Joe Barresi | TapeOp

Beware stereo salesmen everywhere. Be on the lookout for customers appearing with a reference album bearing the audio trademark of one 'Joe Barresi', for then your knowledge of signal-to-noise ratios, wattage, ohms, oversampling, woofers and tweeters will truly be tested to their limits and beyond. Barresi has equipment manufacturers' warranty writers pissed off, forcing them to continually rework their clauses to compensate for melting components having been in contact with his projects.

For over a decade, Barresi has been a highly sought-after engineer and mixer. Like his treatments of sound, Barresi himself is left-field and ironic — living and working as he does in a land bent on saccharine, packaged music and playlists. Barresi works incessantly. He was an integral sonic part of the inspirational legend that was — and still is — Kyuss, the desert rock band that had single-handedly created a new audience and genre for hard-rock listeners around the globe. He has also put his hands, ears and enthusiasm on some of the most crushing albums of all time by such bands as The Melvins, L7, and The Jesus Lizard. His magical sound is now a genre of its own, bursting with raw soul and ultra-intense power. The louder, the better. It is real.

Not all earthquakes in the southern California area are a result of shifting tectonic plates and fault lines — study the epicenter of a seismic occurrence and you might find that it was 'just' Joe Barresi experimenting with an amplifier and a compressor. And if it is a real earthquake, rest assured that Barresi will be competing with the rumbling activity all the way to the very end.

How did you get into this whole recording thing that you're doing now?

Well, I play guitar. I've been playing since I was 7. I studied classical guitar for a while at the University of South Florida and they had a recording school, kind of a like a program for electronic music and I got into it. And because I played in bands and stuff I brought all the local bands I knew into the studio, and I'd record as much stuff as possible. Then the school did away with the classical guitar program so I ended up going down to the University of Miami for a while to study with this monster guitar player there. They also had a recording program. Kind of the same thing — I just brought in friends and got as much free studio time as I could possibly get. Probably the spark to everything though was through this friend of mine named Mike Little who was the "guitar guru" in the neighborhood when I was growing up. He turned me onto all the cool players and good music. His band would record and I would hang out at the sessions and watch. I sat around in the control room while they were jamming and I started helping the engineer and one thing led to another. Eventually I thought it was cooler being on the other side of the glass.

And then to the West coast!

Yeah. When I got out of Miami I had a friend that lived out here in LA that worked at Sound City, which to me, is still the greatest studio in the world. We got a place together when I moved out. I was repairing guitars at a music shop at night and worked as a tech at another studio during the day. Then my friend called me one day and said Sound City needed an assistant, so I jumped at it. I worked there as a freelance assistant because there wasn't a lot of work in the beginning. Actually I ended up working at five different studios as an assistant which was kind of cool because I got to learn a lot of different consoles and rooms and also dealt with several types of clients and music. That was the jump from being out of the studio to into the studio.

When was this around year-wise?

I moved to LA in December of '88, got a job two days later at a place called Cherokee, and worked there 'till March of '89 when I started assisting at Sound City.

That is in the valley. Van Nuys, correct?

Yeah. It's fucking tremendous. It's got two rooms. Two great old Neve consoles and the A room is just ridiculous. It's where they did Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Tool — Just tons of cool stuff. Allman Brothers, Badfinger, the first Rage Against The Machine record, Elton John, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Frank Black, Dio — thirty years of mega hits coming out of that room, and, it's such a comfortable place to record at.

What would have been the first gig that you had as an engineer proper?

Well, there were 2 guys that were really instrumental. One of them was Garth Richardson [ Tape Op #28 ] (aka GGGarth) who worked at Sound City quite a bit. We did a butt-load of records together. He was in doing some demos for a band for three days and I think he was doing it for free and I just offered my assistance. We got along and it worked out well so he said, "Alright! I'm coming in with another record — do you want to record it?" So it all started from there. GGGarth has been a great friend. I've learned so much from working with him.

Who's record would that have been?

A band called Surgery. We mixed it at A&M. It was my first SSL mixing experience. And the other guy was Jason Corsaro, who I think is one of the greatest engineers in the world. He's done everything from Soundgarden's Superunknown, which to me is sonically light years above all their other stuff, to the first Power Station record. Also Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and Steve Winwood's Back in the Highlife -and all those old Duran Duran records — more recently he's done stuff with Corrosion of Conformity, Clutch, Kula Shaker, Catherine Wheel- just a sick amount of records that have a real unique sound to them. I assisted him on A Masters Of Reality record and we hit it off. We ended up doing some other mixes together too. Any time he would come to town to work he'd hire me to help him out so I would be his engineer in a way. Those are the two main guys to me. There have been a few others but those two take the chairs.

How did the Kyuss thing happen!?

They wanted to work at Sound City because Chris Goss [ Tape Op #63 ], the guy that produced them, worked there quite a bit — he did the second Masters of Reality record there and I worked on some of that so that's how I knew Chris. I think the guy he normally used as an engineer, Brian Jenkins came down and helped us set up. Actually, I don't even know how I got the gig. I think Brian was too busy and I got the gig because he couldn't do it or however it worked out. It's kind of a blur to me now because it's been so long. I ended up working on Blues For The Red Sun as an engineer and not assisting on it so I'm pretty sure I was independent at that point. The Kyuss records were quick records. We did Blues For The Red Sun in ten days, tracked it in six, mixed in four. When Sky Valley came along they wanted to do the same thing and use the same team at Sound City, but we ended up mixing it somewhere else because it was booked. But basically, it was another two week record.

And from knowing what Kyuss was like live, it's safe to assume it was done mostly off the floor, yes?

Completely man. They were one of the greatest. It freaked me out. It was the first time I'd seen a band actually listen to each other play in the studio. I mean, they'd get set up, totally "VIBE OUT" the room with hot oil wheels shining on the walls, stuff hanging everywhere, incense burning, dimmed lights — then they would just jam. They'd play the same song two or three times and it would be a different length every time because you never knew when the solo was going to come up, if you know what I mean. It was completely visual. That's why those records could be done so quickly too because, well, this is the take! Done! We might do a few overdubs or a quick fix here and there but that's it. It was an amazing experience for me working on those records.

Their last full length disc — And The Circus Leaves Town — I think that one might have been, well... a little overboard? I played it recently for the first time in years and it was almost too pummeling. I had to turn the volume down on that one.

I didn't mix that one — Brian Jenkins did. I only recorded it. It was a weird record to make because they were kind of on the "outs" by then and they had to make one last record. I remember Alfredo Hernandez, the drummer, had a 26" kick drum. It was one of the greatest kick drum sounds I have ever heard.

So around that time I assume you began to develop ideas for set-ups and such — things that would lead to what is now known as your 'sound'.

Well, because I am a guitar player, I hear guitars up front and pretty loud. But I also like a lot of bottom end. Most stuff on the radio nowadays has no low end on it. I like the way old records sound. They're not mastered at excruciating levels because of the limitations of vinyl. With the old records you can turn them up and they still get bigger and warmer. That is what I enjoy listening to and I think my "style" or whatever comes from there. I like bands like Grand Funk, Thin Lizzy, Foghat and stuff like that. Just good rock. There weren't many effects boxes around then either, so engineers had to get pretty creative. Tape slap, phasing, ADT... the real deal... not preset #4OOO in the new 'ultra effect box'. That and probably the fact that I was working a lot at Sound City on an old Neve console, which is a really fat sounding board, would also be a factor in what I like to hear. I do really like upfront sounds too. I tight mic a lot, but in mixing I might use some severely compressed ambience instead of adding reverbs.

You just hit on three points I was going to ask about — the guitar thing, compression and obviously bottom end. It seems like you've almost mastered a way where you can get something that is insanely big yet not muddy and friendly to the ears.

I guess a lot of people tell me that they can hear everything in my mixes. I'm not a fast mixer by any means, although a lot of those Kyuss and Melvins records were 2-3 mixes a day. But to me, panning and riding is the key. A lot of guys are hard left-hard right-center. I still use all the spots in between because there's a lot of room in there. As far as bottom goes, well — I'm not afraid of it! I approach mixing like I am mixing for the home listener with the home stereo. Turn it up and it should get fatter, not distorted. I'm not afraid to turn a knob, but I don't turn it for the sake of turning it either. I'm not afraid to add what needs to be added.

Which brings me to a fine example of what you just said, which would be the Shallow North Dakota record that you mixed.

Shit, I gotta tell ya, Autobody Crusher is one of my favorite records of all time to this day. I still love to listen to it. I remember there were certain points of mixing where I was like, "Holy shit! Someone is gonna turn around and think they blew up their speakers on that one!!!" It was recorded and produced all on ADAT which amazed the hell out of me that it sounded like that, which was really, really good. The band came down with ADATs and I transferred it all to 2". Because there was such a tight budget, I mixed it to 1/4" tape at 15 ips which was fucking amazing. I think every cool old record I've listened to has been mixed down to 1/4" tape at 15 ips.

Well there's more bottom end to begin with when you mix it down like that.

It's exceptional. I think it's the lack of top and the extra bottom that I really love and it just holds everything together. It just fits together beautifully. We mixed the whole thing in six days at a little house called Mama Joe's because there was no budget. The place had a Trident Series 80 with some GML automation, and they had a butt-load of great compressors. I kick that album on to this day and it still gets me pumpin'.

I should mention that it did blow up a pair of my speakers!

It did?! [audible smirk] Sorry. Well, there's a spot in the guitar track on the left side on the first song where I thought the speakers were coming apart in the control room too. Whatever happened — combination of volume and frequency — there was something there...

Was that the album that got you in to working with Fu Manchu?

Actually, I got Brad from Fu Manchu into Shallow North Dakota. I met with Fu Manchu on No One Rides For Free because Kyuss' manager Catherine Enny hooked me up with them. I really wanted to do that record but couldn't because of scheduling. And when it came time to do the next one [The Action is Go] which J. Yuenger [of White Zombie fame] was going to produce, I didn't have time to track that either, so I ended up just mixing it. Then the one after that, which was King of the Road, they asked me to do the whole thing.

On that record, when a tom is hit — especially a floor tom — it seems like the resonance/decay of the hit is emphasized — one huge fucking BOOOOM!

What I do is not necessarily individually compress a lot of stuff, but I add a lot of hard compression back. I'll sub-mix the drum kit (keep the drums up as they are but I'll bus snare, kick and toms — sometimes the overheads and cymbals if I really want to go nuts — down to two channels) and I'll use a Tube Tech stereo compressor across it because it's really quick and punchy and add that in with the drum kit. And a lot of the time I'll add even more extra compression on the kick and snare and bring that back. And then, I'll use super-fast compression on the rooms so they breathe with the kit and give it a motion. A lot of the decay on the toms is usually because of the room itself. I'll fuck around with room sounds quite a bit. Sometimes the mics are really distant, sometimes they're right up next to the drums. One of my favorite spots is right near the floor tom almost like a three-point technique, like a Glyn Johns/Led Zeppelin-y kind of thing. I'll end up using a room mic right near the tom, face it from behind the kit so it picks up smack off the kick head and resonance from the toms. Add in some heavy compression and there you have it

The manner in which you mix — what kind of headroom situation do you get? I'd imagine there's a battle going on with the meters. Is there any specific kind of tape that you use?

I use BASF 900. I like the way it sounds. Usually at +5 over 185 nWb/m on the half inch machine. I used to be a big Ampex 456 fan but I started having a lot of problems with consistency in batches and dropouts and the BASF people have been really great to me. I'm not very good at headroom as a mixer, especially when I add a lot of compression and distortion back in. My faders are usually really low or really high and I use a lot of gain on everything to give it some edge (cranking mic or line trims) so levels are usually pretty hot. I usually put a stereo EQ and compressor on the mix bus and sometimes maybe even two compressors. Headroom is not easy for me. I wish I could mix where the meters were just beautiful all the time at 0 db and everything sounded punchy and aggressive, but I don't know how to do that! In the end, I'll usually turn the input to the tape machine down so as not to completely overload it, making sure the transients are let through (unless tape saturation is a desired effect). I spend a lot of time riding faders to keep the mix moving, putting ambience in the holes, and just making sure dynamics are preserved as much as possible even with all the compression. When tracking, everything on tape is hot except for transient stuff like kick drums where I keep it low so the attack still comes through. I usually like old Neves to mix on because they've got more leeway as far as headroom goes. Old consoles have a lot of iron and transformers in them and are a lot more forgiving before actual electronic distortion sets in. You can leave the meters pinned and nothing happens. But lately I've been into the SSL G+ [series] because it's got a lot more EQ flexibility. It's very clear — I don't use the VCAs — and you can distort it as opposed to the new 9000 series where once you see a red light it's pretty much over!!!!

You always mix down to half-inch right?

Yeah. I'm not into this 20 bit or 24 bit split whatever. I have mixed back into Pro Tools — people have requested that at times but as soon as you start mixing stuff in stems where they think they can take it home and mix it later, like stereo drums or stereo guitar, it never sounds the same. There is a certain personality when you're mixing where everything comes together under the same compressor and same EQ. As soon as you start separating stuff it never sounds like that again. Everything works off of each other.

What about DAT?

I always mix to DAT as a safety. Usually I'll have a half inch machine, a quarter inch machine and 2 DATs going. One DAT will be right off the mix in case something goes wrong with the tape. The other will be a copy of the half inch so there is a tape compressed version of every mix on DAT as well. I usually give that to the band to take home. I prefer to have them hear a mix like I hear it coming from the tape. I normally never master off the DAT unless there is a problem with the tape. Even thought it has more high end, it doesn't have the low end I like.

Some of the projects you've worked on go to vinyl as well. I would very much hope you see to it that the process is entirely analog all the way down the line. Am I correct?

Yes, it is mastered from 1/2 inch too. When I'm mixing an album, I definitely think of the sequencing in terms of side a/side b. Keeping the flow going, etc. I still like to hear the order and spacing before it goes to mastering, as opposed to putting it together in a computer after it's been EQ'd.

I am told that you have a very nice and sizeable collection of compressors. Are you stockpiling just in case the Armageddon happens?!?

Yeah, I've got a pretty crazy amount of junk. There's like 185 guitar pedals. Stuff like the Love Tones series — they're great pedals because they're almost like outboard gear in a pedal. They do SO many crazy things. I love compressors. I have like... I don't even know — 48 or more channels of compression of different sorts. I have a lot of gear.

What works for you mic-wise?

Asfarasmicsgo,IhavetosaythatIamafanof dynamic mics because they can handle SPLs better, although ribbons are great for warmth and depth. One of my favorite mics is the Altec saltshaker — I've got a few that came from the U.N. believe it or not. It can handle just about anything sonically, and it takes EQ really well. I like it inside a kick, outside a double headed kick, and also on heavy guitars (Queens of the Stone Age). The RCA BK5 is also one of my favorites, as is the Sony C-37 tube mic and the Royer/Speiden ribbons. Recently I've been heavily into using a Yamaha NS-10 woofer as a microphone too. It adds some serious bottom to any kick or bass guitar.

A long time ago I was mixing something where I wanted to pipe a shitty vocal track from out of the board and into a shit Peavey guitar amp to color the sound up quite a bit. But, I noticed that the output of the board signal was clipping the guitar amp, even when both gains were at the lowest settings. Was I supposed to put a DI box or something like that in- between the signal path?

Yes, I used to use a compressor with 1:1 ratio and turn the output down on the way to the amp, but nowadays there is this box called a ReAmp. It allows you to "reamplify" something from tape by matching the impedance of the amplifier and it gives you a pot to vary the gain. Pretty cool. I've been using a box made by Little Labs called the PCP Interface. It stands for 'Professional-to-Cheesy- Pedal Interface' and it allows me to take three separate tape outputs and converts them down to guitar level so I can have three chains of pedals going during a mix. It does a lot of other things too — guitar splitter, DI, combiner. Pretty nice.

So you mostly do the engineering right?

It fluctuates. I mean, there was a year where all I did was mix, but I've been trying to produce a lot more.

And that would be like 'produce' as in aiding with arrangements and the like?

Yeah, getting the budget together, booking studio time, helping with arrangements, judging performances, keeping the band happy. As an engineer I do a lot of that anyway. It's just that music these days is so homogenized. Someone records it, and the same three or four guys are mixing it. If I'm producing, I really like to see a project through 'till the end."

How about the Melvins?

Ahhh yes — the Melvins. A strange bunch of guys. They pretty much let you do whatever you want to do. And the more wacky it is, the better. I did three records with those guys and it was all a real blast. On Stoner Witch we had a couple of different drum kits and we'd go back and forth doing the full- blown drum kit with a ton of mics on it, to a another kit with two or three mics on it. And, a lot of experiments with tape speed, harmonizing stuff down an octave or two, lots of backwards stuff. On Stag we got more into the weird mic'ing stuff. They shaved my head and mic'd my ears with two AKG 451s so we had this stereo shaving going on and that was the bed track on one song. There are all kinds of wackiness on that record. I used quite a lot of different amps too — a lot of weird pre-amps into old Altec power amps, just stuff to make it more exciting. Buzzo's [guitar player/vocalist] already got a great sound, but we really went nuts on that record to get it to sound less normal. With Honky, we did some stuff with oscillators resonating at certain notes, each going through a different guitar amp in the room, creating a certain chord together. I'd record 3-4 minutes of that, then they'd put a song on top of it. Sometimes we'd do some crazy panning thing- two complete songs — one on the left side and another completely different song on the right speaker. We'd put vocals though small amps and shove kick drums against it, mic'ing it with a PZM on the other side, or singing into a snare drum so it resonates and mic'ing the shell. Mic'ing the toilet while doing a guitar overdub in the bathroom, whatever. Singing thru a whammy pedal... all kinds of insanity going on. We were even mixing songs backwards! On a Studer A-827 2" machine you can play tape backwards at the touch of a button, so I'd roll forward and mix, then hit it in reverse and it would go in backwards and that would be part of a song for a second. Just a lot of fun. Then at the end of the sessions we'd cut Lynyrd Skynyrd songs. We'd finish a record in two weeks but have two-and-a-half weeks booked, so for the last few days they'd have people like Wayne Kramer or The Obsessed come in and we'd cut covers, or do songs for solo records — a real blast. They're an insanely good band. I've never seen three guys play together (sometimes in three separate rooms for isolation) never even looking at each other and playing the most bizarre, slow music that tight. They are on some internal metronome.

About Stoner Witch — I heard that the pre-mastered DAT of it was far heavier than the CD that you can buy from stores. A mastering accident??

I was so bummed about that mastering. The bottom end was sick on Stoner Witch. On the end of "Queen", there is a kick drum hit that resonated — it was so low and so gnarly. And when I heard the final CD it was gone. The bottom was completely rolled off. The mastering guy obviously didn't know what to do with it — he was probably afraid. I think it is a good sounding record, but it was better sounding before it was made "Radio Friendly".

I suppose that your sounds require extra special attention then when it comes mastering.

Well, I just don't like guys who add a ton of high end and take off the bottom and make it as loud as possible although that's what most A&R people want these days. They want to compete with what's on the radio. But I don't think of music in those terms. I think of it as being able to take it home and listen to it, and not have it be distorted from top to bottom unless that's your intention! You put something like that in your stereo and you have to turn it down — it's too painful to listen to. I like old records. You turn them on and they're fat, you turn it up and they get bigger. You gotta get a mastering guy that actually listens. I like Howie Weinberg [ Tape Op #30 ] in NY a lot and Dave Collins who is out here in LA. They're both extremists. One guy is more old school and the other is not afraid to turn a bunch of knobs to take it to the next level.

So when does it go all too far?

It goes too far when you overanalyze stuff. When you find that you've been working on a part for way too long, then something's not right. Either the part's wrong or the vibe's wrong or something. If you're working on a drum sound too long then, "Hey, maybe the drum kit's not right or the spot in the room isn't, whatever". The more thought put into something the worse it is. You've got to know when to stop. There'd be times when GGGarth and I would be working together, punching in a part and all said and done it's totally perfect but completely lifeless, and we'll look at each other and go, "You know what? Let's use the old track, it sounded sooo much better." I think success is when you can realize that. A lot of guys will put their ego in the way and not admit it. You've got to realize you're making someone else's record — I mean you might experiment and try stuff for a while and that's a part of the process. But as long as you realize in the end that something is either good or bad and not 'right' because you suggested it.

What's with your credit in the Fu Manchu King Of The Road album? "El Presidente"?!?

El Presidente is a Brandy — and when mixed with Coca- Cola and a lime it is a favorite drink of the desert. Alfredo from Kyuss turned me on to it and kept me refilled during the Queens Of The Stone Age record.

For years now, my friends have told me that the only time to ever get a hold of you is early in the morning because you're at a studio all the time. When you're not in the studio, are you still thinking about sound?

I just got off a two month stint with four days off. I've been really lucky (knock on wood). When I'm not working, I usually try to think of ways to make something better. The other day I spent a bit of time working on a bass sound and didn't get what I was looking for. So all night instead of sleeping, I was rewiring and rethinking my strategy for the next day. My motto is "sleep when you're dead."

10 Key Joe Barresi Moments

1). L-7: My friend John Travis lent me his EV666 microphone one day during the making of The Beauty Process record. Of course with a number like that, it became referred to as the "mic of the Beast." That day, when doing overdubs, I stuck it up in front of a combo amp and Suzy Gardner nailed the solo first take. Then I put it on a piano, and Donita Sparks wailed some cool parts in one take. Figuring there was some magic to the mic, I decided to go for a hat trick! Threw it up as a vocal mic and of course, one pass and it was done!!! I'll never forget that day, or that mic.

2). Bauhaus: First time recording together in 16 years. We did an original track for the Heavy Metal 2000 movie, and hearing Peter Murphy sing a few feet away from me was quite an unbelievable moment. The song came together right before my eyes.

3). Fastball: super nice bunch of guys. A very quick album, with some great playing. I went for "anything but a Marshall amplifier" guitar sounds, so it ended up being amps by Sound City, Laney, West, Fender, Vox and a few more weird ones. A fun record to make. Lemmy from Motorhead even came by and did some backing vox (they didn't make the record though).

4). Michael Schenker: I did some engineering on a record with a band called Contraband ages and ages ago. It was one of my first gigs. The group was made up of people from several different bands. Michael was the "lead guitarist" and being a huge UFO fan (I'm a closet metal-head), it was the only time in my life that I was afraid to erase anything that someone had played. Every solo he did was insane, so I did 7 mixes of that particular tune, each with a different solo!!

5). Beth Hart: I worked on some of her last record. Watching her and guitarist Jimmy Khoury perform together live in a little room, just vocals and acoustic guitar, and feeding off each other was inspirational.

6). Fu Manchu: Making the King of the Road record was just awesome. We did it out in the desert in like 13 days. I kept breaking the tape machine, unintentionally of course... I have this electronic force field surrounding me that makes gear stop working whenever I walk into a room!! Anyway, despite the periodic failure of equipment, it was just a real pleasure to hang out and make music with those guys.

7). Melvins: On Stoner Witch, we had an assistant to the assistant engineer. It was his first session, and there was a full Elvis costume the band brought with them to the studio and made this poor guy wear everyday, all day. I think that was also his last session!!!

8). My friend Dave Hecht is a super technical guy. He can fix any problem, and my bad gear Karma and I have put him through the paces. I've called him at least once from every studio I've been in at every hour of the day or night, and he has talked either me or someone who understands what he's saying through many a problem. I think he has finally found a solution to my "walk into the control room and the tape machine breaks" problem. He calls it a "Scare Joe"... It's a picture of him flipping me the bird, and I carry it with me at all times. So far it seems to have worked!

9). Working with Matt Wallace on a record is always fun. What a practical joker!!! Every day I came to work all paranoid just waiting for problems to pop up. Whether it was cellophane over the toilet seat in a bathroom where the light bulb mysteriously disappeared, speakers wired out of phase, Matt himself sitting behind a power amp for the NS-10s and faking blown fuses by turning one side off and then back on! Probably the best was when I was comping a vocal. He had purposely put an out of phase snare drum on a vocal track and when I punched it over to the comp track it sounded like I'd erased the snare!!

10). GGGarth and I did a record for a band called POL (Parade of Losers). We cut a guitar solo through 25 pedals lined up across the room into this little combo amp at the end of the chain. 5 guys were assigned 5 pedals and during this solo they'd each step on whichever effects they wanted to. As if the noise from all those effects and guitar cables wasn't enough, some notes actually made it to the amp and got recorded!