Many of us would be fortunate to record national bands, build great sounding studios, or design our own line of pro audio gear in our lifetime. But over the past ten years Bill Skibbe and Jessica Ruffins have managed to do all three. Equally comfortable behind a soldering iron, jackhammer, or large format console, Bill and Jessica are collaborators, spouses, and general BS: When an engineer builds a studio it's usually an partners in crime. We caught up with them at Key Club Recording Company, their studio in Benton Harbor, MI.

How did you get involved in recording and electronics?

BS: I went to college to study film, but got caught up in punk rock and never finished. I'd say that most of what drove me to engineer was that I played music, and was into recording practices on the 4-track. Electronics was something that always interested me as well as mechanics. I had a job working on British motorcycles. They are very similar to tape machines — they have two wheels that spin and they break all the time. I like fixing things, working on things. You know, anything I can hit with a hammer! I didn't actually start building electronics 'til after I had been working at Electrical Audio, Steve Albini's studio. [Tape Op #87]

How did you start working for him? Did you just pick up the phone and call him?

JR: I met Steve in 1994 and just kept in touch. One of the bands Bill and I were in recorded a 7" with him in 1996.

BS: That was the first time I met Steve. He still had the studio at the house. There was a Studer 820 in his attic — fucking crazy — I'm glad I didn't have to carry it up there! After the record, the band toured and broke up. I quit my job at the motorcycle shop and we were both looking for work. We ended up both working for Touch and Go [Records]. I got a job doing construction for the new Touch and Go building. Jessica got a job actually working for the label. A friend of mine was working at Electrical Audio doing construction. Days after the Touch and Go project ended he called and asked if I wanted to join the Electrical crew.

How long were you there?

BS: For around five years, but I still work for Steve running live sound for Shellac.

There have to be some good stories from the construction of Electrical.

BS: For a period of time we had a mad crapper — someone would shit every night in our loading dock. Not just a turd or two, but a total explosion, a mudslide. It was never fun to have to go to the dumpster. We actually had a mad crapper here at the Key Club, too. I wonder if people who crap outside are drawn to the back doors of recording studios?

Did the punk element affect the working style?

BS: Plenty. In typical DIY fashion we sourced all the materials from unconventional places. At one point we learned that CRC had lost their lease on the D studio building, and that it was slated to be demolished. Steve made a few calls and we ended up there the night before the wrecking ball started to swing. We had 14 people with crowbars and sledgehammers ripping everything out of this amazing studio. It was totally freaky. We learned a lot about studio construction that night. It was our alien space ship to reverse engineer from. We examined their wall construction, isolation, membrane baffles, and most importantly, fabric panels. Super nerd shit, huh?

Was Steve easy to work for?

BS: Though the B Studio was finished first, we had to do a rough build-out for both studios at the same time. So, we had to dig 4-foot deep trenches for footings. This was to support the weight of the adobe walls. All of the trenches were packed with gravel, reinforcement bars, then filled with cement. It was fucking hell on earth. We had to fill these trash cans with clay, hoist them up with a hand-powered chain hoist, then drag them to a dumpster. To top it off, it was one of the hottest summers in Chicago.

Did you guys ever call Steve "Pharaoh"?

BS: No, we called him "the Kitty Emperor". Anyway, Steve was off-site recording Bush. He had only seen the basement before the trenches were started. When he got back they were all finished, smooth cement. He walked in, took a look around, and said something like, "What the hell have you guys been doing for three weeks?" Everyone just about fell over.

Was he serious or was he kidding?

BS: Yeah, he was serious. But it looked almost exactly like it did before he left. We had to show him photos of people in trenches up to their chests.

Was there a formal acoustician?

BS: No, Steve. I mean, we had an architect for the formal stuff, but Steve came up with the ideas. I think the plans were originally drawn out on a paper napkin. It was all his vision, including the adobe walls. He's a walking encyclopedia. He has a photographic memory. And he'll walk around talking about things like "hay bale construction," or "the acoustic and thermal properties of rammed earth." Things you would never expect someone to know about, he knows everything about.

You mentioned using adobe for the studio?

BS: Yeah. They shipped it from New Mexico in February. We went to unload the truck, but the driver didn't tarp the shipment. The first six pallets were gone. It had eroded during the trip.

What did you do when Electrical was finished?

BS: I went over to work on SOMA for John McEntire [Tape Op #23]. John had found a new space for SOMA and wanted some help in getting the ball rolling.

How was working with John McEntire or Rafter Roberts different than working for Steve? Did they have different goals for their studios?

BS: When an engineer builds a studio it's usually an extension of their work methods. I think it sums up the way they work. Rafter's studio is designed to be versatile. SOMA has an emphasis on the control room and gear. Electrical has amazing rooms and lots of space. I think they reflect their owner's personalities.

JR: Bill was still engineering at Electrical during the day, helping work on SOMA at night, and building compressors in any spare time. So, it's important to balance all of the things you're doing.

That leads us to the Red Stripe compressor. How did you start making those?

BS: We were going to be working on a Breeders album at Electrical, and it was before Universal Audio was doing the reissues of the LA-2A. Steve said, "It'd be great if we could find an LA-2A for this session." At the time, they were selling used for four or five thousand each. In typical Electrical fashion, I decided to build one.

JR: We took some money we had saved and Christmas money and put it toward the parts.

BS: I built two prototypes, which sat in the studio for a year or so. People kept asking me to build some more. At some point I gave in. I found a place that does work for Whirlpool, the appliance manufacturer, and they did the machining and silk screening for us.

What was the biggest challenge in building the first prototype?

BS: Finding a decent schematic to work from, because the first one I used was one I found on the Internet. It was completely wrong, and it took two weeks to find the problem. There were three mislabeled resistors, for example, a 470 ohm was 470 k. I learned a lot trying to find the problems.

Why is it called the Red Stripe?

BS: Well, not because of the beer. I was designing the faceplate, and I wanted it to look like it came from a battleship. It needed something to spice it up. So, I just put a big red stripe down the middle.

JR: His great grandfather invented a version of the crop sprayer. It was called the Skibbe Sprayer, and it had this big red stripe on it. That had to have been stuck in his subconscious.

Are there any differences between the Universal Audio and the Skibbe?

BS: Mainly in the transformers and the layout of the Red Stripe. We use Jensen transformers instead of the UTCs in the original. We also changed values on some capacitors and pulled the varicaps, which are notorious for giving out. Ergonomically, we flipped some controls from the back to the front panel, which I believe makes it more functional.

Why are they so cheap?

JR: The price has gone up! Everyone on the waiting list will get them at the old price, but the price is going up.

BS: Well, the old price was for friends and people we knew. We weren't really doing it to make a living. But we added up the cost of the components we found that we weren't making any money! For example, one component, the Urei T4s are over $165 each. We're also planning to have two versions: a circuit board version, that will be more affordable, and the current hand wired units, which are more time consuming to make.

How do you ensure the quality of the units?

JR: We both sit in the tech shop and check each other's work. We each do a step, then switch and check the work. It takes a day to wire one, plus another day to wire the face plate, so if it takes that long make two, you better make sure it's working. You can't spend a whole day tracking down a problem. Talk about not making money. Then we burn them in at the studio for four days, check frequency response, look at it on the scope listen to it. If it passes, it's ready to ship.

The Red Stripe is an opto compressor. Some people think all optos are the same.

BS: Optical compressors are just a type of compressor. The implementation of the optical cell is very different from one company to the next. Optos rely on some sort of light source, and a light dependent resistor to do the gain reduction. I use a Urei T4 for gain reduction. It's got a luminescent panel, like an Indiglo watch, and two photo resistors. The photo resisters have to be matched by hand. One controls the gain limiting, and one controls the meter. You have to match resistance, and then check to make sure they track and release at the same speed. Some makers don't use a LDR phosphorescent panel, some use LEDs, and they react differently. Some use a vactrolcell. The release on the T4 is smooth and has a multi-stage release.

So if I had an opto shoot out with other manufacturers' against a Skibbe they would all sound different?

BS: Yes, and that's the glory of it.

What made you want to build your own studio? Hadn't you had enough?

BS: There were a couple of reasons. Studio construction had been part of our lives for so long. I think all together we've spent the last seven years thinking about studio design. And we were recording more and more bands. We wanted to be able to spend more time on records and not feel rushed.

JR: We originally just wanted a house with a small space to record ourselves, and space for the electronics. Prices in the city are totally unreal so we started looking outside it. We found the building and the board in the same week. Both just landed in our lap.

BS: Jessica and I wanted to build a place that would allow bands to spend more time on making records. We were sick of feeling rushed — not being able to try reverbs, delays,etc.- so we figured while we are still in the hang of building studios we should build one for ourselves. The building was cheap and the taxes are completely affordable. We built it with dorm rooms, too. There is an apartment upstairs for the bands to stay, two kitchens, two bathrooms, and a garage. It's a pretty big place. We were a little nervous at first because it's over here in Michigan. I mean, we didn't know if anyone would want to come. But so far it's been great because there is nothing to do here but record and go to the beach. We've been able to really dig into records. It's great for focus — no friends to visit, no shows to go to out of obligation — just 24-hour lock out. It's really fun. As far as the studio setup goes we tried to make it versatile, with two live rooms and two dead rooms. We like to record dead drums. Maybe it came from the Flickinger console. It had a really big influence on the construction. It has a lot of personality, you know. It glows under a black light.

Do you plan on making any other gear?

BS: We're going to do a preamp based on the Flickinger console.

How did you find the Flickinger console?

BS: Liam Hayes of Plush wanted to record at Electrical, and he insisted on certain gear from the 1970s. He wanted to use this 3M M-56 tape machine and we needed a backup. He found one at Paragon in down town Chicago. They recorded Styx, Ohio Players, T-Rex, Hawkwind — the list goes on and on. We went down to take a look at the machine, and the place was like a time capsule. I was looking at the 3M, leaning on this console covered with a moving blanket, and beneath it was the Flickinger. It was from Sly Stone's studio, which I didn't find out until later. I lifted up the blanket and it was the fucking most amazing console I'd ever seen. Shellac had recorded their first record on a Flickinger, so I had heard stories for years. There are very few of them, they sound incredible, Ike and Tina, Funkadelic, Muscle Shoals, Johnny Cash, Paragon, all had them. They were all custom built in Hudson, Ohio. The whole company was this crazy circus, but that's another article altogether. It will be good to build the preamps and let people hear this stuff.

Where did the name Key Club come from?

BS: In early 1960s this building was a folk club called the UNICORN Keyclub. Members had to buy keys to get in. Then it became a locksmith. When we were remodeling we would find keys everywhere. We also had a lot of help from people in Chicago, Bob Weston [Tape Op #18], Shea Ako, Jason Ward, Tim Iseler, Matt Zivich, plus Juan Carrera moved his equipment here from D.C. It's seemed like a club house at times.

Do you have any memorable Key Club project stories you would care to relate?

One day, while we were still in the demolition phase, someone threw about 250 pounds of giant dildos in our dumpster. I had gone out to throw some trash away and found them. We ended up with a bucket of the biggest ones. Every band got one to take home for the first year or so. The Oxes played a drum solo with them. There are only two left. Hurry.