Tobin Sprout has been looming large in the basement recording scene for quite some time now. Since his early days with Figure 4 he's been crafting rock songs and laying them down on pretty much everything from 4-track and 8-track cassettes to 24-track analog and many-track digital machines. In the late '80s and early '90s he was intimately involved with the greatest Dayton, Ohio, rockers of them all, Guided by Voices, not only as a musician, but also as the main engineer and producer. After Guided by Voices' classic line-up split a few years ago Sprout went at it alone and put out a few great solo albums in the years that followed. Most recently though, he's been back with a band, this time playing under the moniker Eyesinweasel.
The other day I was listening to Let's Welcome the Circus People and it credits you as the producer, but I didn't see any mention of a 4- track and the recording quality is pretty high compared to some of your other stuff.
Yeah, that one was mostly done on an Alesis ADAT and a Studio 32 board so I can go up to 16 tracks, which is what I'd like to do eventually. The stuff that I did on Moonflower Plastic, outside of the studio stuff, was done on an 8-track cassette and a 4-track cassette and there's a big difference in the sound quality of the ADAT.
Have you been upgrading your stuff pretty steadily over the years?
Pretty much. My ultimate goal is to get a 24-track analog machine, but it's just expensive. You've got to have somebody that can work on it, and you've got to find one to begin with. They're expensive and a problem to maintain and there aren't really a lot of people up here who could even work on it. So eventually I'd like to do that, but for the time being I'm just going to be using the ADAT because it seems to be working out pretty well and it's easy to use and there's not a lot of problems like with a tape machine.
Do you find yourself being drawn to the analog sound instead of the digital stuff?
Yeah, quite a bit. Mostly just for the saturation point that you can get with tape and you can't get it on the ADAT. They are getting better to where you can get a nice sound on them but they still don't have the warmth that you get from tape, I don't think. A lot of people say they can't tell the difference, but I can hear the difference in a lot of the stuff.
Is there any piece of equipment that you really like that you've stuck with over the years?
There's a couple of microphones that I still use. There's an Electro-Voice that's more of a stage mic that I still use just because it has more of a crisp sound to it. And then I've got a CAD E-100 vocal mic that I've been using — I was using that with the 8-track too. That's got a nice large diaphragm so it really picks up the vocals really well. Aside from that I still use the Memory Man [analog delay pedal] occasionally on some vocal sounds because that was really the only thing that we had on the 4-track for effects. It was just an echo and a chorus on it.
And you used that for a lot of the Guided by Voices stuff?
Yeah, most of the vocal sounds were done through that.
Do have an actual studio set up a home now, or do you pretty much just pull the Alesis out and do it all in the bedroom?
Actually my board is set up in a box with the 8-track in one unit and it's up on casters so I can move it around to the drums and I can actually set the sounds while I'm playing the drums. And then the other equipment, the outboard stuff, is in another thing like that and when I mix I can hook them up and so it's easy to use one-man wise.
So you do most of the recording process by yourself then?
Pretty much unless Jim Eno [of Spoon] is in town. He's been up here and there are some other drummers that I've used, but pretty much when I'm just getting the ideas down I'm recording by myself.
With the new Eyesinweasel double LP of demos and unreleased stuff, I think that it's really interesting to hear some of the songs, like "Digging Up Wooden Teeth", that you recorded a while ago and then redid for the Let's Welcome the Circus People album. There are big differences in how the versions sound.
It's definitely tighter on the album but a lot of the stuff on [the new Eyesinweasel record] are the 4-track demos from before I set up here after we moved. I was just using the 4-track to get the ideas down and that's why they're muddier and stuff. I still use the 4-track just to get ideas, and then sometimes I'll bounce them over to the 8-track and finish them off.
So the 4-track is now pretty much just for ideas?
Sometimes I'm shooting for a finished product and then other times I'm not and they'll still turn out pretty nice. I usually try and get a pretty good sound anyway in case I decide to use it later on instead of taking it into the studio.
Yeah, I actually like the demo version of "To My Beloved Martha" a little better than the album version from Carnival Boy. It's got a really cool sound to it.
That was one that Todd Robinson (from Luna Music, he's kind of the one that talked me into doing this album) dug up from some place, and I was kind of glad that he brought that one back because I hadn't heard that since I did it.
So you're officially affiliated with the Luna label these days?
Well, I'm Wigwam/Recordhead [both labels are associated with Luna Music] and he kind of does the foot work and the selling of the record and that way I can just worry about getting the record done. It's a fifty-fifty deal so it works out pretty nice.
Do you think of recording as an integral part of the music? I know some people think of it as part of the art and other see it more as an obstacle to getting the record out and onto the shelf.
Yeah, the process itself with the effects and the vocals and different things. They're textures and they can set the mood and you can use different sounds just as much as you can use words. You can use the different types of textures and sounds that you get out of recording... and a lot of times I'll even record knowing that it wouldn't go over well live. I mean you couldn't do it live, but that's the essence of the recording part of it.
So you end up spending a lot of time in the mix down process experimenting?
I used to, but it would seem like I'd get to a point where it wouldn't get any better and I'd just end up messing it up. [laugh] So a lot of times once I get a really good mix I'll just try and stay with it. I mean sometimes I'll try to go back and mix it a few more times, but usually that first mix is the best.
Do you usually go ahead and mix right after you've recorded or do you like to wait a while and go back to it later?
I usually try to mix it right away because I'll have it set and as I'm recording I'll have the levels where I need them and also I want to make sure I get to it before my kids get down there and start turning knobs. [laughter] Plus I'll want to hear it. You know you've got to mix it down so you can hear it in the car right away. [laughter]
Do you just mix to cassette or do you have a reel machine or something else?
No, I've got a DAT. A dual DAT so that I can actually do two tapes. But I'll mix it to DAT and then over to cassette and then once I've listened to it in the car and it sounds okay then it's pretty much finished.
What about at Cro-Magnon [Guided by Voices Dayton, Ohio, studio of choice]? I take it you've known John Shough [Cro-Magnon's owner/engineer] for quite a while?
Yeah, probably since the very first Guided by Voices record that we did in there. He's gone through a couple of studios, so we've known him for about ten years. He's always pretty much understood what we were doing so it always worked out pretty well with him.
Is he a pretty hands-on engineer or does he just let you guys do your thing?
Well, he understands what we're doing so he pretty much has it set up. He seems to be on top of things. We'll mention what kind of vocal that we want and he'll adjust things and say, "Is that it?" and it's usually it. We don't really have to get too technical. We'll just kind of explain or let him listen to a tape and he seems to be able to figure it out... how to get the same sounds. He also records his own stuff. He's got an album coming out and it's really good stuff. It's a lot along the lines of Guided by Voices stuff. He's kind of already hip to it.
What is his studio set up like there?
He's got ADATs. I think that he's got 32 tracks. He's got a few separate rooms; it's a decent studio.
One main studio and a the control room?
There's a pretty good-sized control room with a window to the big room. It's an old factory so the ceilings are like twenty feet or something. And then there's another room off of that that's about the same size and then there's three or four small separate rooms that you can set your instruments up in and do vocals in and get pretty good separation.
I assume that there is something about the Cro-Mag sound that you must like since you use the studio so often?
Yeah, it's mostly because of John. We get along well with him. I'd like to try some other studios, you know besides my studio and Cro-Mag and Refraze [a 24-track analog studio Tobin's done some work in]. I'd like to try some other places, like Cybertechnics, another Dayton studio. It has a lot of the old vintage stuff; it's all analog with a bunch of tube amps and stuff.
Do you try and stick to the same sort of sound that you get at your home studio when you go into another place, or do you go for something different?
No, especially with the band I just want to get the song structured, and the cadence, but for the most part I just let John and Dan [Tobin's Eyesinweasel bandmates, both of whom also played in Figure 4] do what they want. They're much better musicians as far as those instruments and they just do a better job by me not telling them what to do. They're just both amazing. I let them go and I don't even try to figure out what they're doing.
So you just come in with the song structures and chords?
I'll send them a tape and then they'll sit down before I get there and listen to it and figure it out so by the time I get there they already know it and I don't have to say, "Do this and this and this."
So are you planning on touring at all now that you've got a new band?
Yeah, actually we are thinking about doing a fall tour on the East Coast.
Recently it seems like a lot of people are trying to distance themselves from the lo-fi/indie rock image. It seems like perhaps any importance from that era is kind of being undermined at times. Do you think that there was anything important about that time and that sound?
Yeah, I think that it was like punk where it took the bands back to the basics where they could turn out the albums without being slave to the money of the studio. I mean I think that it had its heyday and there is only so far that you can go with it and a lot of people took it the other way and just tried to make the nastiest tapes that they could as far as sound-wise. We got into it just because it was convenient and, you know, we put the records out just for ourselves pretty much. I think that it's gone its limit, but I think that there is definitely a place for it.
Do you think that those records would have been better if you'd done them in a real studio?
Well I was looking at Bee Thousand and I just wonder what it would sound like it we'd done it in a big studio and then I wonder if we could have captured whatever the essence is of that album if we had gone into a big studio, and sometimes I don't think that we could have because it was so spontaneous and I think that the quality and the sound had a lot to do with the character of the album. The innocence... it's a simple recording of a rather innocent time of Guided by Voices I think.
When you look at recent Guided by Voices, it seems like there is maybe a problem with over-production. Do you think that is ever a problem?
Well...
Not that I'm picking on Guided by Voices...
No, no, I understand what you're saying. I think that you want to go that way after a while. After doing 4-track you wonder what it would be like to utilize the quality, the state of the art, as far as recording.
Do you ever see yourself working with someone like Ric Ocasek [producer of GBV's most recent Tobin-less record, Do the Collapse]?
Sure, I'd love to. Sometime I'd like to be able to use an orchestra or a string quartet or something. Yeah, just to get a different sound, and to just experiment with other things. After using the 4-track for ten years you want to move on to other stuff.
So you're definitely looking to evolve then?
Yeah, I'm going to be doing a movie score for an independent film next month and I'm really looking forward to that. It's a whole new genre. You're thinking more of background music and not just a pop song.
Is that going to be instrumental stuff?
I don't know yet. He's got some songs that he wants to use for it like "Water on the Boaters Back" and a couple of other ones, but for the most parts it's going to be just background music so it should be interesting to do that.
Are you going in to a studio for that?
No, he's going to be shooting it in New York and then he'll send me tapes of it and I'll just go through and write the music for it and send it back and he'll sync it up. I'll have an idea about where it goes and then let him kind of put it together.
