How Does It Sound Now?: Legendary Engineers and Vintage Gear (Artistpro)

478 Pages·2009·5.37 MB·English

by  Gary Gottlieb

How Does It
Sound Now?
Legendary
Engineers and
Vintage Gear
Gary Gottlieb
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This book is dedicated to the engineers
and professionals who shaped our passion
and have passed on:
Tom Dowd
Les Paul
Wally Heider
Alan Blumlein
John Eargle
Larry Levine
Bob Fine
William Hoekstra
To name a few
And to those they have mentored. Their memories,
their skills, and their commitment to quality live
on through those they have mentored who
have, in turn, mentored us all.
Foreword
It is the music that attracts us to learn how to record better than reality while making the
player trust us to release their recording. I have listened to recordings that were made
throughout the century. The common feeling I got, whether the engineer wore a lab coat
orjeans,wasinnerpassionandpride.Thegearchangesconstantly.Forme,immediacyand
spontaneitydrivemydrive.Cleanerandpurerisalwaysthehope,buttheroughandimper-
fectaudiomustbeaddressedfortheengineertobemoreprepared,andtotrynewgearwhen
theycanevaluateitontheirowntime.Thisbook,withallitsinterviews,givesyouinsightto
the soul of the players. Read into the depths and realize the heart of this book.
Phil Ramone
iv
Acknowledgments
SoIthoughtaninterviewbookwouldbeeasiertowritethananyoftheothersI’vewritten.
After all, I’m just thinking up a list of questions and people to interview. Easy, right?
Little did I know just how difficult this project would be, and the resources and personnel
I would need to complete the project.
Speaking of resources, I would like to express my gratitude to Webster University for pro-
vidingmewithagenerousresearchgrant.Thisfundingallowedmetotraveltoperformthe
necessary interviews and also permitted me to pay for transcriptions. Without this support,
the goals I set in this project would not have been realized.
I would like to thank those transcriptionists who toiled to decipher the jargon-heavy ram-
blings of my 31 interviewees and myself. Some of these were in environments with high
ambient noise levels. Their task should not be underestimated: Thank you Larry Mollard,
Andrea Sisney, Roger Landreth, and Laura Sarsen.
For the third time, the team at my publisher, Cengage Learning, pulled together with an
uncompromising combination of sage advice and Buddha-like patience. My project editor,
CathleenSmall;acquisitionseditor,OrrenMerton;andmarketingmanager,MarkHughes,
all contributed from behind the scenes, helping with everything from the title to the cover
design. Thanks to them, this book came together and looks as good as it could.
Obviously, I cannot begin to express the contribution made by the 31 engineers and pro-
ducers I interviewed for this book. To state the obvious, this book would not be here with-
out them. These are all incredibly busy people who took time out of their personal and
professional lives to sit down with me. The only reason they did so was to advance your
knowledge. None of them was paid or will receive any personal gain from this, other than
the satisfaction of knowing that they have helped the next generation of engineers and
producers.
Along with the 31 I interviewed, there are hundreds of recording engineers, maintenance
engineers,producers,andinventorsoverthelastcenturyorsowhocontributedindirectlyto
this book. When you read it, you will see some of the same names repeated—Tom Dowd,
Wally Heider, Roy Halee, Bill Porter, Frank Laico—alongside lesser-known names, people
who also had a tremendous influence on me, the people I interviewed, and everyone in our
business. I would like to thank all the teachers and mentors in our business—the ones who
shaped it into whatever it is today. We may complain about this business, but we are all
here, drawn into it, and we’re not going anywhere else anytime soon.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for putting up with my travels to per-
form interviews, punctuated by weeks locked in my home office to get this book written.
Melanie, Miranda, Kyla, I love you all and could not do this without your support. Thank
you.
v
About the Author
Longtime music business professional Gary Gottlieb refers to himself as a music generalist.
Aprofessionalmusiciansinceage13,heworkedinradioonandofffor25yearsandwasa
music critic for nine years. As a recording engineer, live recordist, and music producer in
NewYork,Gottlieb’slonganddistinguishedcareerincludesworkwithnumerousGrammy
AwardwinnersandRockandRollHallofFameinducteesinavarietyofvenues.Hiscredits
as a sound designer include off-off-Broadway productions, along with community and col-
lege theatre productions throughout New England. Along with his history as a music critic
and entertainment writer for the Deerfield Valley News in West Dover, Vermont, and as a
disc jockey for WEQX, a major modern rock station in Manchester, Vermont, Gottlieb
owned and operated a mobile DJ service and was a venue director for numerous
X Games and Winter X Games for ESPN. In 2002, he accepted a position as professor of
audioproductionatWebsterUniversityinSt.Louis,wherehenowrunstheaudioprogram.
In 2007, Gottlieb’s Shaping Sound in the Studio and Beyond, the definitive introductory
textbook in audio, was released, and in 2008 he co-authored Recording on the Go: The
Definitive Guide to Live Recording with Paul Hennerich. Gottlieb teaches, writes, records,
mixes, and accepts speaking engagements throughout the United States.
vi
Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1
Alan Parsons 1
Chapter 2
Chuck Ainlay 11
Chapter 3
Ed Cherney 25
Chapter 4
Marc Aubort 41
Chapter 5
Bob Ludwig 53
Chapter 6
Leanne Ungar 73
Chapter 7
Jim Malloy 87
Chapter 8
Geoff Emerick 97
vii
viii How Does It Sound Now?
Chapter 9
Don Puluse 113
Chapter 10
Gary Chester 127
Chapter 11
Al Schmitt 145
Chapter 12
Glen Snoddy 155
Chapter 13
Bob Katz 165
Chapter 14
Danny Leake 175
Chapter 15
Leslie Mona-Mathus 197
Chapter 16
Steve Epstein 209
Chapter 17
Lou Bradley 223
Chapter 18
Jim Reeves 237
Chapter 19
Dave Moulton 267
Contents ix
Chapter 20
Ben Wisch 279
Chapter 21
Paul Stubblebine 287
Chapter 22
Cowboy Jack Clement 307
Chapter 23
Elliot Scheiner 319
Chapter 24
Bill Schulenburg 327
Chapter 25
Bob Clearmountain 351
Chapter 26
Gene Eichelberger 365
Chapter 27
Fred Breitberg 375
Chapter 28
Frank Filipetti 391
Chapter 29
Jim Anderson 405
Chapter 30
Bil VornDick 423