Henry Hirsch: On Lenny Kravitz, Helios and Jay Z

Henry Hirsch is best known as Lenny Kravitz's collaborator and engineer. The partnership has continued for twenty years and is as strong as ever. What started as a session booked with Lenny's band at Hirsch's Waterfront Studio, soon turned into Lenny playing all the instruments himself with Hirsch's help and input. This partnership has continued for twenty plus years, yielding some well- received albums. Hirsch is also an outspoken, passionate and focused individual — and his opinions on recording and technology come from experience. We met up at his new digs, which he still runs under the name Waterfront, but are the old Edison Studios in New York City. It's a beautiful space and mainly a private facility. The level of commitment to quality has included our friend Dave Amels (VocME, Bomb Factory) as a tech, electrical engineer, advisor and designer to assist Hirsch in his quest for a great studio space — with his work rebuilding the custom Helios console here and his own mic pres, DIs and variable phase units, reminding me of the true "old days" of studios in the '50s.

Where did this space come from?

This space was the ballroom [The Sun Room] of the hotel, in which they had a club two stories down — this is its own building. It's actually separate from the Edison Hotel. They used to snake cables up here and start doing some recordings of the jazz greats that were playing in this club. So then a company, National, back in the very early '60s, took the space over and they had the control room up high, ala Abbey Road. Then it got taken over in the '80s and they turned it into an SSL studio.

Did you have to redesign the studio?

Well, I've had two different recording studios and both of them were RF nightmares. So, I was determined to make sure the Edison worked. So I had Dave Amels come in with me and we did some tests, and we discovered that they had basically used their original cabling. They had some problems with a high and low end roll-off with their mic lines going back into the control room. So we rebuilt it. I had an engineer from Florida, Ross Alexander [Synergistic Systems], and Dave Amels rebuild the studio.

Did you keep original floors and things like that?

We used the money that we had to make it as professional as possible.

What's downstairs from it now?

There's a restaurant downstairs and a club below that.

Is there any room at the Edison to build a live chamber?

Yes there is, and it's very tempting to do that. Their plates were good, so I just left it at that — all this great stuff, like all this old keyboard stuff and all the mic stands were basically given away.

Some of the musical equipment was left behind — there's a tack piano, celeste, the vibes.

Yes, we inherited all of that great equipment and we use it all the time. I work a lot with Dave Baron [Edison Music Corp.] on his television music. A lot of it is period recording, so he hires me to make something like a '50s thing, or a '40s thing, or a '60s thing. Dave is probably the best going, in terms of being able to quickly make music that works very well on television, and he understands the market to a high degree. He is very impressive with how quick he does what he does. So, the studio has a consistent flow of that type of thing. If he's looking for a certain type of recording or a certain type of sound, he'll come to me and I'll do that for him, because a lot of times everything is done by, "It should sound like that but not be exactly like that" — and he calls me in and I have a vocabulary to help him do this.

Is that kind of fun in a way? A fun exercise?

Oh I love doing that. I just did an ELO thing that was great. The thing that Dave always reminds me is that with all the legal divisions, I shouldn't get that close to the original material. Dave was telling me he did a version of "Tax Man", for example, and they couldn't use the bass.

I see a lot of older recording equipment here. What about new gear?

I have nothing against and use a variety of new equipment. However, it seems now that due to the digital recording with Pro Tools, the companies that sell audio equipment are using misleading advertising by using such terms as "warm" and "vintage". They are now selling semi-pro equipment, which is now their clientele. The equipment on its own will not make a good recording. A good recording is made using a good engineer with good equipment.

I see that you have a lot of esoteric microphones. Could you please tell us what they are?

To start with, I have a collection of RCA 10001 microphones. It's a cardioid ribbon mic. When I had purchased the Olympic Recording console [the studio which the Stones, The Beatles and everyone else used], Keith Grant, who was responsible for Olympic Studio, had these mics and told me he would never be able to do the recordings he makes without them. They are rare and when in good shape, they are best microphones I have ever heard. I use them for a variety of reasons — in some cases, lead vocals, in other cases, "Beatle-y" sounding string sections, and many other orchestral sessions like winds, flutes, etc.

That's curious, I've never even heard of those. You don't see them too often. They didn't make many of them. [Less than 500. -LC]

It's just a great match for these 10001 microphones because the room sounds so good orchestrally. With input from Dave Amels, I have learned a great deal about using certain microphones with certain mic inputs. He has stressed the importance of this in getting good recordings.

But you plugged the right mics in. With the right inputs.

I hope so. I started out as a musician and the reason I ended up engineering was because I was always bitching about the sound of the recordings. This was a long time ago — about thirty years ago. All these guys would get pissed off at me and say, "Why don't you go ahead and do it yourself?" I had absolutely no electronics background — I just knew what I liked to hear. I used to believe that if I used a pair of inexpensive speakers, if I could beat that speaker, the recording would sound good on every type of system. Eventually over time, I learned that this was bullshit. I've also learned that the acoustics of the live room and the control room are absolutely mandatory to be able to comprehend and make an analysis of what the microphones really sound like. In my opinion, if any recording engineer makes claims that recording is easy, simply by having the right equipment — to me, it's always a struggle. In the end, when you do find things that work, the best thing to do is try to apply it with different situations. I've also, in the past few years, cut back on the amount of equipment that is in the control room. All the outside engineers that have come to the Edison and seen the console have no way to understand how I use a console that only has 26 mic inputs, and I would answer, "Why and how could you possibly need more?" Most of these engineers then, having used the Helios, come away agreeing with that philosophy. In conjunction, I use ATC speakers. They are beautiful sounding speakers, and even though they are a tad on the bright side, the mid range is very understandable. You can really hear the differences in a subtle way between recordings, especially masked sources such as detailed reverb and music that seems a bit hidden in the mix. At this point, my attitude is to do whatever it takes to make the recording as I need to hear it, and keep the technical and electrical engineers separate from the balance engineers. I have seen many situations when balance engineers have a small knowledge of electronics. There is no way that that small information could possibly beat having a fully trained electrical engineer who makes all the decisions on technical issues.

What kind of recordings do you like?

For me, most recordings done in the late '60s and early '70s using 8 or 16-track technology sound the best, and I believe that their limitations contributed to the sound. I stayed on my 3M [M56 and M79]. I felt that it forced me to get the drum sounds that worked the best. Most of my drum sounds are not standard. Very rarely were they in stereo. If they were in stereo it was because the toms might be in stereo. I very rarely used the two overhead mics set up because it sounds weak to me.

I think sometimes what you find in there is a little bit of a battling of the technology, but really listening to what's happening and trying to make sure that it retains its integrity and works. . .

As the technology changes, certain engineers are simply not going to accept change. I believe that that's a narrow-minded point of view. I have used Pro Tools, for example, and it has fixed a multitude of problems that were simply impossible with only analog tape machines.

A lot of what you've mentioned involves less things in the way or transparency or cleanliness of the audio path, or...

I'm also into completely taking the gear and doing whatever it takes to get through that moment. I don't believe that recording engineers should ever say that they have the answers or can conquer the element and multitrack record it. Utilizing good electronics and utilizing some technical elements that studio and engineers need, it does make a difference and I've learned from that. I guess when it's all said and done, that's the most important rule. In my past, when I've booked other control rooms, I have had a very difficult time understanding their speakers and I can't function properly under that circumstance. That, in conjunction with all those large framed consoles — the audio never sounded right. Also, it's a matter of having a procedure in place — we're evaluating stuff that studios don't do anymore. In the old days in the studios, people listened to the stuff and built their own stuff. There was a linear progression of knowledge about the recordings they were trying to make.

As you said before, in the earlier part of your career you were recording everything that was coming down the pike, making a living, running a studio, and you have to deal with what walks in the door.

No question about it. But you keep the things that you learn. You keep them for yourself for future situations. You start to gather tricks and ways to get around things. It also teaches you to be humble to the point where you're able to view yourself that, if you're not pleasing yourself, I doubt the client is also pleased.

Do you get in situations where people come in and say, "Pro Tools won't work in that console" or, "How come you don't have such and such in your rack?"

That happens, but all I've ever said to anybody is give it a chance and just listen to it. With my 3M, it doesn't really look all that great. It's not the flashiest looking multitrack. I mean, even Studers — they still look modern. If you get it right, you can balance how much of both technologies help you to make a better record.

It's hard though, if you run a studio and you say, "We don't have Pro Tools..."

Well, we do have Pro Tools. But if you run a studio based on what people think is the new thing, you have to be honest with them. Let them use the equipment. Let them make the decisions.

Do you intend to open the Edison to outside clients?

Our philosophy is that if the musicians and the engineer make a large effort to keep the place clean and treat the assistants with respect, that we will sell studio time.

What kind of rates do you foresee for a place like this?

There is no rate set in stone. We will evaluate each situation and price accordingly.

What records are you most proud of that you have done?

Well obviously Lenny has been a friend and artist I've worked with for twenty years. With a lot of his music I'm proud that the recording has succeeded in framing Lenny's music. I've done records all over the world and recorded songs with Lenny for people like Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. Those recordings mean a lot to me, for the respect I have for those people.

If you Google your name it's hard to separate the two.

Right. The two of us are a team. We both have day jobs, sometimes, where I'll go to Japan and he'll use such and such to do the recording and we'll fight or whatever, but at the end of the day, there is a collection of recordings that I've done with him that have succeeded because the audio has really succeeded. They might not be pieces that people are that familiar with, but to me, that's where I'll make myself a package of that music and that's what I'll listen to. The situation with Lenny and I is somewhat unique. I've recorded thousands of recordings, but the most successful things have been with me and Lenny and we've been together for twenty years. He plays more of a role with the recording than a lot of other people that I've worked with. He demands — for whatever he hears in his mind — he demands me to get that in a very short period of time and he's serious about it. It has given me the type of training that's been very valuable in other circumstances, because I'm ready to go. If you put a drum kit out there and you say, "You have ten minutes. Go!" I can go and do that. If there is any rule, it's that hopefully you're working with good musicians, which Lenny is. He's a great musician, but it doesn't stop the struggle. Today he's going to be in here and we're going to do the same thing, which is struggle, because I've got to pull out of his imagination something that's concrete — which might've been the same thing with the engineer facing The Doors or facing The Beach Boys. "Good Vibrations" takes a lot of imagination. This is a funny story. There was one session about two years ago when the whole room got filled up with Jay-Z's — this is about four in the morning — with Jay-Z's people. Jay-Z was in the center of it. Everybody was sitting down here and everybody was like that and for some reason, I don't why, they brought these cops in from the street — with guns and shit! I'd say casually there was about thirty people in the room. In here. They were all by me and Craig Ross, Lenny's guitar player was out there playing a mandolin part and I wanted to put some slap up and I had to move everybody to get to my 2-track. The funny part of the story was, Jay-Z was sitting back here, there was a guy over there working the Pro Tools, and I was working the console. Jay-Z said, "I got to ask you a question" — he's looking at Lenny, you know, he's not going to talk straight at me, it's to Lenny — "What does that guy do? I know what that guy does but what does he do?" Lenny says, "He's the engineer." Jay-Z's like, "What do you mean? I know that guy's doing Pro Tools. What do you mean, the engineer?" "He makes up sounds. He creates them. He's an engineer." Jay-Z's going, "Oh, I never thought of it that way." Seriously.

What are the goals of Edison Studios?

The main goal is to maintain this beautiful recording space in the middle of Manhattan by trying to hold onto maybe the last of a dying breed. We keep trying and I'm positive that the music made here sounds amazing.