John Fischbach is a world-class producer/engineer who has had his hands on the console since the late '60s. He's worked with artists as diverse as Carole King, War, the Burrito Brothers and even the Circle Jerks. He also ran the well-known studio, Crystal Industrial, Inc., in LA for years and last year produced an album by Cuban artist Juan Formel that was nominated for a Grammy.
Still, above all, he will surely be regarded historically for his groundbreaking work with Stevie Wonder in the mid-to-late '70s, especially on the Motown artist's masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life. His relationship with Stevie has been one of almost exhausting creativity and continues to this day on various projects. My particular relationship with John began when I was 16 and living in Northern California. I needed a job, and he had recently "retired" from the business and now owned a deli around the corner. We made sandwiches for about a year and talked about music until, at 17, I quit the deli, moved out of the house and to Los Angeles, where I had originally grown up. I started a rock band called the Freewheelers, and in 1990 we called upon John to produce our first album for DGC Records. Thus began his reluctant, but ultimately rewarding, return to "the biz", and the latest chapter in his saga of "capturing the vibe" in a recording studio. We've worked on and off for the past ten years and I've since learned most of what I know about producing and engineering from John.
My favorite advice I've gotten from John? When a take is actually good he says, "All we can do from this point is fuck it up!" John arrived recently in Portland to co-produce an album with me by world-renowned jazz drummer, Mel Brown. It was sort of full circle as, like John, Mel had worked with Stevie Wonder in the past, having been on the Motown payroll for many a year. We came together at Jackpot! Studios to kick out an instrumental funk album and had a ball. - Luther Russell
Luther Russell: How did you end up working with Stevie in the first place?
I ended up working with Stevie because a long-time friend of mine, Bob Margouleff, was working with him. He and Malcolm Cecil. I went to visit them a bunch of times in New York when they were working at Electric Lady. I struck up a friendship with Stevie. Sometime later they decided they were leaving New York for LA and started working at my studio, Crystal. Then they moved, Stevie, Bob and Malcolm, to the Record Plant, who pretty much gave them whatever they wanted — such as a room for themselves. We only had one big recording room so we couldn't accommodate our clients. We were doing a lot of Motown at the time, and them. So anyway, they moved to the Record Plant and one day I got a call and it was Stevie and he said, "Do you have any time today at the studio?" [chuckles] and I said, "Uh, yeah we have some time." Then he asks, "Well, if I come can you engineer the sessions?" and I said, "Sure. Why not." So he came over with his assistant engineer, Gary Olazabal, who became my partner in recording Songs in the Key of Life, and that's kinda how that all happened. It went on for two years almost every day, many hours and huge amounts of material. I guess it was really his most prolific time — he did more songs in those two years I think than he had done before. Something like 200 songs.
Larry Crane: Like started demo-ing them, at least get them sketched out?
Yeah, some would be sketched out, some were more finished than others and we just kept working until he had what he wanted. The last song we cut was "I Wish" and that's what he was waiting for. When that was done we knew that was at least the end of recording. Then began the very long and intricate mixing process. For some reason the three of us decided edits were no good — Stevie didn't want to do any edits, splicing and the like, but he wanted a bunch of extra sounds, like kids laughing, his daughter Aisha in the bathtub, you know just all this other stuff. So all that was assembled on a 24-track. Then my partner built a mixer, a mixer in that it had faders on it, no EQ or anything just stereo faders, and we had three 2-track machines and the 24-track. You would put songs 1, 3, and 5 on one 2-track, songs 2, 4, and 6 on the other 2-track and the third 2-track was the master recorder. When it came time to add effects you would bring them in off the 24 track and mix in real time with tape machine 'A' to the master recorder. And when that song ended fade to tape machine 'B' adding effects cued on the 24 track all to the master recorder until you were done with all the songs. Live. So when you fucked up you had to do it all over again. We cut everything to vinyl, which was also done at Crystal because we had a mastering room as well.
LC: It sounds sort of like a group consensus, but how did the idea of no splicing tape come about?
You know what? I really don't know. The same kind of consensus was taken on echo or reverb. When we did Songs in the Key of Life there really wasn't reverb but we had echo chambers. Actually in the end we did have reverb, the first EMT-250 in the country. It cost something like $20,000 dollars. We had decided we would use as little reverb as possible though, so on that record it was really just room sounds and distant micing techniques that just added up.
LR: What drove you to mic the horns on "Sir Duke" with the horns facing the wall?
We were after a very particular sound and I had...
