ms. Rosen/(Fin.)
I love them! All I can do is what I do. If you send me a
track, and say that you’re sending it to other mastering
engineers, I’m going to master it the same way as if
you hadn’t told me that.
Craig: Do you charge?
No. I’ll do a free test master for new clients. There are
plenty of people that don’t like that; but if you’ve never
worked with me, that’s the best way for me to show
you what I can do. Yes, it’s better to do the whole
album. I get it. But I can master one track for you,
sure! I’ve gone up against engineers at some well-
known mastering facilities and gotten the gig.
That’s a good sign
Sometimes you don’t get the gig. Sometimes you’re not
the right fit. I want the client to be happy with the
master. There are plenty of great engineers out there.
Do you give them the full track?
Yeah. I’ve thought about doing just the first 45 seconds,
but it’s almost more work. I don’t care. If you’re going
to try to pull one over on me and send each track to a
different engineer to get your album mastered, more
power to you. Karma will suck for you, and that’s okay.
Are you in touch with any other mastering
engineers you talk shop with?
Yeah, JJ Golden [at Golden Mastering] who does
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mastering and cutting, is such a nice guy. Jeff
Lipton [Tape Op #34] at Peerless is a friend, along
with Maria Rice who works there. She’s awesome.
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Cameron Henry here at Welcome to 1979 has been a
huge help for me as I refine the way I master for
vinyl. So much knowledge about the vinyl format
has been lost over the years, so with the recent
resurgence you really need to know how to do it
right. Cameron knows what he’s doing, and what it
takes to make sure something sounds fantastic on
vinyl. I know a few engineers, but really nobody that
I talk with on a regular basis. We’re kind of in our
caves and we do our work. That’s why coming out
here [to Welcome to 1979’s Recording Summit] is
really nice. You get to see other engineers – not just
mastering engineers – and make connections.
here [Tape Op #101]. Is that what led to
working with him?
panel, and Ryan was the engineer you were going to
interview. He was checking out the summit website
ahead of time, checked out my stuff, and emailed me.
He said that he’d be interested to hear some of my
mastering on his mixes and sent me a test master. He
was like, “All right, your mastering is better than mine.
I’d love to send you some projects.” That was it! The
bread and butter of what I do, and the most enjoyable
part of my work, are the relationships with the
engineers that I work with on a repeat basis. r
bonus article:
http://tapeop.com/interviews/108/kim-rosen-bonus/
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 Kyle Lehning’s recording and production career is one You’re mixing down live to 2-track? What instrument were you playing?
to be reckoned with, featuring artists like Waylon KL: Well, I had two Tandbergs. One of them was a three- KL: I was playing guitar and keyboards at the time.
Jennings, Randy Travis, England Dan & John Ford Coley, head machine, but the other one was a two-head When we finished the tapes I talked to my dad, who
Kenny Rogers, and George Jones, plus a stint running machine so I could overdub on it. What I would do is was incredibly supportive of this crazy idea of trying
Asylum Records in Nashville. His son, Jason Lehning, record on the three-head machine, mix those two to be in the music business. He said, “You remember
caught the bug early on and has worked steadily as an tracks down to one track and record it on the other Ray Butts? He’s down in Nashville. Why don’t you call
engineer, producer, musician, and songwriter. I caught machine, overdub on that track, and then bounce him?” The night that we finished mixing the tapes,
up with the two of them at Kyle’s studio, The Compound, back. I kept going back and forth. It got a little hissy, my buddy, Don Dickerson, and I drove from Paducah
located behind his home in Nashville. You couldn’t ask but it was cool. I figured it out. to Nashville, about a two and half hour drive at the
to hang out with nicer folks, and the amount of It’s a great way to learn. What was the time. Ray got us two appointments with record
experience they bring to the table is staggering. jump that led you working at Tompall company people. This was ‘67. The first guy we saw
Glaser’s place? was Billy Sherrill. He was running Epic Records at the
Kyle, what was it that originally got you KL: I grew up in Cairo, Illinois, a little southern Illinois time, producing all those great records. He listened to
into studios as an engineer? town at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi all three songs on our tape, from beginning to end.
KL: I was interested in recording since I was a kid. I’m rivers. It was a great place to grow up. There was a He said it sounded cool, but didn’t hear anything
not unique in this. I started out with a Wollensak guy who lived in Cairo named Ray Butts. He invented right for them. So Ray set up another meeting for us,
[tape deck] and then had a couple of Tandberg this guitar amp called the EchoSonic. In the ‘50s, he and that meeting was with Felton Jarvis, who was
[decks], as well as a couple of mixers. I think I still built a guitar amplifier that essentially had an Elvis’s [Presley] producer at RCA. If I had really known
have one of my mixers upstairs, a modified Bogen PA Echoplex built into the amplifier. Scotty Moore found who these guys were, and what was going on, I
mixer that got shifted into an actual small recording it and started playing it live on the road. Then Chet probably wouldn’t have been able to play the tape or
console. It was a six-input mixer with a mono output. Atkins saw it and asked about it. Chet drove to Cairo anything. But I was young, naïve, and didn’t really
Claude Hill, who was working at Glaser Brothers to meet Ray and convinced him to move to Nashville know. Felton was really sweet. He said it was cool
studio [Glaser Sound] where I ended up working in and work at RCA Studios. That was around ‘62. By ‘67, what we were doing, and in a kind way he was saying
Nashville, modified them. I had two of them. He put I had been playing in a rock ’n’ roll band for some we didn’t have a great singer. He said, “You know, you

in Jensen mic pres. It sounded great. Whenever I was
going to do stereo, one output went into the left side
of the Tandberg, and the other six went into the right
side. I multed channels together. I had two six-
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time. I went into a little studio in Paducah, Kentucky, might want to find a female singer.” Jefferson
with my buddy, Don Dickerson, and the rest of our Airplane had just come out, so he suggested we do
band. The studio was really good, in retrospect. They that. We went on the hunt for a female singer in
had Ampex mixers and tape machines, Neumann Nashville, and that’s where I met Jason’s mom, Vicki.

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channel Bogens so I could do stereo. It was fun. It mics, and Altec monitors. I fell in love with it, right She ended up singing with the band.
sounded really good. then and there. What was the band called at that point?

Kyle & Jason Lehning

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All in the Family

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interview and photos by Larry Crane

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28/Tape Op#108/Mr. & Mr. Lehning/(continued on page 30)

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KL: It was probably The Glass Threads by then. We had
been The Roadrunners, and then The Mods, and then
The Glass Threads. It got more psychedelic. By ‘67, we
had to come up with something. There was a band we
loved called The Blues Magoos. Geoff Daking [Tape Op
#35] was the drummer. We kind of stole some of their
style. Vicki and I got married in 1970, and Jason was
born later in April of ‘72. The reason I tell you all that
is because Vicki lived next door to Tompall Glaser in
Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Tompall understood that
Vicki was a good singer and had encouraged her to do
that. She ended up working at the Glaser Brothers’
studio as a receptionist. I’d come down and hang out
all the time, even before we got married. I was hanging Was there other work coming in, besides
around the studio trying to pick up what I could.
Eventually, through a long, somewhat convoluted KL: Not a lot. It was really self-contained. There was
thing, I graduated from college in ‘71. Vicki and I got
married in ‘70. I moved straight to Nashville. Eventually
I got a job at Glaser Sound as an engineer.
How did you gain experience before
walking into the Glaser studio?
Kyle and Tompall Glaser @
Glaser Studio’s
Flickinger Console, 1973
What sessions were you doing in the
KL: It was an incredibly eclectic collection. This was the
KL: I hung around there a lot before they offered me a job.
Claude Hill really ended up taking me under his wing.
Claude ended up working with Dave Harrison at Studio
Supply Company, who made the Harrison consoles. I’d
hang around the Supply Company and pick their brains.
Dave recorded James Brown and Wayne Cochran & the
C.C. Riders. I got to the point where I could mess
around in the studio a little bit, but I still couldn’t get
a job. A guy named Leland Russell came to Nashville
from Jackson, Mississippi to buy a 16-track multitrack
in ‘72. He was looking for a young engineer who might
want to come work in his studio in Jackson. Leland was
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a young guy, managing a band there. Dave and Claude
introduced me to him. We met and liked each other.
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Jason was six months old at the time, and we moved to
Jackson, Mississippi. I started working at this studio
called Alpha Sound. Leland had a live sound company,
also called Alpha Sound. He was managing a band
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called Zuider Zee that was ultimately signed to
Columbia. They were a Beatles-esque rock/pop group
with a guy named Richard Orange who lives in Memphis
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now; he’s a great singer-songwriter. I started recording
in Jackson. The studio, oddly enough, had been owned
by B.J. Thomas at one time. It was one of the early Tom
Hidley studios, so there was an API console and these
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massive JBL monitors that were hung by chains from Who was producing those records?
the wall. There were Scully tape machines. We had a 4- KL: The first record was produced by Willie Nelson, and
track and some Fairchild spring [reverb] units. We were
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off and running, trying to make Sgt. Pepper’s… with
30/Tape Op#108/Mr. & Mr. Lehning/(continued on page 32)
Zuider Zee. There also was a songwriter named Parker
McGee, who lived in a school bus behind the studio. He
and his wife Allison lived there. Allison was seven
months pregnant, baking granola in a gas oven on the
school bus. They literally had an extension cord that ran You’re the person who started that!
from the school bus through the back door of the KL: I said, “Hey, try this.” He liked it and started playing
studio; that’s how they got their electricity, so the back that. I played [a Hammond] B3 on “This Time.” There’s
door to the studio was never closed. Parker was a James
Taylor kind of singer-songwriter. I started working
heavily with him on his songs and demos. I stayed in
Jackson for about four or five months, and then it felt
like they really weren’t going to be able to get the
money together to get a multitrack machine.
those two projects?
another studio called Malaco in Jackson that was run
by Wolf Stephenson, Tommy Couch, and James
Stroud. That studio was pretty darn successful and
they cut a bunch of hits. I met those guys briefly.
Paul Davis, a singer-songwriter, was working on a
record there, and I met him in the summer of ‘72 in
Jackson. Paul and James have remained good friends
ever since. Then an opening came up at the Glaser
studio in Nashville. I had that connection, and they
figured that since I’d been working four or five
months in a studio I knew a bit more than I did
before. So we moved back up to Nashville and I
started working in Tompall’s studio.
studio?
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winter of ‘72. The Glaser Brothers were a country act,
and they were fabulous singers. They had a
publishing company, because they published “Gentle
On My Mind” by John Hartford, which is a huge, huge
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copyright. They were “publishing wealthy,” and they
were taking chances on lots of different things. I
don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Kinky Friedman &
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the Texas Jewboys, but that was one of the acts that
were there. I got to spend time on that. There was a
wonderful recording engineer named Lee Hazen who Yeah, he was intensely creative. There
had worked at Woodland Recording Studio. He had
@h
gone independent; he would come use the Glaser
studio and I would assist him. I learned a ton from KL: In 1974, when I spent that week with him, he had
backing him up. There were some gospel records that
a producer named Bob MacKenzie made that were
pretty big sounding records. Lee also recorded and
mixed Jimmy Buffet’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink
Crustacean. I was the assistant on that. Then Parker
McGee moved to Nashville, and he and I continued to
do demos together. I also engineered three Waylon
Jennings albums and ended up playing piano with
him on the road for about six months. I had originally
gone out to work with his wife, Jessi Colter. She was
playing piano and I was playing a Rhodes and an ARP
String Ensemble; it was a really grim-sounding thing.
It was weird. I went out with them, and Waylon asked
me to stay on stage and play with them.
it was actually the first number one record Waylon
had. It was a song called “This Time.” When Waylon
started working, I – being young and arrogant –
would start making suggestions. They bit on some of
them, so before I knew it, Waylon’s playing my Fender
electric 12-string through a Maestro phase shifter.
a song called “Louisiana Ladies” that I played Wurlitzer
on. Waylon was great. I was a trumpet major in college,
but a horrible trumpet player. There was one tune on
the album called “Heaven or Hell.” I said to Willie, “I
hear this sort of Clyde McCoy Harmon mute trumpet.” I
took my trumpet out, and damned if that’s not on the
record. I did a lot of work with Shel Silverstein. He’d
come in and do lots of demos. I had run into a situation
in the studio working with Shel in ‘74. I had a technical
problem I couldn’t figure out how to deal with. He
asked me who’d know how to fix it. I was dealing with
sibilance into an EMT plate, and it was splashing the
plate. It sounded rough. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t
figure out a way to fix it. Roy Halee had been making
monstrous-sounding recordings. They were impossible
sounding recordings. He had done “Summer in the City”
by The Lovin’ Spoonful, and also the Blood, Sweat &
Tears records. But “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” and all
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the Simon & Garfunkel production, was amazing
sounding. Five minutes after I said, “Roy Halee would
know how to do this,” I was on the phone with Roy. I
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held him in such high esteem. The sweetest thing he
said to me when I explained the problem was, “Yeah,
that is a problem. I’m not sure, but here are a couple of
things you can try.” Both of which worked. [His
solution] was to set up a send that was EQ’d differently
than the vocal and roll the top-end of the send off to
the plate. That was a great idea. He was talking about
maybe de-essing the send. We had some Allison
[Research] de-essers at that time. Not long after I
talked to him on the phone, Shel and Tompall sent me
to California to spend a week in the studio watching
him work. It changed everything. I was 24 when I got
to do that. It opened up everything.
didn’t seem to be any boundaries
with him.
two Ampex 1200 16-track decks locked together. It
was like a SMPTE [timecode] system, but it was before
that existed. I remember him sitting there saying that
he had it so nailed [sync-wise] that he could put the
left side of the drums on one side of the machine and
the right side on the other that there would be no
phase cancellation. He was running 30 tracks in 1974
with no automation! Watching him mix was like
watching some wild man behind the console. He was
flying from one end to the other, grabbing this,
swinging that, starting and stopping the machine.
That’s where I learned that you don’t have to mix from
beginning to end. You can cut it together. He’d
literally work on the intro for two or three hours until
he got that and then move on to the next piece. The
thing was is, up until that point, I thought. “Well, he’s
a genius. That’s why his records sound great. He’s a
genius, and I’m not.” When I got there, I walked into
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 the hallway of the studio, and there was this explosive sound coming out of the
control room. I saw a guy there who I’d known in Nashville that was now working in
San Francisco with Roy. I said, “What’s going on?” He said, “You hear that sound
coming out of the control room?” I said, “Yeah, what is that?” He said, “It’s not what
it is. It’s that it’s day five, and that’s all I’ve heard come out of the control room.”
Right then and there I thought, “He may be a genius, but he’s got the time and the
money to make the vision a reality.” I didn’t have those kinds of resources. It takes
some courage in order to pull all that off. It was a phenomenal experience.
There are a lot of people who get complacent in the recording
process because you can throw up some mics and get a half-
decent sound, but there’s always further to go.
KL: I think today it’s even easier to be complacent, because the sounds that he was
generating were impossible. Now there’s a plug-in for everything. To push those
boundaries further is a really interesting challenge. Then, from there, Parker McGee
kept writing songs. Eventually he wrote a song called “I’d Really Love to See You
Tonight.” I cut the demo on the song, and through a long, convoluted story, I ended
up producing that song for a group called England Dan & John Ford Coley. It was the
first record I got to produce myself, and it sold a million copies.
Someone liked the sound of your demo more than a new
version that had been cut?
KL: Right. You know how it is. Somehow they felt that the guy who had cut the demo
made something more special than the record they’d recorded. Susan Joseph was
managing the band, and she’d gotten a singles deal with Doug Morris at Big Tree
Records at the time. She convinced Doug that this unknown kid in Hendersonville,
Tennessee could make a hit record with these guys. Doug let her do it. The record

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that he heard was the record that had convinced him to sign. She let me have a shot
at it. It was very, very lucky. It was number two on the pop charts for seven weeks,
because Elton John and Kiki Dee had “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” going. It
wouldn’t get out of the way. We stayed at number two for seven or eight weeks. It

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was crazy.
That’s a good calling card. Did your career blossom after that?
KL: It did, for a while. Things went up and down. I ended up working at Atlantic for

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Doug Morris. He went to Atlantic Records, and I was an in-house producer for a
couple of years. I didn’t really have any big hits, and after a couple of years we
parted company. I went back into independent producing. You can’t always cut hits
when you’re producing, but I was a pretty decent and reliable recording engineer. I
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mixed and cut tracks as much as I could until I got another opportunity to produce
something. I did that and am still doing that!
A big part of your career has been based around songs.
How does that play into your role as a producer as your
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career has grown?

KL: Well, songs are the ammo. Without a great one, you’re really shooting blanks. It
doesn’t matter how good it sounds if there’s not something meaningful in there.
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Nashville’s a phenomenal songwriting community. Back in those days, there were lots
of independent publishers and songwriters around. It was not easy to find a hit, but
there sure was a lot to pick from. You had a lot of great songwriters. There were
publishing companies that made things available.
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Were people seeking you out and pitching songs?

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KL: Oh yeah, sure. When you have some hits going, to be visible and have success will
draw people to you. There were songs coming, by a lot. I’d also make trips to
different publishers and sit down for an hour to listen to as many songs as possible.
Publishers are great because their egos aren’t involved with it. I can listen to a verse,
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a chorus, and then skip on to the next song. You can get through a lot of material
that way.
It’s harder when the songwriter is sitting there facing you.
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KL: I’m trying to think if I’ve ever been in a pitch meeting with a songwriter. I don’t
think so. It can be really brutal. I’m notorious for not remembering who wrote what,
because it doesn’t really matter to me! The only thing that ever mattered to me was
whether the song seemed like it would be right for what I was working for.
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Definitely. When did you start working with Randy Travis?

KL: Around ‘84 I was producing a record for Keith Stegall who was an artist at Epic at the
time. He was a great songwriter and had written some pop hits already. He was taking
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a shot at being a country artist. Keith went on to produce Alan Jackson; he also signed

32/Tape Op#108/Mr. & Mr. Lehning/

 and produced Zac Brown. Keith’s a phenomenally talented record producer and we’re still
good friends. But back then, Keith was an artist and I was producing him. He walked in one
day with a cassette tape and said, “Hey, I’ve been helping this guy make a live recording.
What do you think?” I put the tape on and listened to 20 seconds of it, turned it off, and
immediately asked him, “Who is this guy?” He said, “It’s this catfish cook out at the
Nashville Palace.” Randy was a traditional stone cold country singer. In ‘84, if you can
remember those times, country music was the “Looking for Love” thing. Mickey Gilley was
huge, and Kenny Rogers was having big crossover hits. If you didn’t cross over into some
other genre, like adult contemporary, you really didn’t sell many records just in country
music. Nobody was singing traditional country music at that point. If you sold 200,000
albums, you were doing really, really well. Nobody was looking for what Randy was offering,
but I thought his voice was undeniably great. I loved that he was so clear about what he
wanted to do, which was to sing country music. I went out to see him perform at the
Nashville Palace. I’d heard that Martha Sharp at Warner Brothers Records was interested in
him. I called Martha, who I didn’t know very well, and she ended up taking a chance and
signed Randy to a singles deal in 1985. Keith and I actually went and co-produced the first
four sides that were recorded on Randy. After they released a single from those four sides
and it didn’t do great, Keith really wanted to concentrate on the artist side of things. He
bailed and I didn’t really have an option, so I stuck with producing Randy. The next time
we went in the studio, we cut a record that was a top-10 record with a song called “1982.”
Then they decided to re-release the first song we’d put out, which was “On The Other Hand.”
The second time they put it out, it went to number one and became a huge hit.
Funny how it works sometimes.
KL: Those were the good old days of the record business. You could get away with that sort
of thing. He ended up selling almost five million copies of that first album. People went,

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“Oh, maybe traditional country has a purpose!”
It takes someone to point it out every once in a while. People
wanted something like that.

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KL: But, you know, it wasn’t like I got up in the morning knowing, “Oh, I know what
everybody needs!” The reason it happened was that Keith played me a cassette and I
was captivated by the integrity of the voice and what was going on. I figured it was
worth my time.
Jason, while all this was going on, you were growing up. My dad
didn’t engineer and produce, so I always wondered what it’d
be like to grow up with that around.
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JL: It was great. There was always a cast of characters coming and going from the house.
There was always a studio to go hang out in. Before he had his own place, Lee Hazen
had a place in his basement in Hendersonville, and I would go there after school and
hang out. It was really fun.
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You’ve got three other brothers, right?

Yeah.
Did any of them gravitate towards the studio as much as you did?
JL: I’m the oldest. My youngest brother Jordan got into it as well. But by the time he was
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doing it, home recording had taken off, so even then he wasn’t as into the recording
studio as I was. He’s also more of a musician than an engineer, so recording was a
necessary evil. But yeah, I really loved recording. I fell for it right away. I had a 4-track
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cassette recorder, a little Tascam, up in my bedroom. I’d spend hours up there with a
sequencer, a drum machine, and a guitar.
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It’s good practice.

JL: I had a band in high school whose sole purpose was to be my experiment for learning how
to record. We never played shows or anything; we’d go in the studio. We were all a bunch
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of like-minded guys who weren’t interested in playing shows. We wanted to goof off in the
studio. I remember one day Dad took me over there and said, “Okay, here you go.” It was
about a four-hour lesson in signal flow, and then he said, “Good luck,” and left!
Where was this studio at?
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JL: In Hendersonville.
Was that your home set up?
KL: Originally the studio was called Funky, But Music. We shouldn’t really have named it
that. I had a partner, Tony Gottlieb, who’s like an uncle to all these guys. His dad, Lou
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Gottlieb, was in the Limeliters. I met Tony when I was working at Glaser. We decided to
start this little publishing company and ended up having a studio out there. [Bassist]
David Hungate from Toto would come play sessions when he moved to Nashville. One
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Mr. & Mr. Lehning/(continued on page 34)/Tape Op#108/33

 about the name of the studio.” I asked why. He said that somebody had called
information to get connected to the studio, and when they asked for Funky But
Studio, they hung up on them. So we changed the name. Tony’s dad Lou had this
commune in Northern California that he’d called Morningstar Ranch in the early ‘60s.
Tony decided to name it Morningstar. We turned it into Morningstar Studios, but
David Hungate always referred to it as Morning But.
Some things you can’t avoid.
KL: Leave it to David. It was a cool studio. It was on the lake in Hendersonville, a little
block building we had tricked out and built a control room in.
Was it close to where you guys were living at the time?
KL: Yeah. We lived in Hendersonville, so it was about ten minutes from the house. I
made everybody drive out there, and god bless them, they never complained. It was
small and goofy for recording. Tony’s dad had a Bösendorfer grand piano, so we had
that in this funky studio. Acoustic guitars in the bathroom and that kind of thing.
It was great and we had fun.
So you got a crash course?
JL: I did. I had no idea. He’d say, “Turn the [Teletronix] LA-2A until the needle goes
back to 3, and then turn this knob up until it tells the tape machine it’s at zero.”
Okay, great. It took me ten years to really understand how to hear what that meant.
It was great, because we’d go there on a Friday night and not come back until
Sunday. We’d sleep under the piano. I could call in the middle of the night and get
Dad to troubleshoot when things went wrong. I was way over my head, in terms of
quality of equipment. There were [Telefunken E LAM]251s, [Neumann U]47s, [U]49s,
and [AKG C]24s.
You didn’t break anything, did you?

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JL: I don’t think so. It was a really fun way to learn how to do things. For better or
worse, there was no economy attached to it. It really was us going and playing with
the gear. It was a great way to learn how to do it.
Are some of the guys who were doing that with you in high

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school still in music?
JL: None of them are doing it professionally. In fact, it wasn’t until college and after
college that I worked with people doing it professionally. I was 15 or 16 years old.

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KL: The music was really interesting. Jason’s being a little bit modest about it. It was
the kind of thing where I’d walk in there and go, “Now what the hell is that?” There
was no place in my vocabulary for how to make it sound like that. It was really pretty
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interesting music. I remember Billy Joe Walker, who’s a great Nashville session
guitarist, would come to the studio to work from time to time and he’d always ask
to hear what they’re doing. I’d have to play it for him, and he’d go, “Wow! What’s
going on?” You guys did play a couple of gigs. It was pretty cool.
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JL: Yeah. We got good at being what we were and took it seriously until it was no fun.
We’re all still good friends. It lasted through college into the summers.
Did you go straight to Berklee?
JL: No, I went to North Carolina. My high school girlfriend got into UNC. I didn’t even
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apply there. I knew there was no way I was going to get in from out of state. The
closest place I could get in was UNC Greensboro. I knew I wanted to go to Berklee,
but I didn’t want to go there for four years. I went to a state school where I could
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take credits that I could transfer.

KL: You did study music at Greensboro with a couple of really good instructors.
ai

JL: Yeah. I did take some classes there. I didn’t like Greensboro, so I transferred to NC
State in Raleigh my second year. I had a great music class there. After one semester
in Raleigh, I’d taken everything I could transfer, so halfway through my sophomore
ny

year I went to Boston and started at Berklee. I was there for two and a half years.
What was your focus there?
JL: Production and engineering. I did it because I knew it was what I wanted to end up
doing, but it was also an easy choice because I was already doing it. The production
ro

program there is great, but if I could do it again, I’d just take arranging courses.
KL: You’d been playing piano since you were like six or seven though.
JL: I came up playing. You have to play an instrument if you’re going to Berklee, which
was great. The arranging classes that I did take were really good.
tu

I feel like arranging is the key to making great recordings.

KL: I always thought that engineering was an extension of arranging. It’s an audio
extension of arranging. If you’re not able to translate the arrangement into
ar

something that the arranger intended, then what’s the point?

34/Tape Op#108/Mr. & Mr. Lehning/
JL: That was a cool thing to be in the production program, learning about audio and taking
arrangement classes. It gets your head away from not being able to make a guitar bright
enough. What you can do instead is capo it up on the seventh fret, and then all of a
sudden it sits properly. It taught me about finding ways with the music to create the
sound you want, as opposed to just using gear.
After Berklee, what was your path?
JL: I was coming back home in the summers and working for Dad, or whoever was with
him, assisting. There were four or five engineers around here I’d assist for. When I came
back after college, me and all the guys from the high school band moved into a house
over in the 12 South area, which wasn’t called 12 South then. I think the rent was $600
a month, split four ways. I would assist whoever would have me. I had relationships
with all the studios in town, so I could always go in for a cheap, or free, weekend. I
started taking any band that I liked and offer to record them for free. One of the first
things I did was work with David Mead, who was in another band called Joe, Marc’s
Brother. It was one of my favorite bands in Nashville. At the time, they were a four piece
with David. David left to do a solo thing. We started doing demos, and within about six
months we had enough music to play for labels. A few months after that, he had a deal
at RCA in New York. I thought, “Shit, this is easy!” That’s the last time I actually did
demos for someone that turned into a pro record deal.
It’s not that easy!
JL: Yeah. I continued to assist. I had started firsting on sessions and doing a little bit of
mixing. David’s record was my first real major label production job. The label was very
cool in letting me do it, but they said I couldn’t do it alone. David and I had to pick
another producer to bring into the studio. We asked Peter Collins to help us with it. He
was fantastic to work with. He’s a real classic, and classy, record producer. That was a

om
great experience.
How come you didn’t use your dad?
KL: I wouldn’t have been the right guy for that. At the time, I had a studio at my house

.c
over on Wimbledon Road. I was running Asylum Records too, at the time, so I was
definitely off on a different path. I still think that record you guys made is phenomenal.
Did it do well?
JL: No, it tanked. You can’t even get it. It’s not on iTunes... it disappeared!
KL: Yeah, I’ve got a couple of those.
JL: That was a really fun project. I grew up in a country music town and a country music
environment, but that was never what I was listening to as a kid. It was an important
il
ma
record for me to do, because we were trying to make pop music. In Nashville in the ‘90s,
if you were trying to make pop music it was horrible. From there I kept doing things. I
still work on a lot of country records and enjoy it, but that was a fun one for me.
It feels like the town’s changed a lot over the years.
ot

JL: It’s really diverse.

KL: Ironically today it’s more like it was in 1967 than the time in between. In 1967, when
I first came here, the Everly Brothers were still making records. Chet Atkins was making
@h

country and pop records. Elvis was recording here, as well as Bob Dylan. It was really an
“anything can happen” place. Then, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it ratcheted down to basically
country and Christian. Starting in the mid-‘90s, things blew up again. I don’t think it’s
ever going to be anything but really eclectic, from here on out.
e

Having your finger in a few different pies is a safer balance too,

as far as trends and changes that happen.
ai

KL: Yeah, that’s right. I think the young people migrating here are typical of young folks
who are interested in all kinds of music. They love great country music, but they also
love alternative. They love great music. I think it’s a really exciting time here.
How’d you end up running Asylum Records for that time period?
ny

KL: Well, this is in the late ‘80s and country music really exploded. Along with Randy Travis,
who started the trend, Alan Jackson was huge, and Garth Brooks blew the doors off.
Major record companies started going, “Hey, wait a minute... there’s a lot of money to
ro

be made in the genre.” Atlantic had a successful country label. When I started, there
were 20 or so major-funded record companies in Nashville. Bob Krasnow, who was the
chairman of Elektra Entertainment, decided he wanted to get into the country music
tu

business. He sent Steve Ralbovsky – a legendary, wonderful A&R guy – to Nashville to

headhunt and see who might want to do it. Somehow, the meetings and conversations
I had with Steve lined up with what they were looking for. I had been in the studio
pretty much non-stop for 20 years. Jason’s mom and I decided to end our marriage
ar

around that time, and I figured I really needed to make a change. The opportunity to
Mr. & Mr. Lehning/(continued on page 36)/Tape Op#108/35
 go to that side of the business came up. Bob Krasnow
was this fascinating entrepreneur record mogul guy. I
really liked him, and it felt like the right shift to make
at that time. We opened the label. A lot of people say,
“Wow, you ran Asylum with The Eagles, Linda
Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, and Jackson Browne.” Well,
none of them were on Asylum by the time I got the
name. They had mothballed the name and moved all
those artists into the Elektra family. I started a record
company with no catalog. It put a certain pressure on
us to come up with something special and unique.
That didn’t happen right away. It was really hard to
get it going. We eventually had some success and
some hits. It was a fascinating experience to do that.
What years were those?
KL: I ran it from ‘92 to ‘98. Bob Krasnow was there not
quite two years, and then they brought Sylvia Rhone
in to run Elektra. Much to her credit, and my luck, she
didn’t fire me right away. We were starting to have
some success about the time that she came in, so she
let me stay. I was up for a contract negotiation in ‘98,
and we really couldn’t see eye to eye on how that
needed to go. By that time I was fried, so we parted
company amicably.
Had you had any time to produce and
record, at that point?
KL: I did. I didn’t do a lot of recording, but I did some
producing. It was fun to be able to do that. I much
preferred being in the studio to being in marketing
meetings. I had an incredible opportunity to run a
major-funded record company. If I was successful, it
was because we made some good choices. If I failed,
il
it was because we made some wrong choices. The
most important thing I learned about it is that, as a
record producer, and I know you feel this, there’s
ma
always a sense that I know I’ve made hit records that
a record company wasn’t smart enough to know what
to do with. If they let me run the company, I’ll show
them what a genius I am. What I found out, fairly
ot
quickly, is that it doesn’t matter how much I believe
in something. If the public doesn’t want it, you can’t
make them buy it. It was really helpful to me to learn
@h
that. It gave me a lot of compassion for people who
run record companies, especially today. I think record
companies get ragged on a lot by folks who think
they’re evil. I’m not in that category. I think they’re
e
fighting an incredibly difficult battle, way more
difficult than the one I had to fight. God bless
ai
anybody who wants to take on that challenge and try
to make something like that work. It’s not a
particularly fun time to be doing that.
What projects have both of you guys been
ny
working on lately?
JL: I’m in the middle of a record for a band from
Philadelphia called Good Old War on Nettwerk. We Any parting thoughts?
ro
went to Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina, to KL: Last year Jason was producing something for a TV
track it. It was great. It was a really well run studio.
The band’s a duo, so I hired a bass player, Lex Price,
tu
and drummer, Ian Fitchuk, to come with us. I hired an
engineer, Konrad Snyder, to come with us too. We
tracked that there, and then brought it back here for JL: It was like a reality show, so every cast member got
a week to do some overdubs and vocals. Now I’m
ar
getting it ready to mix. I’m also working with an artist
36/Tape Op#108/Mr. & Mr. Lehning/
called Kelleigh Bannen on Universal Nashville. It’s my
first country production. I’ve done some alt country
production, but it’s my first major label country
record. That was a really fun experience. I’m doing a
fair amount of writing. I always wrote music, but I
started digging into it, writing with purpose.
Do you have a publishing company
pushing your songs?
JL: Yeah, there’s a company I’m signed to called Green &
Bloom that’s based out of New York and Los Angeles.
They’re a joint venture with BMG.
Kyle, what have you been doing lately?
KL: I haven’t been producing a lot. I did a single on a kid
last year for a country record that didn’t really
happen, but it was a fun project. I’ve been doing
some really interesting, fun things. I engineered and
mixed the last record that Ray Price made, that Fred
Foster produced and Bergen White arranged. Fred and
Bergen are both good friends of mine. They called to
ask me if I wanted to be involved in the record. We’d
recorded at Ocean Way [Nashville] with a live rhythm
section and orchestra, all on the floor at the same
time. I hadn’t been able to do that in quite a while,
but I had done it on a number of occasions in the ‘70s
and ‘80s. It was so much fun. Bergen is a wonderful
om
arranger, and he’d written everything out; the steel
parts, the whole thing. They’d count the tune off, and
there was the record. Boom! You don’t have to use
.c
your imagination. Ray passed away right before the
record got released, but he did hear it and signed off
on the mixes. Working with Fred Foster – who’s a
legend – was incredible fun. He’s such an interesting
character. He’s 82 years old.
He did the Roy Orbison sessions, right?
That’s crazy.
KL: Yeah. He owned Monument Records, Combine
Publishing, and Monument Recording Studios. He
signed Dolly Parton, Ray Stevens, and Kris
Kristofferson. Fred’s really an interesting guy. I’ve
worn Fred out asking him how he did different
sessions. He remembers everything. It’s exciting.
Ironically, early next month I’m engineering a session
for Zac Brown, and Zac owns Fred’s old studio.
Southern Ground Studios is the old Monument
Recording Studio. I’m going to cut a track for them.
Is it almost like a vacation to step in and
engineer sometimes?
KL: It is. It’s an interesting time for me, because I can’t
go do this if it’s not something I’m genuinely
interested in. I’ve had my time in the barrel; I’ve had
hits and awards. My enthusiasm for sitting in the
studio and slogging it out is pretty much gone. But
when something really interesting comes around, or if
I think of something interesting, I’ll jump on it.
show, and he hired me to cut all the tracks. We had so
much fun in the studio. I think the players all enjoyed
the “father and son” vibe. The TV show wasn’t
particularly great, but the records were really fun.
to do a song, sometimes two. It was great, because I
was told what the song was on Monday and who was
 going to sing it, and then the tracking session was KL: No. It was great fun for me, because Jason has a
Friday. We’d have the band set up and cut the song, whole different tribe of guys he’s working with than I
and after lunch I’d have the singer sing it and rough grew up with. I got to experience a big group of
in the comp. At five they’d roll in a video crew and knuckleheads that were really fun to work with.
stand-in band to what we’d tracked that day. It was JL: There was one session where you made a suggestion

om
really fun and super creative. And the artists were all and I disagreed with it, but it was clearly the right
very talented. idea. When we listened back to it, the bass player said
KL: The records were really good. They were all covers. under his breath, “Daddy knows best.” r

.c
What was the show? Read more from this interview at <tapeop.com>.
JL: It’s called Crazy Hearts: Nashville. It’s already
canceled. It was canceled before the first season was <jasonlehning.squarespace.com>
over. bonus article:
KL: That version of “Ain’t No Sunshine” is really good.
What Turtles tune was it you guys did?
JL: Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”
il
ma
KL: He would get these tunes and tell me what they were
going to record, and I’d be thinking, “God, how are
you going to do that in an interesting way?” It was http://tapeop.com/interviews/108/kyle-jason-lehning-bonus/
some iconic song, but they pulled it off. All of them
ot

were really great.

That’s a good exercise as a producer, to
go in and try to recreate, or modify, a
well-known song.
@h

JL: And there was no time for anybody to complain

about it. It was really a fun ride.
How did you get a job with that?
e

JL: My manager, Steve Smith, put it together.

Good deal, man. Did you have to do it all
ai

on some set?
JL: No, the great thing was that we had to work in big
enough studios for the video crew to be in. We got to
ny

work in great rooms. Blackbird, Sound Emporium,

Ocean Way. We’d talk a lot before the session. Once it
started we might exchange a couple of words, but it
all ran smoothly.
ro

Do you all have disagreements on how

things should sound if you’re
working together?
tu

JL: Sometimes, but not usually.

No family squabbles in the middle of the
session?
ar

Mr. & Mr. Lehning/(Fin.)/Tape Op#108/37

 Establishing himself as one of Nashville’s top engineers and producers, Gary has worked with In what way?
Nickel Creek, Alison Krauss, Sarah Jarosz, Harry Connick Jr., John Prine, and even Dolly Parton. He Well, even for us to round up a band to record would take
is also VP of A&R at Sugar Hill/Rounder Music Records. I visited Gary at his private studio and home an insane amount of effort. It’s not like the music
that previously belonged to Alison Krauss. In fact, Gary even helped design the studio for her. schools today where there are bands roaming the halls,
What year was this studio built? I wanted in. There were lots of great bands and dying to go record for free. They’d have a pair of mics,
In 1998. We were ahead of the curve, in terms of home records in the 70’s that I was listening to; but none and then one would get stolen. There was limited
studios in Nashville. Back then we thought it would hit me as hard as Pink Floyd, specifically The Wall. I studio time – all of the obstacles like that. However, it
be used mostly for vocals; but with budgets where knew enough at that point to realize that what they was a good, well-rounded education, in terms of
they are today, this is a full-on tracking facility now. were pulling off on that record was truly amazing. electronics and production. Actually, the electronic
[laughs] This would be a special record, even with today’s music program was pretty cool. When I realized the
How did you enter the engineering digital workstations. I don’t know how many times program at CU wasn’t quite there yet, I landed a year-
world? I’ve listened to it… long internship at the Eastman School of Music
My uncle is an artist by the name of Michael Johnson, Where did you grow up? [Rochester, NY], where I had previously done a six-
who had a couple of hits in the ‘70s and ‘80s. As a In Colorado, outside of Boulder. I went to Colorado week summer recording institute program. To be
kid, he was a big deal to me. He is a great musician University for their recording program; but it was thrown into that environment, with world-class
and singer, who started out as a traditional coffee pretty basic and not fully developed. After a few years classical and jazz musicians, was really inspiring. I had
shop folkie, moved on to major label deals, had pop of doing that, I knew that I was going to learn much an amazing year recording jazz ensembles, tuba
hits and all the trappings that go with success in that quicker in the real world, because it just wasn’t run quintets, operas, symphony orchestras, and everything
world in the ‘70s. As a young teen, it was magical and the way that programs are now. in between. Not at all musically where I thought I

Gary Paa
i nterview by Larry Crane

Gary P
photos by Miri Stebvika

om
.c
il
Double
Doublee
ma
ot
e @h
ai
ny
ro
tu
ar

38/Tape Op#108/Mr. Paczosa/

 would end up, but it was stereo mic’ing to the hilt.
Every variation of stereo mic’ing you can imagine,
because all of the halls were mic’d different. I learned
a lot about the honest tone of the instrument in the
room, as well as what that sounds like.
It teaches you to really listen when
you’re putting up a pair of mics.
Yeah. Some of the recordings had close mic’ing as well, so
you learned how to blend things in. A lot of that
translated into the more acoustic/roots oriented music
I do now, such as trying to honor true dynamics while
maintaining an individual’s tone. With everything I’ve
done in Nashville, it’s always been about making it
have impact, while trying to retain some dynamics. I’ve
also had the luxury of working on music that isn’t
chasing mainstream radio, so I haven’t had to fight
that battle too often. Obviously I’ve done mainstream
records where we’re definitely shooting for radio, but
by and large I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had to
play the loudness game.
You aren’t pigeonholed per se, but you What led to working with Dolly Parton?

aczosa
definitely have a field you work in of She was cutting some demos at the studio, and it was a
acoustic-based Americana music. How’d

aczosa
huge deal for me to even get the demos. I hadn’t
your career end up towards that path? engineered much. I was the assistant, so when no

I was assisting at a Nashville studio called Nightingale,
working for an engineer by the name of Joe Bogan
who made a lot of good records in L.A. with George
Benson and Seals & Crofts. He was a great guy to
om
one was there I’d mix every night until the sun came
up, trying to figure out how to do things. Somehow I
got to cut a demo, which turned into another one or
two, and then she asked me to cut a record. I’d never

.c
learn from. As an assistant, I got to work on done a record – I didn’t know how to make a record!
everything that was coming through the place, from It’s a lot different when you’re assisting; it’s a lot of
Randy Travis to B.B. King. All over the map. In the paperwork, setup, and just trying to stay ahead of the

il
Duty
late ‘80s Chuck Ainlay [Tape Op #97] came in to engineer. But to take a record from beginning to
record the [Strength in Numbers’] Telluride Sessions end... I had a big budget.

Duty
featuring Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Edgar What album was that?
Meyer, and Mark O’Connor. It was fucking It was a Christmas record [Home for Christmas]. I had no
ma
unbelievable to assist on that after all of the other business working with her at that point. I was in over
stuff we’d been working on. They took two days just my head all the time for most of my early career. I was
to get sounds. We spent a whole day trying to decide scared to death. I think I met Alison on the second
ot

between 15 or 30 ips [inches per second, tape
speed]. It was the first record, for me, where tone was
just as important as the song, performance, and
everything else. It had been about speed and
@h
record I did with Dolly. We brought her in to sing
harmony vocals. At the time, Alison was looking to
make a change, sonically. From working together on
the Dolly album, she apparently liked what I did, and

quantity, up to that point. hired me to cut tracks for the Alison Krauss and The
Nashville is especially known for speed. Cox Family [I Know Who Holds Tomorrow] album. I
It’s probably because it’s expensive when you’ve got a was just supposed to work for a couple of days, but
e

room full of guys. Back then, 15 or 20 years ago, by the end of that first day she asked if I would stay
when a lot of guys we were working with were double for the whole record. I think we made eight records
ai

or triple scale and studios were going at prime rates,
you had to move quickly. Sometimes that meant that
tone and dynamics became a secondary thing. Then
these guys came in and made tone and mic’ing
ny
together after that, mostly with her and Union
Station. It was a daunting undertaking, to dive into
a new genre without a firm grasp of the fundamentals
of the music. The band was amazing with that. They

techniques a priority, and the music benefited from took me in and made sure I got educated on all the
it. Honestly, from that moment on, I knew exactly classic records. They knew all the great musicians and
what I wanted to do. I bought the same monitors singers. Of all the records the band played for me, the
ro

Chuck was using. Everything about that session was
what I wanted to do, going forward.
Chuck’s a great example. He’s on a quest for
fidelity, but also a very personable guy.
tu
ones that spoke to me the most were those that Bill
Wolf engineered. The Tony Rice records – Manzanita,
in particular. That record pushed a lot of boundaries
and influenced a generation of young musicians and

Chuck’s the best. He’s fairly typical of the Nashville vibe, engineers. I still look up to him. He’s a badass.
in that if you need help, he’s going to help you. If I’m You obviously learned a lot along
going to record an artist that he’s worked with before, the way, but do you feel you made
ar

I can call him and ask what mic he used. That’s very mistakes?
typical Nashville.
Mr. Paczosa/(continued on page 40)/Tape Op#108/39
Many… many. I still have never had the courage to go
back and listen to that Dolly Parton record again. I
found it on cassette about three days ago and was
tempted to hook up the machine, but I thought
better of it. The truth is that there are only four or
five records I’ve made that I’ve been able to listen to
and not get really depressed. I’m pretty sure anybody
worth a shit would tell you the same thing. I think
that’s more a product of mixing records “back in the
day” where there was no instant recall, no “version
12” mix, before it goes off to mastering. I think
mixing was more of a performance back then –
everybody had hands on faders, twisting knobs on the
fly, and embracing commitment. That process led to
a lot of magic, but it also meant that you could have
gotten an entirely different performance the next
week, or even the next day. It’s hard to not look back
and wish you could have done things differently. I’m
currently re-mixing a record called So Long, So Wrong
that I did 18 years ago with Alison and Union
Station. It’s a pretty incredible record, with amazing
songs and ridiculous performances. That record was
tough, because Alison wasn’t used to hearing her
vocal recorded the way I was recording it, with more
detail on the top-end. She was also singing a little
breathier, not quite as hard. Maybe it was because of
the way that she was hearing it in the headphones.
We were still trying to find our way as a team. It was
too exposed for her comfort, so she consistently
wanted to bring the vocals down in the mix. My fix
to still make it heard was to make it wetter. Big
mistake. Of course we hated it a couple of months
from then. So now, 18 years later, I get to fix that. Or
at least try to.
It’s hard. Sometimes you just can’t
change it.
That may be the case with this one. I love the remix, so
far. It’s amazing how in tune and in time it is –
without any digital manipulation. We worked so hard
on those records. We all laugh about it now. These
days it’s like four takes because it’s possible to make
it work with a couple of passes.
How live were the So Long, So Wrong
sessions? How much bleed was there?
Well, on most of those early Alison records, it was all
about isolation. We’d cut a basic track and almost re-
e
cut it from there. Getting a great track was really to
lock in the tempo, because we weren’t usually
ai
cutting to a click. It was just making sure we had the
right tempo, and the right form. Pretty much we’d
start from the bottom up. Maybe we’d go until we
ny
got a great bass pass, or whatever, and start doing
bass repairs and re-cutting the instruments. It was a
great situation, actually. There was enough time,
and isolation, for me to really focus on tone. Not to
ro
mention the fact that every player had an amazing
instrument and exceptional talent. It was shocking
to me how much importance they put on sounds. If
tu
it wasn’t a good day for me – if I wasn’t quite
hearing things right – she’d call it. She’d just say,
“Hey, it’s not happening today.” For the first time,
what I was doing was just as important as what the
ar
band was doing.
40/Tape Op#108/Mr. Paczosa/(continued on page 42)
And it was a mutual recognition of that A lot of times too, the process informs
fact too. the sound. If somebody comes to you
Yes. In other cases, if the engineering wasn’t happening for a sound but they don’t follow the
on a rough day, you’d just fucking fight through it. same process, you won’t get the same
It’s money, and everybody’s time is limited because result.
bands are busy on the road. Obviously there are a lot Exactly. Alison was such a brilliant arranger, and she left
more records that I do now (and everybody does) space for me to work with. Other people will come to
where tone is that important. But, other than seeing me for how I approach depth and width, but if the
that with the Telluride Sessions record, this was new production doesn’t allow for it, it’s not going to have
to me. They also talked to me a lot about tone, about the same result.
banjo tone or upright bass tone. I learned a lot from How did the Sugar Hill Records A&R job
every one of those guys in the band. come about?
What studios were you working out of? They had hinted at me doing A&R for them when we
We were working at that same studio I used to assist at. crossed paths during the Nickel Creek and Dolly
It was called Nightingale, and then it became Parton bluegrass records. It really didn’t even cross
Seventeen Grand Recording. We cut some at Emerald my mind that that would be something I wanted to
[Sound Studios] and moved around a little bit, but it do. The truth is that I loved making records for that
was Seventeen Grand Recording for almost all of it. label. It was a family owned company; they were
Was that by choice, since you’d worked loyal and very good to me. The first Nickel Creek
there already? record we did for $24,000, and we sold a million, so
Yeah, being a young engineer it was the one room that they were happy. They found out that I had worked
I knew really well. I knew where to put everybody. for free for a couple weeks, because with Alison and
Each iso booth had a strength that suited either I, if you ran out of money you just kept going. It
upright, vocals, mandolin, or whatever. Then we was never about the money. Good things follow
om
would come here, to what was Alison’s studio at the good work. It didn’t even cross my mind to mention
time, to do overdubs. I mixed all over the place. Still, to anybody I was working for free. A guy at the label
eighty percent of what I do today I learned from found out about it and sent me a couple thousand
Alison and the guys. Alison and her approach to dollars out of the blue.
.c
dynamics and space, her patience in making you wait That usually doesn’t happen in the
until the third chorus to hear all those harmony parts music business.
– it’s unlike with a lot of country, or pop, where Absolutely. I’d worked for pretty much every label out
everything comes in with the first downbeat. She there at that point. When they asked the second
il
serves the song, period. If it’s a great song, and sung
well, the listener will still be there with you.
I would assume that those records led to
time, I was basically burned out from working 24/7
on records. Sometimes you find yourself in the
studio for days on end just comping and mixing –
ma
a lot of other people searching you countless hours alone. It was nice to stop doing that
out as well. exclusively. I love developing artists. We all have
Yeah, it led to everything. There were other records that those projects we’re doing for free, just trying to get
people sought me out for, but ninety percent of what somebody off the ground. To me, this was going to
ot
followed came from [working with] Alison. The be a prime chance to get in and do that, and get
problem with having a particular sound that people paid for it.
like was that I’d get hired for that sound, even when What year did you start?
@h
I was trying to expand and do something different. I’ve been doing it eight years. It was a much different
Who were some of the first performers to job ten or twelve years ago than it is today, for sure.
seek you out, based on that? It’s nearly impossible to sell records with a new artist
Chris Thile [Nickel Creek], Mindy Smith, and Gillian now. Your successes now are so small, and on such a
Welch [Tape Op #85]. And then I did a cool record different level. Back then, an act like Nickel Creek
with Dixie Chicks called Home. would carry the rest of the label, and that allowed the
Dixie Chicks were much more A&R people take chances. For instance, Sarah Jarosz’s
commercially oriented. Was that a last record sold 60,000 copies. Eight or ten years ago
learning curve? it’d be a 140,000 unit record. It’s just completely off.
That record was actually more in the wheelhouse of what How’d you become aware of her?
I had been doing with Alison than what the Dixie The parting words from the woman at the label before
Chicks had previously been doing. The real learning me [Bev Paul] were to keep my eyes on Sarah Jarosz.
curve was doing my first record on a DAW! We were I went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and I was
using an early version of Nuendo, and I didn’t have a walking around in the middle of the day. I heard this
clue what I was doing. I would be faking my way voice in the distance. It was just so unique. It was
through the day, and then spend hours after they left obvious that she had it. Luckily she was coming to
trying to fix what I’d screwed up. It was a learning Nashville after the festival so I brought her into the
curve, dealing with strong personalities in a band studio right away to check her out a bit more, and we
that was living under that much spotlight and signed her soon after. She was 16 when I signed her.
pressure. Plus they were making a record that was so We made the first record during her breaks from high
different to what they had been successful at. school (when she wasn’t on the road), and the last
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 two during her education at the New England
Conservatory of Music. It would have been easy for
Sarah to drop out of school when cool opportunities
were presented to her, but luckily she stuck to her
guns and finished school.
Have you seen her develop as an artist
because of school?
Yes, for sure. She was exposed to so many different
styles of music, and pushed in directions that she
might never have gone otherwise. NEC is a world-
class conservatory, filled with amazing musicians. At
the same time, a lot of her growth can be credited to
her experiences on the road, playing festivals with
peers like Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, and Chris Thile.
They’ve been with her from the beginning, and
influenced her greatly.
How do you balance recording and A&R
time?
It’s a tough juggle, for sure. I try to focus on one aspect
at a time – if I have a record, I throw myself into
that, and vice versa with an important label client.
Both parties have been really respectful of that. I’m
very lucky. But yeah, any time I’m not in the studio,
I’m working on A&R. There’s always a ton of listening
to do. In the last two weeks I think I’ve been out 11
nights to see bands at different venues, and I’m
always going to festivals.
I was going to say that festivals are
probably the best way to find artists.
They are. I can catch up with our artists who are there, and
then look at new ones. Balancing a very demanding
A&R job and making records... we know records are only
as good as the time you can put into them. The label
has been very understanding of that fact.
Has the A&R job cut down on the time
you get to be in the studio?
Yeah. It also forces me to be more efficient when I’m in
there. Plus, I have people I can rely on at the studio
should I not be there. Right now Shani Gandhi co-
engineers a lot of my projects. If I’m producing and
engineering, it helps to have someone I really trust
to turn the engineering over to. If I’m in that chair
my natural instinct is going to be sonics, so it helps
to be able to step away from the console and focus
on the overall performance. It’s a great team.
Well, part of their path is watching
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you work.
I’d say more so my job is learning from them. I was
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interested in Shani – particularly in her having
worked for producers in completely different genres –
because she brings something fresh to the table.
ny
These days it’s not often that I’m in another facility
and see how people are working. The records that
Shani listens to are different than mine. I need to be
turned on to new music. We’re always trying to grow.
ro
You’ve mentioned several times the
pigeonhole you feel a little locked
into. Do you ever wish you weren’t
locked into that and could make a
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Pink Floyd record or something
similar?
I haven’t felt that way for a long time because I’ve been
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able to branch out a lot more lately. But I definitely
42/Tape Op#108/Mr. Paczosa/(continued on page 44)
used to! It goes both ways though. I love making point was large diaphragm and more hi-fi. When I
those acoustic records, but I’m still always looking at heard the 54s, especially in a stereo configuration, I
the other artists who I want to be working with. Here flipped at the detail and presence with no EQ. I went
at my studio, the live room isn’t big and I have no through a couple of pairs of those and found a few
isolation. Whenever we track here, everybody’s pairs that I really loved. I think I get the most
together. Maybe I’ll move the vocalist in front of the comments on the sounds I get with those mics.
console, or put somebody in the back of the control Have you ever tried the Gefell m582 mic
room, but I’m doing a lot more of making the leakage with the nickel capsules?
work. I did a record a couple of years ago that I loved, I’ve got a pair of those. I love those Gefells. The nickel
John Prine’s Fair & Square. Luckily I get calls for that diaphragms are great for low volume level detail. A lot
now, because that was a really rocking – everybody in of what I do is quieter. I’ll even put 54s on the snare
the same room together – record. It had a real raw for brushwork or light percussion, like in a jazz setting.
energy to it. That’s what really moves me. I’ve done a couple of sessions in New York with some
How did you get involved working with great drummers, and they’re amazing for that. I’d say
Nickel Creek? that my only real love affair with any mics I’ve owned
It was Alison’s manager, Denise Stiff, who told Alison are the 54s. It was also always in combination with The
about them after seeing a show. Again, it was obvious Mastering Labs’ Microphone Preamplifier.
that there was something really special there. These You don’t see those around too often.
kids were serious. Alison and I produced two records No, you don’t. The combination of the 54s with the
with Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek and This Side. I’ve also Mastering Lab pre has always been great for what I do.
done a couple of solo records with band member Chris Do you still rely on any of the same gear?
Thile, Not All Who Wander Are Lost and Deceiver. Yeah, apart from KM 54s – and it’s been talked about
Deceiver was a great record to do. He played every before – this wax box [custom Mäag EQ] that I’d mix
instrument on that record, and it took us about a year through. Mostly I use the Mäag’s Air Band on top end.
and a half to make. What was interesting about that The sub band gets used every now and then. Before I
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record is that he knew the sequence of the record started using that, the first thing that I’d do on
before we cut it. We would start and complete track acoustic sessions (on every channel) is lift up the
one before we would start a note on the second track. top-end to try to find the air and upper harmonics. It
.c
I heard some of it not too long ago. You could tell helped me a lot to do that earlier in the process so
where we got tired of working on the fucking record all that I knew how it affected everything, like reverb
day long, because by song six or seven it’s just a tails and sibilance. Before I started having EQ on the
mandolin piece. We were so relieved to strip it down, 2-mix bus, I’d get to mastering and I’d be surprised
il
because we were building loops and doing a lot of
other stuff we didn’t really know how to do. He’d never
played drums before, but we bought a drum kit and
by everything. I liked it because it crept in above
sibilance and anything ugly. For tracking, I’ve been
going through the Mäag 500-series. Their EQ2 module
ma
four hours later he’s playing on the record. I learned so is a lot more controllable.
much from Chris. Chris is the guy who I will send a That brightness was my impression of
record to when I really need feedback while I’m Alison’s records.
working on it. He’s usually got a great couple of things They were such great players, and all had unbelievable
ot
to say that make all the difference in the world. instruments. Lifting the top-end brought out the upper
You touch on that a lot, learning from harmonics, the attack of the upright bass, the detail in the
musicians as well as learning from mandolin solos… hearing everything in the instrument. It
feedback and collaboration. was always the fine line of not being harsh.
@h
Those are the only compliments that I can ever really A lot of the time, if you’re into
take in. You’ll have people say nice things about the production, engineering gets pushed
record, but half the time you think it’s just because to the side. I don’t get the feeling
that’s what people say. But when musicians tell you you’re doing that.
that it sounds like their instrument, or sounds like No, I’m not. I’d hate giving up mixing. For me, that’s the
them, or is exactly how they imagined it in their head part I love the most. I love the energy of tracking,
– that’s what excites me. You also start to realize how and I love being part of the vocals. But I love what
many sessions that they’ve done where it doesn’t you can create with a mix. I couldn’t give that up in
sound like them. Back when I started, things just got my career, but there are a lot of guys in town I’d love
compressed and mashed into place. Acoustic guitars to have mix something I’ve recorded just to hear their
sounded like hi-hats. It’s nice to present a full range take on my tracking sounds. Records require so much
of everything the instrument has to offer, and time and energy – it’s all-consuming. Now I’m doing
showcase all the intricacies of the particular player. it piecemeal, coming in at nighttime but then I’ve
As far as mics, did you find anything got a gig to run to. I think anybody who has a job in
along the way that helped you up this business today is doing multiple jobs, so this is
your game? nothing new to most people. If I had to say what I
I think the first, and biggest, thing was the [Neumann] am, first and foremost, I’m definitely an engineer. I
KM 54s. I used them at Bill Schnee’s studio – he had a produce in slow motion. I have to be paired with the
bunch of them. I was sort of surprised, because it’s just right artist, like a Sarah Jarosz; she’s as much a
a small nickel diaphragm capsule. Everything up to that producer as she is an artist.
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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/43

 I guess you’re the one who signed my
friends Black Prairie to Sugar Hill?
Yeah. I’m definitely always trying to push the label with
some edgier stuff. It really started out as a bluegrass
label, and there’s less of that now, basically due to
straight up economics. If you can’t support it and do a
good job with it, if records aren’t selling enough, then
the labels can’t take that risk. It’s really unfortunate how
some of the smaller genres get squeezed. Black Prairie
felt like a band that might break through some of those
limitations; even though they are acoustic-based, they
push the envelope on sonics, have clever arrangements,
and unique songs. I love Black Prairie. Just hanging out
with those people, you would want to be in business
with them. That’s how every signing for us has to work.
We’ve had our share of assholes… some of them are
worth it, but not so much these days. r
Visit <tapeop.com> for more from this interview.
Thanks to Stephen Murray for instigating this interview idea.
<www.sugarhillrecords.com>

bonus article:

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http://tapeop.com/interviews/108/gary-paczosa-bonus/

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44/Tape Op#108/Mr. Paczosa/(Fin.)
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Behind The Gear
This Issue’s Tube Trendsetter
James Demeter
Since the early ‘80s James Demeter that business; but people kept on asking me for
has been promoting the use of tubes them, so I kept on making them.
in pro audio, and in his excellent Is that probably one of your top-selling
amps as well.I units?
Over the years, yeah. We sell a few hundred a year. Not
What were you doing before you started so much now, anymore. The pedal business slowed
making gear? down a bit.
I was the guitar player. I was in a band called The
Heaters. We were on Capitol Records. We made it to
number 56 on the Billboard Top 100. But we had
management who stole our money, and who were
incompetent. I found myself with a pregnant wife
and no real money. I started working for my good
buddy, John Caruthers, who had a guitar business.
He brought me in to do some electronics for him. We
wired guitars and started to dabble with building
things. My cousin was a technician at Jensen
Transformers at the time, and he started to mentor
me on the basics of audio design. We decided to
make a direct box; lord knows those things sounded
like shit back then. It was always just a straight
transformer, except for the Countryman direct box,
which is probably the only decent sounding one out
there. I figured I could do better with a Jensen
transformer. That evolved into the first Tube Direct
box. In 1982 it was the only tube direct box
available. I was loaning it out. The road guy for REO
Speedwagon took it to a recording session, and the
engineer threw it out because he said, “We just got
rid of all those damn tubes, and I don’t need
anymore of those!” Eventually they found their way
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all over the place, and all over the world. I was just
talking with the guys from The Who; they still have
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their original ones, which are now 30 years old.
What products followed that?
The next product that followed was actually the tube
bass preamp. I started making those and people like I had always wondered where the
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Stanley Clarke and Leland Sklar bought them. That
was followed by my deepest step into the dark side
- a tremolo pedal. The [TRM-1] Tremulator came Just looking at it from a hi-fi guy’s thing. Totally
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about when Ry Cooder came into the shop and said,
“No one makes a tremolo anymore.” I made him one
using a sine wave. He kind of liked that, but he said,
“It’s still not quite right.” He brought in his Fender
tu
Twin amp that had a tremolo – those used a triangle That is correct. The only standalone that was made, and
wave that was slightly clipped. I came up with the
second version, which is still basically what I’m
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selling today. I thought I was never going to go into
46/Tape Op#108/Mr. Demeter/(continued on page 48)
by Larry Crane
There wasn’t anything in between. There was a huge
divide in quality. The ADAT was the first thing that
changed that. Then I really sold a lot of these
preamps. The Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill
recordings are all through that mic pre. Eventually it
got to Sting’s producer, Hugh Padgham [Tape Op
#55] and he turned on a bunch of people.
What kind of facility do you run right
There’s a lot of competition now.
Yeah, there’re four or five clones of it out there.
You’re not coming from an EE degree.
How did you learn to do all this
circuit design? Was it just a process of
picking up the knowledge?
Yes, as my cousin said, I had a knack. It was like
plumbing, but with electrons. I look at it more like
cooking with electrons, because I love to cook. It’s
that weird combination of skills. I used to work at
il
a stereo store and we were a McIntosh dealer. I
started to look and see how they worked. I noticed
that in the phono section, if I took out that RIAA
equalization, I had a tube op amp circuit. So my
ma
first mic preamp was basically using that concept,
with changing the impedances and the feedback.
What they used to call a totem pole circuit was
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used to drive the low impedance output. That was
the first mic pre.
It’s interesting, coming from the
audiophile or the home-stereo type
@h
of world…
I didn’t know anything about pro audio designs. When I
finally looked at them, I said, “These are kind of
primitive.” Because the audiophiles really were all
about sound, and the pro audio guys were really
thinking about utility, to a larger extent. You know,
long lasting. They weren’t after the cutting edge of
high fidelity, at that time.
origins of the first tube preamp were
coming from.
different than everybody else, I guess.
In 1985 you were the only person
making studio-quality tube
preamps, right?
it stayed that way for a long time, too. It was a lot
easier to market back then because word of mouth
existed. Besides having no competition, everyone
was concerned about sound back then. And there
was still the mid-sized studio in existence, the
smaller guy who wanted to be cutting edge. I was
competing against real API and Neve consoles,
because it was all still sitting in all the studios. When
that mic preamp was made, I didn’t put an owner’s
manual in there because I used to joke, “If he
doesn’t know how to use it, why in the hell is he
buying it?” The only people that were buying them
were engineers.
Back then there was a very entry level
sort of world, and then there was the
pro gear.
now? How many people work there?
Unfortunately we’re shrinking, just like the economy. I
have three employees and myself, and that’s about
it. At one time I had eight. That’s the biggest I ever
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got. That’s when I was selling five or six hundred mic
pres a year. There are only about 3,500 of them out
there. To my knowledge, they’re all working. I still
.c
get people saying, “This is the only mic pre I have”
or, “It’s the best preamp I’ve got!”
You also have the HXC-1 optical
compressor?
The VTCL-2 preceded the HXC. It was an all-tube stereo
unit. The HXC came later and is a single space mono
unit. The compressor came out after the mic pre. It
took forever to get one that actually worked.
Yeah, that’s a tricky set up getting the
right kind of light source.
I think I tried 12 different types that they made back
then. I came up with one that almost worked, but
they had this little latchy-thing that would go on.
One day I was looking at it and I said, “Maybe if I
just bias this a little bit, it wouldn’t do that.” I
realized I had to do a constant biased voltage, and
then they became very smooth and musical.
Basically the compressor is essentially my mic
preamp. It’s the same concept of the op amp again,
except this time the gain is fixed with the light
sensitive device in front of it, and you turn it up and
down that way. The audio all goes through tubes,
except for that one little light-sensitive resistor.
The one product I’ve used extensively of
yours is the spring reverb unit, the
RV-1, and I just got the new Real
Reverb D version. What are the
differences between those two?
There’re three differences, because you probably got a
very early one.
I’ve got a Demeter RV-1 reverb.
Yeah, that’s pretty early. Now Burr-Brown makes some
much better op-amp ICs than what I was using. I
think I was using Analog Devices’ integrated circuits,
which are fine, but the Burr-Brown’s are definitely
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the
better. [Spring reverb tank manufacturer] Accutronics
got bought by this Korean company that has totally
destroyed the products, which is a real bummer. So I
had Ruby Tubes come up with custom springs for me;
which is nice option, as opposed to buying the off-

Profile
“I gotta love it to work on it - life is
too short to mess with bad music.
Last album listened to: Hard Luck Guy by Eddie Hinton
Last movie watched: The Wizard of Oz
Last book read: Koudelka: Gypsies
Best Studio Lunch: Bro’s Cajun Kitchen
My greatest accomplishment:
Staying married for 33 years
Most recent accomplishment:
Just played The Kennedy Center with
Robert Plant and Alison & Victor Krauss.
The Retro 176 is the ulitmate compressor
that had been living in my imagination.
the-shelf Accutronics. The new springs are definitely
warmer. I miss the slight brightness of the short spring
that the Accutronics had, but these are warmer and
richer so that’s nice. It’s one of those audio
compromises one has to make in life. But the biggest
change is the power supply. Even though I had a
custom-made, toroidal transformer, with a shorted first
winding, and shielding around it, it still put out hum.
Not much, but some. So I was searching the Internet
and found this power supply. Plus/minus voltage
switches at 380 kHz; you’re not gonna hear that. I was
going to actually make an external supply with it. My
son, who works for me, said, “Why don’t you try one
inside?” I put it in there and didn’t hear any hum. I
said, “Well, that’s 6 dB better than I had before so I
think I’m done.”
Marketing amps, pedals, and pro audio
gear must be daunting.
There’s still word of mouth, because my budget for
advertising is not much. That’s one of the reasons I

om
It always stays patched in on the vocal chain. faded out of pro audio – I could not compete with
large companies whose ad budget was bigger than my
-Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, entire gross. The other thing that happened was the
ABC Nashville, Patty Griffin)

www.retroinstruments.com
.c
change of the whole recording business. The small
studios that were my customer base disappeared
because people had bedroom studios. I couldn’t quite
crack that consumer market, because I couldn’t

il advertise enough.
Are you coming back a little bit more?
Well, I am nostalgic about it because it was closest to me.
ma
My heart was always into pro audio because of course
it was hi-fi, which goes back to my roots. It’s fun to
design those other things, and everything I design is
hi-fi. I never quite got the whole thing to morph into
ot

me being a big conglomeration. Marketing is

impossible for the little guy.
What do you see in the future for your
work?
@h

Winemaking. I don’t think I could ever stop my day job and

winemaking is about as profitable as the guitar amp
business. It’s like cooking on a very large scale when
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you have two tons of grapes delivered and you’re going

through all the machinations of making and fermenting
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it. I don’t know if you know much about winemaking?

We crush it, then it goes into open top fermenters and
you’re punching down the grapes. Eventually it finds its
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way into a tank, and then into a barrel. I’m playing

chemist, or not playing chemist! Good luck. Two years
later and it’s poetry in a bottle. r
<www.demeteramps.com>
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Thanks to Tim Hart for transcription.

Tape Op is made
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advertisers.
Please support them and tell them
you saw their ad in Tape Op.
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48/Tape Op#108/Mr. Demeter/(Fin.)

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earcups housing proprietary 45 mm drivers, and a unique
headband with spring-loaded “wings” that self-adjust the fit.
It’s by far the lightest and most comfortable circumaural
headphone I have ever worn. The earpads are covered in a
breathable microfiber fabric that remains plush and cool, and
there’s just enough cushion to keep the drivers close to my
ears for maximum fidelity, without earlobe contact. Being the
gear geek, I appreciate the design of the Y-cable that plugs
into the earcups. Each of the cable’s earcup ends has a turn-
to-lock, three-conductor TRS plug, so it doesn’t matter which
plug you use in which earcup jack; each receiving jack
connects to the correct conductors for its respective left or
right signal. Ironically, the headphone looks perfectly
symmetrical, so the only way to tell the L/R assignment of the
earcups is to look carefully at the inside of the headband for
near-invisible markings identifying the sides. (I ended up
placing a sticker on the right-hand side of the headband.)
Also, only one Y-cable is included, and it’s over 10 ft long,
which is great if you’re sitting in your favorite La-Z-Boy while
listening to your hi-fi, or adjusting a compressor in a far-away
rack against the side wall of your control room, but my
preference is for a cable half that length. The only included
accessory is a polyester-fleece carrying bag.
Overall, I would characterize the sound of the ATH-R70x as
warm and inviting, but with plenty of honest detail. Low-
frequency extension is exemplary for an open-back design,
and I can clearly discern fundamental notes down to 22 Hz.
Some distortion is audible at these extremely low frequencies,
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but I hear far less distortion in the ATH-R70x than in my open-
back Shure SRH1840 headphone [Tape Op #89], particularly
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below 34 Hz. Moreover, the ATH-R70x’s distortion is devoid of
high-order harmonics, so it’s less distracting, and deep bass
notes don’t sound falsely clicky. Moving up the spectrum from
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there, the volume takes a shallow slope up to 83 Hz, then tilts
smoothly downward, contributing to the warmth I hear.
Importantly, driver damping is well controlled, so there’s very
little distortion, ringing, or time-domain smearing in the lows
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and lower mids. A 3 dB peak at 3.5 kHz is followed by a −3 dB
trough at 4–7 kHz, with some ringing at both 3.5 kHz and
8 kHz. Above 12 kHz, the extreme highs are gently tamed, but
high-frequency detail is still there, thanks to good transient
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response and very quick settling time. Imaging is precise, with
a strong phantom center surrounded by a wide soundstage.
Keep in mind that our individual head and ear shapes will
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affect how headphones sound, so what I hear in the ATH-R70x
50/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/
may not be exactly what you hear; but my listening notes
should give you a general idea of what to expect. Also, don’t
let any of the numbers above scare you, because the peaks,
dips, resonances, and distortions you might hear in high-
quality headphones are far less consequential than the
substantial blurring and inaccuracy caused by speaker-room
interactions in all but the most perfectly treated rooms. My
tests were done over a month’s time — not only performing
mixes and listening critically to familiar music (including
songs I had mixed prior), but also listening to individual
instrument sounds as well as test tones and impulses.
I’m not a fan of lifestyle headphones that emphasize bass
and hype the highs. In contrast, the sound of the ATH-R70x is
relatively neutral and absolutely unfatiguing, even for hours
at a time. At $350 street, the ATH-R70x is not an impulse buy,
but it’s more affordable than many “luxury” headphones. I
really enjoy listening to music on “open-air” headphones, and
I own many models, going all the way back to several
Sennheisers that I purchased in the ‘80s. But the ATH-R70x is
the first open-back headphone in my collection that I would
be confident using alone as a mixing reference, without a
second closed-back headphone or a well-tuned subwoofer to
inform me of the lows that would otherwise be missed or
misrepresented. Consequently, this is the headphone I take
with me between studio and house.
($349 street; www.audio-technica.com) –AH
Harrison
Lineage 8-channel mic preamp
I haven’t spent any time on a Harrison console, but I do know
that many important albums and films were recorded or mixed on
Harrison consoles over the decades, and company founder Dave
Harrison kickstarted his console-designing career with the MCI
JH-400 series, the first production desks with an inline layout.
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The Harrison Lineage pays homage to 40 years of Harrison
consoles by assembling pairs of four different mic preamp designs
(a total of eight channels) in a 1RU-height rackmount chassis.
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Opening the unit reveals lots of discrete through-hole
components, some op-amps, and a couple transformers — all
carefully laid out to prevent crosstalk between unrelated
functions. Moreover, an internal power supply is fenced off from
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the rest of the circuitry to further prevent noise.
Over the course of months, I used the Lineage
preamps on various sources, but I did so with no prior
experience with Harrison products, so I had no expectations
@h
of sound or performance between the various designs. Here’s
what I discovered:
The two 32c/MR Series preamps recreate the circuitry from
Harrison’s ‘70s and ‘80s–era 32c and MR consoles. I love how
these push vocals, especially female vocals, forward in the mix.
The same goes for electric guitar and horn solos. Additionally,
extreme lows, particularly frequencies below 35 Hz, are
emphasized, whether you’re using ribbon, dynamic, or
condenser mics. For example, kick drums recorded through
these have a ton of power — sometimes too much. With great
power comes great responsibility; and restraint is required when
EQ’ing lows. I hear transistor distortion ramping up earliest on
this design, and it’s easy to capture a big, rock and roll sound,
with a nice bit of “compression” from the discrete new-old-
stock 2SD786 transistors saturating, especially on drums. But
you do have to be careful — too much of a good thing can put
you in dark and wooly territory.
The Series 10/950 inputs recreate the preamps from the
SeriesTen, introduced in 1985 as the first fully automated desk.
With these, I can hear a tiny bit of crunchiness even on gently
played transients like high-hat hits and acoustic guitar notes.
Also, distortion ramps up quickly in the form of lower-midrange
“bloom” (or “mud”) when overdriven. This design stands out as
being most different sounding among the four.
The Series 12/LPC inputs recreate the preamps from the
SeriesTwelve multiformat console introduced in 1992. To my
ears, these are the most natural sounding and most true to
picture, with the clearest midrange. Not surprisingly, they
respond best to EQ — nothing gets too brash or feeble, even
after heavy-handed boosts or cuts. These are my favorite for
drum overheads; a Royer SF-12 stereo ribbon mic [Tape Op #25]
above the kit through the Series 12/LPC results in perfect
imaging, with natural transients. It’s near-impossible to make
these preamps sound harsh, even with extreme processing.
The Trion channels feature the analog preamps first seen in
the Trion digital mixer in 2005. These sound closest to the
Series 12/LPC preamps, with a very natural sound. On the other
hand, they have more character due to the Lundahl
transformers on their inputs. For example, toms and kick drums
tend to sound bigger than life through the Series 12/LPC,
without the overt distortion from the Series 10/950; and
electric guitars take on more weight, without getting blurry.
You do have to be careful EQ’ing lower mids, especially in the
250 Hz range, and these have the least amount of infrasonics
below 30 Hz. Overall, I think the Trion preamps are the most
versatile preamps in this box. They’re clean, but not clinical.
You can turn them up for more transformer saturation to bring
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out more character, which is great for drums and anything
overdriven, including guitars and vocals. Moreover, the Trion
preamps offer the most gain (70 dB), and you can also use
them as FET-based instrument DIs via the front panel Neutrik
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combo jacks. Each Trion channel has a switch to choose
between front/back inputs, and additionally, a “Fix” switch to
swap out the input gain knob for a separate, recessed gain trim
on the front panel. What’s cool about this feature is that you
can leave two pairs of mics attached to the Trion channels and
switch between the two; or you can do what I did and use one
pair of inputs for a passive summing box leaving the other pair
open for mics. The neat thing here is that I can enable the
“Fix” trims when selecting the summing box — which allows
me to adjust the amount of “analog goodness” to taste, then
recall at the touch of a button!
All eight preamps include switches for phantom power and
−20 dB pad, as well as signal-overload LEDs that indicate
+18 dBu level. All four preamp designs are quiet, with plenty of
gain (Trion having the most).
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to add different
preamp flavors to your recording kit, the Harrison Lineage is a
great way to go. You get eight high-class mic preamps with four
different sounds, taking up only one rackspace. Moreover, two
instrument DIs are included, and you can set up a pair of
alternate, trimmable-gain inputs, allowing you to assign the
Trion preamps to a summing box or other recording/processing
flow with painless recall. Although the price of the Lineage may
seem high at first glance, if you divide it up, $350 per preamp
channel is a steal. Or another way to look at it — for the cost
of a 500-series chassis filled with eight channels of boutique
preamps, you can buy two Lineage units, and you’d still have
room left over in your rack!
($2,795 street; www.harrisonconsoles.com) –AH
www.tapeop.com
see more of our
bonus/archived
reviews online!
 Focal Professional
SM9 active studio monitor
The quest for the right studio monitor can be long and
frustrating. Or, the first pair you audition can instantly become
the pair you know and trust, allowing you to do your best work
right from the get-go. Focal Professional’s flagship French-made
SM9 monitor was the latter for me — and for everybody at
Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn. My initial plan was to audition
a few models to find the right set of monitors for our main
control room. As it happened, I set up the SM9 pair for the
inaugural session at the studio last November — overdubs with
guitarist Nels Cline and bassist Trevor Dunn for
composer/drummer Scott Amendola’s ambitious and amazing
orchestral record Fade to Orange. And a few months later, I
remembered that I wanted to try out some other speakers. In
the meantime, dozens of projects had come through the studio,
and every single one of the six engineers working in the space
had effused to me how happy they were tracking and mixing on
the SM9. This is just clearly a next-level speaker.
Focal markets the SM9 as “two monitors in one,” due to the
fact that in its default state, it’s an active 3-way speaker, with
a 400 W amp for the forward-facing 8’’ subwoofer, and one
100 W amp each for the 6.5’’ woofer and 1’’ tweeter. With a push
of the (vaguely-named) Focus switch, the amp for the
subwoofer is turned off and the crossover is altered, so the
frequency response changes from 30 Hz – 40 kHz to 90 Hz –
20 kHz (both ±3 dB). Focal claims in its literature that this is
to check how the mix will sound on your TV or “multimedia
systems.” I got a chuckle thinking that any TV speaker could
sound as good as the SM9, even with the Focus button on. This
feature does not eliminate the need for Auratones, boomboxes,
or other “real-world” reference speakers. But, point taken.
In addition to the subwoofer, the SM9 has an 11’’ passive
radiator on its upper surface, which gives it a definitive look
and also happens to preclude stacking a second speaker on top
of it. I find the sub range of the SM9 very even and trustworthy,
and I have to credit the design of the passive radiator with
some of that evenness. It functions in lieu of a bass port and
couples with the subwoofer to help reproduce those low
frequencies without the distortion and turbulence that ports
can cause. The one frequency range of the SM9 that sounded a
little weak in our control room was the lower midrange. Initial
mixes were coming out of our room needing a slight tuck in the
120–180 Hz range at mastering. A 1 dB boost on each speaker
on the LMF control, which is centered at 160 Hz, has really
helped us hear that range better, and mixes have been
translating excellently since that small adjustment. Other EQ
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points on the rear of the SM9 are LF (50 Hz), and MF (1 kHz).
There are also shelving filters from 250 Hz downward and
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4.5 kHz upward, and an HPF with three settings (45, 60, and
90 Hz), each at 12 dB/octave, allowing you to run the SM9 with
an external subwoofer if desired. All EQ settings, aside from the
HPF, are conveniently bypassed with the single push of the
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(also vaguely named) Direct Input button.
Other than that small boost in the low-mids, the rest of the
EQ has stayed flat in our setup, because the interaction of the
three drivers just works so well and sounds so good — at all
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listening levels. A hallmark of an excellent speaker for me is
being able to trust it for quiet monitoring, and the SM9 comes
through in this regard fantastically. The stereo imaging, which
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I find absolutely exquisite on the SM9 pair, maintains its
separation and depth at low listening levels, while the
“phantom” center channel still sounds robust and forward. At
louder levels, the frequency response also sounds very even; I
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hear no unwanted resonances or discernible crossover
distortions, and the high end doesn’t get shrill. The tweeter is
made of beryllium and is an inverted dome construction, which
is one of Focal’s hallmarks. I have experience using this tweeter
on the smaller Solo6 Be speaker [Tape Op #60] over the past
decade, finding it trustworthy and easy to listen to for long
stretches of time.
Once we did get around to comparing the SM9 to a few other
models, we spent a full day leisurely listening to four sets of
speakers. We wanted all of them set up on the same stands with
the same room placement, so we did no quick A/B’ing, only
unscientific full-song listening to a variety of material spanning
fifty years of recording, and cycled each set of speakers through
twice. There were notes like this regarding the SM9 from the
other engineers: “clarity in all frequency ranges,” “visible ultra-
harmonics,” and “low end holds together in ways it doesn’t
normally — subs are sick!” Out of the five of us doing the
listening test, four of us chose the SM9 as our favorite model,
and the fifth person had it as second favorite. I kept the prices
a secret, since I wanted to eliminate that as a factor as much
as possible, although I’m sure size was a clue. Only one other
speaker was in the SM9’s price range, and the other two were
significantly cheaper, but it was clear to everyone in the room
which speaker was going to stay in place after the tests.
Even though I enjoy using the SM9 immensely, it is not
without one small fault; the buttons for putting it into
standby, engaging the EQ controls, and turning off the
subwoofer (and passive radiator) are on the inner sides of the
enclosure if positioned as recommended (subwoofer on the
outside). So if you have a pair of these speakers set up on
stands behind a console (as we do behind our Neve 5316,
which is relatively deep), the buttons are quite hard to reach,
since they are pivoted away from you. Frankly, I would utilize
the Focus feature a lot more with easier access to it. I would
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love to see these controls on a remote, considering the size
(and cost) of the speaker. But really, that’s the only thing I
have come across in over six months of use that I don’t
absolutely love about the Focal SM9.
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Visually, the SM9 is impressive and sleek. It’s built incredibly
solidly and weighs 75 lbs, so you will want to either buy a very
substantial set of monitor stands, or build your own heavy-duty
ones, like we did. Following instructions we found online, we
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constructed extremely stable, tripod monitor stands out of 2’’
PVC pipe, playground sand (laboriously dried by hand with a
heatgun by our intern Dylan Guidry — thanks Dylan!), and 1’’
boards sandwiched together — all spray-painted black to match
@h
the SM9. We built them to be the perfect dimensions both for
the speakers and for the height of our desk. They are dense
enough to keep their resonance to an absolute minimum,
especially utilizing Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers (two 10.5’’ ×
13’’ pads per speaker) [Tape Op #62]. The cost of the homemade
stands was negligible, which made us feel better about
spending $400 on the Stabilizers. But for a pair of $7,600
speakers, you want to make sure you’re doing everything you
can to hear the speaker itself without mechanical resonance or
movement. Yep, you saw that price tag right, and that will
certainly make some of you dear readers grimace and flip
quickly to the next review, and understandably so. At this price
point, it is not a decision one makes lightly, and our lack of
hesitation to shell out that kind of dough on our “windows to
our mixes” speaks volumes about the quality of these speakers.
I am definitely not of the mindset that you really need $7,600
speakers to make good recordings and solid mixes, but I will
hereby report that I am finding that it helps.
($3795 street each; www.focalprofessional.com)
–Eli Crews <www.elicrews.com>
Gear Reviews/(continued on page 52)/Tape Op#108/51
PreSonus
AudioBox iTwo Studio &
AudioBox Stereo bundles
I’m always impressed with the sheer value that PreSonus
is able to offer across its product lines. For decades, the
company has been selling affordable audio gear and software,
while still managing to include features and deliver sound
quality beyond what you’d expect for the price. Take for
example AudioBox iTwo Studio. This “recording kit” includes an
AudioBox iTwo USB 2×2 interface, an HD7 semi-open
headphone, an M7 side-address mic, cables, and a license for
Studio One Artist DAW software — at a street price of $260. If
you’re a singer-songwriter recording at home or a musician
who wants to put down ideas while on the road, this is a great
deal. Likewise, AudioBox Stereo, a similar kit which includes
the previous-generation AudioBox USB interface, an HD7
headphone, a pair of SD7 pencil condenser mics with
shockmounts, a stereo mic’ing bar, and Studio One Artist — all
for $250 — is a great starter pack for stereo recording of
instruments, bands, choirs, ensembles, and stage productions.
Let’s start with the AudioBox iTwo. First of all, it looks
great. Its brushed aluminum chassis wraps around from top to
bottom, book-end style. Two combo jacks on the front operate
as XLR mic or 1/4’’ instrument/line–level inputs. Two input
gain knobs are next to switches that choose instrument or
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line–level for the 1/4’’ inputs. A single 48V switch toggles
phantom power for the XLR inputs, and a 1/4’’ headphone jack
is paired with a volume pot. Importantly, there’s also a mix
knob for analog zero-latency monitoring; it allows you to vary
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the relative levels of what you’re recording versus what’s being
played back from software. Therefore, there’s no need to worry
about driver latency, software buffer size, or a separate virtual
monitor mixer. A big knob in front controls the volume of the
main output, accessible via a stereo pair of balanced 1/4’’ TRS
line-level jacks in back. Also in back are MIDI I/O and two
USB ports. One USB port is for connecting the AudioBox iTwo
to a host computer, while the second is for connecting to an
iOS device. Interestingly, because the AudioBox iTwo is bus-
powered, it requires USB power supplied to the first port when
you’re using it with an iOS device connected to the second
port. An iPad power supply or an external USB battery unit
works fine for this purpose.
Due to the AudioBox iTwo being Core Audio class-
compliant, installation on Mac OS or iOS is a no-brainer. Plug
it in, and you’re good to go. On Windows, driver installation
is required, as you would expect. Setting up the driver is
explained clearly in the user manual. After installation on my
Windows 8.1 Pro laptop, I chose to run the AudioBox iTwo as
an ASIO device in Cubase [Tape Op #90], which required
tweaking a few Device, VST, and MIDI setup panels. Later, I
installed and ran the bundled Studio One Artist software. On
its opening screen, Studio One confirmed that the AudioBox
iTwo was connected, even displaying clickable links into the
Audio Device and External Devices panels. Seconds later, I was
up and running. Clearly, PreSonus thought out the
hardware/software integration here, because this process was
seamless and void of needless noodling within I/O
configuration options.
Upon first use of the AudioBox iTwo, I was pleasantly
surprised with its sound. The Class A mic preamps sound clean
and they have plenty of gain for most dynamic and condenser
mics, including the bundled M7. (On the other hand, there
isn’t enough gain to record a quiet source with a passive
ribbon mic, but I wouldn’t consider that a typical use case of
 Gear Geeking w/ Andy… this bundle.) The instrument-level DI has an input I could wear the HD7 all day. Given the HD7’s semi-open design, I
impedance of 1 MΩ (standard for an active DI), and it was surprised to hear commendable low-frequency extension. With
I’ve mentioned before that one of the goals of Tape Op Gear
works fine with magnetic pickups. (I didn’t have any the HD7 donned, my ears can make out fundamental tones down
Reviews is to educate our readers. In other words, we strive to
instruments with piezo pickups that I was able to to 22 Hz, with low-order harmonic distortion becoming audible
publish reviews that are just as informative about recording
record with the AudioBox iTwo.) I didn’t spend as much from 32 Hz on down. Thankfully, the lows aren’t exaggerated like
techniques as they are about the specific products being
time with the AudioBox USB, which is housed in the they are on headphones from lifestyle brands. On the other end of
reviewed. Therefore, even if you’re not considering a purchase of
“classic” PreSonus chassis, but it has a similar feature the spectrum, I hear a dip at 3–4.5 kHz, followed by a peak that
any products on these pages, I’m hoping that you’ll find value in
set to the iTwo, minus the iOS compatibility and line- extends to 8 kHz. At higher volumes, this peak is augmented by
reading what’s here. I know that I learn something new from the
level inputs. Its mic preamps (also Class A) have more harmonic distortion, highlighting any sibilance that might be in
reviews in each issue, and I love turning that knowledge into
gain than the iTwo’s, but they also have more self- the playback. I wouldn’t rush out to buy this headphone on its
action. For example, in the Flexiguy FG500 mic preamp review
noise, so signal-to-noise ratio is about even between own, but it’s a great addition to each of these bundles. The HD7
[Tape Op #105], Mavericks Studio owner Bobby Lurie opined
the two preamp implementations. feels and sounds expansive, and importantly, you can trust it to
about how recording through a single preamp type simplifies the
I was also impressed with the bundled M7 condenser honestly convey the low-frequencies in your mix, in a way that
workflow, puts greater focus on the music (instead of the gear),
mic. Although it’s made to look like a large-diaphragm small speakers in an untreated bedroom or practice space can’t.
and importantly, results in a more cohesive sound across
mic, if you shine a bright light into its basket, you can Admittedly, I didn’t spend a lot of time using Studio One
instruments. Subsequently, the mix comes together naturally,
see the outline of its 0.5’’ small-diaphragm capsule. The Artist, but I am amazed with how far this DAW has come since
with less bus compression and processing needed to “glue” it
mic is voiced for close-in work, and its multilayer screen its initial release [Tape Op #76]. Thankfully, it’s remained free of
together. Over the years, I’ve built up a decent collection of
does a good job of avoiding pops, as long as the mic isn’t the bloatware that plagues the more established systems, so it
outboard mic preamps, but for my most recent recording project,
being hit with a direct blast of air. If you have good still feels streamlined despite it being rich in features. Nice
I decided to take Bobby’s advice and go with one preamp type as
singing technique, you could use this mic without a pop workflow enhancements, like a truly useful right-click contextual
much as I could. More specifically, I went with one preamp
filter. Frequency response is fairly flat, with a slight menu that not only “learns” your most recent actions, but also
“family” — six vintage API 312 preamp cards that were modified
emphasis in the midrange between 900 Hz and 4 kHz, and allows you to edit event names, tempos, tuning, and other
and racked by Brent Averill Enterprises (now BAE) and five (non-
the highs aren’t hyped like they are on countless other parameters directly in the menu, make Studio One a pleasure to
vintage) BAE 312A preamps [#45]. The artist and I also decided
low-cost condenser mics. There is a tiny bit of extra “air” use. Many plug-ins, virtual instruments, and sound libraries are
to record the band live, including the lead vocal. (Because I was
from 13 kHz and above. The M7 does exhibit some included. Check out the PreSonus website for details. On a related
recording more than eleven channels at once, I had to
stridency in the form of harmonic distortion at 7 kHz front, I did try the wireless-transfer feature from iPad. After you

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supplement the BAE preamps with a few channels of Hamptone
when presented with high SPL, but when recording low to record in the free Capture Duo app (or the full-featured Capture),
and Neve.) Quoting Bobby from his review, the various tracks
medium volumes, the M7 sounds refreshingly neutral. I you can transfer your audio files to Studio One via WiFi — very
ended up summing in a “seamless” way and sounded
especially like how female vocals sound through the cool! I also tried the AudioBox iTwo with WaveMachineLabs Auria
“wonderfully glued together.” The final mixes were the easiest to
M7 — lots of midrange presence, very little sibilance. You [#92] on my iPad, and it worked flawlessly. Note that the zero-

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complete in recent memory, and my notes from that session fill
do have to be careful positioning the mic, as its sweet latency Mix knob on the AudioBox iTwo is pretty much a necessity
less than one page — a testament to how little processing was
spot is quite small. For most sources, including voice, it when overdubbing on an iPad.
used in both tracking and mixing. I’m not saying you should sell
sounds fullest 3’’–8’’ out, on-axis within 30° of center. At One last thing I want to point out — both AudioBox manuals
off your racks of outboard preamps, but if it’s been a while since
you last recorded through a single preamp model (or through the
preamps in your console), consider giving it a try, because you
might have as much fun as I had. In the meantime, check out
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greater distances, the low-frequency response thins
quickly below 200 Hz — helpful for recording a boomy
acoustic guitar but not ideal for tracking a drum kit sans
close mics. Conversely, at distances less than 3’’,
are very well written, and not only do they each include a “Quick
Start” section for Studio One Artist, but they also include a whole
chapter of tutorials covering mic’ing technique, dynamics
processing, and EQ’ing. A ton of useful information is presented,
Hayley Thompson-King <www.hayleythompsonking.com> to
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proximity effect ramps up steeply. and it’s definitely worth reading. Overall, PreSonus has done a
hear songs from this session. In particular, watch the video of
The SD7 pencil condenser mics bundled in the wonderful job of integrating several products with high value for
Hayley and her band performing “Dopesick” <goo.gl/bnsz4Q>,
AudioBox Stereo kit are also impressive for their cost. money into the affordable and easy to use AudioBox iTwo Studio
which was recorded at 11 AM (first take of the day) with no
These come with screw-on cardioid capsules, but I wasn’t and AudioBox USB recording kits.
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overdubs other than background vocals and second guitar. •••

able to look into the tiny holes of the 0.5’’ diameter front ($259.95 and $249.95 street; www.presonus.com) –AH

RG-Recording
On a related note, I learned something else while recording
screen to determine actual diaphragm size. Because it’s
Hayley’s band: Flipping the polarity of the headphone feed can
voiced for distance mic’ing, the SD7 has less low-
significantly change what the musicians are hearing in the
frequency roll-off than the M7 does at distances greater Cassette tape splicing block
@h

tracking room. For many of you, that’s a “No Duh” statement. For Many of us remember the days of cassette-based 4-track
than 8’’, and it exhibits a few dB of high-frequency lift in
me, it’s “Doh!” Sure, like every other engineer who’s recorded machines. Likewise, we can recall the days of receiving mixtapes
the range of 5–15 kHz. The included shockmounts are
more than two mics at once, checking polarity at the mic preamp on actual cassette tapes, not over email. I have found that the
actually pretty nice. They’re lightweight (being plastic),
is something I do naturally during soundcheck. (And actually, I
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but they keep their set angle without slipping, and a problem with playing old cassettes is usually mechanical in
get even geekier. I adjust timing (phase) between mics, especially nature — crinkled tape, broken tape, or the worst-case scenario,
bunch of extra rubber elastics are included. The stereo bar
when tracking and mixing drums, but that’s a whole other topic.)
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is quite heavy, as it’s made of steel and brass. Together a deck eats the tape. Consumers would assume there is no hope,
But I never thought to flip the polarity of the signal going to the but audio engineers are not afraid to roll up our sleeves and attack
with the shockmounts, the stereo bar can be set up for
artists’ headphones! Try it yourself — put on headphones and the problem. Removing the tape reels and transplanting them into
X-Y or NOS recording (but not ORTF). The substantial
monitor yourself singing into a mic. Flip the polarity anywhere in a new shell often solves the issue. However, if the tape is torn or
thumbscrew bolts that hold the shockmounts can be
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the signal chain. You’ll hear a dramatic difference. What you’re damaged, a splice may be in order. Trying to splice 1/8’’ tape on a
threaded out of the bar for reinsertion from the other side
experiencing is the sound going through the air (and through 1/2’’ block is not the way to live. Here is where the RG-Recording
of the bar, giving you more mic placement options. I tried
your bones) combining with the sound emanating from the splicing block comes in. The block is made of hardwood (oak, ash,
the SD7 mics on acoustic guitar, drum overheads,
headphone drivers, with different amounts of delay — yup, phase or birch), has a channel sized specifically for cassette tape, and
background vocals, and room ambience. The extra
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cancellations. This makes me wish that personal headphone comes standard with 90° and 45° cut guides. RG-Recording can
crispness up top means the SD7 sounds more “modern” to
mixers had a polarity button on each fader channel, so that even make a block with custom cut angles for no additional cost.
my ears than the M7, but it’s easily subdued with
artists could optimize their headphone mixes accordingly. The block is about 7’’ long and has a non-slip rubber base to keep
subtractive EQ.
For now, I’ll have to remember to test the polarity of the singers’
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The bundled HD7 headphone looks like the Superlux things steady. Given its price, it’s a no brainer.
mics during soundcheck while they’re setting up their ($12.99 w/ free shipping; stores.ebay.com/rg-recording)
HD681, a low-cost clone of the venerable AKG K 240 line.
headphone mixes. –AH –Garrett Haines <www.treelady.com>
Like its inspiration, the HD7 has a self-adjusting
headband and earcups that are semi-open. Comfort-wise,
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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/53

 Sonarworks
Reference 3 speaker & headphone
calibration software
It goes without saying that our studio monitors, be they
speakers or headphones, influence the sound of our productions
more than any other processor, instrument, or device. Recently,
the technologies of speaker system design and advanced
materials have allowed manufacturers to produce accurate
monitors at every price-point. Once our speakers have been
chosen and the room has been acoustically treated, we listen,
adjust, tune, equalize, re-treat, and repeat until our mixes
translate (reasonably) well to other playback environments. For
most of us, however, there are practical limitations to the type
of monitors we use and the amount of room treatment we can
employ. Even in world-class rooms with the most esoteric
systems, providing the most accurate playback requires lots of
expertise and time spent adjusting speaker placement, acoustic
treatments, and possibly room EQ. Sonarworks, a new company
from Latvia, has developed a product to simplify the process of
bringing our playback system to the highest level of accurate
playback. Reference 3 allows novice and seasoned users to
calibrate their speakers and headphones.
Sonarworks Reference 3 software consists of three
components: speaker and room calibration software; speaker
correction plug-in; and headphone correction plug-in.
Additionally, the full kit includes a Sonarworks calibrated
measurement mic. The software walks the user through room
analysis and then generates a unique plug-in preset which
provides correction for the specific monitors as measured in the
room. The headphone plug-in will correct the response of many
commonly used professional headphones. Headphones with
individually measured response curves may be purchased directly
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from Sonarworks. Each headphone comes with a unique plug-in
preset which matches that exact headphone. Alternatively, an
“average” curve, derived from many sets of a particular model of
headphone, may be applied to match your existing headphone.
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In use, the Reference 3 software (Windows and Mac OS) walks
the user through the steps of setting up the reference mic,
choosing appropriate monitor levels, and measuring the room
response at 24 positions around the main listening area. The
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software produces bursts of clicks, which are used to calculate the
mic’s exact position in the room, along with short frequency
sweeps, which measure the perceived acoustic power, or apparent
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frequency response of the speaker in that room. After completing
the measurement steps, which takes 5 to 10 minutes, the
software generates a user-named plug-in preset. The Reference 3
plug-in running in your DAW uses this preset to correct the
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frequency response of your speakers. Multiple plug-in presets may
be generated, for different monitor sets or listening positions. The
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plug-in itself, which is available for AU, VST, RTAS, and AAX Native
hosts, lives on the master monitor fader in the DAW. This may be
a bit confusing at first — you don’t want to bounce your mix
through the Reference 3 plug-in; you just want to listen through
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it to hear your corrected room response. Each DAW provides a
different method for routing master and monitor faders, so you’ll
have to determine the best way to instantiate the plug-in for your
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system. Alternatively, the plug-in may simply be bypassed during
the final bounce to avoid printing the mix with your room EQ. I
found a simple routing setup in Pro Tools to insert the Reference 3
plug-in on my monitor output while my mix bus (bounce path)
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remains unaffected by the plug-in. Unfortunately, other sources
besides your DAW, like an MP3 player or iTunes, will not be heard
through the room correction software — that would require an
external processor (running Sonarworks) between your monitor
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54/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 56)
controller and speakers (hint-hint, Sonarworks!), or routing your
playback device through your DAW.
Sonarworks Reference 3 software separates itself from other
speaker calibration software in a few different ways. First,
Sonarworks provides linear-phase equalization, which minimizes
the phase distortion and artifacts that traditional equalizers
produce. Second, Sonarworks provides up to 16,000 EQ points for
precise correction. Third, the software lets the user adjust or
“voice” the EQ preset to tailor settings for a desired response.
This voicing may simply turn up the bass (or treble) because you
enjoy it, or you can apply stock presets which allow your
measured speakers to emulate the frequency response of some
other typical studio monitors. This, to a large degree, lets you
hear what your mix may sound like on other common speakers.
These same principles apply to the headphone plug-in, except
that users aren’t able to measure their own headphones —
Sonarworks can do this for you, or you can choose a typical
response curve for your specific model of headphone.
I have spent many hours tuning my room with real-time
analyzers and room analysis software, adjusting my crossovers,
subwoofer level, speaker positioning, and acoustic treatment
until I was most satisfied with my monitor system. I typically try
to avoid room equalizers, except for gently tweaking soffit-
mounted main speakers in well-tuned rooms. After installing
Sonarworks Reference 3, I can honestly say that my room sounds
noticeably more accurate. I hear better stereo separation and
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imaging, smoother overall frequency response (especially at the
subwoofer crossover point), and even some additional perceived
height information. My long-time clients have commented on
how well my recent mixes have translated to their playback
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systems, which bolsters my confidence during mixing and
mastering. I believe it is important to fix acoustic and electronic
issues in the room and playback system first; and then adding
Sonarworks Reference 3 provides a very noticeable improvement
in an already well-balanced system. I have applied Reference 3
to more than five different rooms, including low, mid, and high-
priced monitor systems, and every room’s accuracy benefitted
from the software. After several weeks of using the plug-in on my
own mixes and masters, I can’t find any noticeable artifacts or
limitations that I have previously found in other software-based
room correction.
As with any plug-in, latency is possible, and Sonarworks
provides three modes of accuracy versus latency. The lowest
latency setting produces a monitoring delay of around 1 ms,
while the most accurate setting produces about 60 ms of delay.
Obviously, for tracking and programming, the lowest latency
setting is essential, but for mixing and mastering, the greater
latency is not a problem. I found all three latency/accuracy
settings provided similar improvement to the sound of my
monitors, though each of the three settings produces its own
extremely subtle tradeoff between frequency and
phase–response accuracy.
The Reference 3 plug-in provides many useful features, like
graphs of the before and after frequency responses, the correction
curve, as well as more esoteric information like dynamic range
limits and phase-response graphs for those who desire to view
such information. This effective plug-in may be used in a very
simple plug-and-play way, or you can delve under the hood for
finer tweaking, experimentation, and useful feedback about your
system. A professional room tuning can cost hundreds up to
thousands of dollars, while this simple-to-use tool from
Sonarworks brings a high level of accuracy to your room for much
less. I highly recommend this software as a finishing touch in any
room. ($49–$299 direct; www.sonarworks.com)
–Adam Kagan <adamkagan@mac.com>
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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/55

 Amphion Loudspeakers
Two18 studio monitors
A few months ago, I took on a project that pushed me into the dreaded realm of needing new
studio monitors. After about ten years of using a pair of Behringer Truth B2031A passive monitors
(don’t turn up your nose or ears until you try them; they blew away all similarly-sized speakers
I tried until now), I began the process of remastering Marcel Dupré’s pipe organ recordings for
Mercury Living Presence and Philips. I needed reliable deep bass from my monitors, and the
Behringers couldn’t go low enough.
I briefly tried adding a subwoofer, but it didn’t work in my room, and I also didn’t like the
centered bass, since different bass frequencies sound different in different parts of the stereo
sound-picture of a highly reverberant space like Paris’s Church of Saint-Sulpice and New York’s St.
Thomas Church, two of the three locations where these recordings were made. In short, this kind
of bass doesn’t center itself, and it sounds strange when all bass frequencies come from the same
center channel below the desk.
After reading Adam Monk’s positive review of the Amphion One15 and One18 [Tape Op #105],
I asked to demo a pair of the company’s largest studio monitors, the Two18. “Largest” is a relative
term, since this model is still only 21.7’’ × 7.5’’ × 12.4’’ in size. It utilizes a waveguide-mounted
1’’ titanium dome tweeter and two 6.5’’ SEAS aluminum woofers in a sealed cabinet with twin
bass resonators on the rear panel. Amphion claims usable frequency response of 39 Hz – 20 kHz
(±3dB). My experience is that the usable bass extends a bit further down, far lower than I’ve
heard before from speakers this size.
As Adam reported in his review, part of the pleasure of the Amphion experience is dealing
with founder/owner Anssi Hyvönen, who has recently started working with U.S. rep Dave Bryce.
The loaner pair was shipped to me from a major studio that shall remain nameless, where there
had apparently been experiments in maximum viable sound pressure levels. Net-net, one of the

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woofers was blown and another one had some “hair on the edge” in some playback situations.
Dave quickly sent me replacement drivers, and the repair was as easy as undoing a half-dozen
Torx screws, putting the right wires on the clearly marked speaker terminals, re-seating the driver,
and tightening the screws. Voila, good as new.

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Anssi also gave me good advice about where to position the speakers in my somewhat
cramped studio space. It ended up that placing them about a foot out from the walls, and moving
my fiberglass panels around a bit, yielded the fewest and least annoying upper-bass nodes while

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preserving plenty of deep bass level, without producing an artificially dark sound quality. I
verified this through several hours-long listening sessions — a treat since I got to hear some of
my favorite music with new clarity and punch. Especially enjoyable were my favorite LPs; without
the typical harsh studio monitor midrange, vintage vinyl sounded all the more sweet.
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From the get-go, I liked the highly focused but non-screaming midrange and the accurate
treble (meaning it would be described as “reserved” compared to most other studio monitors,
which I find over-harsh on top). I was surprised how much the mid and top resembled the
underrated Behringers, but with more evenness and less “nasal” sound qualities (this is high
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praise because one of the things I like about the Behringers is the absence of “honking” midrange
that is so typical of nearfield monitors, especially the self-amplified kind).
Once I got down to business mixing the 3-track Dupré tapes to stereo masters, I immediately
noticed that I could work at lower SPLs than my old system required, and that anything I did as
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far as channel mix on the Amphions translated very well to my big B&W 808 speakers upstairs
and also to my Sennheiser HD 650 headphones [Tape Op #43]. So, the stereo image and frequency
spectrum decisions I made with the Amphions worked on big speakers in a big room and on high-
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fidelity headphones. The Amphions were especially helpful in sorting out how to balance musical
detail against room reverberation, and how best to spotlight Dupré’s quick and complex playing.
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For each mix I turned in, the client feedback was very positive, and the client and I both agreed
that the remasters compare very favorably to the original LP issues. Working on the Amphions, I
didn’t find myself regretting decisions or going back and listening again and again because I was
doubtful of what I was hearing. These speakers speak the truth!
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I asked Anssi to explain his design philosophy leading to his company’s series of professional
monitors. First and foremost, he said, “We never wanted to make yet another box. The goal was
to come up with something which would hopefully indirectly contribute into putting emotion
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back to music again.”

He explained how he accomplished that goal: “Speaker building is always a balancing act. The
larger the driver, the more it can move air. The larger it is, the slower it gets. The trick is to keep
the drivers fast, but still come up with reasonable ability to move air. A passive radiator helps in
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this respect, but that is not all it does. One of the nicest additional benefits of using a closed-
type construction is to be able to better control what happens inside the box in terms of air flow
and pressure changes, which increases the midrange resolution by allowing the active drivers to
work better.”
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56/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 58)

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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/57

 In a nearfield situation, working at reasonable SPLs, I think
these speakers can reliably tell an engineer about everything
but the very bottom octave. The difference in the bass of a pipe
organ between the Amphions and the big B&Ws is that the
Amphions produced the sound of the low note attacks, but the
B&Ws moved the floor when the bass pipes really let go. I don’t
think you need the floor shaking to make reasonable mix and
EQ decisions, but that’s open to disagreement. With a fast run
down the organ console, where the frequencies quickly drop, I
hear each descending note sound distinctly through the
Amphions, whereas the B&Ws sound more like a downward-
sliding tone, likely because the woofers can’t piston-fire as
quickly as the notes are sounding. Translating this to a modern
pop or sound-for-picture mixing situation, you’ll get fast bass
transients out of the Amphions, but not enough bass energy to
make the walls and floor shake.
Taking breaks here and there from the remastering and
other studio work, I listened to CDs of a few 2014 Grammy
winners, the kind of great music that doesn’t get featured on
the evening telecast. I wanted to hear a variety of styles and
production techniques through these speakers. My listening
notes follow.
St. Vincent – St. Vincent (Best Alternative Rock Album): The
Two18s brought out the jagged, “pointy” qualities of the music
and sound, and the surprisingly wide and crisp dynamics. Also
clear, beyond and above all the interesting sounds and
textures, was Annie Clark’s very fine voice. The album’s overall
sound quality was loud but not overwhelming, and many
interesting sounds, riffs, and hooks emerged from the dense
mix. This album is worth hearing on good speakers or good
headphones, preferably from a real CD or high-resolution file,
rather than a lossy stream, because it’s an ear treat.
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Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer – Bass & Mandolin (Best
Contemporary Instrumental Album): The Amphions offered
very clear definition of space and placement, and great detail
of both musicians’ fingering, bowing, and picking. It was
surprising how much varied sound two acoustic instruments
can make, in the right hands. The mix had a “3D” feeling,
with clear width, depth, and height. It also sounded balanced
and detailed across the room.
St. Louis Symphony, David Robertson (conductor) – John
Adams: City Noir (Best Orchestral Performance): Typical of
modern symphony recordings, the perspective is somewhat
distant and crowded (congested) when many instruments are
playing together, but the speakers did a good job of voicing
individual instruments and maintaining the stereo spread
available in the recording. This is dark and moody music, as
the title suggests, but the recording is somewhat bass-shy.
Some solo parts seem to float above the orchestra, which is
a very interesting sonic effect.
Hilary Hahn with Corey Smythe – In 27 Pieces: The Hilary
Hahn Encores (Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble
Performance): The Amphions excelled in bringing out the
details of Hahn’s violin and Smythe’s piano. The recording has
a very close, produced quality, but is not harsh. Rather, those
superb violin details are sometimes too much (as when we
can hear the horse hair on the bow making high-pitched
resonances). The fact that the “too much” is audible is a
credit to the speakers, because professional monitors must
tell all, the good and the bad.
Chick Corea Trio (Corea, piano; Christian McBride, bass;
Brian Blade, drums) – Trilogy (Best Jazz Instrumental Album):
A crisp and detailed recording like this spotlights the even
frequency response and quick dynamics of the Amphions. The
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instrumental balance is maintained no matter how loud or
soft the ensemble plays. Despite the close mic’ing, nothing is
overly bright or boomy. The speakers brought out the
precision of the playing and the careful choice of notes during
improvised solos.
Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band – Life in the Bubble (Best
Large Jazz Ensemble Album): Through the Two18s, this
recording was very peppy and driving, but never annoying.
The music and players offered plenty of texture and dynamics,
and there was also very nice stereophony. Although it’s
totally different music, this album brought out the same good
things in the speakers as St. Vincent’s album — very fast
response to percussive and dynamics shifts, and wide and
even frequency response that allowed me to hear all the
details in complex music and mixes.
After a couple months with the Amphions, I’m not letting
them go. I believe they have brought my monitoring
environment to a higher level of precision, and the fact that
I can work at lower SPLs will prolong my audio career and
music-listening enjoyment. They are one of the few studio
monitors of any size that I have encountered that both sound
accurate and are a pleasure to hear.
($3000 each; www.amphion.fi)
–Tom Fine <tom.fine@gmail.com>
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possible by our
advertisers.
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you saw their ad in Tape Op.
 Boz Digital Labs
+10db Compressor & EQ
plug-in bundle
I’m a fan of compressors that bring something to the table
other than transparency, so I’ve had an eye on the legendary
ADR F769X-R Vocal Stressor, an early outboard “channel strip”
incorporating the Compex compressor alongside an EQ, for quite
some time. When Boz Digital Labs announced that they were
modeling “a very highly sought-after compressor hardware unit”
that looked identical to the ADR, I jumped at the chance to try
it out. The Compex can deliver incredibly aggressive
compression; I like to think that it’s one of the kings of
“punchy” and/or “raw” sounding compression, in that it
wrangles whatever you throw at it into submission with great
ease, and you are well aware that it’s happening. For instance,
it’s perhaps most famously tied to John Bonham’s drum sound
in Led Zeppelins’ “When the Levee Breaks.” On the other hand,
the ratio knob offers more subtle ratios of 1:1, 2:1, and 3:1 (in
addition to 5:1 and 10:1), so it’s capable of being inconspicuous
if it needs to be. The two other main elements of the Vocal
Stressor are the 4-band parametric EQ and the expander; the EQ
allows you to boost and cut the same frequencies as a Pultec,
while the expander is unique in its ability to operate at the
same time as the compressor. Additionally, in side-chain mode,
the EQ allows you to compress a drum bus without the kick
pumping the gain reduction, or you can use the compressor as
a colorful de-esser (formerly pre-emphasis mode on Compex
compressors). At the end of the chain is a limiter that is fixed
at 100:1, harking back to its intended use in broadcasting.
The +10db plug-in bundle faithfully models the Vocal
Stressor in all of its glory, and includes ten presets by multi-
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platinum producer David Bendeth (Underoath, Paramore,
Breaking Benjamin) to help you find your footing. Some find
the EQ operation to be odd relative to modern EQs, as you have
to toggle whether you are cutting or boosting, and then adjust
the dB pot, similar to a Manley Massive Passive, but I wouldn’t
let that bug you. Another thing to keep track of is gain-staging,
as you have control over the input gain, the expander threshold,
the compressor threshold, the output level, and a wet/dry
knob — without the aid of a fancy GUI and lots of meters. But
again, it’s all part of the charm of this legend — not a big deal.
In use, my main objectives were to thoroughly test the
things for which the Compex is most recognized — compressing
kick drums, room mics, drum buses, and for “stressing” vocals.
You can probably guess that I loved it, but keep reading
anyway. I’d also been looking for more tension in my mixes —
a way to better create a feeling of urgency and struggle — and
+10db delivered in each of these scenarios. The most
straightforward way of describing its style of compression is
that whatever you process sounds more intense. Sometimes
with other more transparent compressors, you work hard to find
a sweet spot that creates a sense of intensity, but it’s really easy
to do with the +10db and its soft-knee curve. And what is
perhaps most powerful, even more so than in the original unit,
is the ability to take something right to the edge of nastiness
and then dial in some dry signal with the wet/dry knob. Another
fun and rather obvious use is utilizing the compressor as a killer
de-esser, and then instantiating another +10db plug-in to do
your compression. You can both have your cake and de-ess it
too. Grab the free demo, and see if it’s right for you.
(Compressor $99, EQ $99, both $199; www.bozdigitallabs.com)
–Dave Hidek <dave@treelady.com>
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Aviom
A320 & A360 Personal Mixer
AN-16/i v.2 Input Module
A-16D A-Net Distributor
It has always been a priority for me to provide the ability
for each member of a band to dial in her or his own
headphone mix during a tracking or overdub session. It was
essential to me when building my first studio nearly 15 years
ago, and the long-discontinued Oz Audio Q-Mix HM-6 boxes
[Tape Op #37] gave me that functionality in a very affordable,
robust package. When setting out to help producer,
musician — and now studio owner — Shahzad Ismaily put
together Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn this past year, I
started doing research about which modern cue system we
could employ that would give us the ultimate monitoring
flexibility for a two-room facility (that sometimes operates as
a single space), at a reasonable price point. Shahzad had had
good experiences as a studio musician using Aviom’s 16-
channel digital mixers, so I started there, and honestly never
really looked back. While the upshot is that we are extremely
happy with our system, it is not without a couple minor
concerns, which I will describe below. But let’s start at the
beginning, with installation.
When trying to decide between an analog and digital
multichannel cue system, there is one factor that really makes
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it an unfair fight: cabling. For Figure 8, I calculated our cue
line runs at around 1600 ft total for both rooms. That amount
of high-quality (Gepco or equivalent) 16-pair analog cable
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would cost roughly $5,000, whereas that amount of shielded
Cat 6A (Ethernet) cable was well under $500. (And that’s for
the good stuff — Aviom systems will work over unshielded
 Cat 5e as well, but I wanted to future-proof our runs.) In addition
to cost, there’s also the question of conduit space. Gepco 22 AWG
16-pair is approaching an inch in diameter. You can get at least
four Cat 6A cables in that same amount of conduit space, which
was absolutely essential to us in the end, since it allowed us to put
a couple spare lines through each in-wall run. A side benefit of
running Cat 6A to every panel in our studio is that there are now
convertor boxes for many other types of data to run over those
lines. We’re running USB, MIDI, and HDMI (for getting video to the
recording spaces for film scores and the like) over the spare lines
with great success, but we can allocate those jacks to the cue
system with a simple crosspatch.
One of our main requirements for the cue system was that we
could patch to any panel from either control room, so a
percussionist downstairs could easily overdub onto a session
running upstairs, for instance. This was achieved quite easily with a
couple of simple, affordable Cable Matters RJ45 patch panels in the
machine room, where all cue lines terminate. Via short Cat 6
jumpers, we can patch out of either of the two Aviom distribution
systems into any of the cue jacks in the building. When deciding on
a distributor, we chose Aviom’s stripped-down half-rack A-16D over
the more full-featured D800. At four times the price, the D800 offers
a bunch of features that we figured we would never use, such as
support for up to 64 channels and direct integration with digital
mixing consoles. The A-16D functions like a simple PoE (Power over
Ethernet) switch (as they’re called in the networking world), and the

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only catch is that it doesn’t provide its own power for each of the
eight Ethernet lines; you need a separate 24 V wall wart for each line
you want to drive. With eight extra wall warts, you still come in way
under the price of a D800, and luckily, the power supplies can be

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attached to the back of the A-16D in whatever rack enclosure you
have it in, so there is still a single Ethernet connection to each
personal mixer which provides both power and audio, eliminating

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extra cabling and mess in the live room.
Speaking of the personal mixers, there are currently two
options: the A320 and A360. The A-16II mixer some of you may be
familiar with (the clunky blue thing slightly resembling Boba Fett’s
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face mask), has been discontinued, and frankly there are a few
features I was surprised to see Aviom do away with. One is the
ability to daisy-chain boxes; both the A320 and A360 require a
“home run” directly to a distribution hub. The other, at least vis-à-
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vis the entry level A320, is knobs. The A320 has only two knobs: a
Master Volume and a rotary encoder. The latter determines either
channel volume, channel stereo position, or master tone settings,
depending on which button you press before turning it. Normally
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this kind of multifunction encoder drives me crazy, and I was a little

disappointed to see it when the A320s first showed up. But now,
after using the A320 daily for a few months, I have come to
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embrace it, as it cleans up the face of the mixer significantly, and

is actually less intimidating for non-techy musicians. I figured there
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would be a learning curve for musicians using the A320 for the first
time, and there is, but it’s very short.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the A360, which has a ton
of extra features and functions, like built-in decent-sounding reverb,
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an internal mic for piping in some of the ambient sound of the room
around you, tone controls for each channel in addition to the master
controls, both mini and 1/4’’ headphone jacks, and an analog mono
output of your mix for feeding a speaker or an amp. Plus, it’s got
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more knobs, for people who aren’t intimidated by them. Additionally,

if the A360 is connected to a D800, it can transmit its digital mix
back to the D800, which is useful for driving wireless in-ear monitors
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from a central location. But I would say most of the features are more
suited for large theater or live productions, and seem like overkill in
a medium-sized studio setting. (Touring musicians take note:
bringing an Aviom system around with you for driving your in-ears or
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wedges would absolutely slay; if I still toured extensively I would

60/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 62) invest in such a thing in a heartbeat.)
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 I haven’t mentioned the AN-16/i v.2 yet, but it’s quite
essential, being the “input module” which does the A/D
conversion for the whole system. It has sixteen TRS inputs
(and sixteen TRS thru jacks), which allow you to take outputs
from your patchbay, recorder, or mixing console to feed the
A-Net’s 16-channel system. You can select an input level for
each pair of inputs (four steps from −10 dBV thru +22 dBu),
and you can also very conveniently gang each odd/even pair
into a stereo input (with stereo width and balance control
available at the personal mixer). Conversion happens at
24-bit, 48 kHz, and honestly sounds extremely good. We have
had numerous musicians comment on how good they think the
headphone system sounds, and how it really allows them to
feel as though they are “inside” the music. Being a digital
system, there is a very small amount of latency introduced, but
even when coupled with the slight latency when monitoring
through a Pro Tools HDX card, not a single person has
complained about things sounding late or phasing with what
they’re hearing in the room, which I have experienced with
other digital cue systems.
Of course, how good the system sounds depends largely on
which headphones you use, and this brings us to my one real
caveat about this system. I would not say that these are the
quietest headphone amps on the planet, especially on the
A320 (both the A360 and the discontinued A-16II mixers get
louder, and sound slightly better, to my ears). There is a fair
so I much prefer it mounted on a stand instead of sitting on
a tabletop. It’s not built like a tank, but the tradeoff is that
it’s very portable (and affordable).
This is a really fantastic system that allows small-to-
medium studios to get sixteen channels out to their
performers via individual portable stations, taking the burden
off the engineer to please everybody’s monitoring desires —
a frankly impossible task if you have only one stereo cue
send. As for price, each of our rooms’ five-box systems came
in just above $4000, including cabling, which is a lot
compared to my old Oz Audio Q-mix HM-6 system, but it’s an
excellent deal considering how much easier it makes the most
quintessential component of performing well in the studio —
hearing properly.
(A320 $399 street, A360 $799, AN-16/i v.2 $1195,
A-16D $399; www.aviom.com) –Eli Crews <www.elicrews.com>
Soundizers
StereoMonoizer software
One of my biggest frustrations as a mixer is importing
audio files from a client and finding 160 stereo audio tracks
have been created in my DAW. Most of the time, I’ll figure
out that the bulk of the stereo tracks delivered to me do not
actually contain any stereo information but are, in fact,
dual-mono or simply single mono tracks which are slightly
panned in the stereo field. Usually, I can cut the voice usage

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in half simply by splitting these supposed stereo tracks and
amount of self-noise in the onboard amplifier itself, which is
keeping the mono data. Thanks to the folks at Soundizers
present even with all input channels all the way down. The
and the release of their StereoMonoizer application, the
good news is twofold: one, since the feed is digital, the noise
process of analyzing and converting audio files has been
doesn’t increase at all as you turn up each input channel

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streamlined and automated.
(unless the signals themselves are noisy, of course); two, with
The standalone StereoMonoizer application (Mac OS and
the proper headphone choice, this noise falls below the
Windows) provides a large dropzone where you may drag and
threshold of annoyance for almost all types of music (and we
drop single audio files or a folder of audio files. Keep in mind

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work on a lot of very quiet music here at Figure 8). Low
impedance headphones are the trick — our 38 Ω ATH-M50
headphones [Tape Op #63] work for more types of music than
the 250 Ω Beyerdynamic DT 770 we have. The lower
that the files must be either WAV or AIFF format. The
program goes about analyzing the files for stereo content,
resulting in a file-by-file report (single channel mono; stereo
file, mono content; stereo file, stereo content; stereo file,
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impedance gives your headphone amp more headroom, so the
panned hard left; etc.) and a waveform display of how much
Master Volume can live around noon to 2 o’clock, where it
“stereo-ness” (“stereocity”?) each file contains. After
sounds best. In any case, I don’t plan on using the Aviom
analysis, the user may choose if and how to convert each file.
system for critical precision headphone monitoring, as that’s
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The program automatically chooses the option that would be

not what it was designed for.
most useful for each file, but sometimes you may want to
I have a few tips for getting the most out of this system.
keep the panning information for a given file, so you can
The first is to make your own Ethernet cables. Terminating
override the default and choose not to convert that
twisted-pair data cable with RJ45 connectors is really easy,
@h

particular file. Global preferences are available to define how

and the tools are dirt cheap and widely available. For the
and where the new processed files are saved. For instance,
interconnect cabling from the wall panels to the mixers, I
StereoMonoizer will create a backup folder of the original files
used Belden 1305A Multi-Conductor UpJacketed CatSnake
and then overwrite the files in your folder, or it can place the
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cable, which is actually Cat 5e, and has a very nice

new files into a user-specified location. Other preferences
“ruggedized” feel to it, almost like a mic cable. You will never
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include variable pan depth settings, identifying blank files,

ever want to use an unruly off-the-shelf Ethernet cable again
and even normalizing gain to a preset level. Unfortunately,
once you’ve used this stuff. If you use the A320 mixers, I
Broadcast WAV files do not retain their timestamp after the
would suggest terminating one “regular” RJ45 on the mixer
stereo files have been processed, but this feature will be
end and one Neutrik etherCON connector on the end
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implemented in a future update.

attaching to your panels, which should have their own female
This simple-to-use program presents lots of information
panel-mount etherCON jacks. If you use A360 mixers, you can
about audio files and provides very useful processing options.
put etherCON connectors on both ends — even better!
Why didn’t I think of this? Every music and post editor and
etherCON ain’t cheap, but if you hate dealing with RJ45
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mixer will find StereoMonozier extremely useful and

connectors as much as I do (broken tabs, crappy strain relief,
informative. Best of all, StereoMonoizer only costs 49 bucks.
hard to disconnect, etc.), you’ll be very happy you spent the
A fully functional version of the software can be demoed for
dough. Thanks to the fact that networking supplies are
14 days before purchasing.
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incredibly cheap, you’re saving so much money on the rest of

($49 download; www.soundizers.com)
the system, you should splurge a little on those connectors.
–Adam Kagan <about.me/adamkagan>
Lastly, buy one Aviom stand adapter and cheapo mic stand for
each mixer you have, and strap the Ethernet cable to the
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stand for extra strain relief. The A320 especially is very light,
62/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 64)
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 Neumann
NEW AUDIO BOOK U 47 fet condenser mic (reissue)
The U 47 fet reissue from Neumann is a faithful recreation of the solid-state version of

narrated by Terry Brown

the U 47 manufactured from 1972 to 1986. It has a fixed cardioid polar pattern and employs
a K 47 capsule and the same head grill and nickel finish as the original U 47 fet, as well as

available everywhere!
the classic Neumann badge on the front of the mic.
The original U 47 fet was intended to recreate the sound of the tube-based U 47 in a
solid-state model, but initially, it was not nearly as popular a mic. Many did find, however,
that it worked beautifully in front of a kick drum, an acoustic bass, and later electric bass
cabinets. This is how I had come to know and love this mic’s ability to capture the full
picture of sources heavy in low-frequencies. Great studios around the world likely have at
least one vintage U 47 fet in their mic locker, and with good reason.
Out of the box, the reissue product says quality. Even the outer cardboard packaging has
a slick, faux leather finish. The mic comes in a cherry wood box with dense foam lining for
a snug fit. A swivel mount is fixed on one side of the mic, and the XLR connector sits at
the bottom of the mic body. On the back of the mic, there are switches for attenuation
(−10 dB) and low-cut filter (40 or 140 Hz). On the bottom is an output level switch (−6 dB).
Recording bottom-heavy sources was my first stop. Not surprisingly, the U 47 fet
delivered a big, fat truckload of goodness to kick drum, and it made life easy when
planted in front of an Ampeg B-15 cabinet as well as my acoustic bass — full bodied and
extended, with nice clarity on all of the above. It was easy and fuss-free to get to a great
sound and tone. I looked around the studio to see what else I could throw at it. Timpani?
Wurlitzer through the Kustom? Killing. This reissue delivered the sound this mic is
“known” for. Like an Oxford-educated playboy Paul Bunyon in a Jil Sander suit — tough,
articulate, well-toned, immaculately presented, and smooth. But what else can it do?

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$4000 is a lot of bread for mid-level studios and weekend warriors who need their mics
to excel in more than one application.
In addition to recorded music, I do a fair amount of audio for film and video. The U 47 fet
had just arrived, and although it’s not the normal choice for a location recording, I thought

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I’d put it into service in a non-traditional way. We had to record an on-camera interview
with a female subject. The mic had to be out of the shot, away from her mouth, and I
needed some meat on the bone in terms of tone. It delivered a nicely balanced warm tone

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without any hype and was extremely quiet. It would make for an excellent broadcast mic
(although you’d better be doing one hell of a podcast to justify the cost).
Each year I get roped into doing the audio, sound effects, and music for my daughter’s
school play. I typically end up recording many of the sound effects myself rather than
ma
downloading them from iTunes. The sound of “magic” was required for the stage production,
and Hazel handed me her baby chime/rattle that she thought would fit the bill. She was
right. This particular item sounds like fairies on helium — perfect. Now, let’s get the mic
that the world uses for massive meaty kick drums and record some magic fairies. Well, it
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captured this tone with incredible realism — very smooth, warm, and pleasing to the ear.
Although not a “known” go-to for high-frequency and detail recording, I liked what the
U 47 fet did to smooth the top end. For the sake of hearing it, I took a few whacks at some
different cymbals. Again, I liked the warmth and smoothness.
@h

Recording a strummed Gibson Dove flattop steel-string acoustic guitar with the U 47 fet
pointed at the twelfth fret resulted in a balanced tone with a nice, mellow top end. What
I really liked was that it didn’t have a hyped sound that many modern mics impart. There
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was no clicky, plinky-plonky nonsense — just a nice representation of the instrument. It

was robust, with nice full-bodied low end, without being boomy. The recorded track took
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EQ well to sculpt it into a dense mix, but sounded lovely left alone and paired with a vocal.

Tape Op Books I expected this mic to sound solid on electric guitar, and it did not disappoint. I put it
up in front of my Vox AC30, plugged in a Telecaster, and cranked it up. All the shimmer and
Are Available In shine was there, stewed gloriously with the grit and meat. What a treat — it sounded just
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Print Through
like the amp in the room. I would go to this mic for guitars all the time. It captured a
realism that is missing from the typical SM57 setup. The SM57 is absolutely a great choice
Hal Leonard in many situations, but the U 47 fet simply had more life. And, for the price tag, it should!
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I also thought it was a great choice for female vocals that were a tad harsh or peaky. It
smoothed them out and lessened the need for EQ and frequency-dependent compression.
On male rock vocals, I found that its slight rise in the 2 kHz and up range helped it cut
through nicely, but without any brashness. Because of its high SPL-handling capabilities, it
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was good in front of a loud rock vocal and didn’t collapse like some condensers do when
used in this way. As is the case across the board, you can find a combination of
mic/preamp/singer that meets your needs. For male vocals, I liked this mic paired with a
Daking (Trident A-Range style) preamp (Tape Op #45 & #71). The Daking complemented the
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64/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 66)

tapeop.com has a new
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us into the future of
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Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

om
- William S. Burroughs
The 'Net is a waste of time,
and that's exactly what's right about it.

.c
-William Gibson

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Please Support Our Advertisers/Tape Op#108/65


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66/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/(continued on page 68)
mic’s warm bottom end by adding some clarity and shine.
The same rang true for any source I used this mic on. With
a proper pairing of mic/preamp/source, I was able to get
great, solid, useable tones on pretty much everything. (If
you only have one type of mic preamp, and this was your
only mic choice, you might find yourself reaching for an EQ
to create the space you need for each element in your mix.)
The more I used the U 47 fet, the more I liked the
cumulative effect it had when used on many elements of a
mix. It reminded me of some of Ethan Johns’ recent work,
like his solo album The Reckoning and Laura Marling’s Once
I Was an Eagle. These recording have a nice easy-on-the-ears
quality that is likely the result of great mics, preamps, tape,
and superb performances — in contrast to so many
contemporary productions that are so insanely bright that
they are fatiguing even over short listening periods. Point
being, that when left alone, I liked the character of the
upper-midrange and high-frequency response of the U 47 fet
and its non-hyped tone. Compared to “modern”
multipurpose condensers, the U 47 fet maintains its “classic”
tone by not having a pushed or over-accentuated “fffttt” in
the upper ranges — without sounding dull.
I would still probably use this mic where it shines the
greatest, on kick drum, bass, or other low-end rich sources
that need capturing in the most complete and compelling
way. Bass players and drummers will be thrilled to hear the
power they are projecting into the room, captured with such
authority. Guitar players will swoon at the balance and
clarity in the recorded tone of their amps. The U 47 fet is a
beauty of a mic, and anyone owning one will find great joy
in putting it to work in a variety of situations. For a mic that
has a street rep as a kick drum mic, it sure serves its master
well for many a task. ($3,999 street; www.neumann.com)
–Geoff Stanfield <www.geoffstanfieldrecording.com>
Native Instruments
Komplete Kontrol S49 keyboard
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Komplete 10 Ultimate bundle
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You guys, my home studio now sounds like the Blade
Runner soundtrack, and looks like the set of TRON. And,
what? There are Ks where all the Cs should be! Wait —
ot
lemme explain.
Native Instruments sent us their latest MIDI controller
keyboard to test, the Kontrol S-series, along with the latest
iteration of their flagship software instrument bundle,
@h
Komplete 10 Ultimate. As one would expect, the two are tightly
integrated, with many features of the software not only
directly controllable from the hardware controller, but
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performance-enhanced in ways that wouldn’t be possible via a
standard MIDI integration. We received the 49-key Kontrol S49,
but it also is available in 25-key and 61-key versions. All three
are similar, with semi-weighted key action, automatic
parameter mapping to the eight touch-sensitive rotary
encoders, built-in arpeggiator, and an LED-driven performance
and control feedback system NI calls Light Guide (Why not
“Light Cycle”?). Kontrol requires an external power supply in
addition to the USB connection to the host computer, and also
offers MIDI I/O, plus expression and sustain pedal inputs.
As software libraries go, Komplete 10 Ultimate is ginormous
and does away with the multi-DVD installers in favor of a single
2.5’’ USB 2.0 hard drive to facilitate the installation. If you
choose to install all of it, you’ll end up with 320–440 GB of
instruments, effects, and sound manglers, including stalwarts
like Kontakt and Reaktor, plus new innovative instruments like
Rounds. I went for it and installed everything, but specified
that the library locations (the bulk of the packages) be
installed on a fast external drive; this is highly recommended,
not only for economy of record-drive real-estate, but for the
best performance in general. As it is, the applications alone
require 12 GB of free disk space. Although faster than the
previous Komplete DVD installers, it still is a bit of a time
investment to get everything up and running initially. Luckily,
after everything is installed, you manage all of your NI
software through one simple application, Service Center, which
is NI’s one-stop-shop for product activation, registration, and
updates. Service Center is a comprehensive utility which many
others have mimicked since its introduction. Keeping
everything up-to-date is a snap, and NI already had quite a
few hotfixes and product updates available throughout our test
period. One note for Kontrol S users — I had to navigate to
the NI website to find a firmware updater for the Kontrol
keyboard. Service Center didn’t seem to prompt me for a
firmware update that was available. I didn’t get that prompt
until I launched Controller Editor, a separate application
dedicated to the NI hardware controllers.
All of the Komplete software, as well as the Kontrol drivers
and software browser plug-in (Komplete Kontrol), are available
in 64-bit VST, AU, and AAX format — so DAW compatibility is
pretty much universal. I had no issues testing in Pro Tools 11
[Tape Op #101 online] or Ableton Live 9 [#95], although many
instruments can be fairly processor-intensive, particularly in
sample-based applications like Kontakt with high instance
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count or multi-timbral parts loaded. I found that the instance
counts and CPU loads aligned fairly well with other similar
applications or plug-ins — no surprises there.
Komplete is a serious composition tool, one that could be
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almost overwhelming in its depth and complexity. This is
where the integration with the Kontrol keyboards really shines;
the keyboard controller has a built-in browser function that
calls up a simplified navigation structure for all of the Komplete
library, filterable by genre, tags, and instrument type. You load
the Komplete Kontrol plug-in into an open MIDI track, press
the Browse button on the keyboard, and go. The browse
window itself pops up in your DAW and maximizes the screen
real-estate with clear type and graphics. (It’s obvious that the
browser was meant to be legible from across the control room
or stage.) Having the browser feature alone makes Komplete
feel much more spontaneous and inspired. And if this “browse,
discover, and load” hardware integration with Komplete feels a
tad familiar to NI’s now-discontinued Kore controller [#54],
well, frankly, it is — and it isn’t. Komplete Kontrol feels more
like it has taken on the duty of presenting the entire Komplete
library as one practical, browsable system of sounds and
presets, and it succeeds at that task, whereas Kore was
ambitious to a fault with its broader scope including third-
party plug-in mapping. You can always dive deeper within the
Controller Editor software mentioned above to create your own
templates and mappings, but out of the box, this controller is
meant to work seamlessly with NI’s instrument library.
The Kontrol keyboard has a nice, clean Darth Vader–esque
look, and feels like a serious instrument that belongs in a
studio. The Fatar keybed isn’t spongey, and the encoders,
buttons, display, and ribbons are all high quality. Yes,
ribbons — the mod and pitch wheels have been supplanted
by these cool touch-sensitive strips with customizable physics.
If you want to get an endless ping-pong mod parameter going,
it’s possible. The display strip below the encoders is clean and
legible, and the automatic parameter mapping just works. Most
instruments have at least two pages of parameters (some many
more), so it’s nice that the most commonly used parameters,
like filter and envelope, are always present on the first page.
Also very compelling for me were the scale and chord
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features on this keyboard controller. I’m a terrible keyboardist, yet
often find myself writing melodies and harmonies — on the damn
keyboard. Punishing myself, like an ape-man learning to use a
Commodore 64, I hammer away until something useful can be
carved out of the hours of, um, “improvisation” I’ve tracked. Well,
similar to the way the scale modes work on Ableton Push [Tape
Op #97], Kontrol has an option to remove any non-standard notes
from a particular scale, and another feature that allows chord sets
to be played with a single key. I think you can see where I’m going
with this; hardware tricks like this can be a force of good or a force
of evil, my friends — it really depends on the application of said
trick. In my case, I’ve been doing a great deal of short film scoring
and also building quick and dirty content for the web, both of
which require high production value in a short amount of time.
Using the chord modes, grounded in Komplete’s cinematic strings,
Action Strikes, and the on-board arpeggiator, I was able to build
some really stellar soundtrack-worthy material for a short film
project with a deadline that would make John Barry blush. And
with a recent update to the Kontrol software, you can now “write”
arpeggio or chord performance information back into your DAW for
further editing, or to simply archive your performance. With a little
creative MIDI routing, I had the Kontrol keyboard sending
arpeggio and chord MIDI data, locked to a particular scale, to my
Teenage Engineering OP-1 synthesizer — all via USB. I could even
go back and manipulate that data after tracking it to my DAW.
Pretty cool.
Another nice addition to the controller is its advanced host
integration, which allows for transport controls and automatic
track focus within the most recent versions of Ableton Live,
Cubase, Nuendo, or Logic X. This means if you navigate to another
instance of Komplete Kontrol in another track (within any of those
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four DAWs), the controller parameters automatically follow. The
hardware automatically switches to MIDI mode if a third-party
plug-in is present in the track. This advanced integration is not
available in Pro Tools. Hopefully, NI will expand that feature to Pro
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Tools soon. Note that you can still access, browse, and control
your Komplete library in Pro Tools, you’re just missing out on the
transport controls, track selection, and automatic track focus.
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The Light Guide feature, which illuminates notes as they are
played, or conveniently illustrates parameter/sample mappings
across the keyboard, can be disabled, but why would you do that?
It looks so cool! But maybe I’ve watched too many early ‘80s sci-
@h
fi films. Light Guide is also very handy if you wish to display notes
within a particular scale as mentioned above, or if you’re a live
performer who needs to set up specific key mappings.
This is truly a great controller keyboard. Although the price
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may seem a bit steep, that price includes Komplete Select — ten
NI instruments from Komplete, including one of their stellar
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sampled pianos (The Gentleman), vintage organs, and the always
fun Retro Machines (a deep collection of analog synth instruments
sampled from rare original instruments like the Crumar
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Orchestrator, Korg MiniKorg-700, and Moog Memorymoog). That’s
a bargain if you don’t want to plunk down $500 for the full
Komplete suite (or $1000 for Komplete 10 Ultimate). And if you
are someone who has invested in NI’s Komplete ecosystem, this is
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a no-brainer pairing. Although it functions just fine as a standard
MIDI controller, I couldn’t imagine using Komplete without this
keyboard. And there is just so much within Komplete to explore; I
could get pleasantly lost inside the new Rounds synth and
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Polyplex drum machine alone, not to mention the 40-bajillion
other potential sounds available in the Komplete 10 Ultimate
library. Fun stuff. (Komplete Kontrol S49 $599, Komplete 10
Ultimate $999 ($399 update); www.native-instruments.com)
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–Dana Gumbiner <www.danagumbiner.com>
68/Tape Op#108/Gear Reviews/
DPA Microphones
d:dicate ST2011A stereo cardioid mic kit
d:dicate MMC2006 omni mic capsule
d:dicate SBS0400 stereo boom
When I was in school at the University of Michigan, I did a
lot of recital recording of ensembles and piano. Through this, I
learned that all the orchestra recording was done with DPA mics
(marketed under the Brüel & Kjær brand), which were
apparently the best of the best. So I was excited to test and
review several products from DPA: a d:dicate ST2011A stereo kit,
which includes two 2011A cardioid condenser mics, clips,
windscreens, and a waterproof Pelican case; two MMC2006 omni
capsules; and the SBS0400 modular stereo boom with
shockmounts. I’ve been out of the recital business for a while
and had not heard of these models, so I avoided looking up
prices until I was done testing. I knew that the B&K line was
quite expensive, and I didn’t want that to cloud my judgement.
The first order of business was to record a freshly tuned 2009
Steinway Model B in a beautiful room with vaulted ceilings. I
brought along what I would have tried if I hadn’t had the
DPAs — my trusty pair of Audio-Technica AT4051 cardioids with
AT4049-EL omni capsules (used many times on the
aforementioned recitals) along with the recently reviewed
Monoprice 600700 [Tape Op #98] and 600850 [#105] mics. For
one pass, I mounted the d:dicate MMC2006 omni capsules onto
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the MMP-A preamp bodies of the d:dicate 2011A mics, and placed
the mics over the strings, facing the player, but angled down
towards the back of the piano, using the beautifully engineered
.c
d:dicate SBS0400 stereo boom. The boom allows for precise
spacing and angle setting, for various stereo techniques, of which
I chose X-Y. Only the angle adjustment has tick marks, so bring
a tape measure if you’re doing ORTF. The Lyre shockmounts could
not handle the weight of my bulky cables, and no matter how I
dressed the cables, I couldn’t get the Lyres to sit quite right, but
the setup worked nevertheless. Bring thinner cables. I think thin
cables would fit in with the overall theme of the accessories —
stealth. For instance, all the mic holders’ pivots are tightened by
a small screw; there’s no fitting a coin in there — you need a
screwdriver. Clearly, the stuff is designed for doing live recording
and sound reinforcement as invisibly as possible, by the kind of
pros that bring their toolbox to gigs. The ATs with omni capsules
were placed over and behind the player’s head. I recorded four
tracks at 24-bit, 96 kHz. Then I swapped in the cardioid capsules
on both pairs of mics for a second pass. I followed that with two
more passes after switching placement of the AT and DPA mics,
and then swapping capsules again. Finally, I tried the Monoprice
600700 mics with omni capsules over the strings, while the
600850 mics were in a Blumlein pair in the aforementioned
behind-the-head setup.
In all cases, I liked some mix of the string and rear mics,
and overall, I can tell you the DPA mics crushed the others, but
all the tones we got would be considered good in the right
context. The DPA d:dicate mics would excel at audiophile piano
recording of any kind; they sounded by far most like the piano
in the room. I wished I’d had a second pair, because the omni
capsules won the rear shootout and the cardioids won the
strings shootout for fidelity. The Audio-Technica AT4051/4049
mics would be appropriate for a softer sound. They were very
pillowy, and closer to “Hey Jude” than hi-fi, in a nice and
dreamy way. The Monoprice mics were bluesy and imparted a
honky-tonk tone, which may sound like an insult to a mic, but
that’s a pretty good trick if you can do it to a freshly maintained
Steinway. The Blumlein pair by itself made the piano sound
100 ft wide when panned all the way — a good trick for
ambience mixed low.
 I compared the aforementioned piano mics, sans the 600850s, by measuring with my usual
setup in an untreated room — not accurate for reference, but ok for comparisons. This was
interesting, because the traces were not that different from each other, but the sound of the
mics is obviously different. I think this is rooted in the time-domain; i.e. the transient response
of the DPAs seems to outclass that of the other mics (and my speakers too).
I tried the DPAs in my home studio, on acoustic steel-string guitar, drum overheads,
and male and female vocals. In all cases, they outperformed whatever I was comparing
them to in terms of fidelity. As with the piano recording, any given mic sounded pretty
good until you compared them to the DPAs, but other mics might still be chosen for
“flavor” in the right context.
The DPA d:dicate mics and accessories that I tested are all built so well. The capsules screw
on effortlessly, and the finish is low-reflective and scratch resistant. They are durable, proven
by dropping an omni capsule from about belly height right after measuring. It hit my shoe and
then rolled on the hardwood floor. I measured it again immediately, and the results were
exactly the same, and there were no dings. Sorry about that DPA — but nice build quality to
be sure. The d:dicate capsules use two mini diaphragms, a great idea that optimizes noise
performance and transient response. I encourage you to look up more about that. These may
be the ultimate “if you can only have one mic” mics. I was praying to the audio gods that
these are from a new budget line, but their top-notch quality means they’ve got to be
expensive. How much are they? Oh yeah, this is the good stuff. They are an amazing value for
what they are though, in the same way a Porsche 911 is, and I’m not being ironic. If it’s any
consolation, the mics in the d:dicate 20-series are about half the price of those in the 40-series.
Special thanks to the esteemed Gary Schultheis for his help.
(ST2011A kit $1,979, 2011A cardioid mic $949 each, MMC2006 omni capsule $499 each,
SBS0400 stereo boom $479; www.dpamicrophones.com)
–Joseph Lemmer <jlemmer@siriusmedia.com>

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Audient
ASP880 8-channel mic preamp & ADC
I first came across the ASP880 when I was looking to expand my mic preamp inputs for an

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upcoming recording project. I was looking for a multichannel preamp unit to augment my
collection without breaking the bank. I found many of the usual suspects (e.g., API, Daking,
TRUE Systems, etc.) too expensive for the project’s budget, so I kept searching for a more cost-
effective unit. I settled on a stellar solution in the Audient ASP880. The unit contains eight
mic preamps in a single rackspace, and when you divide the street price of $1399 by eight, you
get a very reasonable cost of about $175 per channel. Now that is certainly a bang-for-buck
price tag, but in true infomercial style, “Wait, there’s more!” I’m happy to say that you really
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do get more with this box — a lot more.
Aesthetically, the ASP880 looks great with its attractive silver faceplate and colorful light-
up buttons, but let’s talk about all the physical I/O on this thing. To start, the front panel gives
you control over the eight mic preamps, which are the same Class A design as found on
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Audient’s flagship console. Two discrete JFET DI’s are available on channels 1 and 2 in front.
In back are the mic and line–level inputs. Each channel has switching for 48 V phantom power,
−10 dB pad, polarity reverse, and input impedance (220, 1200, or 2800 Ω), as well as knobs
for gain (0–60 dB) and high-pass filter (25–250 Hz). Small LEDs indicate signal and peak. In
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addition to all of this, each channel has a button to enable its pre-ADC analog insert point,
which can also be used for direct access to the ADC channel, bypassing the preamp circuit. For
this price, you wouldn’t think that we’d even be talking about A/D conversion (more on this
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later), but the folks at Audient pulled out all the stops with this box. This is a big step up from
their previous ASP008 offering.
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The back of the unit has eight Neutrik Combo jacks (XLR and TRS) for the inputs. The
aforementioned analog inserts are on two DB25 connectors. Eight channels of digital output
are on DB9 (AES3 or S/PDIF) and ADAT optical (two of which are provided for S/MUX at higher
sampling rates). A BNC word clock input includes switchable termination.
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So, what about the mic preamps? How do they sound? Great. Each channel is made up of
eight discrete transistors and an op amp, and the sound is clean and transparent with plenty
of headroom on tap. Compared to some of my other preamps, the Audient seemingly has less
character and color, but if you drive the Audient preamp a little harder, it can impart some
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analog goodness to your signal. I believe the Audient design is on par with preamps that cost
significantly more and offer fewer onboard tools. Speaking of onboard tools, I found the input
impedance to be very useful in getting tonally different sounds out of some of my dynamic and
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ribbon mics. There were a few tracks in a recent session that benefited from this feature, and
I’m sure I’ll employ it again. The high-pass filter is handy and useful for getting rid of some of
the “flub” when you need to, polarity reverse and phantom power do what they should, and
with regards to noise floor, the ASP880 is pretty dang quiet.
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Continued on page 73>>> Gear Reviews/(continued on page 73)/Tape Op#108/69

 Bob Dylan and The Band The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete
From the viewpoint of mid-2015, there seems to be nothing at all special about a
songwriter and some musicians traipsing down into a rented basement and recording
run-throughs of new material and some cover songs. But if it was 48 years ago, the
place was Woodstock, NY, in a house nicknamed Big Pink, the songwriter was Bob
Dylan, and the other musicians soon became The Band, well, that’s a different story
and we should be grateful any of it was ever recorded. The Basement Tapes Complete
features 138 tracks over six CDs, plus a 120-page deluxe-bound book with extensive
liner notes. But what is crazy about these liner notes is the lack of real information
about the recording process or equipment. I won’t even mention the “Altech” mixer listed
within these notes.
As recording geeks, of course we are curious about this stuff, but I did a little sleuthing to
figure some of this out. Garth Hudson, The Band’s organist (and more), was the natural choice back then
to oversee the recording equipment, as he had a knack for fixing gear on the road and had even briefly studied electronics.
Gathering some of Peter, Paul & Mary’s PA rig (they shared Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman), Garth had two Altec 1567A
mixers, possibly four or five Neumann U 47 mics, and a Binson Echorec, all tracked live into a 2-track portable (“suitcase”)
Ampex 602 quarter-track, 1/4-inch tape recorder featuring 7.5 or 3.75 ips tape speeds. Note that the tape deck on the
cover of the 1975 double album release of The Basement Tapes was a ReVox deck that was not used for these recordings!
You can surmise that Garth ran the two mixers with one feeding the left channel and the other the right. Garth has said
before that the intent was to track this way and sum to mono. Some previous Basement Tapes releases have been from
mono summed sources, but on this release stereo width was generally preserved, while some vocals were somehow
“centered” from the left or right live printing. Because it was a smaller deck and couldn’t handle 10.5-inch reels, everything
was tracked on 7-inch reels. The tape brands included Scotch 111, 3M, along with lesser, cheaper brands like Shamrock,
Pure-Tone, and Village Silver tapes. (I cannot find any mention of this latter brand anywhere.)

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A lot of the credit to really pulling this release together goes to Jan Haust, who oversaw transfer of original tapes,
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along with famed engineer Peter J. Moore and Garth Hudson’s input. Some tapes even needed to be physically ironed
by hand, which Peter did! It was mastered by Peter at the E Room, in Toronto, Canada, with additional mastering by
Mark Wilder at Battery Studios, NYC. The set was produced for release by Jeff Rosen (manager of Dylan’s business and
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music publishing), Jan Haust, Steve Berkowitz, and compiled by Jeff Rosen.
Hearing multiple versions of “Nothing Was Delivered” performed in different styles is a treat; there’s just so much
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to take in here that you can spend most of a day immersed in it. Sound quality varies, from distorted and blown out
(some of disc one and most of disc six), to warm, deep, and inviting. My favorite bits are hearing Dylan talk about the
recording process: “Why don’t you shut it off and I’ll see how it’s recording,” is something we hear early on. After a
rough pass at “The Hills of Mexico” Dylan surmises, “You don’t have to take this one down, Garth. You’re wasting tape.”
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And later there’s a quick, “What do ya say we hear some of that, Garth?” In many ways we’ve always assumed that
these tapes were a magical glimpse into an informal session or jam, but this chatting lets us know that Dylan is more
than aware that tape is rolling, and that something is being captured. Partly I would assume they had a limited amount
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of reels to record onto, and back in the analog-only days we all had to ration tape. Would the next take be better or
worse if one was recording over the previous pass? It was a different era, in many ways.
Of course, none of this would matter if Bob Dylan didn’t write great songs, and if Garth, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel,
Robbie Robertson, and Levon Helm (on some tracks) didn’t know how to have fun and play some excellent parts in a
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chill environment. As Dylan recalled a few years later, “You know, that’s really the way to do a recording – in a peaceful,
relaxed setting in somebody’s basement, with the widows open and a dog lying on the floor.”
<www.bobdylan.com> < www.columbiarecords.com> -LC
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70/Tape Op#108/Music Reviews/

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 <<< Reviews from page 69
Now, onto the outputs and the ADC. The flexible routing
offered by the ASP880 is beyond useful. You want to utilize
the preamps and then patch into external analog gear?
Sure! You want to return your processed signals back into
the ASP880 and convert them from analog to digital? No
problem! Maybe you want to use this box as a standalone
eight-channel ADC. You’re covered there, too. The
converters are quality Burr-Brown PCM4220 multibit and
offer 24-bit output up to 96 kHz. The converters sound
pretty nice, and it’s great to have all the digital and analog
connectivity on hand.
There are a few nitpicky items, such as limited indicators
for signal level, no included AES3 breakout cable, and no
power switch; but when you look at what you get for your
money, the ASP880 is a righteous steal. Here’s a real-world
testimonial to the strengths of this box: I loaned my ASP880
to a fellow producer for some additional tracking on a
project, and shortly thereafter, he went out and purchased
his own. If you’re in need of a professional multichannel mic
preamp, this one delivers. ($1399 street; www.audient.com)
–Will Severin <www.willseverin.com>
Q2 Audio
ADR Compex F760X-RS
dynamics processor
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we evolve as
engineers, and in a way, it’s my favorite part of the job. You
wake up one day and realize you are doing something totally
differently, like the day I realized I’d stopped obsessively
fighting phase issues between bass DI and mic signal. In
this case, a piece of gear helped — the Little Labs IBP [Tape
Op #33]. As time goes on, I notice I’m not fighting for
sounds as often. This is due to the fact that I’ve been
making records for a while now, and doubtless, the gear here
has gotten much better. Recently, I’ve been noticing the
same phenomena in regards to drum sounds here at High
Bias — more on this later. This is, however, due solely to the
addition of the Q2 Audio ADR Compex Limiter F760X-RS.
The Compex began life as a limiter used for cutting
records, and over time, it was modified incrementally into
what it is today with compressor and expander/gate
sections. It is a feedback type FET limiter/compressor, which
means the sidechain input is taken from the output. The
Compex is responsible for the sound you hear on
countless records; most notably, it’s the box behind the drum
sound on “When the Levee Breaks.” Due to this, the Compex
became a legendary and coveted piece. I’ve always silently
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watched eBay auctions and muttered, “Some day....” Enter
Tim Mead the genius behind the reissue/improvement of this
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venerable box. Tim is local to me in Detroit, and he’s long
been the go-to tech guy here, so when he told me he was
working on an ADR Compex reissue, my ears perked right up.
He dropped one off one day, and with a short tutorial, I was
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off to the races. Out of the box, this thing is handsome and
sturdy as hell, and setup is as easy as can be. Tim hipped me
to the gain-staging and how to dial it in — slightly
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confusing, but I got the hang of it quickly enough.
The first task for this box was, big surprise, drum room
mics! The band for this date were Atlanta psychedelic dance
wizards Hollow Stars. These guys play songs that are long and
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totally absorb the listener. Drummer Devin Brown is a machine
in the best way. He just knows how to hold it all down and
keep the groove happening for the duration of these
11 minute jams. Here at High Bias, we have four Shure SM82
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mics hanging in the live room at all times. I permanently
installed these when we opened 15 years ago, out of curiosity
and a desire to hear clients in the room, both while playing
and as a communication device, since we don’t really use cans
here. The SM82 is a broadcast mic that has a crude facsimile
of the Level-Loc inside, set at a super-low threshold, and it
puts out line-level. The SM82 mics have contributed to the
sound of many recordings here, and I’ve always loved the
smashed and distorted sound they make. Plus, I get to pretend
I’m Tchad Blake! So I took the room mic bus on this session,
which consisted of a pair of the SM82s hanging along the
walls equidistant from the kit, and strapped the F760X-RS
across it. I felt slightly stupid compressing something so
smashed already. If anything, the unprocessed mics were
already providing a nice din of drum racket, the kind that
makes even the most anemic drummer sound like a pounder.
But somehow, the F760X-RS reclaimed the attack of the drums,
reminding me of how an SPL Transient Designer [Tape Op #21]
can change the envelope of percussive sounds. After tweaking
the compressor and expander controls to taste, the result was
easily the best drum sound I had gotten in recent memory.
From then on, the F760X-RS stayed in this position for a few
months with rare exception, and I quickly learned that the
F760X-RS really performs — from subtle, barely audible
pumping or ducking, to extreme reshaping effects. For sure,
sounds take a minute to get to, due to the vast control over
the circuit, but settings are easily recallable via the detented
knobs that the unit sports.
I finally moved the F760X-RS when Chris Bathgate came in
to record with his collaborative group SKULLLS. Chris is a
searcher. His music ranges from rootsy, psychedelic groove folk
to astute, new school compositional piano rock. SKULLLS falls
into the latter category. Ben Gajino plays drums for this outfit.
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Ben is one of those drummers that’s a blast to record because
he can do nearly anything. Intrigued by its fast and aggressive
behavior, I moved the F760X-RS from the room mics to the
kick and snare. I almost always use a dbx 165 or UREI 1178
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in this role. Ben’s snare dynamics are intensely expressive, and
the F760X-RS did amazing things to the transient response. I
started out just adjusting the compression controls and then
got into some serious sculpting. This thing can really change
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the whole sound and behavior of tracks. After drum tracking,
we moved on to piano using a pair of Josephson C42
condenser mics [Tape Op #34], Rascal Audio Two-V preamps
[#102], and the F760X-RS. The same was true here, and a
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whole range of sounds was achieved — from barely audible,
yet super functional compression, to all-out crusher sounds.
This day, I started experimenting with the limiter. The
F760X-RS has a 250 µs, 100:1 limiter, that when employed,
takes care of any peaks that may have snuck through. We had
the compressor and expander set just right for effect, but the
initial piano hits were a little intense. I kicked in the limiter,
and problem solved.
The next use of the F760X-RS was for a mix with
Beekeepers, a band of free rock upstarts from Hamtramck,
MI. They make beautiful and strange art rock. Like Talk Talk
meets Tall Dwarfs with David Stoughton. Jeff Else is their
drummer, and he records their stuff at home using minimal
mics and a simple Logic 9 rig. The sound is very Conny Plank.
Super fun to mix. We put the F760X-RS on the drum bus at
mix, and it was simply magic. Before I even starting turning
knobs, it brought the drums to life in a beautiful way. That’s
one of the things I noticed time and again — the F760X-RS
brings the material to front in a really natural way, and from
there, you can continue to trick out the dynamics to really
dial it in. On this day, we used the limiter in pre-emphasis
mode. This allows the limiter to de-ess slightly, which was
handy since Jeff uses maybe two mics on drums, and
cymbals can be an issue. The results were perfect.
Gosh Pith are a New Detroit R&B duo. Their music is smoky
and hazy with the dankest trap beats this side of the
Mississippi. Josh Smith (get it?) sings, and they, as above,
record at home, but in Ableton Live. They do a great job of
tracking their songs, so it’s usually just them paying me to do
a hockey-stick mix, busing it through my trusty Purple Audio
Sweet Ten [Tape Op #100]. This day, I used the F760X-RS on
the vocal bus. Again, the forwardness was instantly apparent,
and I used the pre-emphasis to de-ess the vocals. The vocals
sat perfectly — louder than everything else, but not
overpowering at all. The F760X-RS’s limiter just provides that
kind of high-class limiting that you can’t hear.
Scotty Masson is a stone genius weirdo pop songsmith
from Ferndale, MI. He cut his teeth in tons of Michigan rock
bands in the ‘90s. Then he went to Chicago with his band The
Office. Out of the blue one day, he called and came by to mix
his album of expertly recorded jams. Scotty is a gear nerd
who’s up for anything, so we put the F760X-RS on the mix bus!
Since our mix had a lot of low-end information, the F760X-RS
seemed a bit grabby on the bassy material, but this was
nothing a little side-chaining couldn’t solve. The resulting mix
was super-polished and slightly more aggressive than we were
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going for, so we dialed it back, and it was great — upfront
and with character, super pro but not too slick.
Like most engineers, I remember the first time I heard Led
Zeppelin, and for me, this totally coincides with the first time
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I was aware that records are made. Until then, I thought that
25 ft tall rock gods created what was coming out of my dad’s
stereo. (Gimme a break; I was 9 at the time.) The fact is
though, that even to my young ears, I sensed something
different was happening on those recordings. A decade and a
half later, in the mid ‘90s, I got a job at the incredible
Ultrasuede Studio. We had a “live” room that was mostly
carpet, so room mics sounded comb-filtered and weird. I’d put
pegboard all over the floors and walls, but to minimal avail.
Anytime I worked in other rooms or houses that were more
reflective, I’d put the drums somewhere live and position mics
where I thought they should go — and then sat there
wondering where the “Bonham” was. (It turns out the drummer
matters!) A decade or so passed, and I got a room I liked here
in Detroit. Still experimenting, we put mics everywhere here.
Over the course of 200 or so records, I didn’t really realize I was
chasing this sound I heard as a youth. Some of this was due to
the fact that not every band needs or wants drum sounds like
this, and also to the ubiquitous nature of this sound and its
imitations. I took it for granted and simultaneously assumed it
was unattainable. The F760X-RS has made me realize just how
much the fabric of my engineering modus operandi was sewn
together with the threads of this box. It’s exactly what I wanted
for the above applications, and I never knew it until it showed
up. Furthermore, I never realized how magic that sound was
and how integral it would become to me, even at this stage of
the game. ($2,750 street; www.q2audio.com)
–Chris Koltay <www.highbiasrecordings.com>
www.tapeop.com
see more of our
bonus/archived
reviews online!
Gear Reviews/(Fin.)/Tape Op#108/73
 It’s the Process, not the Processing
by Larry Crane

For the last six months I’ve worked on an album that’s very much steeped in
the style of the classic mid-century crooners. Artists like Frank Sinatra, Tony
Bennett, Johnny Mathis, and Julie London cut some classic “American songbook”
sides back in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the record I was working on was inspired, and
informed, by this era. As we began setting up for the first day of recording, it was
obvious that the premise was to make the album “feel” like one of those older
tunes, but not to try and imitate the “sound” of an old record. In other words, there
Borrowing one
mic isn’t going to
was no edict to upgrade or modernize the sound of the band or vocalist, but there
was also no order to imitate the older records. The conversations around this

magically bring
decision were interesting, and it was refreshing to feel free to let the music,
arrangements, and performances create the sound of the album. There was a fair
amount of bleed between the grand piano and drums (mostly played with brushes),
and a room tone emerged that felt right to everyone involved. Sure, I used some any track to life in
older (and older style) mics, gear, and tape decks; but if it didn’t bring out the best
the way of one of
these older
in an instrument I swapped it out. In the end, if this record had been created with
pristine, isolated, brightly EQ’d and overly compressed (i.e., “modern”) tracks,

songs.
there’s no chance that it would feel as deep and natural as what we created.
Capturing the feel and mood was something that had to happen from the start.

I’ve had people call me, asking to rent “vintage sounding mics” so that their
recordings could have some sort of classic tone. In one case, classic early singles

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by The Who came up and I had to say, “That’s a wild drummer, in a great sounding
room, with probably one condenser mic hanging above him, playing on a fantastic
song. There was likely a tube mic pre, compressor, and tape deck used. But I’ll bet I used to get a lot of bands coming to record with me that were

you anything the engineer was fighting the dynamic and sonic limitations of the
tape deck.” All of these elements inform the sound of tracks like this. Borrowing
one mic isn’t going to magically bring any track to life in the way of one of these
older songs.
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afraid of the recording studio. “Don’t make us sound like Def Leppard
or Mötley Crüe,” they’d say. I’d reply, “Do you know how hard it is to
make a record like that? I can’t just turn a knob and make something
sound like those bands! It takes months of hard work to do that.”

Another time a musician emailed me, asking how to make his recorded tracks
sound more like old reggae and ska when mixing. I couldn’t even imagine how to
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understand and embrace that. Heck, it’s partly how I make a living.
it’s never
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begin. For reference I listened to some old Skatalites tracks. Sure, there wasn’t the But record production comes in many forms, and
same kind of high-frequency information like a modern album, but to simply roll as simple as some processing
off high end would not yield the same results. These tracks were usually cut live, applied all over previously recorded
and once again the bleed in the room, and instruments laying down tracks together, tracks that creates great art.
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creates the core of the band’s sound. There’s no magic reverb setting or compression
ratio that will make a song feel like these old recordings! If you want your recordings to have depth, complexity, and be
able to withstand multiple listens, you need to focus on the whole
process. Learn how classic records were really made, and make sure
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every decision leads towards the album you want to create.

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74/Tape Op#108/Larry’s’s End Rant/

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