TapeOpCon2006:
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TapeOpCon 2007 will be held June 8-10 in Tucson, Arizona. Registration will be open in December 2006.
TapeOpCon celebrated its fifth year, June 16th through 18th, with "Camp
Tape Op" in the Santa Catalina foothills of Tucson, Arizona, at
the Hilton El Conquistador Resort. For three days we gathered to discuss
the art of recording music. An exhibitor hall contained over 50 tables,
with companies showing off (some even selling) their wares - not to
mention Steve Albini and the Electrical Audio crew playing poker all
weekend. During the day seven rooms were filled with concurrent workshops,
while the Pot Luck studio - filled with recording equipment from our
exhibitors - demoed new recording techniques. Six main panels covered
subjects like producing, mastering and more. Friday and Saturday nights
we had great live music showcases downtown at Club Congress, and even
the late night bus rides back to the hotel were fun!
You pretty much have to assume that every single person you meet at
the conference is a Bad Ass. Because later, after you've had time to
think about what they said... or after you discover their bio in the
program or see them on stage... or after someone else tells you about
the person you met... you realize who they are and what they've accomplished.
And then it's, "Holy Schmoly! That person's a Fuckin' Bad Ass!"
Yeah, it was a gathering of Audio Ninjas masquerading as Regular Joes.
"Rock has to rock." -Peter Katis "I could record a basketball and use that for a kick." -Ray Barbee "A lot of times, the real feel isn't in the timing, it's in the dynamics." -Rick Davies "You can take the funkiest raw drumbreak and make it not feel funky at all." -Donald Bell "When we first started sampling, there was no subtlety to it." -Rick Davies "One of the best recording techniques I know is to say, 'I meant to do that.'" -Mark Rubel "They can't make me nudge the drums around 'cause I fuckin' hate that." -Adam Lasus "You've got to let the vocalist know that you are totally his ally and totally on his side." -Don Zientara "I've always tried to create music that didn't sound like anything else out there." -Bruce Licher "A rabbi, a priest, and George Massenburg walk into a bar…" -The Unknown Audio Comic "I don't know. What do you think?" -Producer in Your Pocket "What makes that record special is something that is gone from music today - it's called a rhythm section." -Jim Dickinson
"Chicks dig mastering engineers" -Jeff Carroll "One of the biggest mistakes the artists make is not knowing how to delegate." -Darryl Neudorf "I would kind of fake my way through it." -Chris Athens "I walked up to Sam Ash, and I was like, 'What is mastering, and how do I do it?'" -Mark Christensen "If you're doing it against the artist's will, which I don't really understand but I'd like to try someday..." -Chris Athens "I once had a client ask if I could make the bass more spry." -Chris Athens "I could have made a better album if I had stuck with it and done it myself." -Bruce Licher "He was playing a Fender Precision with flatwound strings, like God meant for man to do." -Jim Dickinson "You can hear the drummers hollering at each other and making fucking bets in the middle of the take!" -Joel Hamilton "I'm pretty stealth about what I do." -Jeff Powell "I know some engineers who could stand to trust the artist." -Chris Garges "Nothing about this song is right - your life is a mess!" -Michael Brauer "If they don't like it [the mix], then that rejection is okay." -Michael Brauer "My old rule when I had a studio was if you can't afford one good mic, use three crappy ones instead." -Nic Collins
"One of the best things you can do is turn off the [computer] monitor." -Mark Rubel "How can you veto an idea you haven't heard?" -Jay Bennett "Perfect songs don't need me to love them." -Joel Hamilton "Suddenly all the dysfunctionality of years of making records together and all the unspoken things are all coming out." -Craig Schumacher "To me the big challenge in using this power is to not abuse it - to learn when not to do the editing." -Darryl Neudorf "When I sit down to mix a song I look for two things: That the recording represents the song and that the production does the song justice." -Michael Brauer "You gotta do me a favor. I'm gonna play this mix five times and you're gonna keep listening to it until you get it." -Michael Brauer "Because he was an internationally wealthy rock star, everything he had was custom made." -Sean Slade [on Lou Reed] "That actually becomes a big problem. They'll say, ‘He must know what he's doing so I won't tell him what I'm thinking.'" -Michael Brauer
"As quickly as possible build that trust so they let you do your job." -Darryl Neudorf "I think there's gonna be tools in the next ten years that are gonna blow our minds. We're gonna be able to sample the DNA of different mix engineers." -Darryl Neudorf "That was back in the days when cassettes were still happening." -Mark Christensen "I suppose if I didn't have a studio at home I'd be living on the street. My assistant engineer is my dog Archie, but he's two credits shy of being a voting member of NARAS." -Ed Cherney "I just try to pace the whole project so that it works in a way that is human." -Jason Carmer "The home studio is sort of a double edged sword for me, but in the end I embrace it because I love these artists and want to do these records." -Adam Lasus "If I leave the room for 45 minutes to eat, I've lost interest in working." -Sally Browder "When I'm producing you need to outpace the artist. You always have to have them get tired first." -Sally Browder "Is the producer becoming the new A&R?" -Larry Crane "I don't want to produce records for major labels anymore. It's a major pain in the ass. They typically hate my guts by the time we're done." -Ed Cherney "You can't guarantee that everybody is going to get art." -Sally Browder "I worked at a record store and got fired because any time someone would come in and want to buy a record I didn't like I would tell them it was out of stock." -Adam Lasus "I was a bartender. I think it prepared me a lot for making records. There's a lot of similarities when you're behind the bar." -Jeff Powell "Making music's the best drug I've ever taken." -Adam Lasus "I once had a nightmare where I woke up in L.A. and I was an engineer. ‘No! There's a lot of engineers down in L.A.! There's not that many in Portland, Oregon.'" -Larry Crane "If I was recording Kenny G, I think that they would catch me falling asleep." -Larry Crane "What I remember most about [recording] Kenny G is that he was really cheap. He wouldn't let you spend any time getting sounds." -Maureen Droney "If you are all united behind certain issues then the people in power start listening to you." -Maureen Droney "We're trying to make things fair for musicians so they can get themselves in a position - I know this sounds absolutely maverick - but maybe they could possibly live a middle class lifestyle." -Alex Maiolo "We do [insure] a fair amount of studios because when somebody calls us up and says, "Neotek" we know what that is. I don't think most insurance agents do…" -Alex Maiolo "I also wanna make root beer. Custom root beer." -Sylvia Massy Shivy "You know where I got half that stuff? At the Chicago Store in town here. In the basement." -Sylvia Massy Shivy "We'd like to make some mics that are really ‘not good'. Everyone's trying to make a really good mic." -Sylvia Massy Shivy
Testimonial from an attendee: Every
year there seems to be a different theme that shows up repeatedly in
some unplanned fashion. This year many workshops and panels seemed to
bring up the subjects of building trust in a creative endeavor and the
art and pleasure of listening. Especially fun was Mark Rubel's
closing panel, "Records That Made Me Want To Record", where
the panelists talked about and played tracks that they found inspirational
and enjoyable. Nothing is like the experience of walking through the
halls, poking my head into rooms and hearing alien bleeps from the Circuit
Bending workshop, watching people build EQs, hearing wild surround mixes,
catching Ross Hogarth micing up Joey Waronker's drums and seeing
excited attendees dashing from room to room. And wrapping it all up
with a poolside party, with grooving DJ action, 143 foot waterslide
(I'm not kidding) and beers - it was pretty damn fun. Thanks so
much to Craig Schumacher, the attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, volunteers,
panelists, moderators, crew, bands, hotel, club and all for making this
one of the most amazing TapeOpCons ever! |
TapeOpCon
2006
"Generally
I'll listen to a rough mix and I'll ask the artist, 'What's the story?'"
-Michael Brauer
"You're
not dealing with music lovers. You're dealing with people who love their
jobs, who are trying to keep their job." [discussing major labels]
-Ed Cherney
"I
didn't go into the booth when you were singing, push you away and start
singing. So how about letting me do my job?" -Craig Schumacher
On
the last night, I can't believe Sarah Register convinced Jeff Lipton
to jump into the pool together with their street clothes on. That was
soon followed by Jeff convincing Sarah to climb over the rocks into
the locked hot tub with him. And THAT was followed by the Hilton security
(very nice folks) asking the two mastering engineers to come out. -Andy
Hong