|
 | | | | Dec31Written by:Tatiana Nu
Monday, December 31, 2001 6:00 PM  Gantt Kushner is owner and recording engineer of Gizmo Recording Company in Silver Spring MD. For the past 14 years Gizmo has recorded many artists local to the Washington DC area, among them Al Williams, Junior Cline and the Recliners, Dan Reynolds, O.A.R., Quintango and many more. Before recording full time, he played guitar professionally for about 30 years in genres ranging from Rock'n'Roll, Country & Western, R&B, to lounge gigs, show bands, and society gigs. He has also worked as an electronics tech in both music and non music related settings. I met Gantt on line when I sent him questions on gear issues. He is one of those terribly smart, terribly nice guys that you just feel glad to know. His unassuming, laid back demeanor and expertise have made him a favorite with those who have worked with him.
TN: You worked for many years as a performing musician in such a wide range of styles. How did you end up in the business of recording? Was it a natural outgrowth from recording your own bands?
GK: I began playing in bands when I was a teenager. My Dad was, while not exactly an "audiophile" hi-fi person, an incurable gadget freak. He had an early Sony Superscope reel-to-reel deck. At first I used its pre-amp as a distortion device - awesome, thick, creamy fuzz...
But eventually the guys in the band convinced me that it might be put to better use by actually RECORDING THE BAND! What a concept. I never progressed much past using the cheap little mics Sony sold with the machine, but I suppose I learned some basic things - like don't put the mics too close to the drummer, 'cause he might hit 'em and they'll break.
Anyway, I mostly just played guitar in bands for a long time. I began playing professionally somewhere around 1970. I hesitate to say I played "for a living", since it was mostly such a lousy living, but I thing I'm digressing here. In '77 or '78 I got a Teac 3340 with Simulsync and a little 6 channel Peavey mixer. I used a Shure SM57 for everything and my MXR Dynacomp for my compressor.
I went to Circuit City and asked for some "flat" speakers for my "studio" and ended up w/ some kind of Technics speakers. I mixed to a cheap cassette deck. I recorded hours and hours of mostly percodan and reefer-induced crap. A couple of the tunes I wrote have survived, more or less. In 1979, my first wife and I decided to move to Las Vegas and I sold my little studio to raise cash. End chapter 2 of my recording career.
In about 1985 I joined a showband and spent most of my time on the road. By this time I had quit drinking and drugging. There were 7 guys on the road w/this band, and 3 of us didn't get high so we always woke up (relatively) early and hung out together. Our favorite form of recreation during the days was haunting pawn shops and thrift stores.
One day in Norfolk, VA we found a Tascam 244 (pre-historic 4 track cassette) for $200. My 2 buddies took a vote and decided that I should buy it. I got home and borrowed $5000 from the bank. I bought a Yamaha DX-7, an SPX-90, an Oberheim DX drum machine, and some other bits and pieces. I recorded hours and hours of non-reefer induced crap. I persisted and began to learn a little about the process. I had some training in electronics, which helped, but my recordings mostly sucked.
In 1988 I inherited some money, some of which I invested in recording gear: A Fostex 1/4" eight track, a Tascam mixer, more processing, and my first real mics - a pair of AKG 451s, which I still have. I eventually bought a house and borrowed some more $$$ and upgraded to an Otari 1/2" eight track with a 1/4" half-track mixdown deck.
Around this time I went to Omega Studios' Recording School. I learned a lot more than I'd like to admit there, thanks to Bob Yesbek, who is a wonderful engineer and a great teacher. I had built a studio in the basement of my house, mostly with the idea of recording my own music, but eventually I realized I had so much money imvested that I ought to try to make a little of it back by renting the studio. That was the beginning of Gizmo Recording Company.
As to whether Gizmo was a natural outgrowth from recording my own bands, I think the simple answer to this question is probably - "nope".
Mostly the only recording of my own bands was done with cheap cassette machines, for the purpose of anal-yzing my own playing and improving as a musician. I didn't become a "serious" recordist until I had people paying me to record them... Which, now that I think about it, was how I became a "serious" guitar player.
TN: Those first clients that you had, did they come to you with an idea of the sound they wanted? Im guessing this was the begining of really finding out what your gear was capable of - the options at your disposal.
GK: My first clients... wow. I can barely remember. The one thing that I've always done is to ask clients to bring CDs of things that they like to compare to what we do in my studio. It's so much easier to say "Here's the sound I like, rather than try to describe it. And it was always an educational thing for me to have a (hopefully) great sounding recording to try to match up with.
Some of my engineering/production icons over the years have been George Massenburg (Earth, Wind and Fire/Little Feat/Linda Ronstadt/Jackson Browne/and the list goes on...), Roger Nichols (Steely Dan/John Denver and many more), John Leventhal (Shawn Colvin), Rudy Van Gelder (all of the old Blue Note jazz stuff and CTI Records...) and Bruce Swedian (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones) to name a few...
But if I was recording a rock'n'roll band I'd get a CD of a group in their genre. That's how I came to own a Pantera album and a Metallica CD. I have a bunch of Anita Baker CDs. I don't even remember who produced or recorded her stuff, but I love the sound of it.
So I learned to squeeze every last drop of sound of my gear by comparing my work to CDs that were recorded in studios that probably cost as much as every house on my block. After about 10 years or so, I began to feel like I was getting into the ballpark. I finally believe that I have a recording system that's capable of getting the kind of sound I've been dreaming about for the last 13 years... It's kinda scary to think that the only thing that can hold me back now is me. As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
TN: What percentage of your current clients would you say are coming to you with some of the recording already done in their own project studio? That number has probably grown over the years and presented its own unique challenges in each situation
GK: It's funny... Since installing my Paris hard-disk system I've done 2 projects that were recorded at the clients¹ homes. In the past it was more the exception than the rule, but I suspect it'll become more common. And, yes - it presents some challenges. Most people don't know about things like maintaining consistant signal-chains for (for example) vocal recording so that if they punch into a track 2 weeks/months later the sound and levels will match up. And people seem to think you can fix everything in the mix these days, so you can spend a lot of time tuning parts and moving things around to fix timing and phrasing problems.
TN: Do you have a list (short or long) of things you would advise people to think about when recording in their project studio to make later mastering by an engineer in another studio more effective?
GK: Well, there are two ways I see people with their own studio setups working these days.
Way One: A lot of people are trying to do the whole job - tracking, mixing and mastering. The technology has become so accessible that it seems easy to do... Buy a bunch of mics, a recording system, some compressors, a coupla patch bays, a pair of monitors, slap some foam on the ceilings and walls and you're good to go. Some people get good at it, some don't.
Mastering can't save bad mixes. The bottom line, in my humble opinion, is this: You gotta have good tracks to get good mixes. That means good performances recorded at a consistant level of quality. If you want _great_ mixes you need great (or at least _really, really_ good) performances and great sounding recordings. Getting great tracks takes work. Using machines (i.e. samplers/drum machines) simplifies the process, but even then you have to create great sequences and record them well...
My point is that there's no substitute for talent and experience. No shortcuts that I've found. People balk at my price and say "Well, my buddy down the road has a coupla Adats (or Protools or Digital Performer, etc...) and he'll do it for $25/hour." I allow as how it's been my experience that you get what you pay for.
Way Two: I have had clients record their own tracks and bring them to me to mix. I've had people who did a reasonably good job tracking... Some little problems like snare drums gated to tape w/ no ring, no snare sound, no tone. I have ways of fixing stuff like that. In this particular case the rest of the kit sounded good and the bass tracks were excellent. I've had tracks come to me from Protools that were recorded and punched and re-recorded w/ drastic differences in timbres and levels. I have ways of fixing stuff like this too, but it's time consuming.
It sometimes makes me wonder how much money they actually saved by not having me record the tracks. I have people who don't want to take the time to get vocal tracks in tune because they know you can tune it in the mix. Also time consuming and degrades the quality of the track... Anyway, you asked for a list, not a novel. Here 'tis.
1. Create a reasonable acoustic environment for recording and monitoring. Pay someone to help treat your room and set it up if necessary. Read a lot of books (F. Alton Everest and Jeff Cooper have written some good ones) and research the internet. Malcolm Chisholm has some very good articles online. His URL isn't working right now, but it's worth the search... Try to minimize outside and extraneous (HVAC, computer CPU, toilets flushing, garbage disposals, laundry...) noise and understand that good sounding tracks start at the source.
Lousy sounding drums will always be lousy sounding drums, no matter how much you spend on mics, mic-pres, EQ, compressors, etc. If you love the sound of the drums on your favorite Little Feat CD and your drums suck by comparison you will probably not be able to fix it in the mix. George Massenburg's raw tracks and rough mixes probably sound better than most people's finished product.
2a. Play it right. Seems obvious, but timing and intonation problems and not-so- great performances will bite you in the ass later. Digital editing and Auto-tune can make you seem bullet-proof, but there's no substitute for an inspired performance.
2b. Hire people to play it right. If you want your CD to sound like the big kid's stuff hire professional studio players. Don't use your buddy-down-the-street who plays pretty good drums and'll do it for free. As I mentioned before, bad drums will always be bad drums. Bad bass will always be bad bass. And on most "pop" CDs drums and bass are "in your face". Hire professionals.
3a. Document your every move. If you decide to come back and re-do a few notes or lines in a bass or vocal track you want to be able to duplicate your sound. Write down the entire signal path and make notes of all your settings. I always track vocals, bass, guitars, horns - everything, in fact, except drums - totally flat. Tracking w/ EQ makes it very difficult to duplicate your sounds.
I track sdrums w/ EQ because I hate boring "raw" drum tracks and usually (altho not always...) you won't be coming back to fix a small part of a drum track... If the drums aren't happening you just try again. _DO NOT GATE TO "TAPE"_! I may or may not be in the minority with this opinion, but you can always gate later. You can't un-gate later.
3b. Having documented your every move, it'll be easier to match tones and levels. Remember - If you track a vocal w/ a cardioid mic 1" closer or further from the mic, it can be a totally different sound. Matching tones and levels will make mixing a lot less stressful.
4. Never, ever assume you can fix it in the mix. It's true, you can do amazing things nowadays, but I believe that relying on "mix tricks" will serve you badly in the long run. Learning to get it right will make you a better musician. Getting it right will make your finished product that much better. pitch correction programs create funny sounding artifacts. I've learned to minimize it, but if you have the ability to sing it in tune (and if you think you're good enough to have a CD on the market you really should!) take the time to do it.
5. Invest your money in the important stuff. Good players. Good mics. Decent mic preamps. Mackie mic pres are actually pretty good. If you have a great song and the arrangement and performance are good no one will call you up and say "Hey, I just bought your CD and it's really nice, but you shoulda gotten a Manley Voxbox instead of tracking thru your Mackie...". On the other hand, if your song sucks it'll still suck - even thru a Manley Voxbox.
Good monitors are important. There are lots of opinions about what's good. You need to find out what works for you in your room and learn how to work with it. Buy from a dealer who'll let you live w/ the system for a week or two. Listen to your favorite stuff on it. Mix some stuff on it and take your mixes to your living room, your car, your friend's houses. See how they translate. Buy the speakers that make your mixes that sound good on all the other systems.
6. Always be willing to learn something new.
7. Always be willing to share what you know.
8. Have fun.
TN: Describe your Paris system. Are you using this entirely or do you still use any analog setups as well?
GK: My Paris setup consists of 2 MECs (Modular Expansion Chassis) and 1 442 with a total of 4 EDS-1000 cards in the computer (an 867mhz G4). This gives me a total of 32 live inputs into 24 bit converters w/ another four 20 bit inputs available. If all 4 cards are installed I can have 64 EDS tracks (tracks w/ the EDS cards doing all the DSP) at mixdown plus another 128 "virtual" tracks per card. I think it should be enough for most projects...
The only need for analog gear is for mic-preamps, compression and creating headphone sends. I also have some nice outboard stuff that I can patch into Paris while mixing using external fx sends.
My old "analog" system, actually ADATs (which are, of course, digital recorders), is officially semi-retired. I plan to sell 2 of them and keep 2 for transfering old projects into Paris. I had planned to use the ADATs for a few months after getting Paris until I felt "up-to-speed" on the new system, but after transfering an old project into Paris and re-mixing it I couldn't bear to go back! Paris sounds _SO_ much better than ADATs that I dove in head first...
TN: Which have ended up as your pre-amps and compressors of choice and why?
GK: Sytek and Demeter mic pres, UREI LA-4, dbx 160X and RNC compressors; trying to decide between Crest XR-20 and a Midas Venice mixers for additional pre's and headphone matrix. The Demeter is all tube with Jenson transformers at the inputs and outputs. A little more of that tube "warmth" and personality than the Sytek, which is a solid-state mic-pre w/ no transformers. The Sytek is very "transparent"...designed to be the proverbial "straight wire with gain".
UREI LA-4's are the solid-state grandchildren of the legendary tube LA-2 compressor. Great for warming up guitars, smoothing out horns, also great for kick and snare drums... dbx 160X is a pretty transparent compressor as is the RNC, which wins the "bang-for-the-buck" award for outboard gear - they cost about $200 each. I haven't seen anything for less than $500-$600 per channel (the RNC is stereo) that compares.
TN: Has your Paris system given you a new appreciation for your tried and true gear?
GK: Paris just sounds good. The converters sound good; the EQ and plug-ins sound good. I know my outboard gear sounds better in Paris than it did with Adats but it's kinda like buying a new Corvette and trying to decide if the 89 octane or the 91 octane gas makes it go faster than your old Toyota Tercel. The answer is... Yes.
Sorry to sound like an ad for Paris. The truth is that Emu has officially dis-continued production of Paris hardware, so as a product Paris is currently finished. There is a chance (hopefully a good one...) that Intelligent Devices, the company that does the software, will continue development and ultimately find or create new hardware for it to run on. Meanwhile it works. Really well. Studer stopped making 2" 24 track machines. A lot of studios still use 'em... I've used (and taught others to use) Protools and Digital Performer... Paris sounds more like analog to me.
TN: What has experience taught you about gear lust? Just about everyone I talk to doing serious work with limited means (the norm) has of necessity developed a resistance to automatically going for the latest/most expensive options. Yet one can lose sleep over what one might be missing out on and cloud the whole creative process with this concern. Part of the battle is staying on top of things when technology changes so quickly, the other is just the limitation of time, since we have to work and not just research, buy, and experiment. Have you achieved some kind of Zen on any of this? If so, please share!
GK: Well, I have all the guitars I could ever need. Please notice that I said "need", not "want". I probably have all the amplifiers I need, although, given the nature of the beast (guitar players, that is) I probably don't really believe it. Do I have all the studio gear I "need"?
Well, I learned a long time ago that you need a good, reasonably flat set of speakers with a high quality amplifier w/ ample power to drive them if you want to have any hope of making mixes that translate well to other systems. For me this ended up being a pair of Tannoy SGM-10B's (considered by many people who know far more than I do to be Tannoy's greatest accomplishment...) and a Bryston 4B, which is a kind of working-man's audiophile amp w/ 250 watts per channel.
Is this system good enough? Probably so. Do I lust after speakers that I've only heard of and never heard? Of course. Do I lust after Neve and API and Focusrite and GML and Manley and Millenia and... well you get my point.
Unfortunately I'm in the midst of an equipment change and renovation project that's gonna cost a bunch of money, and the big question when making each decision is "Will this help me make more money? Will it bring more business? Will it make my work significantly better or more efficient?".
Anyway, I guess my answer to your question is this: You need the right tools. You may not need _ALL_ the right tools, but some of them are critical. You can always rent outboard gear and mics. Put the money into good monitors, good recorders, good mic-pres and mics. I've used API and Neve gear and yes, they make/made awesome stuff. My Sytek mic-pre was about $900 for 4 channels. It's fine. Clean and quiet. What goes in comes out. The Demeter has a little more personality. I have Neumann, AKG and Audio-Technica mics. No super expensive collector's items (although some are almost...) but good, reliable stuff. Have I achieved some kind of "Zen" with all this stuff? You'd have to ask my wife... Probably not. Probably never.
TN: OK, so maybe this is the wrong field in which to seek Zen... but there are hopefully those moments that make it all worthwhile. What for you have been the most fun and rewarding aspects of running Gizmo?
GK: I love it when a bunch of great musicians are in the studio playing their asses off and all the levels are right and I get to sit back and listen. And occasionally I even get to play with 'em.
I love discovering great singers and players who I never knew about.
I love following talented kids as they develop. I recorded 2 CDs for a band called O.A.R. when they were in high school. Their latest CD was on the Billboard charts and they've been turning down record deals. Go figure...
I love producing... It's what I want to be when I grow up.
I love it when I get done with a project and get a a week or a month or two away from it and I pop a cassette of the finished or mastered mixes in the car after listening to "Two Against Nature" by Steely Dan and my mixes actually sound pretty good...
I love it when I hear that a guys like Bob Budda (jazz pianist extraordinaire) and Mike Smith (jazz drummer extraordinaire), both of whom have a general aversion to recording, say that they enjoyed recording with me.
I love that my daughter (2 years old) and son (4 and a half) get to hear real musicians playing real music in real time, all the time...
Visit Gizmo at http://www.gizmorecording.com
Tags:2 comment(s) so far...
I think GK is a great recording engineer. He's also a creative musician.
I just wish he would post his *exact address* on his website. I think it be easier for some people to find Gizmo...(like me--bob butta)--heh lol By bob butta on
Monday, October 01, 2007 11:00 PM
|
GK....hey man....I had a ball at Gizmo recording with Chad Carter, Bootsy Barnes, James King, Nasar Abadey, ..man, what a band that is!!! that was truly great!!
'sound coming thru the headphone was perfect...very relaxed atmoshphere
-Bob butta. By bob butta on
Wednesday, October 03, 2007 10:54 PM
|
| | | | | | | |
|
|