Trans Am: & their National Recording Studio

Trans Am have made their name by inventing the nexus of Neu!, ZZ Top, Kraftwerk, Van Halen and Mike Post. They've kept themselves in the fast lane by keeping their ears to the ground for new beats and textures and their recordings reflect their music's diversity. A Trans Am album gives you everything from drums like a thousand hammers on anvils, slashing guitars and throb- bing bass to rump shakers for teen androids. During the last six years or so, the band (Phil Manley: guitars, keyboards and vocals — Nathan Means: bass and keyboards — Seb Thomson: drums and programming) has been finding recording spaces and accumulating gear. The latest incarnation of Trans Am's studio — National Recording Studio — benefits from wide-open spaces with high ceilings, a thriving transves- tite prostitute industry, a fabulous mustard collection and the boys' kitchen sink approach to recording. The band's DIY studio ethic is a logical extreme in the DC music scene but, as Seb, Nathan and Phil explain, it makes sense no matter where you're from.

You guys have [John] McEntire in your corner and you've got a label [Thrill Jockey] — so why did you even go to the trouble of building your own studio?

Seb: It was fun. 

Phil: Yeah. Yeah?

S: It's like, making this last record [Red Line] was so different — it was so much fun, just having our own studio, goofing around, doing whatever the hell we wanted to. That was the main motivation.

How long have you been in this space?

P: Two years.

And just the most recent record was done here?

S: Yeah.

Where were the two before that done?

P: Futureworld was done at WGNS [in Washington, D.C.], though we mixed it in New York.

Nathan: And then The Surveillance was done at the Bridge in Silver Spring [Maryland, a previous incarnation of the band's studio].

You've got two Trident boards... what are you tracking with?

P: Right now we're using Mackies.

Really?

P: We've got two Mackies set up but they're about to get [replaced by the Tridents — see sidebar]

And what are you recording to?

P: 2" 16-track [3M M-79].

What kind of mic pres are you using?

P: APIs and Sytek, four of each. And then occasionally, if we have to, we use the Mackie pres, which actually sound kind of cool. They're just like gnarlier sounding, in a way.

S: That's what The Surveillance is. 

P: It's all Mackie driven to hell. 

S: [The mic collection] is pretty standard. [AKG] 414s 

P: We have a couple of ribbon mics. This one was at the Beach Boys' studio — RCA BK-5... ummm, an old STC 4038.

The kind Albini [ Tape Op #87 ] likes?

P: Yeah, it's the total Albini collection. And then the Russian not-that-good mics, Oktava. They kinda suck.

S: But they come with hand-made wooden cases.

It looks like the gun that gets hand assembled in James Bond. You smuggle it in and then...

S: Right, right [mimes assembling a gun]. It's got a silencer.

P: We've got a matched pair and they don't sound at all alike.

Dannielle: Maybe your matched pair are fraternal twins.

P:We've got Beyer M-500.

How do you like it?

P: They're cool — I like 'em on vocals. And then this one is really good on guitar.

What's that?

P: The Beyer 160 ribbon mic. [Grabbing more mics] This is an RE20. These are Chinese Neumann copies. 

Are they good? A friend of mine was telling me about them.

P: No. 

S: We were really excited and then 

P: They sounded really trashy. I think they may be good if you're only recording a single sound source, but when you have lots of people in the same room, they're getting awful bleed. [still digging] Sennheiser 421.

[Seb pulls out an ATM25] 

P: We use it on the beater head. 

S: We used that on The Surveillance. 

P: We also have a couple pairs of good compressors [two blackface Urei 1176s and 2 LA-2a copies made by Bill Skibbe [ Tape Op #44 ] who was Albini's tech for some time]. Those are sort of the most notable additions to the studio. The LA-2s are cool because they have so much gain you can actually plug a mic straight in and use them as a mic pre. For instance, if you were going to compress something to tape anyway, why not plug it straight into the compressor?

Some bands have come in here to record but not that many?

P: Yeah.

How much of this is supposed to be a commercial concern for you guys? How much ambition do you have to get this into a commercial space?

P: Not really. 

S: We don't want to be here, like, nine to five or 40 hours a week. Like, having a real job. 

P: We've been doing that, though, but I think the more we do it the more we realize we want it to be more of a Trans Am [space]. 

S: Like, this summer we had a bunch of stuff going on here and we really haven't had the chance to do our own thing. But don't get me wrong: It's really fun.

You've got Jonathan Kreinik [ Tape Op #57 ] working in here and Nikhil Ranade. Are they house-sitting? Are they renting the space from you? Are they engineering here?

S: Well, Nikhil used to work for API. He really helped us out with all the soldering and stuff like that. He's helping us out with this board [the Trident]. He's like the house tech.

P: So our deal is he gets a little bit of time here to record stuff because he's helped us a lot.

And Kreinik?

P: He hasn't been here that much, lately. S: When we started the studio he was our soundman, you know, so we had a close relationship. We're using one of his boards and he has Leslie [speakers].

P: He stores a lot of broken equipment here.

So he's pretty much your friend who gets to use the place.

N: We know Jonathan and Nikhil won't break anything.

What are some of the secrets of the Trans Am sound?

S: I think what we do, because we run our own studio, is [that] we'll try anything. Which is the advantage of having a studio. We're not pressed for time when we're recording here — not usually so we don't really have any standard procedure. You go to a commercial studio, it's like "Okay, the drums go here, these are the mics I use" and it's, like, done in five minutes.

N: When you go into a recording session, there's a very definite amount of time you have. You've got lots to do... there's a certain amount of time for embellishments.

S: Sometimes we'll have a really roomy sound, sometimes we'll have a really tight sound. Sometimes we'll use DIs. Sometime we use the computer, sometimes we don't.

D: Do you have favorites when you look back? Do you look back and say "gosh", there's a certain aspect or technique which you find you're really fond of? There's nothing you revisit?

P: Yeah, we always rip off our own songs.

Is there a mic that's your baby?

S: That kick drum mic [ATM 25] is kind of the secret kick drum sound. I think the one thing that would distinguish what we do from a commercial studio is we have a really big room and we take advantage of that. A lot of studios don't do that. I mean it's something that we totally abuse. I guess that's something that's becoming more popular now, or has been in the last 10 years.

P: Another thing that's the cornerstone, or has been the cornerstone of our sound, which we only recently discovered, is massive clipping on the Mackie boards. We didn't realize it but all of our recordingss have been hitting the preamplifier of the mixing board so hard that it just forms — you look at the oscilloscope image it like hits this wall and it's really harsh, square wave sort of thing.

How do you guys typically lay down the tracks? Is it live? Are you in the same room?

P: There's no real [normal] way of doing it. I mean there's a band set up in here [open space between the control room and the drum room] everyone in the same room with little booths-we just bring in the baffles. It's like an office.

Cubicles.

P: Yeah. Or you can have drums in that room and amps in here. Everyone in that room, that also sounds good. Sometimes you have problems with the low frequencies getting out of phase, so we put the bass amp in here sometimes.

S: One cool thing that we do is have the drum kit and instruments in this room and put a condenser mic in [the drum room]. The actual sound is tight and close but then you can add in that room.

P: It's like a huge reverb chamber. 

S: It sounds really cool.

How much have you guys learned from recording? How much of this is applied knowledge versus just twiddling knobs and experimenting?

P: I think it's been pretty much experimentation from the start.

S: Didn't you take a couple classes at Oberlin? 

P: Yeah, but it was never on things like mic placement. I learned the whole gain staging concept, and how you set up for recording, by reading books. And then also just watching other engineers whenever we recorded. 

S: For me, it was definitely trial and error and looking at books.

How about gear acquisition? How much of this stuff is local, if any of it?

P: That tape recorder right next to you? It was in the Watergate when it was raided.

How'd you get a hold of it?

P: Seb's neighbor. It was just sitting on his front porch and I offered him 20 bucks. Our 16-track is from Massachusetts, the 3M.

S: These [mics] are from LA: the other is from England.

Do you get it when your own tour? Do you order it?

S&P: Order it. 

P: Pro Audio Marketplace. 

Do you guys plan on staying in this space for a while?

P: As long as we can. 

S: That's a little bit of a concern because there are rumors going around about them selling this place.

D: Did you do the work to get this place into shape?

P: A lot of it, yeah. 

S: We did all the windows. This wall was here but we put in that double-pane glass. We put in this window, we built this segment [of the wall]. And the staircase. So we did a lot of work here — we painted and spackled.

D: How did you find this place?

P: We met this slumlord and I told him what we were looking for and he showed us a few spaces and we came in here. I initially thought it was a little small but, in hindsight, it's the perfect size.

N: It used to be a photographer's studio 

P: And next door was this gold leaf studio that did work for the Smithsonian and as soon as we moved in, they moved out. I don't think it was a coincidence. 

S: Now our neighbors are artists. 

Do they bang on the wall?

S: One time the guy came by, and I wouldn't blame him because the band that was playing was so fucking loud.

Are you pro vintage gear? Is all this old gear holding up for you? Is it worth it?

P: Sometimes. Plenty of new gear is just as unreliable, but in a different way. Like a lot of digital stuff — DAT machines in particular — fucking suck. 

S: We're not vintage snobs. 

P: If you're gonna make a proper rock record you've gotta have the right kind of sound. Every machine has its own sound.

Are you looking for transparency or character?

S: It depends on what it is. 

P: Yeah. We did this band, Vita Bruno, and they're very organic sounding, I guess. They use lap steel and acoustic guitars, harmonica, Rhodes, accordion. To mix down, we used this old Ampex machine, which is all tube, just because it seemed appropriate. A lot of Trans Am stuff, we're trying to get the most clear...

S: Digital silence.