Two Guys recorded their first album, Recorded, at Jackpot! studios in Southeast Portland. Larry Crane, who engineered the album, is one of the most successful and prolific members of the local music scene. Not only the owner of Jackpot!, he's also the founder and editor of the nationally acclaimed TapeOp Magazine, an enormously useful resource to gear head's the world over. MLP conducted a short email interview with him: Tell me about what Jackpot! Studios offers. Recording equipment, space and an engineer. We have two 24-track reel-to-reel decks, 1/4" mixdown deck, Pro Tools Digi001/Digital Performer with expanded inputs and outputs, Fostex D2424 24 track DAW standalone, Allen and heath 56 input console, etc. Why is the U47 such a revered microphone and what have you substituted it with? The Neumann U47 is an amazing-sounding mic. It can capture a large variety of sources with "sonic accuracy", in other words it sounds good on most everything. I own a Soundelux E47, a copy of the Neumann mic, that is very, very good. Plus I have many other tube condenser mics. Is it possible to get a quality sound from some Shures and a well-loaded computer with a decent sound card? Look, here's the thing. Gear can be great, and running $10-15,000 of equipment on each signal going to tape can make for very well-balanced recordings. But recording with whatever you have laying around is important too. Do not NOT record because you need more gear. But gear can help make it sound better and make recording easier. One thing to remember is that experience is king. I could get better sound from this same scenario than you could because of all the little tricks I have built up. Any engineer worth their salt has accumulated experience that runs beyond the gear. Which is your prized piece or combination of pieces of equipment? My musical taste, my ears, my ability to deal with musicians, patience, tech knowledge... Oh, you mean recording equipment? There are very few things I would "need" if travelling to another session in a studio that has the basic stuff. I use the Little Labs "IBP" a lot, even though most people don't know what it is. Avalon U5 direct box for bass. Pendulum Quartet... What entry-level equipment would you suggest to the budding engineer? Whatever you can afford. I suggested a used ADAT to an ex intern and he loved it. Cheap recording medium, $500 8 track that would fit in a suitcase. Other people would be horrified that I suggested this. I'd say buy mics, as many as possible. One BIG problem with home-recorded stuff is running every sound through the same mic causes the frequencies that the mic emphasizes to build up, plus you get only a single color... What is the responsibilty of the producer to the musician? That's a case by case situation. Some times it's important to stay out of the way and let it all happen. Sometimes you need to rearrange the songs and play instruments. The biggest "responsibility" is to help the artist make the best record that you can imagine being made given the material and abilities. Do you ever step into the producer role when you are recording in your studio? Do I ever not? I feel I am always co-producing, throwing in opinions on sounds and performances. Sometimes it's a more defined, "We want you to 'produce' our record." Other times it's just me staying out of the way and getting good sounds. If I was to abandon "producer" completely I would be a recording robot. Put the mics up, hit record and it's on tape. "Oh, you want to know if it's a good take?" "It's on tape, that's all I know." I don't do that, I care about the quality of the stuff I work on. Tell me about TapeOpCon. It's the second year of Tape Op Con. It's a get-together of engineers, producers, studio owners and gear geeks. There are panels, workshops and some live shows at Berbatis. It will be in Portland this year, at the Hollywood Theater May 30th-June 1st. se www.tapeopcon.com for more info. Where did you get your studio education? Trial and error. I did not go to school for this, it only dawned on me that all the electronics, music and recording/producing stuff I knew could be combined into this job when I was in my early 30s. I read a lot of books, magazines and talked to a lot of people while learning this shit... Which current producers are doing the most innovative work today? Too many to list. Read Tape Op Magazine. They are all heroes. What can we look forward to from Larry Crane and Jackpot! Studios? More records from here? More gear. We plan to move the control room around and set up even better acoustics in here. The Pro Tools setup is new and will probably be expanded as time goes by. It's great to offer tracking and mixing to people that are recording stuff at home. We can track great-sounding drums, that artist can take them home and overdub, and then we'll mix it out through the board to analog tape. Sounds infinitely better than mixing in the computer. We've been mixing to Pro Tools also, and it gives you much better sound than DAT tapes and costs peanuts, plus you can edit and clean up the final mix - more flexibility. I'm trying to offer the most flexible and creative place to work in town and still be affordable! |
