Blackbird Studio Tour
01h 10min
(10)
Founded by sound engineer John McBride, and his wife country artist Martina McBride, in 2002, Blackbird has become Nashville's preeminent sound studio. The Blackbird complex now includes nine studios and houses, The Blackbird Academy, a post-secondary audio engineering school.
In this pureMix.net Exclusive, pureMix mentor Vance Powell & studio owner John Mcbride takes you on a private, in-depth tour of Blackbird studio for a behind-the-scenes look at where the legends make records.
Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:1 - Welcome to Blackbird Studio in Nashville
- 00:10 - History, Memories & Insight
- 13:34 - Control Room A
- 14:49 - The Mic Locker
- 23:21 - Studio B
- 25:00 - The Other Mic Locker
- 28:01 - The Tech Shop
- 30:30 - Exterior Infrastructure
- 32:13 - Building 2
- 35:40 - The Chamber
- 38:00 - The Big Room
- 39:30 - Spare Storage and Locker
- 40:11 - The Massive Amps Storage
- 41:05 - Blackbird Rental (preamps, compressors, pedals…)
- 49:40 - Studio H
- 52:12 - The C Room (Blackbird famous absorbers)
- 1:01:20 - The Birdhouse
- 1:02:35 - The Drum Collection
- 1:07:35 - The Powerhouse
- 1:07:35 - The Blackbird Academy
- 1:09:00 - The Ultimate Beatles Fan
00:00:12
I'm John Mcbride, I'm sitting here
with Vance Powell, the legendary.
00:00:17
The legendary John Mcbride.
00:00:18
Man, I'll tell you, I mean...
00:00:21
When I need motivation I just
go down to Vance's place to hang out
and that really re-inspires my passion
and everything else.
00:00:31
But we're sitting in the kitchen,
at 2806 Azalea Place.
00:00:35
That's A-z-a-l-e-a.
00:00:38
In Nashville, Tennessee.
00:00:40
Beautiful Berry Hill.
00:00:41
Berry Hill neighborhood.
00:00:43
It's about 5 minutes south from downtown.
00:00:45
It's kind of great though.
We got out own police force.
00:00:49
Bizarre, this little square mile.
00:00:51
One square mile.
00:00:52
Five hundred permanent residence.
00:00:54
Fifty two studios.
00:00:57
Thank God, he knows,
I only know that because
we had to do zoning
and the guy was like:
'You know, this is number 52.'
In the neighborhood.
00:01:07
Of those there's only a
couple commercial studios
Blackbird being one of them.
00:01:13
But this all started about 20 years ago.
00:01:16
Well, no. It started when we were born,
I suppose.
00:01:19
How did we meet man?
Well, we met the first time in 84,
I think you were mixing Clocks or Dogs,
one of those bands.
00:01:30
And Galena, Kansas,
the little town in Kansas.
00:01:32
-Sgt Peppers.
-Sgt Peppers.
00:01:35
That was the name of the club.
00:01:36
Mcbride was from Wichita,
I was from Joplin, Missouri.
Galena was 10 miles from Joplin.
00:01:41
And there was Rock'n Roll bands
I would go see these bands.
I met him then.
00:01:46
But I actually remember
meeting him but don't
really remember us
talking about anything
other than just meeting.
00:01:52
And then, years and years later
Martina...
00:01:57
Well, we had another meeting in there,
-Jad Downing.
-Oh yeah.
00:02:00
Jad Downing was my roommate,
Jad downing became
Martina's lighting guy.
00:02:06
And then we met on the road.
00:02:08
Vance had pretty loose morals that
he would actually room with
a lighting guy or sound guy.
00:02:13
I know, it's weird.
00:02:15
It goes against the grain.
00:02:16
It really did.
00:02:17
And we fought,
like lighting guys and sound guys.
00:02:20
And if an audio guy gets
together with a video guy,
I'm not even going there.
00:02:25
That would be ugly.
00:02:28
It was weird.
00:02:29
There was a lot of awkwardness
about the lawn being mowed
and shit that, you know, of course...
00:02:34
But it's a whole other story
but I came out and met John
after TL...
00:02:42
Oh, wow!
TL and I hang out at a Martina show.
00:02:46
You were out with Garth,
I came out and we met
and then, not long after that,
I was working for Tammy Wynette
touring.
00:02:57
She wasn't really doing a whole lot
and John called me and it was like:
'Hey, I got got to South America
Australia,
somewhere around the world with Garth,
some place.
00:03:07
And I need somebody to
go out and do this job for Martina.
00:03:11
And, oh yeah, by the way,
you're gonna be mixing some of the time.
00:03:14
Which it was like, suddenly, like a lot of...
00:03:16
You know, like, 'Holy shit'.
00:03:18
We did that, then,
over time I went and did Jars of Clay.
00:03:24
You and I kept doing this
and then John started calling me
and he'd be like:
'Man, you know, I bought this house,
it's got this tennis court
and I'll fucking play tennis.
00:03:36
So, I think I'm gonna
build a studio out there!'
My knees suck.
00:03:39
I was like, I don't fucking play tennis.
00:03:41
They're new now.
00:03:43
And at that period time I just
built a studio for the Jars of Clay guy,
we were making a record,
so we started like commiserating
back and forth over really good wine
and
then we both came to the realization that
if you build studio in your house
Some bass player is gonna back
into your yard and get stuck all night.
00:04:02
Or some cartage truck
can tear up the yard.
00:04:06
Some shit is gonna happen
in the middle of the night
it's not going to be cool.
00:04:10
And so John started looking around
and at the time
I was over in this area for some reason
and he called me one day and he said:
'Hey, look at this building.'
'Meet me there.'
'Can you meet me?'
I said, sure.
00:04:26
So I came over and met him
and it was this building.
00:04:28
We walked through and looked at it.
There was a session going on.
00:04:32
And...
00:04:34
of some sort.
00:04:36
It was funny because when they used
to do the sessions here.
00:04:41
The history of this place is
it started off as a legit studio.
00:04:44
I think George Augspurger
designed the A room.
00:04:48
And...
00:04:49
Brett Meyer had it.
00:04:51
And then he moved out and sold it to
some advertising guys
-who used it sparingly.
-Yeah, they ran ads.
00:04:58
They had a Sphere console
and they didn't do it any maintenance.
00:05:03
So, the guys who worked here,
when they went to mix,
they would take the modules
out of the console
put them in the refrigerator...
00:05:12
Put them in the freezer
and then would take them out,
put them in the console and print.
00:05:17
While it was quiet.
Because once they got hot
they made a lot of noise.
00:05:22
I love that. I mean, I'm sorry.
00:05:24
John bought this Neve desk
and had sort of started refurbishing it
and then he bought this building
and then he called me up.
I was on the road,
he's like:
'Hey man,
I need somebody to come over
and help me build this place.'
So, I left my touring world
and came over here
and, you know...
00:05:48
It was unbelievable.
00:05:49
It was fun.
00:05:50
This is what happened, you know.
00:05:52
Man, that happened!
I remember I started out:
'We're gonna keep the budget like,
I'm looking like maybe,
a million dollars.'
'I bought these microphones.'
I found this really nice chest
we were just gonna set up out there,
in about 5 weeks into the experiment,
I would call it,
that thing was full.
00:06:13
For microphones.
00:06:15
We're gonna need
something really nice here,
we gotta figure out a place for the mics.
00:06:21
So, I think the first mic
locker was up here.
00:06:24
-Yeah.
-Still is a mic locker.
00:06:26
I mean, there's so many things about this.
This was a house.
00:06:31
This house was built in the 40s. Right?
This door was the back door,
that went out.
00:06:37
Outside.
00:06:38
On the other side of this,
this was added on,
that side was the garage,
so, here in a minute
we're gonna go in Studio B,
that was the garage.
00:06:46
Under the floor of Studio B
are still the little asphalt tracks
about the width of a 1930s car
under the floor.
00:06:55
And then there's like 7 roof lines
up above this.
00:07:00
We've recently been running fiber
and rediscovering all our roofs
that are underneath.
00:07:08
Other roofs,
there's roofs on top of roofs.
00:07:10
So, yeah. That was crazy. All these
offices back here at one point were things...
00:07:15
Yeah.
00:07:17
So, it was a crazy time.
00:07:19
And then he decided to
buy the building behind him.
00:07:22
The studio behind him.
00:07:23
What happened was,
I'm home or somewhere
and Vance calls me and he goes:
'Dude, George Massenburg and Kyle Lehning,
I think,
are over here and I'm giving
them a run around the place.'
I broke every traffic
light you could breake,
I got here
because, Massenburg,
and really, honestly, not even knowing
how incredible Kyle...
00:07:44
Yeah, absolutely.
00:07:46
But I thought:
'Shit, I'm gonna meet the guy
who invented parametric EQ.'
Or whatever, you know. Unbelievable.
00:07:54
So, I show up
and the first words out of Massenburg's
mouth, he looks at me he goes:
'What the fuck is a studio like this doing
in Nashville, Tennessee?'
And I thought: 'Oh boy!'
Because I'll tell you,
Vance and I are from the Midwest,
but
I love Nashville
and there's great players here,
there's great writers,
there's great producers, engineers,
there's great everything here.
00:08:23
In all aspects of the music business.
00:08:26
And I'm kind of competitive and I thought:
'We need to build a studio that will
kick the shit out of anything
in LA or New York.'
And you know,
I'd argue we have.
00:08:37
And I don't wanna sound
like some arrogant prick but
I love audio, I have to be in music.
00:08:45
He has to be in music,
we have no choice.
00:08:48
It's in our DNA,
there's something that
happens when we are baby
and I don't know if it's
the mom's heartbeat,
the sound of her voice.
00:08:56
Mine sure wasn't my French horn lessons,
I can tell you that.
00:09:00
You know what, I sucked at the piano.
00:09:02
At least it helped me...
00:09:05
It sure wasn't French horn lessons,
I can tell you.
00:09:07
Man! But anyway.
00:09:10
When Massenburg said that
it just totally,
you know, basically was:
'Yes, I did this for the right reasons.'
Because,
if you can impress George Massenburg
you're gonna be alright.
00:09:24
So, to come full circle,
Brent Mayer
who owned this building,
when he sold it, he bought
the two houses next door.
00:09:33
And they built a little studio,
it was a double lot,
it was two houses.
00:09:37
They a build a little hallway between them
and he had a publishing company.
00:09:42
They were a publishing studio.
00:09:44
At some point, John walked over,
you know, through the backyard,
because it was literally
just a backyard back there,
went over and...
00:09:53
Met Brat. But I said to George:
'Hey George, if you wanna do
something together let me know man.'
And George looks at me and goes:
'I have the perfect room in
my head for 25 years.'
And I thought:
'Fuck that, let's build it.'
I mean, don't leave it your head.
00:10:11
This guy talks to God
about electricity.
00:10:15
He's just genius,
I don't use that word too often.
00:10:18
But he really is.
00:10:20
And I thought: 'Here we go!'
And so I called the wife:
'Hey honey, do you care if you do
some extra shows this year?'
'Hey honey, do you care if you do
some extra shows this year?'
'We're gonna do some
renovations at the studio,
just little things.'
Man, oh...
00:10:38
I'd find a great 251 or something
and I'd call here...
00:10:43
'Girl, you know?'
Because I had some money because I had
sold my sound company to Clair Brothers
and that was going really well
but not realizing the kind
of money you really need
to get into a studio.
00:10:57
And whatever the budget is,
two and half times, that will be close.
00:11:01
I always tell people,
double it and add 10%
but that's probably right,
double it and add another half.
00:11:06
Yeah, man!
It is insanity.
00:11:10
But here's the problem,
we've got to give the
producers and artists
and engineers that come in here,
we wanna give them
every color on the pallet
because a Fairchild 670 is a color,
a RCA BA6A or a BA86
or whatever you're using.
Whether it's the mic pres,
whether it's the microphones,
the rooms you're in, these are all colors.
00:11:38
I don't want them to ever lack
any color for making
their
vision come true.
00:11:48
It's a blessing and a curse.
00:11:51
Because as an
engineer going into a studio
you go:
'OK, let me see what mics you have.'
You come to Blackbird
and it's like all of them.
00:11:59
You're like:
'OK, so what mic pre...?'
All of them.
00:12:02
'What compressors?'
All of them.
00:12:04
Honestly it's a little bit like
'Well, fuck, I have nothing
to blame anything on.'
I can't blame.
00:12:14
'Well, if I just had a 251 for this female
vocal it would have been great.'
'But I didn't have one.'
And now it's like:
'Oh, no, there's 35 of them.'
Pick one.
00:12:25
Or pick two, or three.
00:12:27
'Go through them. Or six, or eight.'
Or at one point, you know,
they did a shootout of 35 vocal mics,
all different,
all different ones.
00:12:38
Oh with James Otto.
00:12:40
And this guy could clip and SM57
he has a powerful voice.
00:12:44
What won, the R-F-T or something?
I don't remember what won.
00:12:48
I know that there was frightening
closeness
between a handheld 58
and a 47.
00:12:56
Yeap.
00:12:57
They were frightening close.
00:12:59
And just because you got a U47
doesn't mean it's great.
00:13:01
That's part of the deal,
it's got a history, who worked on it.
00:13:06
-And they don't work for everything.
-No!
And the day it was built,
was it a Friday on a three day weekend?
But we just did that this week,
we tried the 47 on a vocal
and it didn't work.
00:13:16
We ended up with an SM7.
00:13:17
Yeap.
00:13:18
An SM7 with the Telefunken V76 mic pre
is that close to a lot of 251s.
00:13:25
I'm not kidding.
00:13:26
Cool. You wanna show them around?
Yeah, we should walk...
00:13:30
We'll talk all day.
00:13:33
This room is the A Control Room.
00:13:37
Built in the mid-seventies I believe.
00:13:39
Originally a compression ceiling
and we found out that doesn't work,
called George Augspurger back,
he came in,
we widened it,
changed the ceiling
and this used to be the back of the room,
right here.
00:13:53
And we extended it as far as we could
to go, about 8 feet,
to go to the property line, basically.
00:14:00
The design of Blackbird is:
Where's the property line?
That's kind of what happens.
00:14:07
That console used to
belong to Donald Fagen
and it was at River Sound in New York.
00:14:12
Prior to that it was at Motown LA.
00:14:16
But we turned it upside down
and made it as perfect
as it could possibly be.
00:14:23
I called Geoff Tanner
who worked for Neve
when they built that console.
00:14:27
We have the schematics,
it had his initials on it, I love that.
00:14:31
And he was aware of
everything about that console.
00:14:33
And man we...
00:14:35
I just never said no.
00:14:36
And if we could spend more money we did.
00:14:38
But I felt like this is the heart
of what's happening here, you know.
00:14:43
And it's gotta be great.
00:14:45
-Let's go to the mic locker.
-Yeah, definitely.
00:14:51
So, this is not the original mic locker
but this is where we keep
a lot of the high-end mics.
00:14:58
Everything is labeled.
00:15:01
Our rarest mic is a
Stereo Telefunken 251.
00:15:06
I'm not sure if there's another
but
basically
it's a 251 with the additional capsule.
00:15:16
Stereo image, right there.
00:15:19
I like the serial number.
00:15:23
I actually think that's the replica.
00:15:26
I think this one, which I can't reach...
00:15:28
-You know where it is?
-It's upfront.
00:15:30
-Yes, it is.
-That's an exact replica.
00:15:33
Because I'll throw this at people.
00:15:35
There is a couple cool things,
but this is cool.
00:15:41
Oh yeah, C24 number one.
00:15:43
Number one.
00:15:44
Yes.
00:15:46
And that wasn't even a sales pitch,
that it was number one.
00:15:50
It's so odd.
00:15:51
-It's part of the collection.
-I just bought number 2.
00:15:54
Oh, cool.
00:15:55
Yeah, that guy in LA.
00:15:57
From Warner Brothers, I think.
00:15:59
I bought that mic collection,
I think Tony
Fishman was involved in that deal.
00:16:04
Man I've paid retail over the years.
00:16:06
I'll tell ya.
00:16:07
There's a lot of cool stuff in here now.
This room
and the big room,
which you saw in some of our shots
was added after the fact.
00:16:18
So, after about a year and half
of Studio A being opened
we decided we needed to,
he decided we needed a bigger room.
00:16:27
And so part of it was:
'Well, we need really a secure place
to put the microphones.'
And so, in this room
all of the microphones went.
00:16:38
And what ended up happening
was that at some point,
when across the way opened up
we had to have one over there too.
00:16:45
So, what you see here
is you'll actually see holes
where things are empty
and that's because
they're in the other room
or they're in place,
they're being used elsewhere.
00:16:55
There are some really cool
kind of rare
things in here, obviously
101,
there's a pair of PD31s down here.
00:17:08
And these are
the original, the very first ribbon mic.
00:17:14
This is a ribbon, these were made
solely for Radio City Musical.
00:17:20
And John came across it,
there's a couple of them down here.
00:17:23
A buddy of mine runs Radio City
and he called me and said
they were selling this mics
that have been there
since it opened basically...
00:17:29
But I mean, KU3As.
00:17:32
-Yeah, I love those.
-There's KU2As down here.
00:17:35
Something is stuck underneath it.
00:17:37
KU2As, these are 'Skunk'.
00:17:40
I like this, black luster.
00:17:43
You know what...
00:17:45
-I think it's down below.
-It's down below.
00:17:47
Yeah, I screwed this with...
00:17:50
I screwed this.
00:17:51
OK, we'll...
00:17:52
We'll get somebody to fix that later.
00:17:55
Yes, absolutely.
00:17:56
But there's amazing stuff here.
47s, these are all 47s.
00:18:00
251s, C12s.
00:18:02
These are all C12s.
00:18:04
67s.
00:18:05
269s.
00:18:07
I love these mics.
00:18:09
Yeah, M50s. I'm a huge M50 fan,
I'll tell you that.
00:18:13
I think we only have like,
it sounds horrible.
00:18:17
I think 14.
00:18:20
I sold a couple pairs,
I've regretted selling
anything I've ever sold.
00:18:25
Every time.
00:18:26
Every time.
00:18:28
I love these mics, these are an
old Neumann measurement mic,
it's an MM3, I think.
00:18:33
Yeah, this is the 3.
00:18:35
They make a 4 also,
I don't have any of those yet.
00:18:39
But the capsule is up here,
the body is down here.
00:18:42
They put this so the reflections from
the body wouldn't affect the measurement.
00:18:46
Anechoic.
00:18:48
And it's an omni.
00:18:51
It's similar to an M50, really.
00:18:53
That's the best way to describe it.
00:18:55
Similar capsule.
00:18:56
And they are flat from...
00:18:58
It's ridiculous,
it's like 16 to 22 kHz or something.
00:19:04
And, you know,
way probably above
what I can hear these days
but one something stays flat
to 50 or 60 kHz
you hear it. Whether you
think you hear it or not.
00:19:16
You know the difference.
00:19:18
It's pretty amazing.
00:19:20
Here's one you're not
gonna see very often.
00:19:24
You know what this is?
A Quad
69, SM 69.
00:19:32
We're trying to get a new
Atmos mic built that 16...
No I'm kidding.
00:19:38
No, no. Alright.
00:19:40
'Sixteen capsules in this one.'
But anyway, I love microphones.
00:19:46
It's become one of my big passions.
00:19:49
The Beatles rooftop mics,
we've got that whole mess.
Oh, one of my favorites.
00:19:55
Telefunken.
00:19:56
1932.
00:19:59
Ribbon mic.
00:20:01
And it's amazing
how that sounds on a kick drum
or a vocal, I'm not kidding.
00:20:07
It's really crazy. It is.
00:20:09
-The other thing we try not to do...
-Melodium...
00:20:12
Oh yeah, the Melodiums are great man.
00:20:16
That was in Radio City also.
00:20:18
-Really?
-Yeah, two of them.
00:20:20
We got two of them in here.
00:20:22
An old French.
00:20:24
It's French Fab.
00:20:27
Yeap.
00:20:32
What other good mic stuff do
we have laying around Vance?
Well there's actually some
back here that are in cases.
00:20:39
Doug Sax's
Sheffields.
00:20:45
There's some of those in cases back here.
00:20:48
There's a...
00:20:51
What's that thing, the AMS mic?
-Oh yeah.
-The AMS...
00:20:58
Soundfield.
00:21:00
That is pretty cool.
00:21:01
And then, you know,
I mean. Yeah.
00:21:06
And what happened was,
over the years
we bought a lot of gear
because I just didn't...
00:21:11
And I'm a road guy
so
a roadie with a budget
is a scary thing.
You know man?
A roadie with some pockets, it's scary.
00:21:21
And obviously without Martina this place
never would have been built
but she was behind the idea,
has regretted it ever since.
00:21:30
I'm kidding. That's not true.
00:21:32
It was a funny because I got an offer
not that long ago.
00:21:35
Somebody called and wanted to talk,
I brought her up to the room and she goes:
'You know, fuck that!'
Well, you know, now it's like...
00:21:46
'Wait a minute,
you've tortured me for years,
we could have been retired 10 years ago.'
I will never retire.
00:21:53
I don't think you will either Vance.
00:21:55
I mean, when you love what you do
and we love what we do,
why would I retire?
This brings me so much joy,
especially tracking. I love tracking days.
00:22:06
You know what retirement is?
Retirement is gain to do
the gigs you wanna do.
00:22:10
And
then everything else you don't have to do.
00:22:14
That's what retirement is.
00:22:15
I'm not there yet.
00:22:17
Me neither.
00:22:19
But when you can do what you wanna do
and then, the rest of the time you can
fuck off in however
way you wanna fuck off.
00:22:27
And you know, Nashville,
I don't wanna sit here and be
you know, a commercial for Nashville,
but the fact is we have
hundreds and hundreds
of great, and I mean great, players.
00:22:40
Not good, great.
00:22:41
Good is the enemy of great.
00:22:44
You think good... 'Oh, that's OK.'
Well, fuck that.
00:22:47
That doesn't get anybody's attention.
You know what I mean.
00:22:50
So, the fact that I get to come in here
and work with people like Bukovac
oh, you name it,
Glenn Worth or Dan Dugmore, whoever.
00:22:59
You know, it's just...
00:23:00
And then, obviously, a lot of
players come here from out of town.
00:23:04
I became friends with Vinnie Colaiuta,
Steve Jordan
and a lot of people.
I've even met some Beatles' engineers.
00:23:12
I got to hang out with them
which is, to this day,
it still blows my mind.
00:23:16
I got to hang out with Emmerick that day,
it was awesome.
00:23:19
-Let's go look at B.
-Yeah, let's do that.
00:23:24
This room is tiny
so we needed a small console.
00:23:31
I found this API, it's 48 big faders,
48 little faders,
a lot packed into a small package.
00:23:37
I love it.
00:23:38
A lot of great stuff
has been done in here.
00:23:40
The Dixie Chicks record that
Richard Dodd did was done here.
00:23:43
Oh yeah, the one that won all the Grammys.
00:23:46
Chili Peppers I think.
00:23:48
We got a little record space, there's
a little reverb chamber back there.
00:23:52
There's a bathroom.
Vance did an entire album in this room.
00:23:55
Drums in that room,
guitar amp in the bathroom,
bass direct in here. Awesome.
00:24:00
I mixed Murder of the Mountains
of Red Fang in here,
Jeff the Brotherhood and...
00:24:05
All kind of stuff.
I recorded Buddy Guy in there.
00:24:09
Buddy Guy in 2004 came
and made a record here.
00:24:12
No, 2005, probably.
00:24:15
Because I was in D.
00:24:16
And he told me... I went
over to meet him finally,
he'd been here a couple weeks,
I'm just not a politician.
00:24:22
I just can't, I just don't go over:
'Hey...' You know?
But I had to go over and go:
'Listen, we're so happy you're here.'
He goes, John I'm never gonna
make a record anywhere else.
00:24:32
And he's been true to his word.
00:24:34
-It's unbelievable.
-I think it was 2007.
00:24:36
It might have been.
00:24:38
I made that record.
00:24:40
Yeah. It's so good.
00:24:43
Was that the one he was 74 years young.
00:24:46
Oh, that was the second one. Yeah.
00:24:48
I did two.
00:24:49
Seventy four years ago.
And that was how long ago?
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:53
Well, there's a whole story there.
We'll go over to D.
00:24:56
There's some fun stories.
00:25:01
This is the other mic locker.
00:25:05
And gear storage.
00:25:07
There's a lot of mics in these drawers.
00:25:10
Let me get a key here.
00:25:13
And now everybody knows where the key is.
00:25:16
And if a door doesn't
answer you do this.
00:25:19
- Where do you wanna start here?
- It just opened.
00:25:22
Yeah.
00:25:25
Oh, I gotta show you this mic.
00:25:27
And its mate, which is right behind it.
00:25:29
They're both in still
their original boxes.
00:25:33
And consecutive serial numbers.
00:25:35
And we never used these,
only because they're sitting up here.
00:25:39
We got a bunch of 77s in different places.
00:25:42
But just the condition of these.
00:25:45
Isn't that beautiful?
I mean, it's just kind of beautiful.
00:25:51
I have one this, I love them.
And it doesn't work.
00:25:54
Ball & Biscuit.
00:25:56
Ah, Ball & Biscuit.
00:25:57
This kind of gives you the idea.
00:25:59
This is...
00:26:00
This is full of mics
after mics, after mics, after mics.
00:26:05
Even more.
00:26:07
So, we just kind of go down the line here.
00:26:11
These are all D25s.
00:26:14
CMVs.
00:26:18
Oh, here's our creepiest mic.
00:26:20
I've done this before but
so it wouldn't be original material.
00:26:25
But I've had this mic for a year,
part of the collection from Europe.
00:26:28
And one of my guys goes:
'Hey John,
the Nazi party stamp is
on the top of this mic.'
And I thought:
'No wonder nobody uses it.'
I don't know it's just kind of
crazy and creepy, but,
it's here, you know.
00:26:44
And...
00:26:47
I became a big RFT fan
and
I would buy any RFT I could find
for years
until finally one of my mic guys,
who works here, Brian, said:
'Dude, we don't any more RFTs.'
I go: 'Why?'
'Because we have 43 of these things.'
But I really like them.
00:27:14
They're a lot like a 47,
the power supply is in the tube,
in the bottle.
00:27:21
It's 220...
00:27:23
And it takes the bayonet style capsule.
00:27:26
An M7, M8 and M9
if you want cardioid, figure 8 or omni.
00:27:31
But they really sound great.
00:27:34
Martina has done timeless records
with one of those mics.
00:27:37
And it's fun.
00:27:40
Then we got tons of capsules.
00:27:42
I love that.
00:27:44
We've got a bunch of
old white 421 Telefunkens.
00:27:46
-This is a 10.000 dollars speaker cable.
-It is.
00:27:49
But the cool thing is, if you get cancer,
it's gone. Cool.
00:27:55
I love that.
00:27:57
Should we go back through here?
So we have a tech shop
-which, believe it or not...
-This is the cleanest I've seen it.
00:28:09
-And forever.
-I was gonna say in 20 years.
00:28:12
Yeah. Well, it's because of Nick.
00:28:14
We're now making our own Neve
caps, knobs.
00:28:21
With 3D print. A bunch of crazy stuff.
00:28:24
I think most of the stuff works still.
00:28:27
Already.
00:28:28
And there used to be
gear pilled everywhere.
00:28:30
Those are Telefunken mic pres,
I'm a big fan of those.
00:28:36
This room,
this is a mess.
00:28:40
But this is where of
the Telefunken pres are.
00:28:43
I think we have 137 altogether.
00:28:46
And that would V72,
V72A and B,
V77s, V78s.
00:28:53
V76s of course, we have 8...
00:28:57
You have some 74s.
00:28:59
Yeah, we got a bunch of Ms.
00:29:01
Which are like a line amp.
00:29:02
The 74s are like a line amp.
00:29:04
And then we've got a
16 channel expander
for an API 1608,
sitting there on the shelf
because you know...
I don't know why.
00:29:15
You know, part of
having a studio is,
you've gotta be able to maintain it
and finding tubes and...
00:29:22
I remember 15 years ago,
I bought
25
never been used AC701s
but great AC701s.
00:29:32
And it was like 500
hundred bucks a piece.
00:29:34
So I went:
'I am the stupidest guy on Earth
but I'm getting this.'
And guess what.
Now they're 1500 or 2000...
00:29:41
And you probably used 2 or 3 of them.
00:29:43
That's we've used.
And we still have 23 left.
00:29:47
Man, I love the AC701 tube.
00:29:51
-Oh, there you go.
-So here's the real one.
00:29:54
We just everybody where it is.
00:29:56
The serial number is actually 101.
00:29:59
101.
00:30:00
What's interesting is,
the finish never got polished.
00:30:06
So, it's like a satin.
00:30:09
And, yeah, that's the original one.
00:30:12
-I love it.
-And it sounds fantastic.
00:30:14
It does, although, you know what,
I probably still use two mono
251s so that I have more
freedom of placement.
00:30:22
But you know what, is nice to use
that just to say you did.
00:30:25
It sounds good on acoustic guitars.
00:30:27
I don't know another one on Earth.
00:30:37
And you know it's funny, from the outside
this looks like some other
little house in Berry Hill.
00:30:42
I remember Kid Rock going:
'I pulled up and I go,
what's this somebody's fucking house?'
But he came inside and he got better.
00:30:52
Yeah, we can see
where we added to the building
because it's got a different
texture obviously.
00:31:00
And we're Beatles fans around here,
one of my daughters
has been painting some of our doors.
00:31:07
And it's usually a Beatles lyric.
00:31:09
-Is that Emma?
-Yes, Emma.
00:31:11
Also, we bought the transformers
from the city of Nashville.
00:31:16
So no one can tap off that one,
or that one.
00:31:20
And you notice there's three
wires coming off each and that's us.
00:31:23
And this one is regular power,
that's a 1000 amp service.
00:31:27
Yeah, it's a three phase, 1000 amp.
00:31:30
They added this telephone pole
which goes down about 25 feet,
I'm not joking.
00:31:34
And out here in the middle of this...
00:31:38
is the huge star ground.
00:31:40
It's like 16-foot copper pipe,
copper rods in the ground
with two gauge
welding cable, all welded
and a big huge cable going up
into a room we'll show you later.
00:31:52
And this the first place that tech
power and house power meet,
underneath this driveway.
00:31:58
That's the E room.
00:32:01
And we used a line of
'Baby You're a Rich Man'.
00:32:04
'Tuned to A natural...
Happy to be that way.'
Now, A was mine, it's a man-cave.
00:32:24
Me and Vance made a man-cave.
00:32:27
But this building, Martina got involved.
00:32:30
That's why
you feel dainty and elegant...
00:32:34
-Anybody here?
-I don't know man.
00:32:36
Let's take a look.
00:32:38
It looks like the school...
00:32:40
We can probably
run through real quick.
00:32:42
You know,
let's go to the lounge for two seconds.
00:32:45
We got this... Is it a 31 or...
00:32:48
That mic.
00:32:50
RCA, it's a 77A.
00:32:53
Yeah, and its mate is in
one of the other mic lockers.
00:32:57
- But people actually use it for overdubs.
- Yeah, I've used it.
00:33:00
When you come to a studio you don't
want it to be like going to the dentist,
you want it to be like:
'I feel inspired.'
You know, with the rich colors...
00:33:12
Bordello chic.
00:33:15
- What's that?
- Bordello chic.
00:33:17
It's like going to a nice...
00:33:19
That's a good way to describe.
00:33:21
There's some kind of nutty things here,
you guys can't really see it
but I wanna explain it real quick.
00:33:28
This floor
and that floor
and that floor
and that floor do not connect.
00:33:36
And this little booth
is a foot of solid concrete
sitting on 9 or 10 inches of rock-wool,
sitting on another 9 inches of concrete
on another foot of gravel.
00:33:49
So this room,
these walls are floating
not touching the
rest of the building,
even though it doesn't look like it.
00:33:56
We are fortunate because
this we built from the ground up
so every room is separate.
00:34:02
You know, everything is a floating slab.
00:34:04
I wanted to keep the rooms
not influencing each other.
00:34:09
These are all 8 inch,
inside rooms are 8 inch
blocks full of concrete.
00:34:14
Outside is 12 or 18 inch,
I don't know, it's huge...
00:34:17
Usually 12
a foot of air and another
foot of solid concrete.
00:34:22
There's so much concrete in this place
I often wonder: 'Are we gonna sink?'
You guys mind if we
step in for a minute?
We're not gonna interrupt you,
just keep working,
we're just doing a quick tour.
00:34:41
*Artist talking to engineer.
00:34:47
So, for the D room
we got a 96 big fader.
00:34:52
Legacy+ and 96 little faders.
00:34:56
*Artist talking to engineer.
00:34:59
And in the outboard rack,
the general smattering,
usually it's mic pres and
things over on that side.
00:35:08
There would be a lot of
compressors and EQs in here.
00:35:11
Effects and
compressors over here.
00:35:15
We have over 100 channels of Neve outboard
for channel-strips.
00:35:20
People wanna use
Neve in a room like this.
00:35:22
And we have one BCM 10.
Oh yeah, and some 1073s, sure.
00:35:27
Are you using the chamber?
Cool. Let's go in there.
00:35:37
Alright.
00:35:39
So, this is one of my favorite
rooms in the whole building.
00:35:42
And if there's a tornado
this is where you wanna be.
00:35:45
There's more concrete between us and the
outside world than you shake a stick at.
00:35:50
This room is an accident in a way.
00:35:52
This was supposed to be, above us here,
AC and while they were building the room,
these are all separate walls,
somebody told John:
'Hey, you should make a chamber.'
And he came over and went: 'OK'.
00:36:09
Well, we did the same thing in A,
we should have looked at that
because in A
I don't want the big room
to always sound the same,
I don't want the chamber to
always sound the same.
00:36:21
I wanna add some variance.
00:36:23
So, at the one in A,
the ceiling goes up and down.
00:36:27
And you can get down to here
and you take it up.
00:36:33
Let me show you
something that's really cool.
00:36:36
Check this out.
00:36:43
So, if these guys were more experienced,
they would have a stereo mic in
here with the door opened
picking up...
00:36:56
It's about 8.5 seconds of decay.
00:36:58
Really beautiful.
00:37:01
Although I couldn't afford to
put another moving ceiling.
00:37:04
This is better, so...
00:37:07
And these doors are the equivalent
for sound isolation of
a foot of solid concrete.
00:37:15
I don't even know the manufacturer...
00:37:17
- Acoustic Solutions.
- Yeah, OK.
00:37:20
And when you leave this place,
if you're here for a week or more
your right arm looks like
Arnold Schwarzenegger
and your left arm is spindly.
00:37:28
They're magnetic sealed
and they weight a ton.
00:37:32
Literally, they weight a ton.
00:37:34
That wall behind the drummer is three feet,
it might be 2 feet of solid concrete
and it's at an angle because...
00:37:45
And behind him there's a trap.
00:37:47
The room is trapped behind him.
00:37:50
Michael Cronin designed it.
00:37:54
And I love talking in here.
If you talk as you walk out, the difference,
it just dries right up.
00:38:02
No, no man.
00:38:04
No.
00:38:05
We already got a couple crotch shots and...
No, I'm kidding.
00:38:08
That what I was talking.
00:38:11
We use the skyline
diffusion on the ceilings,
these wood on the walls is called
the flutter free.
00:38:17
But when you clap
your hands in this room.
00:38:23
You don't hear any weird reflections.
00:38:25
Gimme a little snare.
00:38:29
And check this out.
00:38:33
Just single stroke.
00:38:39
Amazing!
So, if you can hear me,
put a mic in the chamber.
00:38:43
And open the door.
00:38:46
Booths, booths, piano room.
00:38:49
Booth, 3 amp lockers behind the piano room.
00:38:52
So that we can add more people in here.
00:38:54
Because eye contact
is important.
00:38:58
That's the only drawback to A for me
is that when we added
on that great big room
we put a lot of players in that room
but the piano is separate
and the vocalist,
depending on where they wanna set up.
00:39:11
We should go down the hall.
00:39:12
- Alright, we'll be back in a minute.
- Thanks
When we did that
Buddy Guy record.
00:39:18
I had 9 guitar amps in this room.
00:39:21
All wide opened, all connected on.
00:39:24
He may have got
nothing on Buddy Guy.
00:39:28
I'll tell you that right now.
00:39:29
Three amp lockers back here.
00:39:32
This is a storage and a
little mic locker back here.
00:39:37
And then this...
00:39:39
Overflown rental gear.
00:39:41
When I got Bob Ludwig
to tour here he goes:
'I used that in the 60s
and that in the 70s
and that in the 80s.
My whole history is here.'
- A Wendel Jr sitting up there.
- Oh my god!
I like this room.
00:39:59
OK. One of the big differences
or a difference between Blackbird
and most studios,
we have a lot of bang here.
00:40:08
Over 60 guitar amps.
00:40:10
We've got 5 AC30s,
one new one.
00:40:16
And a bunch of old ones,
two with top boost.
00:40:19
We've got some Dumbles in here,
we've got some Watkins,
we have a 69 Marshall Super Lead,
and of my favorite things
I've heard about that is when Steve Mason
from Jars of Clay
hit a chord,
I think it was a Les Paul, maybe.
00:40:36
And he goes through that 69 Super Lead:
'That's why they call
Rock'n Roll the devil's music!'
And by the way it's Christmas' day because
we work year round, I'm just letting you
know, we're all doing this on Christmas.
00:41:01
Let me get a light on here.
00:41:04
Thanks Vance.
00:41:06
Let's see.
00:41:08
I know I can find something.
00:41:10
This is the former
George Massenburg office.
00:41:13
Yes.
00:41:14
Wow, I've forgotten that.
00:41:17
Man, we have enough gear
that we decided to rent some gear out
because if we're not working
and people are working
at home or somewhere else
they still need a great mic chain
so we started the rental
department back in,
I don't know, 2004, maybe.
00:41:35
And a lot of the favorite mics of people,
they all have names in here.
00:41:41
- Betty, Gaby...
- Sweet.
00:41:45
Yellow, yellow. Blue.
00:41:49
And then we have some of the
more kind of esoteric gear in this room.
00:41:54
We've got a couple of old Motown EQs.
00:41:57
These are from the first
25 that were ever made.
00:42:01
Mike... Oh, he's in his 80s,
he's still alive.
00:42:04
Mike came through, when we
took the tops off, he looked at it and:
'Oh yeah, these are the first 25,
we did this, this...'
And then back here,
if you can fit,
we got some Cooper Time Cubes,
we got some Helios shit,
I love these.
00:42:21
I still have to figure out
why you have a 15:5 ratio
a 24:8 ratio
or a 3:1 ratio.
00:42:31
- 24:8, I mean...
- It's 3:1!
Yeah...
00:42:34
15:5, that's 3:1 too.
00:42:37
I love the Cooper Time Cube,
this is a garden hose,
rolled up in a box with a mic on one end
and a speaker on the other.
00:42:48
One is a garden hose
and one is a PVC hose.
00:42:52
Pyle compressors, from Pyle studios.
00:42:54
Oh yeah, I love those Pyles.
00:42:56
BBCs...
00:42:59
These are EMI EQ modules out of
a mastering desk.
00:43:04
I bought one from Abbey Road.
This is a rack
with two EQs, two compressors.
00:43:10
I got offered a lot of money for this rack.
00:43:12
But haven't sold...
I have two of them.
00:43:14
One I actually I take with me
on the road live. Which is insane.
00:43:18
I shouldn't do it
but you know what,
I gotta cheat anyway I can,
I gotta stack the deck on my favor
to sound good.
00:43:24
And just going through these,
without even using any EQ
makes it sound better.
The circuit sounds incredible.
00:43:32
But yeah, lots of old stuff.
00:43:34
I didn't know you bought a Soundgas 636.
00:43:38
- Yeah.
- Wow, that's cool.
00:43:40
I got an Echorec from those guys too.
00:43:43
And then, I don't know man.
00:43:45
- Very cool.
- Yeah.
00:43:47
Ebo is a local guy,
Eric Borash, who builds
spring reverbs for guitar players.
00:43:55
He started making rack-mount units
and everybody loves them.
00:43:58
Those are springs, yeah.
00:44:00
You know I'm a spring fan.
00:44:02
I have them and that 636,
is the Grampian 636, I have the 666.
00:44:09
666, yeah.
00:44:10
The devil's boing.
00:44:13
I think Fairchild makes
a 666 something also.
00:44:16
Well, EV makes a 666.
00:44:18
Oh, they do, that's true.
00:44:21
And we can't get out.
00:44:23
Pull,
that's why we can't get out. Weird.
00:44:28
If you went to your control room,
we have 9 different rooms,
if you went to your room
and you didn't find what you wanted
you just go: 'I need this, this and this.'
And we'd come over here
and you'll follow me if you want
but we've got
this stuff
and more stuff, 33609s,
three out of the 4 metal knob here,
A Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor,
I believe.
00:45:01
We've got a lot of Chandler gear.
00:45:03
I love Wade Goeke, I love him.
00:45:06
Some Neve channels.
00:45:08
In here you've got...
We have I think 65 Pultecs.
00:45:12
Over 60, a lot of 76s,
we have LA-2As.
00:45:16
Lots of different compressors.
00:45:20
LA-3As, LA-4As.
00:45:24
And then back here,
there's even a little more.
00:45:28
A bunch of Langs. Those are rare.
00:45:31
Man, I know. They were hard to get
15 years ago.
00:45:37
Since we do have all this,
we have 100 guitars now also.
00:45:42
And these are all guitar pedals.
00:45:44
And you'd be shocked how
often somebody asks for
whatever pedal.
00:45:50
And we need to put
those things where it beeps
if they go out the door.
00:45:56
I lost a couple pedals.
00:45:57
Man. That's an RCA BK5.
00:46:00
It might be an A because the Bs
I keep for guitar,
it's one of my favorite electric guitar...
00:46:06
I got a B and an A.
00:46:07
I'm gonna be honest with you,
they're kind of about the same.
00:46:09
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
00:46:10
Because the B supposedly
goes flat to 15 kHz.
00:46:13
50 to 15 kHz and the A is
80 to 10 kHz or something like that,
they say.
00:46:19
They're pretty cool,
they're pretty similar.
00:46:21
You know,
they needed a bunch of As, they go:
'Fuck it, we've got these Bs
already stamping in.
00:46:26
Alright, let's go!'
Alright, EMTs, I'm a huge EMT fan.
00:46:31
- 250s.
- Yeah.
00:46:33
And we have a bunch of 240s,
we've got even a tubed 240
that we just have
to get working.
00:46:39
And we've added an extra tech
and we're getting so much stuff
caught up right now.
00:46:43
It's really good.
That's the API
anniversary 250 up there.
00:46:49
They took something good
and made it even bigger.
00:46:53
You're right.
00:46:55
I love those guys. Oh man, I do.
00:46:57
One other thing I wanna point out.
00:46:59
That unit right there,
that's an IQAir
medical graded cleaner.
00:47:06
They're about 1300 dollars but they pull
0.003 micron shit out of the air.
00:47:13
We've had relatively no Covid to speak of
in this entire facility
between the school,
the clients and the staff.
00:47:22
It's been amazing. We also built
a bunch of custom UV lights
that you can't be on
the room when they're on
but you can do an entire
console in 30 minutes.
00:47:30
And you're not sitting there with alcohol,
taking the paint off it.
00:47:34
I've got one of those Berlant mic pres.
00:47:37
It's being rebuilt for me right now.
00:47:39
Oh man,
I'll tell you what. I love,
I love...
00:47:45
Well, it's just the colors, you know.
00:47:49
So many great colors.
00:47:51
It's funny when Al came through,
I gave Al Schmidt a tour
about 10 years ago, probably.
00:47:56
And he goes:
'John, I've heard but I had no idea.'
I go: 'Al, we just wanna
give you what you want man.'
When he came to record
we only had a few M149s, and he likes them,
the newer Neumanns,
I had three so I ended
up buying 4 more to make Al happy
because you'll do whatever
it takes to make Al happy, I promise you.
00:48:17
If you have any ounce of anything in you
you're gonna make all happy.
00:48:22
Some nice, long, the LA-1A.
00:48:27
-Yeah...
-The voice of America.
00:48:29
You don't see those.
00:48:32
And everybody is always on my ass:
'Get rid of those shit, sell it, sell it!'
You know, really?
Space Station.
00:48:43
Oh, Ursa Major, yeah.
00:48:45
Yeah,
if you need an Ursa Major Space Station
to get the exact sound you want
then I wanna have one for you
and a spare, hopefully.
00:48:55
EMT reverb.
00:48:57
And I know you have an
EMT compressor somewhere.
00:49:00
There it is, right there.
00:49:02
That's a mastering compressor.
00:49:05
Yeah.
00:49:06
I love these.
00:49:11
It's been while since
I've been down this rack.
00:49:18
-Man.
-Yeah.
00:49:21
Wendel, some Telos units.
00:49:27
I think we did a Van Halen
door on this side.
00:49:30
Yeah, we did.
00:49:31
Of course.
00:49:31
Yeah, we got to.
00:49:33
Got to.
00:49:36
Eddie Van.
00:49:44
So this is a little overdub room
called H and it's a...
00:49:51
The control room is there,
the record space is
around the corner here.
00:49:55
That's the machine room.
00:49:57
There's a 1608 there.
00:50:02
A little of outboard stuff, you know.
00:50:05
We've got a Neve channel or two.
00:50:08
Yeah, it's basically overdubs.
00:50:14
But it's
it feels like you get away from everyone
in here, you know.
It's nice in a way.
00:50:22
My brother-in-law is a photographer
and he did all these pictures,
the old Jim Morrison,
Dylan, Ginger Baker and Janis Joplin.
00:50:33
Different people.
00:50:35
Yes, step down here.
00:50:40
Not much to it though but...
00:50:44
Alison Krauss spent 6 weeks in this room,
you know.
00:50:49
Not too long ago on another record.
00:50:51
What we did,
I wanted to have a great monitoring rig
for whoever the players are.
00:50:57
So everybody gets...
This is a 24 channel mixer,
16 faders, 4 stereo returns.
00:51:04
And what we usually do is put
bass and drums through one and two.
00:51:07
Panned.
00:51:09
And then kick, snare, hat, bass,
keys, guitars, acoustic.
00:51:16
-You know. Click.
-It's the dig me box.
00:51:18
Yeah, vocal.
00:51:20
Etc, etc, etc.
00:51:22
So that each player
can set up their own mix
because we need the players to be inspired,
we need them to hear
what they wanna hear.
00:51:29
When you have only one or two mixes
going to the whole band, a lot of times,
-people want it different.
-They bitch.
00:51:36
That's what we did.
00:51:39
And then on the stereo returns
we have reverbs, talkback, volume
and a couple other little things.
00:51:44
A little built-in work shelf.
00:51:46
I just locked. That locks in or out.
00:51:49
If you need a music stand there you go.
00:51:54
And we built them out of wood also
for vocal booths
because Gordon would
notice if we had a metal one.
00:52:00
Yeah.
00:52:02
Because Gordon hears everything.
Four pairs of headphones and a Crown D75.
00:52:10
The C room, when I talked
earlier about George Massenburg
said he had the perfect
room in his had for 25 years,
and I said: 'Let's build it.'
Well, what we're about to see is
what that was and what we did.
00:52:24
What there is...
00:52:26
There are 138,646
pieces of one by one inch wood
coming off the walls.
00:52:33
No two are the same length.
00:52:35
That's sort of true.
00:52:37
There's two that are the same.
00:52:39
Is there?
Yeah.
00:52:41
Yeah.
00:52:42
So,
when they built all this, they started,
this wood would expand and contract.
00:52:48
They went all the way around,
the number that George picked
and when they got to the end right here
they were one short.
00:52:54
So they George said:
'Oh, just duplicate one.'
So they did.
00:53:00
So, this one...
00:53:01
That's why it sounds worst there... No.
00:53:03
It's duplicated.
00:53:05
And the crazy thing is,
the guy who duplicated it
he duplicated the first one.
00:53:11
So if you look,
these two are identical.
00:53:14
OK, I learn new things
about the studio every day.
00:53:18
The corners are 50 cycle diffusers,
-Oh man, what is it?
-Peter D'Antonio.
00:53:25
Peter D'Antonio,
is that RPG,
is that what his company is called?
So
the room is based around diffusion,
obviously.
00:53:33
There's 80.000 and 100.000
pounds of wood on the wall.
00:53:38
There's a giant I-beam in the
middle of each wall that these things
connect to because otherwise...
00:53:44
I can't even imagine.
00:53:47
But...
00:53:49
And we have this
special service,
they wear this French maid outfits
and they come in with dusters
and clean them about... I'm kidding.
00:53:56
They're small...
00:53:59
We have a manlift.
00:54:03
You'll not believe how many
people have come in here and said:
'God who dusts this?'
I say, 'Don't hide your drugs
in there, you'll never find them.'
It's impossible to focus on the wall
because of the little darkness around.
00:54:15
One of the things they had to do,
all this, they sealed it.
00:54:19
So, at one point
they came in and they tested it.
00:54:23
They tested about an 8 feet piece
and sealed it all.
00:54:26
Spray sealed it.
They had to seal the doors.
00:54:29
And make a tunnel and guys in...
00:54:32
like space suit.
00:54:34
And then they built the rest of it.
00:54:36
So you come in and look at the rest of it
and be like: 'Alright, that's cool.'
But then the 8 feet they sealed
it tripped your mind out.
00:54:45
And I think that George
kind of figured out
that where they
sealed them on the edge
it kind of makes a line and
it confuses your brain on the shadow.
00:54:53
And so...
But it was weird because everywhere
they didn't seal you didn't
get that feeling of like: 'Wow.'
But where they didn't sealed you did. So.
00:55:03
The funny part is, all this wood is
4 by 8 sheets of one inch
formaldehyde-free MDF.
00:55:10
In 2004 or 2005, when we built this room.
00:55:14
And this is a 40 by 28 shell, it's huge.
00:55:18
But not so much after
you get all this treatment.
00:55:21
At that point in time
Microsoft Excel did
not talk to a CNC router.
00:55:28
So we paid some guy in Hawaii
U$ 14,000 to right the code
between Excel and the router.
00:55:34
And we had a local company
cut this wood,
which they will never do it again.
00:55:40
They actually said:
'We'll never do this again.'
'So never ask.'
And we could get about what,
6 inches of wall a day, maybe?
Maybe? I don't know.
00:55:52
I mean, they're two sheets high
because we're about 15 feet high...
00:55:55
Yeah, one is an 8 feet sheet,
one is 7 feet sheet.
00:55:58
Yeah.
00:56:00
This was a 10.000 page Excel spreadsheet.
00:56:06
But
you're building this and you're going:
'Is this shit gonna work?'
I mean, thank God it was
really really cheap to do it,
so, I wasn't worried at all,
but there's a blind piano player
named Gordon Mote,
I brought up his name earlier,
he will go over, he looks in A a lot,
and he will go down that hall
by himself doing this
because he hears the walls,
he hears the door.
00:56:30
It's unbelievable,
it really is unbelievable.
00:56:33
This guy hears things,
I've accepted it finally, that I'll never hear.
00:56:37
If you forgot to get him
he will just show up in the control room,
and we're like: 'Oh sorry Gordon.'
'I found my way.'
When he gets off from
the piano he'll be like:
'Oh, there's a door,
I'll go through the door.
00:56:48
There's something here.'
And come all the way in the control room.
00:56:51
And John brought him over here.
00:56:54
I took him by the arm, because,
I explained what's going on, I said:
'We have a room, we have diffusion
going on in here.' Especially from
about 400 to about 4 kHz I think.
00:57:06
A lot of what we hear in the general day,
I had him by the arm
and there was really not
much of anything in here.
So we come walking in and he's going like...
00:57:18
'OK, Gordon,
we're about in the middle of the room.'
And he goes:
'Oh, I hear that.'
And there's a mic stand,
not even a boom arm,
just a straight mic stand.
00:57:29
I went: 'I'm gonna choke you man!'
I move it out of the way.
00:57:35
I go: 'We're getting closer to the wall.'
And finally he touches a piece of wood,
he goes:
'Oh my god, I killed myself in here.'
And I went:
'Yes! It works!'
It works because if Gordon
didn't hear it it didn't hear.
00:57:50
So in a lot of ways, you come in this room
and it's a little bit like being
outdoors with the floor and the ceiling.
00:57:56
I think it's one way to put it.
00:57:58
I only really hear the floor in here.
00:58:02
I guess we can get some...
00:58:04
That's funny, every time
I mixed in here I put a carpet down.
00:58:07
Then what happened, a couple of years ago,
we got a call from Dolby
and we had also done a
Sony demonstration here of the 360.
00:58:18
It is mindbogglingly.
00:58:21
I called George and I go:
'The room found its purpose.'
He goes: 'Oh no,
it's always had that purpose,
we just didn't have the technology yet.'
'You know what,
I'm not gonna argue George.'
'I know you can see
into the future. Whatever.'
But...
00:58:37
And George liked the room.
00:58:40
This setup.
00:58:43
I was scared shitless
that George was gonna
come in here and go: 'Oh... This...!'
But...
00:58:54
Dolby, we got together,
talked about this Atmos room, I go,
well,
I've become a big fan of ATC speakers,
I go, I really need it...
00:59:04
You know I can't do it half-assed.
00:59:07
We gotta really do it
right if we're gonna do it.
00:59:10
And...
00:59:12
So...
00:59:14
It all worked out,
we have a 9.1.6 room here.
00:59:19
Nine at eye level.
00:59:20
The first number.
00:59:21
.1 is subs, even though we have 6 subs.
00:59:24
I think they all get the same information.
00:59:26
And the .6
is six speakers above our heads.
00:59:31
Two in front, two beside you,
two behind you.
00:59:35
With the Atmos software
you can remix
or mix any song
and you can place things
and move things
while the song is playing.
00:59:48
They have these objects, these little ball
looking things on the computer screen.
00:59:54
And you can assign any sound to an object,
like a vocal or a vocal verb or a guitar.
01:00:00
And then you proceed to
move that around the room.
01:00:03
And it's quite an enlightening experience.
01:00:06
The higher quality
at which you experience music
the more emotional it becomes.
01:00:12
And I don't know anyone
that listens to music
without emotion being the
main driving force behind it
why you listen to music.
01:00:22
Because makes you happy and sad
and angry
and everything else.
01:00:29
But we got the Massenburg seal of approval
which shocked me.
01:00:34
And George actually comes in
here and mixes different projects.
01:00:38
I know he was doing an
Alicia Keys thing recently.
01:00:44
We got this little area
here called the Birdhouse
where we do listening parties.
In the wintertime we can
drop the sides and heat it
but it's nice, you know.
01:00:56
In Nashville, what Vance?
About 15 days a year? It's perfect.
01:00:59
Yeah.
01:01:02
Oh, we got to go in here.
01:01:06
Yeah.
01:01:08
This is our tech ground indoors.
01:01:11
We have, I think...
How many?
-Nine.
-Nine or ten.
01:01:15
And then we have about 40 or 50 probably,
portable units.
01:01:20
For balanced power.
01:01:22
All those wires you're seeing,
those are all
from the slabs
and from the walls.
01:01:28
The output of that goes
out to the star ground.
01:01:31
Yes.
01:01:33
But I really truly believe
that our electricity is
-3 to 5 dB quiet than anybody else here.
-It's very quiet.
01:01:43
We've been just doing a
quick runaround the place.
01:01:47
This is the best room.
01:01:48
Yeah, it is.
01:01:50
It really is.
01:01:54
Even though, Paulie,
how many kits do we have in the warehouse?
25 or 30?
Yeah, at least.
01:02:02
We have 60 plus
drum-kits in this crazy place.
01:02:06
That's our latest one.
01:02:08
Yeah...
01:02:10
...no I haven't.
01:02:13
Yeah.
01:02:14
And I'm just working on a 1980
Gretsch snare right now that's fabulous.
01:02:18
Show them the snare wall.
We've got a wall of snare drums.
01:02:24
And Paul,
you're gonna explain it if you want.
01:02:26
They go from 1917 to today.
01:02:31
Yeah, it's a very special collection.
Right up here we've got all Curt's
Joyfull noise.
01:02:37
Lots of brass, copper, maple.
01:02:41
The wall of Keplinger snares.
01:02:44
I'm a big Keplinger fan,
a Seattle guy
that makes these drums out of iron.
01:02:50
That's what we used here today.
01:02:52
We used that Keplinger,
you put that in the control room.
01:02:55
Yeah, that one was a steel one.
01:02:57
And on the inside of every drum
it's stamped 'Not fragile'.
01:03:03
There's a lot of new Gretsch.
01:03:06
Old old WFL.
01:03:08
This is from like, 1930s.
01:03:11
It's a broad collection,
old Ludwigs down there.
01:03:14
Radial King, Slingerlands.
01:03:17
Crazy.
01:03:19
There's even a Leedy kit up there,
before they had tunable bottom heads.
01:03:27
And I think that's from like the 20s era.
01:03:31
Something like that.
01:03:33
You use a candle to tune them?
- You get them hot.
- Yeah, they used a candle.
01:03:38
I'm a big three ply fan
and the 50s Gretsch.
01:03:42
Round badge were 3 ply
and in the 60s they went to 6 ply.
01:03:46
- And they are great too but the 3...
- Yeah.
01:03:49
50s, 50s, 60s.
01:03:52
50s.
01:03:53
This is a very special kit,
the copper mist.
01:03:56
It's pretty rare.
01:03:59
Anniversary sparkle kit.
01:04:02
But you can come here and
beat the shit out of them...
01:04:05
60s Ludwig, we have several of these.
01:04:07
It's a great Rock'n Roll drum-kit.
01:04:10
There's a Cravioto kit.
01:04:13
Mahogany kits.
01:04:16
Here's all the Cravioto snares.
01:04:20
I think we have 165 or 170 altogether.
01:04:24
Cymbal collection.
01:04:27
A lot of old Zildjans.
01:04:29
I mean, everything, really.
01:04:31
A lot of old Zildjans.
01:04:33
Paiste, Meinl.
01:04:35
Istanbul.
01:04:37
Istanbul sent us a lot...
01:04:41
Real dry.
01:04:43
Very popular thin and dark,
it's what everyone is recording these days.
01:04:46
We got a 7500 square
warehouse and then 2 smaller
storage,
10 by 20 or whatever they are.
01:04:54
Yeah, and then the live school...
01:04:58
A bunch of stuff up there.
01:05:00
In fact I think this is
gonna go over there.
01:05:02
This kick drum,
I didn't realize when we got it
but it's 20 inches deep.
01:05:06
It's killer, I love it. 22 by 20.
01:05:09
Like a canon.
01:05:11
The 22 inch
3 ply Gretch round badge from the 50s
you kick that kick and
I think you should go,
when you say: 'What's a kick drum?'
It should be that sound.
01:05:20
It just gives...
01:05:21
- Every time.
- There's a note.
01:05:24
It's fucking beautiful.
It's so good.
01:05:26
And cymbals,
well you can tell them.
01:05:29
Yeah, I was just showing this.
01:05:30
A drum company
or drum dealer will come to us
like the last batch we bought
were a one-off
beta
testing cymbals.
01:05:43
And we sit in the room
and hit them all day.
01:05:45
And then you have the 'yes' pile,
the 'maybe' pile and the 'no' pile.
01:05:48
And the 'I can't hear it anymore' pile.
01:05:50
Right.
01:05:51
Which happens by noon.
01:05:54
All the Zildjan prototype stuff,
they had
piles of them. That was a fun day.
01:06:02
And by the way,
we might as well make it official,
the finest tambourine ever made
is a 60s Ludwig double row.
01:06:09
Yeah, they've got one.
01:06:10
Got one for 10 dollars.
01:06:12
- Do we have any here?
- 10 dollars...
01:06:15
Dude, I give you 15.
01:06:19
They're here in my climate control box.
01:06:21
Mine had the top head on
with the clip-on
and when I went to take the head off,
it was the original head.
01:06:32
It was stuck on.
01:06:34
- Stuck onto it.
- I had to peel it off.
01:06:36
This was the same deal here.
01:06:38
You can see where it had...
01:06:41
Now that is what a tambourine
is supposed to sound like.
01:06:44
Do you know, if you're looking to see
who you're bidding against...
01:06:50
Who?
Stapleton,
Morgan and Chris.
01:06:54
They buy these
every time they find them.
01:06:56
But you know what dude?
Maybe you and me can
give him one for Christmas.
01:07:05
This is the power room and there was a guy
with the electric, with the company
that did all the pipe work in here.
01:07:14
And it's just a work of art.
01:07:15
Those are two 600 amp panels
for audio.
01:07:19
Because there's so much distribution.
We only have 600 amps
single phase for audio for this building.
01:07:25
But it needs to be distributed in so
many places
that we filled a panel in a hurry
and added a second.
01:07:36
And the school is over there.
01:07:38
When you come to school here you
can do two weeks in the classroom.
01:07:42
But in the classroom there's a 1608 API.
01:07:45
A couple racks of gear,
a couple little record spaces.
01:07:48
Everybody gets an iPad
as part of their tuition.
01:07:54
On every desk is an Apollo,
we just upgraded to the...
01:07:59
x8s.
01:08:00
And then Mark has a 16 I think.
01:08:03
And there's Pro Tools, Logic,
every UA plug-in
on the planet in these units.
01:08:13
And we learn how to get great...
01:08:16
You spend two weeks there
and then two weeks in the rooms.
01:08:19
And
you get to learn
in the same rooms
where we're making
hit records all the time.
01:08:25
You know,
I just feel like the best way to learn
is to have you hands on the gear
and know what it feels like,
and know what it sounds like.
01:08:33
And you also have to be aware
of how great it is when you put
the perfect mic in
front of the perfect input
in a perfect room.
01:08:44
Perfect ish.
01:08:45
You know, I should say that because,
what's perfect? I don't know.
01:08:49
And then you realize it sounds like this.
01:08:52
The bar is up here.
01:08:57
When you leave here
you're going to try to get there.
01:09:01
You're gonna move mics,
you're gonna try different mics.
01:09:05
But we can get an incredible sound
with 3 SM57s and an Apollo.
01:09:10
You know,
again, you need a great drummer,
that helps too.
01:09:13
A lot.
01:09:20
John
where does the studio
name come from?
Ah,
I'll give you three guesses.
01:09:27
'Singing in the dead of night.'
'Take this broken wings and learn to fly.'
'All your life.'
I'm a Beatles freak, I can't help it.
01:09:35
I've always been a Beatles freak.
01:09:38
And with my personality
I discovered that at one point I had
25.000 vinyl Beatles records.
01:09:45
What I ended up doing was,
because my parents died and I thought,
my brother about lost his mind.
01:09:51
And they didn't have
tons of stuff but they had enough stuff
to wear somebody out.
01:09:56
So I sold half the collection
to record chain in Japan.
01:10:03
Oh god...
01:10:04
How many 'Butchers' did you keep?
159.
01:10:10
One first state stereo,
two first state monos,
three sealed
second states. I gave one to Geoff Emerich.
01:10:20
That's cool.
01:10:21
I paid through the nose for those things
but I don't care.
01:10:25
I'm a Beatles freak, it changed my life.
01:10:26
This place would not be here
if it weren't for the Beatles.
01:10:29
And
you gotta do what you gotta do.
01:10:33
Man!
Crazy.
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Vance studied electrical engineering in Missouri and started his career in live sound as a front-of-house engineer. In 2002, he moved to Nashville in order to become studio manager and chief engineer at the legendary Black Bird studios in Nashville. In 2006, he co-founded Sputnik studios along with Grammy-winning engineer Mitch Dane, still in Nashville.
Vance Powell has won 6 Grammy awards working with rock artists such as The Raconteurs, Kings of Leon, Jack White, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, The Dead Weather and more.
Powell's domain of expertise is definitely mixing and producing rock music. As shown in his pureMix videos, Vance likes to experiment and create new fuller and exciting sounds using all kinds of pedals, echos, analog outboards and plug-ins. Vance was used to recording to tape and definitely has an analog approach that makes him commit to fewer good sounding tracks rather than piling up takes in Pro Tools.
His goal is to make something new and warm that fits the band's vision with upfront snare drums and powerful guitars. Rocking.
Jack White
Chris Stapleton
The Deadweather
The Raconteurs
Arctic Monkeys
Wolfmother
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