Eddie Kramer worked humbly with the students of Terry Setter's Advanced Audio Engineering class at The Evergreen State College for four days. Regularly throughout the year he travels to schools and passes on his talents to a younger generation. Eddie makes a strong impact on those who meet him. I know he did on me. As a TESC Alum who has been working professionally in the recording industry for over seven years, it was interesting to watch this (world-traveled, New York Yankees hat-wearing) fireball personality challenge the Olympia, Washington, International Pop Underground kids. What a contrast! However, One thing about Eddie and TESC meshed perfectly — his vegan diet. I made many trips to the excellent Olympia Food Co-Op. Woah. So much has changed. But some things haven't....
Typically Eddie reviews demos sent by bands who would love to have him record them. He selects just one band, and just one song. Then we all (the class) spend three full days with pre-production, tracking, and mixing. Eddie worked exceptionally long hours and did not leave the control room until each day's work was done thoroughly and completely. We all got tired. We had our endurance tested. Many students fell off because the pressure was too great, just like in real life. What was so striking was how much Eddie cared about the music and the sounds we were getting. He was very passionate. Quality was his singular goal. When he got excited about a sound, he'd get grooving at the board, his head bobbing to the music — and then he'd turn quickly to the students for a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' reaction.
Of course the other thing that was so exciting about Eddie's visit to TESC was his views on technology and protocol in the studio... Digital? Analog? You'll find his views later in the interview. More than once Eddie said "fuck it" when a piece of gear or technical issue threatened to get in the way of a take. The performance was invariably the top priority.
After hearing Terry Setter express his woes at trying to upgrade the audio systems of a state school, Eddie stayed up even later than usual one night writing three compelling proposals to bring TESC's audio resources up to modern specifications while still cherishing its firm analog base.
A quick look at Eddie Kramer's Discography almost says it all — but what I want to share with you is that I met a man seasoned in his years, giddy about recording, intense and focused with the talent, and eager to share. Eddie had a deep desire to connect and make something creative with perfect strangers. He demonstrated that passion is the irreducible ingredient in an audio career that shines through all changes in technology and in style.
Is the modern big studio dead or is there just a thinning going on where only the strong will survive?
Well, the large studio's usually live, not dead.
[laughs] That's true, but in the seventies they were dead. All of them.
Yes, unfortunately they were. But we were — actually the counterpart of that would be that Electric Lady Studios was actually a pretty live studio which was the complete opposite of what the studios were in the early seventies. We made some technical errors, but we corrected them with very heavy screens and that. There was some flutter and stuff that we fixed. It was a hardwood floor with carpet on the walls and quite a few reflective surfaces with a fairly high ceiling. But it had a nice, live, feel to it. And it still sounds great today, so we did something right there. But, going back to your question, it is a fact that most of the big studios are hurtin' bad.
Here in the Northwest you can get a lockout with a 2-inch room for about $400, $350.
That's frightening because those prices don't really reflect what the person has invested in the studio. And when you look at what, for instance, The Hit Factory has Criteria down in Miami. There must be $15 or $20 million into that place. I don't know how on earth they're gonna make that money back. I mean, they'd have to run all the studios 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 10 years. I don't see it, but hey, whatever.
Have you noticed though, that there is a real downslide right now in terms of rooms having trouble getting top dollar and really squeezing for their rent?
Yes, there is because it's the Pro Tools revolution that has been upon us for the last four, five years and it shows no sign of abating. Unfortunately I'm forced into the position of having to use it. I have a love-hate relationship with it. I mean, I love it from the point of view that you can do amazing things with editing and all the autotuning and all the plug-ins, though I hate the plug-ins because I think they sound like crap. I mean, quite frankly the whole Pro Tools thing doesn't sound that great to me. And in the way that most top twenty record producers are working today, they are going analog first, in order to retain some of the warmth, and it's such an ironic thing. I bring this out in my lecture that ironically here we are in the year 2001 with these multimillion-dollar consoles, you know SSL 9000 for $900,000, digital machines and all the rest of it. And what is the first thing a producer does, he pulls out the tube mic, the tube preamp, the tube equalizer, the tube limiter, to make the digital sound better. So that's saying something, that we haven't advanced that much. However, there is a dividing line, and I think that dividing line is we are now at the stage where 24-bit 96 k is very good, and what's even better is the 192 k. And there we are very close, I would say, to reproducing exactly what's coming out of the console. Now, on the other side of that coin, you still need to warm the sound up. So the sound of tube amps, the sound of tube mic pres, the sound of tube mics- it is an integral part.
It's still a viable front-end...
I mean, digital just doesn't sound good when you hit it hard. It just goes ppllht (you can do what you want with that sound). The current joke now is, "Hey guys," (it's the producer talking) "That really sucked, come in, we'll make it work." And make it work in Pro Tools because who cares how bad it is. We'll throw it in and that horrible old phrase "We'll fix it in the mix" is even more prevalent because you can...
Now it's truly terrifying when someone says that because they sort of can.
It's terrifying. I mean, I really rue the day that this system came on board. And it seems to be taking the life out of these bands. And you listen, yeah, the record sounds great, it's perfect, but where's the feeling, you know? I use the Pro Tools thing and, like I said, I hate it but I know that at some point I have to use the damn thing. And I'm cutting 16-track 15 ips Dolby SR, dumping it over to Pro Tools, which is basically what we're going to do here this week. We're going to be cutting 16- track, unfortunately no Dolby SR but we'll just hit the tape hard and then we'll dump it over to this new Tascam digital machine [MX 2424] and we'll keep working in that mode. So, the two worlds can live together. I just hope that studios just don't throw out all their analog gear. Analog tapes were proven in the fact that here we are 30 years later, and we'll talk about Hendrix — I'm pulling tapes out of the library that are over 30 years old and sound great! No dropouts, maybe a little bit of the top end is going a little bit, but I can make up for that. But at least the basic signal is still there.
Will analog recording last 10 more years with one machine manufacturer and two tape manufacturers?
It has to. We don't have a choice. I mean, there's guys out there buying up Studers and reconditioning them. Or old Ampex machines or whatever they can find. Otaris.
I'm one of those, Ampex MM1100.
Yep. I mean if you can find the parts and keep it working and get the heads relapped or whatever you have to do, you can keep it running and it makes great recordings. I haven't heard anything better. Unless somebody proves to me something that is developed over the next few years that says, look, here's a new digital XYZ machine that can simulate unquestionably the same kind of distortion characteristics that you would get when you smack tape really hard and drive it... That lovely gradual distortion that you get and the saturation and all the rest. And the tape compression. If somebody can show me that — maybe I'll make a change.
Because sound is the most important criteria. It's not like engineers are addicted to gear and it has to be this one machine, it's the sound.
Right. The thing that also disturbs me is the fact that the kids today, if they start in the digital world and they have no reference point of what analog could have sounded like, they're losing so much!
Tell me about this string of events here: Advision Studio, Pye Studios, KPS, Regence Sound, Olympic Studio — that was one year after another. You were flying through studios. What the heck were you doing and why weren't you playing music? Isn't that what you were trained to do?
I was trained as a concert pianist but then I gave up because I realized the futility of that venture pretty quickly. I wasn't gonna make a living at it. And, I didn't want to practice, of course. I think what happened was my mind got twisted. I started to listen to jazz as a 14, 15-year-old and then rock and roll as a 16-year-old. I used to listen to Little Richard and to all the great late '50s artists, Elvis, etc. etc. And then getting involved with jazz, it just sort of turned my head and the rock thing turned my head even further. I left South Africa in 1960, got to England, and I was always into fiddling with knobs and electronics and stuff and trying to make things sound better. I guess after about a year and a half working as a messenger boy in London, I figured out what I wanted to do. I became an engineer by just pestering a couple of the new studios that were up and running and went from Advision, which was a little jingle place...
So, it literally was ad-vision. Like advertisements and TV.
Yeah, it was advertising, television, you know. And I would experiment at night with groups that I would bring in. Like little jazz bands, I would bring them in and...
Was that a 4-track facility?
Oh god, no. This was mono, mate! We had one of those great Telefunken machines that you had to be really careful when you hit the stop button, sparks would fly out of the stop button. You had to hit it hard and get your finger away really quick, otherwise you'd burn your finger. I learned the basic stuff, how to record mono, and then 2-track. I left there, went to Pye Studios, which was the new hip studio. It was an electronics company, and then they had a publishing company, and then they had a record company. And from there I went to Olympic, which was where the career really took off, where I started to work with Hendrix and The Stones...
There's a picture of you sitting at this amazing console that just goes vertical after about a foot. What is that? Is it custom-made?
Yeah. This console was an absolutely brilliant piece of design work. Ergonomically perfect, sounded amazing. I mean, look at all the recordings I did there in '67. The first two Hendrix records, the Stones' Beggars Banquet, Traffic and Small Faces. But, it was designed by this real crazy English guy, Dick Sweatenham, and he had a company called Helios and that, in fact, was where Rupert Neve [Tape Op #26] copied his design, from that particular console. It was beautifully designed.
Where is it now, do you know?
That board, I think is still in England, but there are many other versions of it that are around the world still in existence.
Vacuum tube electronics?
No, no. It was solid state. It was one of the early solid state consoles and it actually sounded pretty good.
How did your producer talents evolve? You started as a kind of gopher and you worked your way through. What kind of milestones do you recall in terms of getting more involved in the making of the music than just being somebody pushing faders?
I think the critical moment really was working with Jimmy Miller, who for me was the greatest producer I'd ever worked with. He was my mentor. Working with him and Traffic and The Stones really showed me what needs to be done in the studio. How to get the band involved and get them excited about what they're doing and help them realize what they are trying to create and how do you communicate that with the listening audience.
So watching him you felt you got a lot of clues about that?
Yeah, he was a genius. I really owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. He was quite the best. Then after that, once I came to the States I started to realize that, "Wait a minute! Producers are making more money sitting next to me and I know at least as much as they do, maybe more!" They would sit there with the paper and the beer and say, "Yeah man, that was cool." And I would be the one trying to tell the band, "Hey listen, if you play it like this, or, if you you play it like that," and they go, "Oh yeah, okay, duh, oh sure." Now I engineer and produce everything. I'm constantly switching hats. It's a technique that you just learn over the years. I mean, there's a bunch of producer- engineers out there who do the same thing as I do.
Why did you come to the US?
I was asked by Record Plant engineer Gary Kellgren and the owners to come over, because Jimi was moving to the States and they wanted me to continue my work with him.
He'd kind of done his thing in England, it had served its purpose.
I guess so. Yeah. He had made a big name for himself already in America. By the time the second record was out, Axis, he was taking off, and he started working — in fact, we started working on Electric Ladyland in December of '67 and through January and early February of '68 and he'd left England in February. I was two months behind him. I left in April of '68.
Is it coincidence?
We were very compatible and I think we really enjoyed each other in the studio and I think there was a feeling of camaraderie, a feeling that whatever he did in the studio I could make a little bit better sounding, possibly...
You weren't going to argue with him, about it being crazy and weird?
Oh, no, far from it, I would encourage — the weirder it was, the better it was. There was a great phrase that Chas Chandler, Jimi's producer, said, 'The rules are: There are no rules.' And that was it, we started off with no rules, with a blank sheet of paper, and I didn't know what I was doing, I mean, quite frankly. I was just twiddling knobs until it sounded cool.
What I find fascinating about what you guys did is you ushered in a completely different era in terms of composing music. Composing in the studio, which necessitated the need for artists to have studios, which has led to today with the project studios and everything else. You guys totally kickstarted that whole evolution.
It's funny, to illustrate that point, Jimi, in 1970, wanted to move up to Woodstock and hang out and just chill and rehearse and create. His management found him this nice old house out in the woods and he brought up his band and he said, "Well, listen, I want to record up here." So we dragged the 4-track machine, you know the 4-track machine you had downstairs?
The 440?
The 440. That machine, some speakers, a little mixer, some microphones. We set the whole thing up so he could just hit 'record.' I wonder whatever happened to those tapes. They must be somewhere. "Jam Back at the House" stuff like that, that was rehearsed there, but it reminds me, I must ask John McDermott [Experience Hendrix Guru and Advisor] whatever happened to it. This whole thing about being able to record at home, Jimi loved that. He had just a little portable 2-track machine at home that he would record little demos on. And at night when I finished the sessions, I would give him a rough mix of something we were working on and he would take it home and listen to it and study it, so that in case he needed to do a backwards solo, he knew. He would flip the tape at home, put it on backwards, study it, and know. He would come in the next day and say, "Right there, put it right there." And it would be exactly where it was supposed to be, he'd play the solo, and say okay, flip the tape, and it would be perfect.
So it wasn't magic, it was hard work.
Oh, he worked his butt off. He was very dedicated — he was very focused in the studio. He was not stoned or anything. I mean, he may have smoked a joint occasionally in there, but the studio was his life. It was his baby, that's where he did his creations, you know.
Which is unique, very unique, as far as I can tell, for an artist. He took to it like, he didn't think twice, it was like an extension. I've never seen an artist act that way, at that time.
At that time, yes. You're probably right. He was probably fairly unique. But I think the Beatles, to a certain extent, did that too. Because they had their own team of experts, I mean, with George Martin, who was a genius, you know. I can just imagine some of those sessions that would go on there. And they were incredibly experimental and they were influential on Jimi, and he was influential upon them. As well as the Beach Boys were influential — I mean, everybody influenced everybody else.
What mics did you use to record Hendrix? Do you remember?
The microphones I used were pretty much the same thing, it would be 67s, the [Beyer] M-160, which is still my favorite mic. I still use that, even today I bring one with me. In spite of the fact that I used a lot of Shure mics, the ribbons just really gave me that sweet sound that I like.
So you used ribbons? On a guitar cabinet? They were robust?
They broke. The M-160 was a double ribbon cardioid. It was the only mic in those days, and still to this day, that had more rejection than anything else that was being put out. You know, we used a lot of AKG, the D-30s which are not available any more, D-12s.
How about the snare?
I can't remember, quite frankly. I think it was a Shure, a 57, more than likely. I've got a wonderful collection of Shure mics and I've been involved with the development of some of the new mics. The KSM 32 I helped to develop, and the KSM 44.
Electric Lady. You lasted a little while there after Hendrix obviously. What are the details of it changing hands, who owns it now, didn't you do some work there for the re-issue?
The history of Electric Lady Studios is kind of convoluted. I don't know if we even have time to go through it all but very briefly, Jimi and Michael Jeffery, his manager at the time, bought it as a nightclub — it was the Generation nightclub. This was where he used to jam, he loved it, he was very happy there. They called me in after they had bought it, they said, "Come on down we want to put a little small studio in the back." I came down, I looked at it and said, "You guys are out of your minds. Forget this nightclub." The thing is, they had this idea of this nightclub and I said, "That's ridiculous." I mean Jimi's spending so much time in the studio, he's spending $300,000 a year, which is a lot of money for 1969 dollars. And so I said, "Look, let's turn this into a complete studio," and we did, and the rest is history. It's still a very effective running studio today. It still sounds great. So I just helped design it and build it. We started in '69 and we finished it in 1970, he was only in the studio for about four months before he died. And then thereafter the studio had to keep running, which it did. In 1970 we billed over $1 million, which for 1970 was unheard of.
So you were pumping clients through the door.
It was running 24/7. It was unbelievable. And I helped to put it on the map and I co-ran it with some other people there for about 4 years. And then I got tired, said, "That's it, I'm out of here." It was sold — I beg your pardon, New York State got it and then they appointed an attorney and he ran it almost into the ground. Somebody else came in to buy it, the current owners. It's still a successful studio.
Is it true that Jimi was kind of knocking himself out to pay the bills toward the end?
I wouldn't say knocking himself out. The problem was this: that the original cost was $500,000, which for those days was a lot of money. It ended up costing $1 million, which like I said in 1970 was a boatload of money. So in order to pay for that he had to go out on the road to make some money to pay the bills. So we had to keep stopping construction. In the end what they did was they went to Warner- Chappell I think, or whoever the publishing company was, and borrowed money either from the publishing or, no I think it was from the future sale of royalties. And they borrowed like $300,000- $400,000 and then we finished it and that was it. So when Jimi died, Michael Jeffery bought out Jimi's share, and then he died. So it was a pretty strange set of circumstances. I just think that he [Jimi] had an awful lot on his plate, and he needed to take some time off. I think Jeffery was pushing him to the point where he needed to take a break and he wanted a change of management.
You've been working on Hendrix reissues at various studios that come to mind right away, such as NRG and Sear Sound.
Initially we did do a lot of the re-mixing at Electric Lady Studios. We used NRG and Ecstasy on the West Coast — we used Sear Sound, Avatar, RPM, Clinton in New York.
Walter Sear [Tape Op #41] is a real hero of mine. Beautiful studio.
Oh, I love Walter. He's the last of the Mohicans in terms of celebrating tube gear and being an absolute fanatic about accuracy, great sounds. Look at the bands that are in that studio! It's incredible. It's like a top twenty list! It's fabulous. And it's a funky studio. It ain't a great-looking studio, but the gear is in great shape.
How did you choose his studio to do some of the remixes?
Well, it's a Neve console for a start. It's a lovely vintage Neve board. And for Jimi's stuff, I have to go back to at least a vintage-era console. With Pultecs, with all the great tube gear. And I need a great eight-track machine because a lot of the stuff is eight-track. Some of it's sixteen, some of it's four-track. Some of it's 12- track 1-inch, which is even weirder. Oh, what a horrible format that was. But anyway, I can go back and make it work there. So NRG is the same thing. It has a vintage Neve board, all the vintage and new stuff. There's another studio in LA I used recently that I really like and that's Ecstasy, which used to be Madonna's old studio. That also has a vintage Neve board. So anywhere I can find a vintage Neve console. It doesn't necessarily have to have automation, because I can't put automation on this stuff. I can't put SMPTE code and do all that stuff.
Did you do any noise reduction or de- clicking, any Cedar...
No. The hell with that. Are you kiddin'? It would spoil it.
I'm deadly serious. I want to know.
It would spoil it. No, you have to have all that stuff in there. Any noise that's there, it's part of the thing. I mean, feedback, yeah, I have to try and work that out. If there's some serious clicks that are momentary, yeah, I'll either edit them on the half- inch or we'll edit them in Sonic Solution. But you know, those tapes are what they are.
And are you mixing to half-inch?
To half-inch 15 ips Dolby SR with BASF 900 tape.
Ampex or Studer?
I like the [Ampex] ATRs because I think they're the best-sounding half-inch machine around. Better than the Studers. And if I can get them, that's what I'll use. If not, I'll use a vintage Studer machine or something like that.
I just wanted to say I really liked the drum sound that you got on a lot of this reissue stuff. You really have a super-cracking snare. I've been enjoying it all this week.
It's what's on the original tapes.
Since you've been to Experience Music Project, what about that Datamix board that Paul Allen bought.
It's from Studio A at Electric Lady, yes.
And who spec'd that board for the studio, who ordered it?
I did.
How does it feel to see it in a big glass box?
Well, it would be nice to see if it would work...
It's in good shape.
No it's not. It's not in good shape at all, in fact. The original stuff is not on it — a lot of the stuff has come off of it.
Why is there is a huge gap between each fader?
Because they lost all the little black pieces of plastic that I had made specifically for it, when they took it apart. It needs to be restored, it needs to be put in a studio and working, at least to show, like the way they do with Sun Records. Put it in a room, for god sakes.
What is your system for recording nowadays? You walk in and you what? Somebody's probably calibrated the machine for you but...
Oh, no, no. You see, I think of it in terms of, if I've booked a studio, and they have their stuff together, I feel fairly confident. Because I've already visited the studio, I've checked it out, checked out the room, checked out the technical guys, checked out the machinery, made sure it's exactly what I want, checked out all the mics, and I'm gonna be happy working there. So they either come as a recommendation to me or I've investigated it. My main concern is, "How do I get the band to sound cool?" How do I get the band to sound like they're playing something, and they're relaxed? I want it to feel like it's home.
Do you try to be transparent, where you're sort of working around people and they don't notice?
Oh no, you can't be technical with the band. The band comes in, you want to make sure the band's happy and comfortable. That's the main thing. Because without that, you have nothing. It's important not to be technical. What you want to be is musical. Because it's the music that's more important. I don't care about the technical stuff, I really don't. Not to say I don't care what it sounds like, but it should not interfere with the process. It should be absolutely seamless from the time the band walks in the studio to the time they walk out. There's gonna be times where it's boring 'cause we got a broken cable or the preamp is screwed up, or...
What do you think of this college [TESC]? It's a de facto analog college, mainly because they couldn't get the funding to get a bunch of fancy digital stuff. But it's the reason I did my audio education here. The analog background here is thick and deep. They've got great analog gear.
You cannot beat that education, because it's gonna hold you in good stead when you make that transition into the digital world, if you're a student here. You are very well prepared and very well armed. This is the best education you're gonna get. Because you're not gonna get it — if you start in the digital world, you ain't gonna get this kind of education, and you will be missing out on a bunch of stuff. You must learn your basics.
