Sound City Page #2

---

was the heart of it all, really.

Sweetest guy in the universe.

Absolutely one of the nicest,

truest people I've ever known.

He wasn't a guy in a suit who

was counting money and just

trying to rip off as many

musicians as he could.

That wasn't his thing.

He loved the fact that bands

were coming in and making great

records there.

Joe was always, like, positive, more

optimistic. Always, "The next big thing's

gonna be out there".

Joe gave me time to learn and

to hone what I do.

He was quite a guy.

When we bought the studio, we

were struggling for a year or

two, and we could see we

couldn't just get the premier

acts.

You needed state-of-the-art

equipment to get the top acts

with the top budgets.

So it was my goal to do that.

This guy, Rupert Neve,

designed these next-generation consoles.

I had flown to England, and I

saw one once, and they were like

this, you know, built like a

brick sh*t house.

He was, you know, a genius

engineer.

There's only four like this in

the world, and this is the only

one that was custom-ordered from

the factory by Keith.

There is something about

the Neve sound

that my ear has always been attuned to.

They're mathematically crisp

and very, very good.

They're just very solid.

It's like a tank or something.

The Neve thing is - there

just weren't that many made,

because they're so handmade.

This Neve board that you talk about,

you know, this is not my world.

Engineers have to spend, like,

hours on the

kick-drum sound.

Please, I would rather have a

blood transfusion.

But I do remember that there was

something different about the

sound of this board.

And then of course, everybody -

"Oh, my god, it's a Neve board,"

I'll never forget them saying.

A recording console is like

the center of the spaceship.

If you're gonna fly to Mars, you

got to have something with all

the master controls.

It looks like, you know, the

Enterprise on steroids, from a

long time ago.

A desk that's like a giant

stereo, except instead of doing

bass, middle, and treble, it's,

like, you can do that on each

drum, you know, each mike, each

thing.

All the microphones in the

studio are routed into that

console.

From there, you can change E.Q.,

add effects, change the levels.

And that goes into the tape

machine, where it's recorded.

This board, if you put a

fader up and turn the mike pre

up, and somebody hits a tom-tom

or a snare drum, it sounds

great.

It sounds wide-open. It sounds huge.

If you turn the mike pre up too

loud and it distorts, it still

sounds great.

That's analog.

It's how it sounds.

Especially Neve's, you know.

I mean, everything is just better.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes