Producer/engineer Val Garay is best known for his work on albums by James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Toto, Kim Carnes, Seals and Crofts, Jackson Browne, and The Motels. Interestingly, he comes from a show business family. His father was an entertainer who was close friends with Errol Flynn, Max Baer, Lauren Bacall, and Bing Crosby. We met up at his home studio, off of beautiful Topanga Canyon, in Los Angeles, to discuss his career and recording techniques.

Were you born in L.A.? 

No, I was born in San Francisco. My father and mother named me after my father's business partner and my godfather, Val Christensen, who was a Norwegian gentleman. He was a very famous orthopedic surgeon in San Francisco. My grandmother was Mayan Indian, and my grandfather was Spanish, so my last name, Guerre, as they say in English, in Spanish is pronounced [Gar+rye]. It's a Basque name. My great grandfather was born in the Pyrenees Mountains in Spain. I grew up in Burlingame, California, which is one of the richest town in Northern California, next to Marin. I grew up next door to the Bing Crosby family. I went to Burlingame High School and then on to Stanford. I went to Stanford School of Medicine. I was in my second year of undergrad when I left. I got in a band, made a hit record, and ended up in the music business. 

It turned out all right! 

Stanford, too. That's no slacker place. I had a full scholarship. 

You've had such a well-rounded body of work. 

Well, it's because of [producer/engineer] Dave Hassinger. He attracted all those kinds of people; but he was at a point in his life where he didn't want to do it any more, so he pawned them off on me.

How did you first meet him and get involved at The Sound Factory? 

I was being managed by a guy named Michael J. Gruber. He was the Rolling Stones' tour manager in the '60s. He left the Stones to start his own management company. At the time, he was managing myself, Moby Grape, Arthur Lee and Love, a band called Help, and somebody else. He started getting me my very first production jobs and I needed a studio to work in. He new Dave because of his work with the Rolling Stones all those years, so he took me The Sound Factory and introduced me. When I started working with Dave, he was the engineer. Then I realized I wasn't going to get any major clients that way, so I had to figure something else out. One day Dave said that I had a great pair of ears, and that I should come work with him and let him teach me to be an engineer. That's how it happened. 

Then he just started giving you more work?

Well, Peter Asher originally came to work with Dave Hassinger, but again Dave was at the point in his life, in his fifties, where he didn't want to work anymore. Peter and I were the same age, and he kept pawning me off on Peter. Peter realized, as smart as he was, that I was actually really good. He told Dave, "Hey, he's great. Go home. I'll stay with Val." That's how that happened. 

El Chicano's cover of "Brown Eyed Girl" must have been fun to record. 

That was my first hit record, my first time at The Sound Factory, and the first record I ever engineered. Don Buday, who co-produced the record with me, was a dear friend of mine. He got a call from a guy who was the head of Kapp Records at MCA, who El Chicano was signed to, asking if he wanted to produce the next El Chicano record. Why, I don't know, because he's not a producer. He never produced a record in his life. He calls me up and says, "Hey, I've got this job. You want to do this record with me?" I go into the studio, and we're getting ready to cut this record with El Chicano. I can remember sitting at the console at The Sound Factory, just frozen. I'd never engineered a record in my life, and Dave's standing over the top of me saying, "Do this with the congas. Move that over there. Do this to the kick drum." He tweaked the whole thing. Suddenly, the whole session started to turn into something. Then Don got this brilliant idea of re-recording "Brown Eyed Girl" with them, doing it kind of like the "Mexican Everly Brothers." It was a huge hit. 

That's a great version. I love that record. 

They were a big East L.A. band. I haven't seen them since I made that record. 

As you learned more, how did you approach engineering? 

What I tried to do when I first started engineering at The Sound Factory on the Linda Ronstadt Heart Like a Wheel album, and everything that exploded after that, was that I tried to turn engineering into more of an art form. I came from a musical background. I was a guitar playing singer/songwriter. I was signed to all the publishers in Hollywood as a staff writer. I did that for eight years. I wanted to make recording an art form. I think I did. People would say to me, "Oh, you just turn the knobs." Yeah, right. I just turn the knobs. I was very musical. My father being a singer helped. I had a really great song sense, because my aunt was Cole Porter's personal assistant for 35 years. I used to go up to his house in Bel Air and hang out. He'd be going around the house like, "Moon, June, spoon. What rhymes with spoon, kid?" 

When these great sessions are discussed, the engineer is often overlooked in regards to their contributions. 

Well, when I was "just an engineer" I contributed musically to everything I worked on. That's why Linda and I worked together for ten years. I had a lot of great ideas, musically. I came up with things to suggest that helped. 

You also worked with Peter Asher quite a bit. 

Every record he made for ten years. He never made a record in that period without me, including the fucking Pirates of Penzance album that I had to do for free. 

That was a labor of love? 

It was a labor of nightmares. My fingers were sore from editing that. 

What kind of working relationship did you guys have? Like a team? 

Pretty much. I started with him in 1974, and I stopped working with him around 1982, when I was just too busy and couldn't do it anymore. I actually worked with again him in the '90s. When I was producing Sarah Brightman, and he and I produced a track together on her record. 

You are doing a lot of work these days with Waves and Manley Labs. 

I've always loved the cutting edge of technology, no matter what it was. Whether it was the analog world or the digital world, I was always right at the tip of everything. 

Tell me about your introduction to the Aphex Aural Exciter. 

Well, there are only three original ones and, to the best of my knowledge, they're all still sitting at Aphex. They were tube powered, and they were in a box like a 19-inch rack, about three spaces high. They never sold them; they were always rented. The ones that we used to create the plug-in, there was only one of them that they could get to function out of the three that they had. They [commercially] made Aphex Aural Exciters after the fact, but they were solid state. None were the original tube versions. I didn't know anything about it. I went to a Wings concert with Peter Asher and Andrew Gold. I was mesmerized by the piano sound in the Forum, because nothing ever sounded good in the Forum. I said to the front of house guy, "What the fuck did you use on that piano?" He said they used an Aphex Aural Exciter. I said, "What?" And he said, "An Aphex Aural Exciter. That's the guy who designed it right over there, Curt Knoppel." I went over and started talking to Curt. I asked if he'd ever tried it on a recording. He said, "No." I was mixing Linda's [Ronstadt] new album [Hasten Down the Wind], and I told him I wanted to try it. I pioneered using that device in the studio. 

So he was thinking about using it for live performances? 

Live sound is what it was designed for. I'm the one who got him to try it on records. 

When you first used it, did you use it on more than just the piano? 

I used it on everything. Like I said, it was on each instrument individually. I used it on very little bass, because it doesn't really affect bass. It's more of the top-end [frequencies]. It adds a sparkle to things that you can't accomplish with EQ. Every time, people would say, "Oh, it's just more 15 kHz EQ." I'd say, "Okay, you do whatever you want with the EQ, and you try to match this." They never could do it. It deals with phase. It's interesting how it works. 

So when you started working with Waves on the plug-in, how did that process go? 

They called me from Israel. They said they were thinking of doing the Aphex Aural Exciter, and that my name was synonymous with that. I was near one of their artists, and they wanted me to help create the plug-in. I said sure. It took almost a year and a half to get it right. 

Did they just send you things and you'd give them feedback? 

Yeah. Creating an algorithm is not an easy thing. They're the best at it. When I'd tell them, "It needs a little juice," they'd come up with it. It's just insane. It sounds very close to what it really did sound like. 

I believe some people are using the Aural Exciter over an entire mix. 

Yeah, I would never do that! 

What are your thoughts about the device in the studio? 

It was always a send/receive device that I would use different amounts of on different instruments throughout the mix. When I say "send/receive," I mean there was a send on every single channel that went to it, and I'd add a little of that on the guitar, or a little more on the voice. Or sometimes less. It was always done that way. Never on the whole mix. You had to lease it. If you go into the plug-in, there are all my presets. 

You use a custom-built DI box for bass. 

The DI box is interesting. That was originally designed by a guy who worked at The Sound Factory, years ago. The tech there now re-made them from the guy's original drawings, exactly the same. A lot of people have them now. I've tried them all. I find that the best bass sound is the least affected. All I ever do is add a little bit of limiting with a [Universal Audio] LA-2A, which is a tube device, and I take the direct signal from the instrument. It's in this box that was built for me. All there is in this box is a bunch of wires, and a transformer. 

So you're basically recording direct from the bass? 

The thing about direct is that this Jensen transformer transmits a tremendous amount of low-end and transients. You get a lot of crunch, as well as low-end, with this transformer. 

When you record bass, are you usually doing one direct track and another one mic'ing the amp and then mixing them? 

I always do one direct, which is always limited. That's the one that creates the punch. Regarding the amp signal: normally if you watch the two VU meters side by side, the amp, because it's limited, goes to zero and stays there most of the time. The other one idles around, and when you hit a note, it jumps up. What that creates is the actual dynamics of the bass player himself. That's what gives you their personal playing dynamics. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much dynamics, because the direct bass signal is limited. 

You're known for using Telefunken ELA M 251 mics when recording drums. 

Here's the deal. The Telefunken 251s are the greatest mics ever made to record drums. They're for toms and overheads. They're no good on a snare drum, hi-hat, or a kick drum; but for tom-toms and overheads, they're the most amazing mics ever made. Today very few studios can afford to buy them, because the originals go for between $15,000 and $20,000 each. When I recorded James Taylor's JT, I did three on the tom-toms and two on the overheads, so that's five Telefunken 251s. That's $75,000 worth of microphones. Most people don't have that many. 

What made you decide to use those Telefunkens? 

I don't know. They were sitting in the mic locker at The Sound Factory. To me, microphones sound like they look. Fat microphones [tend to] sound big and fat. Little, skinny, pointy ones sound skinny and pointy. I saw these beautiful, big, fat microphones and figured if they were just sitting there, I ought to see what they might sound like on tom toms and overheads. Boom. Prior to that, most people who used overheads were using tube [Neumann U]47s. Thank the lord, my parents made me fearless. I was not afraid to try and fail. 

What do you carry in your API lunchbox? API gear, mostly? 

Only. It's the preamps that I use for vocals, a couple of API 525 compressors, and a couple of 550A EQs in each of the boxes. I helped Aphex invent the lunchboxes, but now API makes them. API makes them with six spaces in them. They use the name the Lunch Pail, but I'm the one who coined the phrase. I told the guys over at Aphex that I wanted something kind of like a lunchbox. These are the original ones made by Aphex. They have four slots in them, and then a power supply. 

What is it about the API mic preamps that you love so much? 

The sound of them. The new ones that I use a lot now are the same basic configuration, with the exception that the op amps in them are made by Avedis. His op amps sound better to me. 

It's a little bit daunting to talk about the musicians you worked with over the years. 

Don Grolnick, Rick Marotta, Russ Kunkel, and Eddie Green. 

Did you work a lot with Jim Keltner? 

Keltner! I could tell you one of the funniest stories in the history of recording. I'm working with Keltner, and we're cutting a track. We were at The Sound Factory West, which is the old studio Dave used to own on Melrose. We just cut this track that had an incredible feel. Keltner's more of a feel drummer, whereas Russ is more of a technician. Meaning that if you have a verse, a chorus, and a pre-chorus, Russ knows how to dice it and slice it, whereas Keltner just lays down a groove. He played it perfectly, but he didn't play one fill. I said, "Jim, could you go back and overdub the toms? I'd like a fill here at the beginning of the chorus." He says, "Sure." I roll the track and he plays the exact same thing. 

He's like, "This is what I feel." 

Exactly. "That's it buddy. Hope you like it." Jeff Porcaro was an unbelievable drummer. We cut Toto IV at my studio - they did the whole album there. He got the feel for that shuffle in "Rosanna" by listening to a metronome and playing a groove to a click at the tempo he wanted for about 20 minutes. Then the band would go in on that tape machine, they'd find the best two bars that they loved, and then loop it; and that was his click track. What a great groove. It's sad, in a way, because you never hear records done that way any more. Everything's programmed. It's just a backbeat. 

Obviously the industry's changed a lot over the years. How does that affect the way you work now? 

There's a lot less contact with major labels, and a lot more contact with artists. 

Do you find yourself involved as an engineer still? 

I always did that anyway, but I'm very much more involved in today's world as a producer. Any engineering I do is a sideline, because I've always done it. I don't want to use somebody else. These kids I teach are getting really good. I use an assistant for a lot that I don't want to have to do. He does all my comp'ing, tuning, vocal aligning, and things of that nature. I do engineering, but very little outside projects Once in a while I'll mix a project for somebody, if I really like the artist, it's a friend of mine, and they want me to do it. 

How do you like having coaxial reference monitors, compared to the other speakers you have? 

Well, I learned on Altec 604Es, which are coaxial speakers, so I relate really well to coaxial speakers. And the 604Es at The Sound Factory had Mastering Labs crossovers in them. These are Tannoys with Mastering Labs crossovers. These are very similar, to me. 

They're great speakers, aren't they? 

Yeah, they're wonderful. I tried the Manley cabinets, but I didn't like the bigger black cabinets. I liked the stock cabinets better. Doug Sax built these for me 30 years ago. I have the wood cabinets. Everybody has their own preference. I just bought these ATC monitors - these are the new passive ones that they just started making. I don't like powered speakers. My theory is that you make great speakers and then great amp makers make great amps. Great speaker manufacturers don't seem to make great amps, and vice versa. I prefer passive speakers. Speakers are so amp-friendly. If it's built-in, you don't have a choice. 

Well stated. 

It's the component issue that's been going on for centuries. I had a set of Genelec 1030As that had the power, but they just never sounded right to me. These ATCs sound great. I'm just trying to figure out what kind of amp to use with them. Right now I have these two huge Manley monoblock amps that I was trying. 

How do you like them? 

They're very hi-fi. They're not punchy or tough enough for pop music, to me. They're more of a hi-fi amp. 

Yeah. They'd be great to have for your hi-fi at home. 

Yeah, but look at the size of these things! They weigh about a hundred pounds [each]. 

You're not moving them easily. 

Yeah, well they're all disconnected now. I'm going to probably put the same amp on these as I have on those, which is a Bryston 4B SST. I love that amp. They're made in Canada. Somebody said to me the other day, "You must really like U.K. speakers." I never thought of it that way, but these were made in the U.K., and those were made in the U.K. 

I read somewhere that those are custom [Yamaha] NS-10s? 

Yes. Years ago, when I had Record One, everybody loved NS-10s, but they always used to have to put something over the tweeters, because they were really mid-range peaky. I said to my chief engineer, "I have an idea how we can modify these speakers and make them sound better." He said, "What do we have to do?" I contacted Larry Jackson, who owned Jackson Cabinets, who built all the cabinets for Westlake and for the Super Red speakers. I drew the cabinets up the way  I wanted them done, with a half-inch bigger ID than the stock NS-10 cabinets. The stock NS-10 cabinets have boxes with half-inch particle board and a face with three quarter-inch particle board. These are inch and a half marine plywood in the front, and then half-inch birch-faced particle board in the rest of them. Then they're stuffed with fiberglass, and the tweeter that used to be here is now lined up with the woofer. The tweeter was always counter-sunk and the woofer was surface-mounted. It's been sunk; and the crossovers were modified by this company called Hemisphere. They used to make Hemisphere Timeline crossovers. We wrote down all the components, and now we can manufacture them. Yamaha wanted to manufacture them with me, and use my name, but I couldn't come to an agreement with them. 

Oh, really? 

They never got made, but about 50 pairs of them are out there, being used. They sound unbelievable. You remember what Yamaha NS-10s sounded like. They never had any bottom-end. They used to be oak-faced, oak veneer; but I got tired of explaining to everybody what they were, so I just painted them black so that nobody would ask about it. The whole box was oak.