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Miscellaneous Notes From My Back Pocket
by Roger Nichols
On A Gum Wrapper "Run For President"
Campaign promises used to be "A chicken in every pot and a car in every
driveway". As the millennium approaches we have attained that goal,
sort of. There is a Kentucky Fried Chicken on every corner and there is
a car in every driveway. The car might not be yours, though. It could be
the police or the IRS. For this year my slogan is going to be "I promise
3 dB more headroom and a quieter noise floor for everyone". I think
that just about sums up what we all need. Write me in and send me all of
your campaign contributions.
While I'm at it, I think that everyone should own a computer. You guys are
thinking "I have a computer, so everyone else must have one too".
Not quite, CPU breath. I talk to a lot of project studio owners who don't
own any computer at all. They insist on going in to the next century completely
ignorant of Web sites like hotsex.com and whatever else there is.
A Post-It-Note Stuck To Forehead "Buy More Computers"
Computers are getting so inexpensive that they are basically free. I just
upgraded an old PC motherboard to something that would do a better job of
running Windows, for $30. At Sam's Club I bought a 2.1 GB IDE hard disk
for $239. A hard disk controller with built in parallel port and two serial
ports was $49. I bought an 8x CD-ROM drive for $123. Then I thought "As
long as I have all of this new stuff, I can't put it in the old case",
so I picked up a case with a big power supply and tons of space for everything
you could imagine, for another $45. And to top it all off, since I basically
replaced everything on my old computer, I still have the untouched original
(8mHz 286 that cost $4000 new). Maybe I should just get it a new motherboard.
The same thing happens in my studio. I keep replacing gear until eventually
I have replaced everything in my original studio. This means that I have
a complete working studio's worth of gear just sitting in a corner.
On The Refrigerator Door "Return John Denver's Call"
I engineered and produced John Denver records from 1980 until 1990. John
then changed record companies a few times and they supplied the producers
and engineers, so I was free at last. A couple of weeks ago he called me
and said that he needed to cut four or five tunes and re-mix a two previous
recordings for an album to be released in Scandinavian countries. The problem
was time. He had to start on Tuesday after Labor Day Weekend and be finished
by Thursday night. I was supposed to be in Banff Canada that Tuesday and
wouldn't get home until Midnight. John said he would send a Lear Jet to
get me, but that it would cost $10,000 that would eat into my piece of the
budget. I said I would hitchhike if I had to, but I would get to Nashville
by 3 PM so we could cut the tracks in the afternoon and evening. We agreed
that it could be done, and the studios and musicians were booked.
The race was on. I had to rent a car in Banff, get up at 3 AM, drive about
100 miles to Calgary and change to an early flight back to Nashville. Since
American Airlines dissolved its hub operation in Nashville, you can't get
there from anywhere, so I had to fly to Dallas and change planes to get
to Nashville.
As is usual when you are in a hurry, everything happens to slow you down.
The flight from Calgary was late leaving because two trucks ran into each
other right behind our plane and we couldn't push back out of the gate until
they got all of the pieces cleared out of the way. Then, just as we were
about to touch the runway in Dallas, all of a sudden the pilot powered on
the power, raised the landing gear and executed a missed approach. The pilot
got on the intercom and said that there was another plane still on our runway
and there wasn't room for both of us. Good choice. It took 40 minutes for
us to go around, get back in line and finally get on the ground.
Instead of an hour between flights, I now had only eight minutes to get
to the other side of the Dallas terminal complex (this should have been
an Olympic event). The only reason I made it is because the door was stuck
on the flight to Nashville and the maintenance crew was working on it when
I got there. They closed the door and we were on our way. The winds were
in our favor and we got to Nashville on time, taxied up to the gate, and
just sat there. The newly repaired door would not open. It took over an
hour for them to fix it so we could get off of the plane.
I got to the studio at 4:30. As I walked in the door all of the musicians
were in position eagerly awaiting my arrival. I had another engineer I work
with go in and get everything set up, get cue mixes and be ready to go when
I got there. Sort of "tag team engineering". I went into the studio,
checked some mic positioning, then into the control room scooted up to the
SSL 4000G and "Ah one, ah two, ah one, two, tres, quattro". We
were waxing.
This is the good news. As it turned out, John was a little off on the amount
of work that needed to be done. We ended up cutting 18 tunes. Six that night,
eight Wednesday and four Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon I had two
studios going at once. We needed to finish up some overdubs and fix some
vocals, but if I didn't start mixing we wouldn't make our deadline of mixed,
mastered CDs in L.A. by Monday afternoon. So my assistant (Jason Lavine)
worked on the overdubs while I started mixing.
I mixed Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Don't ask me about Saturday, I can't
remember Saturday. I finished mixing the last tune about 10 PM Sunday night,
packed up my gear, went home and started compiling and mastering mixes.
I then had to cut six CDs for delivery to John, his manager and the record
company. I finished the last CD at five AM, packed my bag and left at six
AM to catch my flight to L.A. I dropped the CDs off on time Monday afternoon.
We did it. With a lot of team work and little sleep, we pulled off what
started out to be an impossible task. I attribute this successful project
to all I have learned by reading my columns in EQ magazine.
Attached To Plane Ticket "NARAS Meeting Tuesday 11:30 AM"
I am on the NARAS Technology Planning Committee with guys like Bruce Swedien,
Lee Hershberg, Jac Holzman, Murray Allen, Les Paul and John Eargle. The
meeting is about identifying, acquiring and preserving a definitive collection
of recording equipment, technical instruments, and other relevant associated
technology used throughout the history of the recording industry. This is
going to be a fun project. I want to be the guy who goes up to George Massenberg's
house, knocks on the door and says "Excuse me, George. NARAS Technology
Police. I have a warrant to search your garage for technical artifacts for
the NARAS Museum. I'll need to take a few of these GML mic preamps and a
couple of these GML limiters if you don't mind. We need them for evidence".
On Bathroom Mirror "Turn In EQ Column By Friday...Last Friday"
Well, because of the time crunch this last week, I didn't get into the bathroom
much last week. This is Tuesday morning, I am on my way to the NARAS meeting,
and I will let you know next month if I need any equipment out of your garage.
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