You must have a background in reading music from playing trombone growing up?
When I was a kid, I played for years in our school's concert band and knew how to sight read, but I can’t do that anymore. With the bands at Morrisound, my biggest contribution was trying to keep everyone in tune, as well as making sure we used new strings and drums heads, and the drums were on time and free from stick clicks, etc. I never told a band how to write parts or anything. I was influenced by punk rock and turned off by the pompous attitude of bigger bands like Kiss and Queen at the time. I used to do live sound, and I went to a studio with a friend’s band and thought it was amazing. There wasn’t a drunk guy yelling at me to turn the guitar up, and the rooms didn’t sound like shit because it was a controlled environment. The engineer didn’t want to have anything to do with us because of our style, so I made a deal with the band to do a 7-inch where I agreed to split the costs with them. I went around to the local studios in Tampa, most of which did jingles. And this is where I’m nothing without the guys at Morrisound [Recording]: Jim and Tom Morris, and Rick Miller. I was just a young guy in awe of them and how good all the bands sounded coming out of the studio. Even in their original location, they really had it going on. There was a little shoebox-sized 8-track studio with a 1/2-inch, 8-track Otari machine that Rick Miller used to start tracking Obituary’s Slowly We Rot. [It was finished at the “new” Morrisound on 56th Street.] I had recorded a couple of punk bands and worked nights as an assistant engineer, from ‘83 onwards. Jim and Rick were both electrical engineers, and Tom had a master’s degree in chemical engineering and had done quite well. They had encouraged me to get an electrical engineering degree, so I went to USF to acquire that while working nights.
I read that the second Morrisound location [on 56th Street] had sound panels that could be adjusted for classical sessions versus drier rock or jazz recordings.
Tom was a genius because he built the studio from the ground up. The A Room was very large, with these sound-absorbing panels. Those panels were plywood on one side, with high-end acoustic insulation on the other. They were about 2 ft. by 6 ft. and 5 inches deep, placed strategically along the walls. You could open them up to deaden the room, or you could close them to make it more live. Classical pianist Robert Helps would come to record with those guys – you could fit a larger orchestral ensemble in there – and there were isolation booths as well. Their other remarkable innovation was to come up with a design for 8-channel headphone mixers, and there were about ten of them around the room. Each musician could have their own mix. Nowadays this is all taken for granted, but in 1983 it was a big deal. They also had a friend, Rick Mabry – a mathematics professor – and he was working on locking up the 24-track machine to video and doing lots of mad scientist stuff for them. He was brilliant. These guys were super fucking smart. Back in the day, all of the music for Busch Gardens amusement park shows were recorded at Morrisound, and all of these guys were bad-ass jazz session musicians.
How did the shift towards heavy metal happen at Morrisound?
Dan Johnson signed Avatar/Savatage to his label, Par Records, and they recorded their first two records [The Dungeons Are Calling and Sirens] with him at Morrisound. He also signed and recorded Crimson Glory. He put heavy metal on the map at the studio, and I started assisting him on Agent Steel’s Unstoppable Force and Whiplash’s Insult to Injury. He was the producer, and Jim and Tom were the engineers. Dan also mixed the No More Color album from Coroner, which I engineered. The studio was one of the first to get a TC Electronic 2290 delay sampler, which enabled them to get that big drum sound and manipulate it. The biggest problem with metal was making it sound good when it was fast. Take a rock drumbeat, “Boom, smack, boom, smack.” Anybody can make that sound good. If you can’t, you’re not a very good engineer. When it gets faster, it’s hard to get that definition. So, we would use Cakewalk software with MIDI and noise gates to trigger drums, which, in Tampa at the time, was quite advanced. Jim was also recording bands like Nasty Savage, and the production sounded great with their techniques, so it grew and grew.
You put these techniques to use engineering Death’s Leprosy with Dan Johnson producing. The book also speaks to you having a good rapport with bands early on.
I was a younger guy and perhaps more in touch with the underground scene. I was doing live sound occasionally for Nasty Savage and Obituary, when they still went by Xecutioner. But, like I said, even though I grew up on hard rock during high school, I was more into punk rock and not aware of death metal yet. But I was into extremes, so when Xecutioner and Death came in, I thought they were cool. Dan was the producer of Leprosy, and it became one of the first death metal records I’d done as an engineer. Rick Miller had started Obituary’s Slowly We Rot, tracking drums and rhythm guitar on the 1/2-inch Otari. We bounced the drums to two tracks and transferred them back to another 8-track tape, which gave us six tracks for guitar, vocals, and effects. Rick took a leave of absence to continue his electrical engineering job, so I finished the rest of the record. The Atheist guys had gotten signed after doing work for Borivoj Krgin’s label, Godly Records. They were up for me recording their first album, Piece of Time. Those guys were amazing; so different. Dan Johnson also decided to focus on his day job, decided he would not be doing Death’s Spiritual Healing, and was kind enough to recommend me to Chuck [Schuldiner, vocals/guitar] to do the record.
You refer to this being the sweet spot before “death metal got big” and often point to Terrorizer’s World Downfall as one of your favorite productions. What was that session like, and what was the process of sampling drummer Pete Sandoval “live”?
That was a one-off project for Earache Records, and there was no real budget for it. We only had two days to record and mix it. We didn't even have money for 2-inch tape to record on a 24-track machine, so we did the record on the 8-track. I took the TC 2290 from the A Room and the one from the B Room, sampled his real kick sound, triggered them live through a noise gate, and recorded his drums onto four tracks. By doing this, if there were mistakes, I couldn’t fix them and the take would be screwed. I didn’t have the luxury of recording his kicks individually and going back and triggering them – putting the sampled tracks on their own. This is what we typically did when recording the drums. Each kick would have a separate track, and then I would trigger those and record them onto their own additional tracks. Once they were good, I would throw away the acoustic kick drum tracks because I never used them. It’s different for a snare drum, which has more dynamics. With death metal, everyone hits the kick drum hard. All we’re looking for is that impact. It’s like recording everything in a blender, and we’re trying to get definition at 200 BPM. Back to the Terrorizer album: We’d listen back to a take, and if the kick drums were messed up, there was nothing I could do about it. If I had missed triggers, or the noise gate didn’t work, we would re-record the track. Oscar [Garcia, vocals] and Jesse [Pintado, guitar] came in prepared – it’s grindcore, punk rock, thrash, death metal. They played their parts and that’s it. I was fortunate that most of the bands were well prepared and could play their tracks with minimum intervention from me, and that’s what being underground was to me: To be able to play. Not to disparage my punk brethren, but the mentality was, “Let’s get fucked up and play,” and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. The metal guys were more rehearsed, and I appreciated that. And Pete Sandoval was amazing! I never got to record [his later band] Morbid Angel, but he was the man. I’m not saying World Downfall sounds the best, but it’s got a raw feel that I like. Another band that always strived to get better each album was Cannibal Corpse. They always came in well-rehearsed and tried to make their next album better than the last.
You soon got the call to record Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains in Brazil. I love the image of you taking a Marshall head and various drumheads on the flight!
Roadrunner Records had approached a number of the popular thrash metal producers, but I was told they all thought Max [Cavalera]’s vocals were too death metal. The session was booked over the Christmas holiday, and there was a limited budget. I was sort of the engineer/producer of last resort. Monte [Conner, of Roadrunner] had talked to Tom, and they thought I could do it. I was able to bring a Marshall or Mesa/Boogie head on the plane, guitar strings, and sticks and heads for drummer Igor [Cavalera]. Brazil has a 100 percent tariff on bringing anything into the country, and the customs agents were trying to charge us $1000, which is about all the cash Roadrunner had budgeted for incidentals. Max’s friend finally helped us find an agent who was willing to take $300, so we got in and headed to the studio. Nas Nuvens, which translates to "in the clouds," was a studio founded by the famous Brazilian samba legend Gilberto Gil. It was the only 24-track studio in Rio, and it was booked for samba sessions every day, so we would work from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The picture of the band at Ipanema Beach on the back of the album was taken at 7 a.m. after they’d been tracking all night. The night shift was challenging, but the band was coming off of the success of Schizophrenia and was really prepared. They knew this was their big shot, and they were serious and ready to go. I’d like to think that I am just a liaison between the artist and the studio. I’m the technical person trying to help them to create art. My only job was to get their vision on tape and make it sound as good as possible. These days, everyone knows how to record. But back then you had to go to a studio and spend money, and the Sepultura guys were cool as hell, and we had a great time. Nowadays, you have producers like Arthur Rizk [Tape Op #150], Erik Rutan, and Jarrett Pritchard [#166] who do amazing work as producers and are also playing in great bands. Amazing.
Were you pushing the band to play hard?
Andreas [Kisser] is a killer guitarist, and maybe with Max being more of a frontman we would work a little more on rhythm parts. But, as I said, they were well prepared. If the two guitarists have different picking or phrasing, then it doesn't sound as tight if they are both playing the same riff. Things like that I would check to make sure it was the same. Through Tom and Jim, I’d learned a lot about checking tuning before takes, using new strings, maintaining tempos, and listening for drum mistakes like sticks clicking on fills or hitting microphones. I’d be soloing the left and right guitars when it sounded muddy, and pointing out the differences between the two performances. With guitar sounds, most everyone likes that bluesy, classic rock sound from a 50 watt Marshall Jubilee. We tended to like solid-state amplifiers overall, because it sounded heavier and more brutal to us. I remember when Marshall came out with their Valvestate solid-state head, and Tom let me buy one for the studio. That was a great day! Like I said previously, we were all trying to find our way on how to record something that had 100 percent clarity yet was heavy and brutal as shit.
As a kid I saw Sepultura in Metal Maniacs magazine and couldn’t wait to hear it, but before the internet there was more of a mystique.
That’s a perfectly good point; there was a mystique! You had to read a magazine like Metal Maniacs, edited by a dear person and huge proponent and supporter of the scene, Katherine Ludwig. The scene was pretty much underground. You didn’t know what was going on unless you read about it, went to a mom & pop record store, or your friend told you about it. Now we hear about everything, instantly. Ronnie Galletti of Nasty Savage was amazing for spreading the band’s name and hyping the band. Borivoj Krgin was also so influential in the underground, and still is to this day with <blabbermouth.net>.
The year 1990 saw an explosion of activity for you: Death’s Spiritual Healing, Deicide’s s/t, Cannibal Corpse’s Eaten Back to Life, and more. Did you have a process for tracking bands by this time?
Typically, we’d have everyone set up and do a full take with scratch guitars. The bass was set up to record, but nine out of ten times it would be a scratch track as well. A few bands just wanted to use their scratch tracks and punch in, but I tried to avoid that as much as possible unless the tone was really good. I would sample the kicks and finish off the drums, and I’d then start getting guitar sounds. We’d double track guitars, record bass, then the vocals, and mix on the Sound Workshop Series 34 [console], which had automation. We eventually got an SSL G Series for the A Room, and the Sound Workshop went into the B Room where I usually did tracking after drums to save money. Tom and Jim had a good relationship with Elliott Rubinson at Thoroughbred Music, and he cut the studio a deal on gear rentals. Bands could go in, try any amps out, and bring back a Mesa/Boogie, Gallien-Krueger, or what have you. Take someone like Trevor Peres [Obituary]. His guitar sound was his guitar sound, and I’d use a Shure SM57 or Sennheiser MD 421 on the guitar cabinet. All of my guitar sounds were close mic’d, so we would get that presence and crunch. There’s no room sound with my stuff; there isn't a lot of ambience needed at 200 BPM. There was nothing special about what I did. It was just good quality microphones and proper mic’ing techniques that I learned from Jim, Tom, and Rick. For kick drums, we’d take the front head off and tune it as loose as we could while still having enough tension so they could play fast double bass. We would use a pillow with a gallon paint can on top to hold it in place. I’d place an Electro-Voice RE20 up close to the head. We always used brand new heads, but no quarters taped to where the beater makes contact. Tom toms would also be mic’d with 421s, and snares with a 421 with maybe a SM57 on the bottom. If the drummer was bad, we’d use a 441 because it was skinnier and less likely to be whacked. Cymbal overheads were AKG C 414s or perhaps a Neumann U 87. The overhead tracks would have a hard cut/shelf at around 500 Hz that helped reduce the ambience on the kicks so they would really punch. Like I said, I never cared about ambience. I was trying to capture all of the definition that I could. One of the things that the bands loved was saying, “Listen to how we don't cheat.” For bass, it was similar to the rhythm guitars. I would check tuning constantly, and I’d change strings almost every song. Sometimes I’d record a direct signal, otherwise it was an SVT or Hartke cabinet. Jim and Tom thought that Ampeg 456 tape printed a bit saturated, so we used Scotch 3M tape – each reel was about $135. The other thing to remember is I was like a production factory. In the beginning, everyone would come in with a $5000 budget and have a week to record. I would make around $500 to $800 per record. When Cannibal Corpse came for their first album, Eaten Back to Life, they paid to drive down from Buffalo, and I think they even paid for their hotel. We would block out the studio for 12 hours, and the way to get more time would be to just keep working. We’d often go 16 to 18 hours and sleep in the studio. Because of budgets, and the bands being similar in regard to instrumentation, it was easier to follow a pattern. To be honest, I am sure most rock records followed this process back in the day. If the drummer needed some straightening out for missed hits or tempo issues, we would splice tape. When it was bad, “Super” Brian Benscoter would use MIDI and Cakewalk to fix the snares on blast beats; he was simply the best. But that took time and money. Towards the end, the budgets increased. We had $40,000 for Death’s Human, which gave us a lot more time. But for a couple of years, all of the smaller bands, like Atrocity and Malevolent Creation, were low budget. We didn’t have time to say, “Let’s try this for a day or two.” I’d just get it to sound heavy and A/B the scratch guitars versus a re-tracked take to make sure it was better. For Malevolent Creation’s second album [Retribution], we got to record at Criteria [Recording Studios] in Miami, where Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell was recorded. It was so freaking cool to see that gold record on the wall!
When talking about having nice microphones, it’s hard to imagine extreme vocalists like Glen Benton [Deicide] or John Tardy [Obituary] screaming into a Neumann U 87.
Well, yes, Glen did sing into a [Neumann] U 87, as did most others. Chris Barnes [Cannibal Corpse] and Frank Mullen [Suffocation] were the only two guys that got their sound by holding a [Shure] SM57 and “cupping” it with their hands, as I recall. In the beginning, I urged them to sing into a condenser mic, but it didn’t get the right sound. Using a handheld microphone was part of their sound, and those two were killer. All of the singers I recorded were brutal and got their sound without cheating. I used a dbx 165 compressor in the vocal chain, along with the compression in the SSL, but that was about it. We also had an Eventide H910 Harmonizer, Lexicon 224 and 480L reverbs, and a rack-mounted [Lexicon] PCM 70 delay. Eventually, we started mixing down to DAT tape, which was a big deal at the time because cassettes sucked. We had nice gear, but not tons of it. Just to give some perspective, Warrant came to Morrisound for Dog Eat Dog with Michael Wagener [Tape Op #124]. Every day, new guitars and cases of strings would show up; it was a world I never knew existed! These days, everyone thinks of death metal guys as they would any other metal musician, but back then we were just scraping by financially, and endorsements were not so common for us. Also, Michael was renting his outboard gear out for the mix for $7500 a day!
Genius!
They talked about paying $125,000 to mix the record. The band was joking that he would make more money off the record than they would. They were cool and friendly, and it was a real eye-opening experience for me. FedEx was showing up hourly with swag. We were blue collar compared to them. Like I mentioned, the budgets grew to $40,000 towards the end, so money did get better, but it continued to be an album a week or month and back-to-back-to-back. That’s why Roadrunner put out so many records; they knew they’d make their money back.
Despite this factory pace, by 1991 – with albums like Death’s Human and Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence, you must’ve felt you were elevating the art form of death metal to new heights. I imagine you were also experimenting with more complex drum mic'ing for Sean Reinert [Cynic, Death], and expanding your sonic palette.
Not really. I appreciate that, but I don’t know. I knew that guys like Reinert and Roger from Atheist were special, and what Cynic did on [their debut LP], Focus. The scene was getting more popular in the underground, but at the same time we had King Diamond, Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, Overkill, and Testament; the “big bands.” I think death metal was seen perhaps as a passing trend. Don't take that wrong. My bands had a very dedicated following, especially in Europe, but it was smaller because it was so extreme. The PMRC [Parents Music Resource Center] put a label on Cannibal Corpse’s Butchered at Birth. If you told me I’d be talking to you about this all these years later, I would’ve said, “No way.” But think of it this way: Do you hear a lot of vocals like King Diamond anymore? Do you hear singers that sound like John Tardy [Obituary]? Lamb of God, Lorna Shore, and Amon Amarth; all these huge bands have heavy and deep vocals. George Corpsegrinder [Fisher], Frank Mullen [Suffocation], Glen Benton [Deicide] – these are all deep vocals. If you would’ve told me that style would be so prevalent today, I would’ve again said, “No way!” It’s not because I didn’t believe in it; it just boggles my mind. It’s great, and I’m super happy, but it goes to show we never know what’s going to happen.
Reading the book, there seemed to be quite a community of engineers and musicians at Morrisound. Certain players almost equated to an in-house session band.
I think your point is well taken there. It’s like the old saying, “It takes a village.” As engineers, Steve Heritage [Assück] was very punk rock and recorded Hot Water Music. Sean Malone [Cynic] was a phenom and had played in punk and new wave bands that I knew from the early days. Engineers Judd Packer [Ludichrist’s Powertrip] and “Super Brian” were all amazing. Brian’s a real unsung hero. Ralph Santolla [Obituary/Death/Deicide] was a phenomenal guitar player who really blossomed as a session musician as he got older. He could sweep-pick like Yngwie Malmsteen, and he worked with Jim Morris on many projects. If we were having problems with a drummer, we could call up Alex Marquez [Malevolent Creation]. A lot of times bands are young and inexperienced, and these guys could come in like Steely Dan-style session players. We could throw out musical terms, “Play something neoclassical,” or, “I need a Strat sound,” and they would pick up on it. Guitarist James Murphy [Death, Obituary, Disincarnate] was incredible; one of the best guitarists I ever worked with. Death metal thrived on the Rick Rozz [Death, Massacre] and Kerry King [Slayer] whammy bar chaos, so it was cool to hear Murphy shred over heavy riffs like he did on Death’s Spiritual Healing and Obituary’s Cause of Death. That was the beauty of Morrisound; it was a community. It’s Tampa, not the big time. Everyone knew each other and it was a good vibe. We, as the staff, were okay with fans coming in as long as the bands were okay with it. Probably like any studio with a scene of bands playing, there was a camaraderie of musicianship.
When I was sitting in class in high school, I’d daydream about getting to hang out at Morrisound with the whole scene. It seemed like the Motown of metal to us weirdos.
Motown’s a good example. It was a good scene, and we were lucky there were so many bands. You have to acknowledge the influence that Nasty Savage and Savatage had on all of these bands. Those first two Savatage records are heavy, and Chriss and Jon Oliva were incredible. Those guys were the seniors to the freshman that played death metal. It was all about technical riffs and playing complicated stuff, and when Morrisound gave it that sonic definition it pushed players to get better. Now they could hear who was really playing their parts clean, because it wasn’t a bunch of mud. It fostered friendly competition to see who could downpick better or play faster. It was constructive, and it pushed the bands to be better.
Towards the end of your tenure, you were pushing the limits of technicality with Cannibal Corpse’s Vile, while also recording the blasting grindcore of Assück’s Misery Index. What made you realize that you’d reached the end of the road at Morrisound?
I’ll be honest with you, in case it didn’t come across in the book, I was burned out. I did Psychotic Waltz and I loved those guys! Afterwards, I tried to branch out, but nothing really came of it. For a long time, I was completely happy doing death metal because I loved it. When I tried to expand to metal or other forms of rock, I had no luck overall. I had a great manager, Kathy Nizzari, who was a friend of Katherine Ludwig’s, but it was rough. No one liked death metal, and I was persona non grata. I say this all the time: If you’re an engineer, there are only two ways to get hired – either the record label tells the band who to use, or the band goes to the label and says, “This guy recorded my favorite record. I want to use him.” Death metal was in decline when I was leaving, and bands outside of the scene didn't think it was cool. My wife and I wanted to have kids, and I was tired, so I decided to hang it up and call it a day. Most of the bands I worked with were done: Gorguts, Exhorder, Atrocity, and Pestilence. During my time with Obituary, John Tardy used to work for Underwriter Laboratories testing electronic equipment, and he gave me an [Intel] 486DX computer. The studio was doing more with MIDI, so I decided to go back to school and learn C programming and do something different. It is hard as a staff engineer when you’re mainly recording jingles, karaoke tracks, or whoever comes through the door. It becomes difficult to tell a non-professional musician, “Wow, that sounds really unique. I’ve never heard that phrasing before.” You learn to be creative on how to comment on things you don't think are very good, while still making sure they spend money with you. It’s their dream, so who are we to tell them they aren't good? But, for me, it really didn't bring much joy or personal satisfaction doing that for a living. When you're lucky enough to be working with professional musicians of any style, it is very fulfilling. Maybe it was because I’d been on top and worked with all these great bands that it made my decision easier. I used to miss it more than anything in the world, but at the same time, it’s over and I have nothing but great memories.
I admire you for making that transition. You did something that meant a lot to people, and you made a career shift for the stability of your family. I’ve worked in advertising, so I know how hard it can be to say “that was good” when it’s not sincere. All respect to you.
I’ll say this about advertising: If you’re at the top of your game and people are coming in and asking you to put out a professional product, that's great. But if someone has money and is just coming in to sing karaoke over backing tracks? No thanks.
One album we’ve skipped over is Sepultura's Arise, which I consider a crown jewel in your discography. Maybe I avoided it since it had that, uh, mixing issue.
You can say it, Sam… it was bittersweet. They came back very popular off the success of Beneath the Remains, and Roadrunner had super high hopes for them. We finished the recording, went to mix, and that was the first case of a label saying, “Oh, Scott’s just okay. He’s good for the death metal stuff, but we need a 'big-time' producer. We’re going to have Andy Wallace [Tape Op #25] mix.” I was pissed, and I was bitter for a while. It was really hard, and it took a chunk out of me. To me, it was just all underground. Being naive, I didn’t get it. I have never considered myself a producer; I think Monte Conner just didn't know what credit to give me for [Obituary’s] Slowly We Rot, and so it stuck. Monte is the best! The big-time rock/metal producers are legit; they work on crafting songs to sell millions of records. But the records I did, and the music Sepultura made back in the day, forget about it. You’re never going to sell millions of records. Maybe nowadays, but not back in the day. We were making death and thrash. How are you going to make that a commercial product? It was a drag. At the end, it was a drag to hang it up. But I had so much fun, and I wouldn’t change anything looking back. Every dog has its day, and I loved all the bands I was lucky enough to record.
These albums mean more to people that connected with them than many mainstream bands. You’ve said that it was all about the bands, and you just happened to be there, but I sure wish I could’ve been there with you!
Well, you’d have been welcomed warmly, Sam. You would’ve had a good time, drank a few beers, and sat around and hung out with some really cool guys. All the bands were genuine, and it would take me a long time to try and think of someone that wasn’t a cool guy. It was a good time.
