Bruce Botnick: The Doors, MC5, Love, Pet Sounds

As we wind our way through the crazy world of recording music and learn more, sometimes we look back and suddenly realize just how great some records we'd taken for granted actually sound. One day it hit me that all The Doors albums had a high level of clarity and sonic quality, and upon investigation the name Bruce Botnick came to light. Bruce worked as an engineer (and producer on L. A Woman) on every Doors album up until vocalist Jim Morrison's passing, continuing to work with the group on subsequent live albums, box sets, remasters, remixes and documentaries.

But there's much more to Bruce's career than this one group. He was an engineer or producer of many albums for Love, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Brasil '66, Van Dyke Parks, Buffalo Springfield, the Ventures, Tim Buckley and Eddie Money, and as the producer/engineer behind the MC5's legendary Kick Out the Jams. Did I mention he worked on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations"? In the late '70s Bruce became well known as a scoring mixer of film soundtracks, especially for his work with composer Jerry Goldsmith. He was an early advocate of digital recording, and today keeps abreast of these changes and even performs beta tests for Avid/Digidesign. We dropped in on Bruce at his private studio in Ojai, California to pick his brain and figure out why his recordings have always sounded so damn good.

LC: So you started working at Sunset Sound Recorders around 1963.

Something like that.

LC: What were you doing before then?

I had my own record label. I was recording school orchestras and things like that and pressing LPs. I used to go to Radio Recorders and cut mono lacquer masters and press with Research Craft using their new, anti-static vinyl. Then I got a job working as an apprentice engineer for Liberty Records' recording studio [Liberty Custom Recorders], the home of Johnny Burnette, Bobby Vee and the Chipmunks.

LC: I interviewed Snuff Garrett a while back [ #73 ].

I worked with Snuff. Lovely man. He's got great stories. We used to record song-publishing demos for Hill & Range Music, which were [songs written by] Jackie DeShannon and sung by P.J. Proby for Elvis Presley. We were doing these all the time and Snuff was involved as a Liberty Records A&R man. He was the shining star, producing the hits. I started there and then Liberty Records was sold to Transamerica [Corporation] and they closed down the studio.

LC: Liberty Records had their own recording studio.

It was upstairs on La Brea Boulevard and Challenge Records used to be downstairs, so we had the Ventures recording there fairly regularly. When I was without a job I just started walking the streets, walked into Sunset Sound Recorders, met [Salvador] "Tutti" Camarata and talked to him about big bands and the way to record them. He was intrigued and that was it.

LC: You mentioned the Ventures. Were those sessions at Liberty?

I did some of the Ventures at Liberty, but when I left for Sunset Sound Joe Saraceno, who was their producer at Liberty Records, brought them to Sunset Sound. So we'd record the Ventures — do side one from 10 am to 1pm and side two from 2pm to 5pm, edit it together, cut masters that night. The album was on the street in five days.

LC: That's pretty fast.

That's the beauty of mono.

LC: Of course. Do you remember which records those were?

I can't remember the names. They were great guys and they really just came in and played.

LC: That's a quick way to make a record. Before Sunset Sound you'd been working at a studio affiliated with a label. Now where were the jobs coming from?

It was affiliated with a label — Disneyland Records [now Walt Disney Records]. Tutti Camarata was the head of A&R [for Disneyland] and he built the studio [Sunset Sound]. We had Annette [Funicello] and all the Storyteller albums. In the morning I would be recording commercials from 8 am to 10 am and then do a Storyteller album where Mickey, Donald and Goofy would come in. We'd take Disney's animated movies and do them like radio shows. In the afternoon I would do some jazz or some rock 'n' roll — mainly surf music at that time.

JB: Was Mickey Mouse in costume?

[laughter] No, he didn't have to be. He had a tail and four fingers. He was born that way!

LC: So you could be doing a children's record and The Doors in the same day? Same day, absolutely — and a commercial for Midas

Mufflers. It was normal! Let's say that I would do this children's record and we were doing songs. We'd bring in a band, maybe eight to ten pieces with Annette in the vocal booth. We'd record for three hours, tear that session down, put up a jazz session for Pacific Jazz [Records] and then tear that down. Then The Doors would come in or whomever else. This went on and on and it was no big deal.

LC: Do you feel like that kind of variety really reinforced your skills?

I loved the variety. In those days radio didn't narrowcast like they do now, where you now have a hip-hop station, an adult contemporary station, an oldies station, oldies jazz, oldies rock 'n' roll and oldies middle of the road. Back then the local stations all around the country played everything. It was popular music. It didn't matter. It could be Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" into a Frank Sinatra song into The Doors' "Light My Fire" into an Aretha Franklin song into Muddy Waters. Everybody was on the station. Because of that there was a whole variety of music available to me. I remember doing six months for Muzak. We'd do a week or two of Mexican music — the most indigenous music through Tijuana Brass. Then we'd do Martin Denny-style Hawaiian music. It went on month after month after month and it was the best school I ever had. We did everything live to stereo and mono, running a 3 -4 track as a protection and that was it.

LC: Did you listen to other records to get an idea of how things could be done?  

I listened constantly. I still do. In fact, I used to have my system in the studio of Sunset Sound — not in the control [room], but in the studio. When I wasn't recording I was out there listening to records. Records were cheap then — you know, two bucks. You'd go to the store and come home with 10, 15, 20 albums and you had to listen to them all. Some of them you lived with. Everything influenced me, especially a lot of the contemporary albums of the day. Some records had on the back how they were recorded — what machine and what microphones were used. I remember Crown Records used to do that — Bones Howe [#64] used to engineer them and he was an early idol. When I got my shot I'd put up that microphone and I go, "Oh my god, it is that sound." It was wonderful.

LC: You mentioned Bones Howe . Were there other engineers that you were aware of that you started noticing?

He was one of the first ones where I ever saw a name on an album. Al Schmitt when he was at RCA — at Capitol, John Palladino, all the Sinatra recordings he did — John Kraus, all the Nat King Cole records — and Hugh Davies with Buck Owens. They had some great engineers and great sounds. My mother was in the music business and so was my father. My mother was a music copyist and she used to copy for Sinatra, Nat King Cole and most of the artists that Nelson Riddle worked with. I never got to see a Sinatra session or a Nat Cole session, but I went to some other sessions over at the old Capitol Studios, which was then on Melrose Avenue next to Paramount Pictures — they were great studios. I was just reading this book, Sessions with Sinatra: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording, and they talk about that room. I remember that they were old radio studios — they'd put the orchestra up on the stage and put the singer down below the stage. They got enough isolation by putting him down there and the orchestra blowing over his head — no headphones. It was a great sounding environment.

LC: That's pretty amazing. There are still some great sounding rooms, but a lot of people, budget-wise, are forced to record in other scenarios these days. Do you feel like something's been lost along the way — the ambience of a great space?

Sure. I think the advent of the home studio has helped cause the demise of the recording studio — the big ones — and there are very few left. The original ones — there's Sunset Sound, United Recorders (which is Ocean Way), Western (later Cello and now EastWest Studios). Those rooms are still pretty original. Capitol's Studio B is still original — not the control room, but the studio itself. It's much smaller. Studio A has changed totally from when I started recording there. In New York there are very few big acoustic rooms now. They just don't exist anymore.

LC: It's too expensive.

Legacy [Recording Studios] just went under last year. Then in London, same thing — Whitfield [Street] Studios just went down. In New York the RCA Studios, which were famous, were turned into the IRS building with the spiral staircase going down the middle of it — classic studio. As far as L.A. — Gold Star, that was the place. I used to go there to hang out and watch and listen to Larry Levine record with Herb Alpert and Phil Spector. In those days we had Gold Star, Sunset Sound, Radio Recorders and United Recorders — the brainchild of Bill Putnam, a great mixer and studio designer (walls, console and all). I used to spend a lot of time at United. I wanted to work there even though I was working at Sunset, because that's where all the cool stuff was happening.

LC: He was hosting Sinatra sessions quite a lot.

Oh yeah. When Reprise [Records] started that's where they wound up doing everything. Then A&M — they built studios. There are big rooms around. In their original state (as far as acoustically) not too many of them exist anymore.

LC: You know, it's "improvements".

I was reading this Sinatra book and they were talking about the engineers — I've experienced this a lot. Going from studios they really knew if they put the drums "here" that "this" is going to happen and if they turn 45 degrees they are going to get more leakage. They knew acoustically how it would sound. Then they built the new [Capitol Studios] at Hollywood and Vine and they walked in and they hated it. They didn't understand what they were hearing. So the rooms — they worked on them and millions of dollars later they got it to a point, but by then they had figured out what they were listening to and then they could make music in it. I've gone into new rooms, or maybe an old room that I go into and it's new for me, and I don't know what I'm hearing coming over the loudspeakers. I can't figure it out. One of the cool things about the studios in those days is that every studio in town had the same loudspeaker — they were all Altec Lansing 604Es, either in utility cabinets or custom cabinets like Bill Putnam built, and later that [same] speaker with the Mastering Lab crossover. But you could go from studio to studio and relate to what was coming out of the speaker. They weren't the best loudspeakers in the world, so they made you work hard to get the sound you wanted.

LC: One of the things I hear on your recordings is a tangible clarity, a real separation in the instruments and clearness in the mix as they combine. Where do you feel this is coming from?

I don't know where it comes from and I've never tried to find out. It's just the way I hear things, nothing more than that, and I'm fortunate that what I hear other people are able to relate to. It's the way I hear echo and the colors that I hear. I like things to be clear. I like things to be pure. I'm not interested in distortion. It doesn't speak to me, because I think my job is to capture the music. People aren't buying the record because of me — they're buying it because of the music.

LC: With The Doors' song "Strange Days" there's a very distinct vocal effect.

We brought in a Moog synthesizer. We wanted to do something different and we didn't have any tracks open on the 8-track to record whatever effects we were going to do. So we brought the Moog in and through a trigger and envelope follower we were able to get this sound on Jim's vocal. As I mixed live Jim just kept hitting a key on the keyboard. You know, "Strange days have found me," and it would go open and close with delays and echo. So the live mix was it. When I went back to remix Strange Days for 5.1 a few years ago it was a little problematical. Luckily technology had advanced enough that I was able to use two or three different plug-ins to approximate the Moog and it worked pretty well. I was happily surprised because I put Jim's vocal in the center of the surround with the effect — if you had your eyes closed and smoked or ate something you could probably get dizzy and pass out!

LC: [laughter] I remember picking it up on vinyl 26 years ago and really being fascinated by a lot of the sounds on it. There were crazy songs like "Horse Latitudes".

While we were preparing to do Strange Days, Wally Heider (a famous engineer and studio owner) had taken delivery of the very first 3M 8-track — serial number 001. He didn't even get a chance to use it in his own studio — I hired it from him and it sat at Sunset Sound for two years. Having those extra tracks allowed us to experiment. I was recording Happy Together with The Turtles (featuring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan) and they were very friendly with The Beatles. One of The Beatles gave them a mono acetate of Sgt. Pepper's... a good ten months before the album came out and they gave it to me. I listened to it and I played it for The Doors more than once and played it for Jack Nitzsche. What it served for us was to help us throw off the past and just go nuts. It just said, "It's okay to go out and do different kinds of things." The Beatles did that record all on 4-track — 4-track to 4-track to 4-track — many generations. It's like the first Doors' record — it's 4-track to 4-track, except for some Sel-Sync'ing where we were able to punch in on the fourth track. When I went to remix I was surprised at how many vocals were on one track. If only the Atlantic Records fire [1978, Long Branch, NJ] hadn't happened I could have gotten my hands on the original 4-track tapes. I could have re-sync'ed it up in Pro Tools and had the first generation band against all those vocals.

JH: There's a photo of Jim Morrison with a [Shure SM-57]. Did he really sing vocals on those records with 57s?

No. The vocal mic of choice for him was always a [Neumann] U47 and occasionally an [AKG] C12A. I have a long body U47 and I still use it to this day, and a Sony C37, which was Sony's version of a U47.

LC: Listening to the drum balances on a lot of your early records, I wondered — were you putting up multiple mics?

Three microphones, one track — one overhead, one under the snare and one on the kick, one buss and in some cases locked to the bass.

LC: Did you apply compression or equalization?

No. I would generally limit the bass because it was direct. If we had a Jack Nitzsche session, like a Phil Spector-type of thing, we had three basses. We had a stand up bass, a Danelectro bass (which was really plucky) and a Fender. You'd mix those three together and generally they weren't even limited. Then you'd balance those three against the drums and that was one track. Or that was locked together with the guitars and the pianos all on one track.

JH: You don't want the band sitting there playing for hours and hours just so you can get your levels.

No. Nobody did that, but I really believe that a lot of the people who are starting out today could easily do that if given the opportunity. A lot of the music that I'm hearing today — I don't know how they get it there frankly. It's really heavily, heavily compressed. There's just no air, no breathability. But it's the style of today and that's okay. On this new Doors live stuff I'm using an Oxford Inflator on the buss and I'm compressing. I'm getting a good four to five dB apparent level through it and you can hear it. But it's not sitting there going [smacks hand] in your face. I'm doing that because I do need to compete somewhat with what's happening. But then again, I always mixed with limiters or compressors on the mix busses.

LC: So that's gonna be a similar effect. How do you remix a 4-track album for surround?

It's basically left-center-right as how I recorded it. We always had three loudspeakers in the control room. All the studios did for stereo and mono. But when you were tracking you always listened in stereo, mono or 3-track. Generally the voice was in the center with a bass and the rhythm would be on one channel and the strings and the vocals would be on another. '60s and '70s Dean Martin recordings are a good example of that.

LC: On The Doors, I can hear drums panned to one side.

Drums and bass were on one track and piano and guitar were on the other, locked together. You just get a balance between them and when you had a solo you turned it up and turned it back down. You'd learn the part. Any good mixer learns the music and plays the part.

LC: Did you get chances on run-throughs to get that dialed?

Yes, but luckily I related to what was happening pretty quickly.

LC: Watching for a visual cue of what they were playing?

They were pretty standard on their verse-chorus-verse- chorus-bridge-solo-chorus-verse-chorus-out. Where they deviated was on songs like "The End", "When the Music's Over" and "Light My Fire" — extended songs.

LC: On "The End" — is that a take?

It's two takes that were edited together. On one of them Ray's amp for the piano bass was on in the room, and for the other [take] it wasn't. When I cut it together I had to fake it. When I remixed it I used Altiverb in a sampled room sound to approximate the bloom of the bass so that it would seem seamless.

LC: The Doors have been part of your life for a long time.

43 years.

LC: It's been something that's kind of overwhelmed your life to a certain degree, but it's also provided you with work continually and respect from your peers.

Be careful what you wish for — you may get it. It's a long time to be involved with one act. Sometimes I come in, I'm doing something and I'm just not in the mood to hear that song again. I'll just turn everything off and go home and come back in the next day and I can't get enough of it. It's interesting. I don't know how people deal with that generally. I'm very grateful that it's provided plenty of food on the table. Besides, I'm close friends with all of them.

LC: Do you feel like that friendship is also part of the reason that you are still involved?

I'm sure.

LC: You didn't work on the records that Jim wasn't on that they followed up with.

American Prayer? No.

LC: Or the two records [Other Voices and Full Circle] that aren't even in print anymore — the ones they did after L. A. Woman without Jim?

I produced and recorded Other Voices, but then they did two others that I wasn't involved in.

LC: But there's no guarantee that this job would have followed you.

Absolutely not — that's why I said, "Be careful what you wish for." It's interesting, because in this live box set from the Felt Forum there are some performances that are extraordinary — I mean really, really extraordinary. Even after this much time and as jaded as I can be, they made me sit up and pay attention. They admit that individually they weren't the best musicians. Let me put it to you this way — they weren't individual virtuosos, but together they were. 

LC: I hear that on the first record, especially some of John Densmore's drums. I can hear a little push and pull and a little inconsistency.

There is always a compromise between the drummer and the bass player — in this case it's Ray Manzarek's left hand. Half of him was playing bass and listening to John. The other half was playing organ.

LC: Wasn't there also a bass player on some of those albums?

Later on, yes. [On] the first album we overdubbed Larry Knechtel, and on the rest a host of great players who played live in the studio.

LC: So he's got a couple different rhythms happening in a way.

Once it's there with Ray's left hand then the bass player comes in and plays it. It was just aping what Ray was doing and Ray's track is still there. You can't get rid of it because we're locked into a 4-track.

LC: I think that you see a growth in the studio — even just the jump to Strange Days that we've been talking about. But by L. A. Woman you were producing. Paul [Rothchild, producer] walked off because he called it "piano jazz"...

"Cocktail jazz". Paul didn't really mean it that way as an insult. He was just really exhausted. It was a tough call getting through The Soft Parade and Morrison Hotel albums and by that point in time, he was burnt.

LC: Is this an album every six months?

Most artists did two albums a year with no trouble. There was plenty of material. If it hadn't have been for [Morrison's bust in] Miami, we would have probably done more than six albums.

LC: What's this Doors live box set from the Felt Forum you've been working on?

The Doors played four concerts in Madison Square Garden at the Felt Forum in January 1970. Through the years various people got their hands on the masters and pulled chunks out. It was a real archaeological dig to find all of the pieces and put it back together. Some of The Doors' fans that are really big collectors had cassette recordings of the four concerts that I used as a road map to know how to put all the pieces back together again. We're down to the final. I've basically mixed it all and sent it off to the guys for their approval, and it will be a six-CD boxed set [The Doors Live in New York]. That's what I'm finishing up right now.

LC: What kind of master tapes are they? 8-track?

They are all 8 track. We never recorded beyond 8-track. It was 4-track for the first album and 8-track after that. I had live 2-tracks from the Felt Forum where bits, 8-track chunks, were missing and I had to fill those holes and I found what was left (because they've been cannibalized as well). So I would cut from the 8-track to a 2-track. In Pro Tools you can do it and it's not really evident.

LC: Finding all the tapes and stuff — do you get help with that?

No, it's just me.

LC: Just trying to follow leads?

Yeah, that's all I can do. Try to be a detective.

LC: Have you ever had stuff show up after projects have already been completed?

Yes, and we'll generally insert that into the master and re-burn new master CDs and when the initial runs have run out...

LC: Really? So there could be slight changes?

Not really. Let's say the last chorus from "Light My Fire" from one of the shows was missing and we finally found it, but I had used something else that was very close to it from another city — I'd cut it in, right?

LC: Right.

So then we're able to replace it. Then we usually put it up on The Doors website on their blog in the chat room and let the fans know, and they go, "Cool!" We try to be as honest as possible about all of the goings-on that we do.

LC: When you did The Doors' album surround mixes were there new stereo mixes created of The Doors' records?

They were only in that box set — Perception: 40th Anniversary. Some of the new stereos sound better.

LC: I know you had been unhappy with what was it, Waiting for the Sun?

No. Soft Parade. I did some work on it.

LC: Did you ever nudge the timing of anything on these projects?

I've done that. On some of the stuff in that box set I fixed some things that we couldn't fix that I remember we wanted to do. I was able to nudge it so that they all came in together on a downbeat or something like that. But basically I left it alone because it's history — you don't want to mess with it. But I remembered certain things — why I remembered those I'll never know. But I did.

LC: Did you ever hear any feedback from fans that were unhappy with the way some things were treated?

No. On the surround I got nothing but positive responses, and for the most part they liked all the new stereo mixes. [We] were basically running a simultaneous stereo mix and the surround — going back and forth and listening, balancing sometimes just two speakers and then opening it up even though everything had been set.

JH: Along with The Doors, another band you're associated with was Arthur Lee's group, Love. With their album Forever Changes, was the band just ready to go because they'd been playing live?

That album is a product of the times. You've got almost the Baja Marimba Band or Tijuana Brass influence on the brass or Mexican string ideas. David Angel [the arranger] was the one who came up with that direction, but I believe I influenced him initially on where to go. Arthur came up with a lot of the string and brass lines and sang them to David Angel, who then made these arrangements. But that project — the band was not together at all. They were very intimidated by Arthur — not that Arthur was a mean man. He wasn't. It was just that he was a genius and they weren't ready to go. The only way to record it was to bring in the Wrecking Crew. I brought them in to Sunset Sound, Arthur played acoustic guitar live, told everybody what to play and we recorded two songs. The band got the message, got their act together and then we went to Western Recorders' Studio One and did all the rest of the tracks in (I think) three days. Then there was overdubbing for a period of time. I actually have my session book that shows the dates, what we did and how many hours I was doing this and that. From start to finish the album, including mixing, took place over a period of three months because there were a lot of other things going on — I would say it took maybe three weeks total. The results were great.

LC: Neil Young was initially...

He was going to co-produce with me — that was because of my working with Neil on Buffalo Springfield. Then he realized that he wanted to be a solo artist and he came to me and said, "I would love to do it, but I'm ready to do my solo career."

LC: You were working on Love's earlier records too.

On their first album we recorded on 4-track. That was another three-day recording, four-day at the most. Jac Holzman [Elektra Records' founder] produced it. He came in and had his act together. He had the lyrics all written out and knew what was going to happen where and when.

LC: Nice. Was he coming from a background as a musician as well? Jac used to play violin when he first started. He was the

person that taught me when sequencing an album how to do the four corners — you know it was vinyl, your first and last cut of a side and your first and last cut of the other side — and making sure that the songs key-wise went from one into the other smoothly so that it was continuous. He was the first one to do variable spreads — that you finish a song and maybe you need six, eight seconds of silence before the next song started — not the traditional (as in Columbia Records and RCA) three seconds. Last note, boom, three seconds and next song.

LC: You mention things that you learn from folks. Working with producer Paul Rothchild [on The Doors' albums], what kind of different things was he bringing to the table?

Paul had experience doing lots of folk albums, Paul Butterfield and quite a few other things. He was used to recording on the East Coast. They did things quite differently than we did them on the West Coast. I remember the first time I met Paul and we were about to start the first Tim Buckley album [Tim Buckley]. He came out into the studio and looked at all of the microphones I had on the instruments, which ones I was using and where I had them placed and was just fascinated. Paul and I kind of grew together because all of the experimentation with The Doors — a very talented man.

LC: One of the things that I picked up on was that he was really against gimmicky, contemporary sounds that might be a passing fad.

Oh, totally. You'll notice none of The Doors or Love albums had electric sitars, no electric 12-string guitars and no massive use of tambourines that would pigeonhole the album to be a '60s album. I don't know whether he had the foresight. I liked that too. We did use the harpsichord in a couple of cases, but they were used in unique ways, not to do an AM radio song.

LC: You did some of the Pet Sounds sessions. What was the extent of that?  

I did two or three songs for it. On that album that came out [The Pet Sounds Sessions], I heard myself on the talkback, which was great. It was great being associated. I recorded the entire track for "Good Vibrations". That was really interesting, because Brian would do a track at Gold Star and then he'd do it with me — he was looking for the feel. He had already recorded the track and he wanted to redo the verses. He brought the Wrecking Crew in, we did the verses, cut them in and took the old sections out and destroyed them. A couple of days later he comes back in and wants to do the choruses. So we did the choruses, took the old ones out, put the new ones in, just cutting the takes together. Same thing with the bridge and all the other stuff until it wound up

the way he wanted it...

LC: That's crazy.

Brian was the kind of guy that got rid of the stuff he didn't want. No second-guessing.

LC: There are archivists out there clenching their fists.

Oh, there's a kind of logic to that. Today if you listened to it, it was probably musically pretty much similar. It was just the particular feel that he was looking for, and a sound. He liked the sound of the echo chamber and used my tack piano from Sunset Sound that I had built.

LC: Right. Putting tacks in...

Tacks on the hammers and detuning. I had the piano tuner make sure it was perfectly in tune, and then de-tuned the left string down one cent and the right string up one cent and that became really wiry. So he began using that piano, renting it like crazy. After a while the piano was just kind of a wreck from being moved around so much, but he loved the sound of it.

LC: "Good Vibrations" was such a trip because you can really hear how pieces are put together in the studio.

And the echo was really good too.

JB: That's our next project at the studio. We're gonna build an echo chamber.

Yeah, you want to do that. I think there are some plans available today and I think the Capitol echo chambers might be out there. If you get a chance to go to Capitol and go down in the basement, it's pretty amazing. They've got eight echo chambers that are identically the same size and same shape, but all eight of them sound different. It has to do with longitude, latitude, where they are — the floor may be just slightly more solid underneath one. It's like when Capitol Records originally built those studios, Studio A and B's control rooms were mirror images — identical — but couldn't have sounded more different.

LC: What does that teach us about studio design? [laughter]

I remember at Sunset Sound we built a second acoustic echo chamber right next to the [first] one — built it exactly the same way and it sounded like crap. So we tore it out and turned it into a lounge.

JB: What did you use for microphones in the chambers?

It all depended. At Sunset Sound it was all [RCA] 44s with a big Altec Lansing A4 in a small room and it just sounded fantastic. You go to Capitol and they're small speakers and a couple of condenser or dynamic mics.

JB: I think the Altiverb has a sample...

It has a sample of the chambers at Ocean Way. The best impulse responses I've ever heard are from Pure Space [Classical and Mystical Reverberation Impulses]. They're usable on Altiverb or TL Space — and they're 32-bit, 64-bit. Ernest Cholakis out of Canada is the genius/mad scientist who listens to music. He's mathematically figured a way to eliminate all of the electronics from the sample. They sound extraordinary. An acoustic room — it blooms. You make the sound and then it [snaps] responds and the room does its thing. The majority of the digital reverbs are very linear and they die off, but Ernest's samples are extraordinary. I've got one that I think sounds super close to chamber four at Capitol, which is the chamber.

LC: When you're mixing in here are you using a lot of things like Altiverb?  

I'm using one of Ernest's impulse responses with a little delay on it as well as my analog EMT-140 reverberation plates.

LC: Pre-delay?

No.

LC: Post-delay?

That's the secret. It's totally different. If you delay the input it will sound one way. If you delay the output it will sound another.

LC: There are a lot of other records you've worked on. Some of my favorites were the first two Claudine Longet albums [Claudine and The Look Of Love], which a lot of people might not even know of these days.

I love those records. I have a vinyl copy of it right back there that I pulled out recently and listened to. The cover's not there — I have lots of test pressings from the period.

LC: That stuff is really fascinating — it's kind of its own little world. She's singing in such a breathy, soft voice. She wasn't necessarily such a great singer.

She knew that, and that was before the days of Auto- Tune where you could go in there and manipulate. She did a great job considering.

LC: Were you cutting vocals live?

No, we overdubbed her. It was 8-track. Tommy LiPuma, a stunningly great producer, really knew how to get it out of her. He knew how to say the right things and get the atmosphere right. Tommy's a great musician in his own right. The arrangements on the first Claudine album are by Nick DeCaro. They're beautiful. At the same time I was recording Brasil '66 with Sergio Mendes for Herb Alpert. That was my wonderful A&M period.

LC: And those records also have a wonderful sound.

I have some albums in my hit parade and those two are right up there. I'm not known for the Motown records that I made because I didn't get any credit.

LC: Nobody did on the West Coast. [laughter] What stuff was that?

I did a couple of Supremes albums where the hit would be recorded in Detroit and then the West Coast guys would make the rest of the album. It was almost a throwaway, but they weren't. They were great charts. I recorded a Marvin Gaye album and some vocals with The Supremes — very few. They did the master vocals back in Hitsville. But it was wild, because I'd record the stuff and I'd do my thing and when it came out it sounded like it came from Motown. It was great. I kept bugging them. I said, "Tell me what it is you're doing because I'd like to know."

LC: They were kind of secretive.

Totally. When I was back there recording the MC5 I called up and said, "Hi, this is Bruce. I do all of this for you and I'd like to come visit your studio." "Oh, we love you. Thank you. But you can't come. No offense, it's just we don't allow people into our environment."

LC: You engineered and co-produced the MC5's Kick Out the Jams album. That was two nights at Detroit's Grande Ballroom?

One night.

LC: The stories say two nights.

No, we recorded one night. Initially I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan with Jac Holzman and happened to take along a mono cassette machine. I sat it on a stool in the back of the Grande Ballroom and they started playing. I couldn't hear a thing it was so loud. It was like white noise. I got back to the hotel room and listened and we went, "Wow, there are songs. This is good." When I got there for the live recordings I brought in Wally Heider. He rented a truck and flew the gear in. He had bought another 3M 8-track like the one I had originally at Sunset Sound and had just taken delivery of this new one. It was on the lift gate and he and I were up in the truck with our backs to the machine and all of a sudden the truck went up in the air and dropped. We heard this whooomp! We went and looked and there was the 8-track on its back on the ground. We looked at one another like, "Oh my god, we're in trouble." So we stood the machine up, plugged it in, turned it on — it was fine. They just don't build machines like that anymore.

LC: [laughter] Nothing is built like that anymore.

We recorded that night and then the next day we recorded without an audience just in case, to get performances where the guys weren't playing to an audience and going nuts.

LC: Was the album assembled from the audience or non-audience performances?

Both.

LC: Did you have to cut in audience noise?

No. What we did in a couple of the songs was the song would start and get into it and then all of a sudden cut into the Grande without audience, and then maybe on the last note or second to last note we'd cut back.

LC: I'm going to be listening to that really closely now going, "Where is the edit?"

The master tapes are sitting right there.

LC: For tracking live shows you've got to find a way to split the microphone outputs or, like in concert footage, you'll see two vocal mics taped together. What were you doing?

I know what I had for microphones. The bass I know was direct and [on drums] I had Sony C37s on the top and the snare — one on the top, one on the snare — and a single mic on the kick and AKG C12As on the guitars. Then I have no idea what I used on the audience or what the vocals were. They were probably SM57s or 58s. Wally Heider had splitter boxes. He would have probably split the mics, but the only thing that was amplified was the vocal.

LC: On the PA, you mean?

Yes, because the band was so loud with the Marshall [amps].

LC: Had you gone out to record Doors gigs at that point?

No that was '68. We didn't record live until '70.

LC: Was it a similar kind of thing, like you had a truck and...

Yes, we used Fedco Audio Labs, which I believe is still in Rhode Island, and went out with (what I think was) one 8-track and one 2-track in the truck. I don't remember the board, how big it was — unfortunately I don't remember.

LC: Did you find live recordings stressful?

No. Never. I love 'em. I love the red light being on and you have to perform.

LC: Did you make sure everything was technically working?

As technical as I can get, which is not too technical. I don't put an emphasis on that. I put an emphasis on, "What does it sound like?" and "What is the music all about?" The technical portion — if I get in a jam I call somebody who knows.

LC: Post-Doors you did a variety of things — Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle is one that you've mentioned repeatedly as one of your favorite projects even though you weren't the only engineer on that.

I did very little of the recording. I did mainly mixing and some overdubbing and stuff like that. It's a wonderful record. Van Dyke is a genius. He's from the South, he's very genteel, he's very bright and musically very erudite.

LC: I just thought that was a really fascinating record.

Yes, we did a lot of cool things on it with the sound effects and all of that. We loved it. But you've got to understand at this time we were doing everything at the same time. Doing Tijuana Brass or the Baja Marimba Band, Claudine Longet, Van Dyke, The Beach Boys, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield and Love — it went on and on. All of this was happening at one time. So it was just a cornucopia of music.

LC: When did you sleep? [laughter]

I don't know. Sometimes, before I got married, I didn't bother going home a lot. I didn't want to leave. We had a shower there and I'd bring clothes and I'd sleep on the couch in the control room. I'm finding [some] friends of mine did the same thing. That was my woman. Married to the studio — I had no complaints. Lived on Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes, drank lots of coffee and smoked pot — not too healthy of a regimen.

LC: It was a different time. What kind of albums were you doing from '70 to '79?

Eddie Money — a lot of acts for Columbia records — Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry (from Journey) to name a few. 

LC: Oh right — Steve Perry's first solo record [Street Talk]?

Yes. But the albums started to take more time. I think I was there for five years at Columbia [as] a staff producer.

LC: So you started to transition into film work.

They handed me Star Trek: The Motion Picture because I was into digital. I was one of the very first people. They thought it would be cool — I'm "into" the future and they're doing a movie about the future. So they handed it to me to [executive] produce and be the representative for Columbia Records, as they had invested a lot of money and given an advance to help the score get recorded.

LC: As far as the soundtrack portion of it?

Yes. I brought the Sony PCM-1600 in. It was probably the first or second one in the United States. We recorded simultaneously live to stereo while the movie was being done — John Neal was the engineer. Then I convinced Sony to lend me their prototype digital editor that nobody had ever seen. We edited the whole movie, at least for the soundtrack, and then cut vinyl from the digital. That was a start. From that I decided it was time to leave the record company and I started Digital Magnetics, which was the first digital audio post- house in L.A.

LC: Was this some kind of revelation to you, getting away from tape hiss and the anomalies of tape? Did you embrace that immediately?

Oh yeah. About digital — it has its plusses and it has its minuses. Minuses are that at lower sampling rates it's not as transparent, maybe not as warm or things like that. But I did lots of tests where we'd run a simultaneous 2-track at 15 ips and one at 30 ips as well as the PCM and play them back immediately. Generally 9 times out of 10 somebody would say, "I really like the analog better. It sounds warmer." Then about half an hour later we'd play them back again and all of a sudden the high end started going away on the analog tape, because the magnetic particles were reverting to their original state. The digital started to sound better. The digital never changed. Good, bad or indifferent, whatever you think about the sound, it never changed. So that's the plus side to digital and of course the ability to do what we do with Pro Tools, Sonic Solutions or soundBlade and programs like that.

LC: When you're doing these Doors projects, are these tapes getting transferred into digital?

Yes. I transfer them using Pacific Microsonics converters and Aria [electronics] on the 8-track and 2-tracks. I get an 8-track Aria unit and we hook it up to the Studer right off the heads and then go straight into the Pacific Microsonics at 96 kHz, 24 bit. The stereo stuff I do at 192 kHz. Having NoNOISE from Sonic Solutions as a plug-in for Pro Tools really allows me to go get rid of some tics and pops and noises in the original masters — not to reduce the noise (never), but just to get rid of things like that, to detail it. Then using George Massenburg's astonishing [High-Res Parametric] equalizer and the Sony Oxford equalizers and various compression/limiting plug-ins — there are some really good tools available that sound great.

LC: I know that you did surround mixes for The Doors albums, but we've seen that the format hasn't quite taken off for listeners.

It's interesting that it hasn't. So many people have surround in their homes to watch DVD movies. But when's the last time you sat down and listened to an album?

LC: I'm always doing something else.

There you go. That's why. Unless it has a picture attached to it, people are not interested. It's a shame, because I did a lot of DSD work for SACD. Sometimes while recording a score for a feature I'd run an 8-track Genex optical recorder using Meitner converters for DSD. The DSD Genex would run simultaneously, because it would have the same time code as the movie and my Pro Tools live mix. We'd play back the DSD locked to picture and people would freak. They actually thought the orchestra was playing live in the room because it sounds that good. But nobody's interested in surround, which is a real shame. As you can tell, I'm set up for it here in my studio.

LC: But as you mentioned, film scores and film soundtracks are.

You see these speakers? Those are Tannoy [ML10s] with Mastering Lab crossovers, so they're literally small 604s. They're fabulous. I love concentric loudspeakers, where everything is in the same spot so the image is solid and much easier to see. There isn't any delay. I love my B&W [801 LCR and 802 LS/RS with Ayre Acoustics power amps], don't get me wrong, but for popular music nothing beats these. I can listen at very low levels and it comes out and to me it sounds the way I want it to sound.

LC: You mentioned this change of album projects becoming much longer, more drawn-out affairs after doing records on the quick. What are your thoughts about those changes?

I didn't like it at all. I still don't like projects that drag out. There's no reason for it. If you've got the songs, you're well-rehearsed and you know what it is you're going to do, go in there and get the performances and then tweak. Then you can spend the time in tweaking. But to spend all of the time in the studio trying to figure out what you're going to record — that's not good. There was a period of time when that was en vogue, but I don't see that anymore. It's too expensive.

LC: Did you get involved in projects that you really regretted the pace or just the frustration of?

Yes, I've had a few of those. It's usually either brain lock and they can't write or they're having emotional problems or whatever. You don't know. Or they're on the road and you can only get them for a day here, a day there. You have to fly back East to record a vocal or go over here to get a guitar solo — things like that. It's just the way records are made now.

LC: Do you miss recording live on the floor?

When I do a movie score — and I've done lots of them — it's all live — three and a half days, it's done.

LC: Nobody could afford to mess around with an orchestra.

No. You've got 110 musicians and a studio. It's all really expensive and when the baton drops on the first second of the session you have to be ready to go. You can't say, "Let me hear the bass. I want to get a bass sound." You've got to start out knowing what it is you're going to do, and what helped me was all these years of recording the way that we did because it was normal to get live mixes.

LC: You ended up working quite a bit with Jerry Goldsmith.

I had the good fortune to do 125 movies with Jerry. That is a lot of hours.

LC: When did that transition start working for you?

In 1979 with the Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack.

LC: Tracking live orchestral sessions, did you feel like you had to start learning a lot more about that process?

No, it felt natural. Going back to what you had asked me about long, drawn-out albums — I had basically had enough. I was burnt. I was producing really big acts and I just got real tired of it. When this came along I jumped into it and didn't look back.

LC: It would also probably allow you to go home at a decent hour in the evening and have a life.

Yeah — have dinner at home. It was great.

LC: [laughter] I can see the appeal. Do you find yourself reinventing the recording process or trying to stop yourself from having habits as an engineer?

No, I think it's a matter of trying to keep up with the process, because it's changing so fast — to be able to use the tools, the new tools. As you can see I've got a Digidesign ICON right here and I'm into it. It's supposed to make my life easier, but it does and it doesn't because I have more options now. The result is that I can step back a little bit more. When I do a mix I'll put it up, get my sounds the way I want — the reverb, EQ, etc. — and then go to the top, hit the all automate button to record and I hit play and I don't stop. I keep mixing. Then I'll go back and listen to what I did and I can adjust from there. I'll either do it manually on the board or I'll draw it on Pro Tools. The beauty of it is the ability to respond to the music emotionally. When I get on an analog desk, I sorely miss this.

LC: I find automation is liberating in that I can sit back and listen to the mix.

It is. But even when I'm scoring — doing a movie — we do multiple takes of a cue. I'm running automation on the console as I'm recording because I may not catch a solo or something that's supposed to happen the first time around, even though I'm sitting there reading the score. I may miss it, but I will catch it the next time around because I'm not worried about anything else, because I've automated. Basically at some point I'm just able to sit there and listen and focus on the music to give to the composer for feedback on the performance.

LC: When you're using the ICON with Pro Tools are you mixing to tape?

I stay inside. The ICON is a console. It's virtual. You set up stereo busses, you set up a 5.1, mono, whatever you want to do — and you have your choice of listening to any of those. You can set them up any way that you want to. I will always set up a stereo on a 5.1 buss so that I can listen in stereo. It always sounds better in 5.1 — it's more open. Then when you collapse down to stereo, you're always disappointed. So you might as well listen to stereo or better yet, mono.

LC: Say if you're mixing something that's only going to be in stereo — do you set up a 5. 1 mix just to see what it would sound like?

I set it up anyway, because I never can tell when something may happen. For an example, we just did this Doors feature documentary [When You're Strange] and there were things that I had done previously where I had done mixes and only really listened in stereo, but had it also assigned to the 5.1 with the reverbs and all the panning in the right place. I was able to just throw it up, make a slight adjustment and burn those mixes, those bits that needed to go into the feature in surround. It doesn't take any longer to set it up and I've built a template.

LC: That makes sense.

Mono is great.

LC: Do you collapse 5. 1 to mono to see if there are any destructive phase issues?

Yes. Sometimes [when] you're in 5.1 you can [physically] move from here to here and all of a sudden the levels are going to change in your chair. So if you're in mono or in stereo, at least that balance is there. It's not going to shift. But I'm also not one to do surround where there's really nothing in the center and panning between — a phantom center. I prefer to give a hard center because that's real. Some of the orchestral stuff I did in 5.1 is wonderful — I love it.

LC: Where is the listener in an orchestral mix?

Sitting right here. [points to his chair]

LC: Where would they be in the virtual hall?

Oh, I don't know. When I had 5.1 at home I used to just lay on the couch off to the side and that was good enough. It didn't matter.

LC: I heard that you'd been teaching a class at USC.

And I am again.

LC: It's for composers in film?

Budding directors, producers, film and music editors and a couple of composers. I talk about the things that they need to know in regards to when they go make these movies, that they have a little bit of knowledge about this side. So if they're talking to somebody that's doing what I do, they know exactly what to say to them. I don't focus on the technical side too much. I focus on, "Sit down there. There's 24 tracks of orchestra — put it up, make a mix."

LC: What do you see them doing?

Some of them analyze it track by track and never get a mix. Some put it all up all at once and go, "Oh, there's an orchestra, but I need a little more of this, a little bit of that. I'd like to add a little bit of echo." It's interesting because everybody hears differently and sometimes I learn from them. I find it very refreshing. The best thing a second engineer can do is sit behind some people that know what they're doing and get to the point where they feel they can do it better — where they hear something and then can go take that chair.

LC: How do you keep up with the changes, learning what's new with Pro Tools and such?

I try to be a beta tester.

LC: With Digidesign?

Yes. But I don't get into a lot of the areas — MIDI and areas a lot of the guys are into — because I don't manufacture a song by the beat, by the bar or by four-bar chunks. But within what it is that I do — movies and the remixing of my Doors projects and popular music that I record — I try to be as updated and forward-looking as possible. If you don't keep the brain active it becomes dull, you lose your enthusiasm and you become intimidated by the equipment. I don't want to be intimidated by it. There are a lot of things that I do in Pro Tools that are actually work-arounds that I figured out, and there are probably easier ways to do it. But I've taught myself and there are a lot of people in [the] Pro Tools world that have developed little techniques for things. I don't really specifically know how to use it in every aspect like it's designed, but I use it for what I use it for, and I'm able to give feedback and find bugs. One of the great ones I was able to beta test for was George Massenburg's [High-Res Parametric] equalizer. To be able to hit the iso solos and tune the frequency, to be able to hear the offending frequency and then notch it out — so much cooler than adding lots of EQ. If you go to Bernie Grundman, his whole method of equalization is subtractive. He goes and takes the offending stuff out and it sounds like you've sat there and poured 6-8 dB on a shelf EQ without having to do that and without having to mess up the balance of the music. I've really learned what it is that I do from other people. But the thing that troubles me, and I see it while teaching at USC, is that a lot of people have various hard drive systems in their homes and the first thing they do is reach for an equalizer and a limiter without ever listening. It's right there in the chain and they're doing things without ever listening or moving or changing a microphone. The equalizer is a tool to help you correct something. It isn't an end-all. And don't get me started on the evils of MP3.

LC: What other kinds of projects besides Doors-related things have been going on in this room the last few years?

I did an Andy Williams' last album [I Don't Remember Ever Growing Up] - and I've done musicals and animated features for Disney with Alan Menken.

LC: Just mixing?

Producing and mixing musicals. The latest one I did was The Little Mermaid: Original Broadway Cast Recording. I recorded it in New York at Legacy — one of the last things to happen there before they closed it — and then brought it here and did the voodoo magic to it.

LC: So still getting Disney work?

Yes.

LC: You're never going to escape them! [laughter]

I don't want to. I love Disney and the mythology. It's in my blood

LC: Have there been other projects?

No, not too much. I don't open the studio to the outside world. I like the ability to come in here and if it's working, work, if it's not working, go home — unless I'm on a deadline. Then it's a whole other animal. I could have very easily built this studio at home, but I didn't want it at home. I take a shower, get dressed, get in my car and drive to work.

LC: I think we all understand that.

I don't want to live there. I don't want my wife and my family to have to be held hostage. LC: [laughter] Separation feels healthy. It's very healthy. 

Special thanks to Bruce for his time, Luther Russell for questions and Jason Hiller and his family for research, hospitality and transportation.