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The L.A. Goldrush—Thirty Years of Studio Excellence
The late sixties saw the westward movement of the pop recording studio scene in the U.S., which would soon transform the entire global audio industry. Prior to that time, the Meccas were London and New York City, while studios in Los Angeles and other international centers primarily catered to their regional talent. Having launched Record Plant in New York City, in 1968— with 12-track recording—we saw the writing on the wall and were fortunate to play a part in the L.A. expansion with the opening of Record Plant L.A. in 1969—with 16-track recording. As a result of this geographic restructuring of the music business, the new nexus of hit-making was, in Stevie Wonder's words, “La La Land.”
THE STUDIOS
In the late sixties, the main recording studios in L.A. included, among others, Wally Heider, RCA, CBS, United Western (Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were investors), Sunset Sound, TTG, DCP (Don Costa Productions, with nephew Guy Costa, who would move on to Motown fame), Gold Star, and Radio Recorders (where Record Plant is today). There were also major film studio scoring stages and the early television “single mike and a 2-inch speaker” audio stages. Scoring for film, recording big bands, and jazz were all big in L.A. and had created a magnet for professional studio musicians relocating there from New York City. A handful of studios ruled the Big Apple, with prices escalating in an upward spiral. In 1969, we opened the West Coast version of The Record Plant, proudly declaring on our party invitation that we were “L.A.’s First Hunchy Punchy Recording Studio.” We wanted to shake things up and, well, we indeed rocked the boat. Our well-documented approach was seen as revolutionary, but was actually quite simple: modern acoustics by the young Tom Hidley, the best equipment available, and studios that looked like living rooms because the superstar engineer and my partner, Gary Kellgren, knew it should be that way. This prompted many artists to say, “Hey man, I'd like to live here!” Best of all, it was 20–25 percent less expensive to record in L.A. than in New York City.
What followed was a cry of “Go West, Young Musician” and they did, providing the artists, producers, and engineers to feed the new studio scene. Buddy Brundo, owner of Conway Recording Studios (one of L.A.’s finest), remembers: “Studio musicians moved here to do film dates because the work was constant and the pay was good. Pop music producers then had a pool of pros to call upon, which attracted them and their artists here.”
Recording studios such as Village Recorders, MGM, Elektra, ABC, Liberty (later Arch Angel owned by Neil Diamond), Larrabee, Conway, Motown (formerly Poppy), Sound Labs, Hollywood Sound, and Record One, among others, opened their doors and prospered. Hollywood had become the new Mecca for making records, soon to be the largest professional audio market in the world, with close to 300 recording studios in the greater L. A. area by the mid-eighties.
PRODUCERS AND ENGINEERS
Along with the new studios came the new record producers (they had formerly been Artist and Repertoire “A&R” guys who did mostly administration, but George Martin and the Beatles changed all that!). Record producers became more like film directors, and with more creative recording techniques we saw the emergence of the superstar engineers. Engineers had previously been on staff in the large studios, and were assigned projects and shared the recording duties of the major music artists. It was expected that CBS artists would only work at CBS studios, and the same went for RCA, Capitol, and the rest of the major labels.
That all changed when a major artist's manager sat in front of the A&R executive assigned to his guy/girl artist, complaining: “My artist would feel inhibited creatively if he can't work at such-and-such studio with so-and-so, the only audio engineer who understands this music.” We saw the birth of the independent engineer who could call the shots, a creative force, which in many cases evolved into the engineer/producer who made the decisions about where the artist would be most comfortable for the recording. Prominent producers had their favorite engineers, artists had their engineers, and the lawyers decided which superstars would be in control of the recording of the record. The record labels quickly found themselves in the position (only with their highest-selling artists) of trying to control the financial excesses instead of controlling the creative output of the recording process. The carte blanche budgets were a godsend to recording studio owners, who were gambling heavily on the new technology of multitrack tape machines and consoles with more inputs, outputs, and all the bells and whistles.
Some of the more talented producers in L.A. at that time were: Bill Szymczyk (Clown Prince), A1 Kooper (Mr. Cool), John Boylan (Quiet Force), Quincy Jones (Best Vibes), Glyn Johns (Icy Brit), Tom Dowd (Mr. Wonderful), Bones Howe (Mr. Understated), Snuff Garret (The Rascal), Phil Spector (Out of This World), Brian Wilson (Out There at the Center), Tom Allom (Heavy Metal British Dude), Tom Werman (MBA Hard Rockman), Ron Nevison (Cloak and Swagger), Phil Ramone (Lovable Genius), Stewart Levine (Mr. Expense Account), Nick Venet (Room Full of Gold), Malcolm Cecil and partner Bob Margouleff (The Odd Couple), Richard Perry (Studio 55), Bob Ezrin (Cooper and Floyd), Brooks Arthur (Opportunity Knocks), Ed Freeman (American Pieman), Bill Halverson (CS&N), Armin Steiner (Avant Guard), Lee Herschberg (Sweetheart of the Studio), A1 Schmitt (Everlasting Hits), George Massenburg (State of the Art), and Paul Rothchild (Elektra Man).
A short list of top engineers (many of whom later became producers) included: Gary Kellgren (my partner in Record Plant), Eddie Kramer (British Invader), Andy Johns (Brit That Roared), Val Garay (Record One), Bill Schnee (Still Cookin’), A1 Schmitt (Mr. Unforgettable), Bob Gaudio (The Fifth Season), Howie Schwartz (Heider's 1969 tape operator), Guy Costa (Mr. Motown L.A.), Bruce Botnick (The Doorsman), Buddy Brundo (Italian Stallion), Roger Nichols (Steely Man), Bruce Swedien (Q's Sidekick), and Allen Sides (Ocean Way).
THE ARTISTS
Artists who quickly picked up on the L.A. scene of the late sixties and stayed to party included: Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Doobie Brothers, Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Motown superstar roster, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Judas Priest, The Eagles, Don McLean, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, Boston, John Denver, Santana, Buddy Miles, and Jackson Browne. Obviously, L.A. was the place to go to make your record—that's where your friends were, and the parties never stopped at our studios.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Along with the producers, engineers, and artists came the charging advances in recording technology, fueled by big budgets and artist demand. Bill Putnam was here at United Western with Jerry Barnes, and together they formed UREI to design and manufacture better outboard gear, such as the 1176 limiter (which sold for $650 new and is now worth up to $3000 in mint condition). JBL came on strong, as did 3M and Ampex with their multitrack tape machines.
Producer Bill Szymczyk (Joe Walsh, The Eagles, B. B. King) says it well: “It was really those damn Beatles and the whole London scene. Those guys were always ahead, whether it was George Martin doing something different with 4-track, tape doubling techniques, phasing, wrapping masking tape around the capstan motor, whatever. We could not keep up. What really did it for me was hearing stereo drums for the first time on Sgt. Pepper. That was the start of needing more tracks to do everything in better stereo. Now, the drums alone may take 12–16 tracks. When MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface] arrived, it just added to the need for more tracks, which allowed us to simply make more flexible, complex music. Technical development was definitely driven by a greater number of tracks on the tape machines.”
This development, of course, required the console makers of the day (including Quad 8, API, Spectrasonics, Neve, and later SSL) to design larger I/O (input/output) consoles to accommodate the greater number of tape machine tracks available. The rule of thumb was to have enough channels for the number of tracks on the tape machine, plus at least eight more for effects such as reverberation and equalization. As a studio owner, if you bought a new console every three years you had to order a frame with a minimum of 8–16 modules of expansion space, or you were obsolete by the time you got it installed. John Stronach sums it up: “The Beach Boys developed the L.A. Sound. Innovative technology gave us the capability (more tracks = more freedom of expression) and flexibility to allow the music to be driven by the artist and expressed by the recording studio audio engineer—if he had the right toys.”
The same is true today, but now the sophistication of synchronizers—initiated by Gerry Block's Timeline Lynx modules— allows us to cascade machines for as many tracks as we need for any project, incorporating less-expensive tape machines such as the DA-88 and the ADAT. More importantly, the synchronization concept allowed the audio and video machines to “talk to each other,” providing a quantum leap for the audio and visual arts to crossbreed and flourish. Again, L.A. led the scene because it was also the largest film and television production market in the world.
Digital
It all started at the AES (Audio Engineering Society) show in L.A. in 1978, when Mitsubishi and Sony introduced their first 2-track digital machines. Mitsubishi had 2-track reel-to-reel, and Sony had the 1600 (Beta cartridge), which later became the 1610 and then the 1630. In February 1979, the first 3M 32-track and 4-track digital machines were installed at Record Plant L.A., with Stephen Stills recording for a crowd of naysayers. It blew everybody's mind, and the industry never looked back.
The CD was introduced to the press and our industry by SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) at United Western studios in L.A., in 1982. Guy Costa from Motown, Jerry Barnes from United Western, and others demonstrated to everyone present that the laser beam provided a worthy replacement for the stylus of the record player. That same year Sony introduced the 3324 multitrack digital tape machine. In 1983, Dr. Tom Stockham (Soundstream) opened a hard disk digital editing service on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood with a large roomful of massive Honeywell computers. That year also brought us the Mitsubishi 32-track, followed by the Otari. In 1986, Record Plant L.A. once again led the pack with the first Sony 48-track digital recorders, still the standard in the major recording studios of today.
Acoustics
Last, but certainly not least, are L.A.’s contributions to acoustic technology. Tom Hidley was among the first to explore and develop the new acoustic design, isolation, and monitors capable of acceptably presenting the high sound pressure levels generated by hard rock, which had not been required by acoustic music. At TTG (“Two Terrible Guys”—Tom Hidley and Ami Hadani) studios in Hollywood in 1966–68, their efforts attracted the Monkees, Eric Burdon, and Jimi Hendrix, among others, who were in awe of the power and clarity when they heard their own music at incredible levels. Word spread to New York about the new “L.A. sound.” I knew this would be a tremendous marketing tool and hired Hidley away from TTG to design the new Record Plant studios. Since then, Tom Hidley has built over 500 studios around the world and is still going strong today.
THE PROJECT STUDIO
Incredible advances in recording and L.A. studio notoriety led to an overabundance in the early nineties of musicians and groups who wanted to record on this marvelous equipment but could not afford to pay the high prices the leading studios had to charge. This led companies such as Alesis, with its 8-track ADAT machine, and other companies with major facilities in the L.A. area, such as Roland and Yamaha, to develop more inexpensive studio gear, thus allowing the competitive project studio to compete and thrive.
It had to happen, but this new revolution caught the big guys by surprise. L.A.’s major studios raised the alarm with HARP (Hollywood Association of Recording Professionals) and rallied against these “illegal home studios.” Once tempers had quieted, the owners of the major “mothership” studios found that they could work with the “satellite” project operations to everyone's benefit, and a reasonable level of harmony was attained through compromise. Today, the galloping progress of technology, both for newly developed cutting-edge gear that only the motherships can afford and for lower-priced versions designed for the project studios, has provided a standard of quality recording at a low price that no one could have predicted. Once again, L.A. played a major role in the transformation of the modern recording industry through its innovative musicians, producers, audio engineers, studios, and the manufacturers who serve them. After all these years, it's still great to work in La La Land, where the music never stops!