Tim Hatfield | TapeOp

After we interviewed Eric "Roscoe" Ambel for Tape Op [issue 13, 1999, book Vol II], he'd kept in touch with us (plus I've gotten to see him play a few times!). Along the way he noted that he and a friend had started a studio space (and concept) called Cowboy Technical Services. Eric's partner in this venture is the languid and talented Tim Hatfield, an engineer/producer/songwriter with a wealth of background and a talent for making the best of any recording scenario. Check out the varied credits: The Damnwells, Ann Klein, The Yayhoos, Death Cab For Cutie, Marshall Crenshaw, The Misfits, Steve Earle, Freedy Johnston, Bottle Rockets (including a new CD with Roscoe producing), Butthole Surfers, PiL, ScrAppalachia (some all star New York players goin' acoustic), Popa Chubby and an upcoming Ace Frehely CD. He even shows up as one of the engineers on Keith Richards' Main Offender solo LP; working with Nico Bolas, Joe Blaney and Don Smith. Tim and Eric's space is currently housed in several modest basement rooms in a Brooklyn, NY, building. Their open studio consists of one main room with some isolation spaces. It has a perfectly casual feel with tons of instruments all over the place and NYC artist Steve Keene's fabulous paintings adorning racks of gear as well as the nearby wall space. Tim catches some great recordings in the comfortable space, and he also uses the studio to bring to life his alter ego, Cap'n Pappy, of whom you'll read...

Do you guys do a lot of projects together?

Yeah.

Who owns the space?

Both of us.

When you're buying equipment for the studio, do you buy it as a partnership or does one of you say, "I want to buy that. You buy the next thing."?

It works both ways. We each had a lot of gear to start with. When there are things we really need, like Pro Tools HD, the studio buys that. Then there are certain things I just want. I went to an AES show and I came back thinking, "I can't live without one of those [Chandler] TG1 limiters." So I bought the TG1. Eric is constantly buying instruments.

Tim, give us some of your history. What lead up to Cowboy Technical Services?

I started work in the eighties at Media Sound, which was on 57th Street. In those days you were an assistant and before that you were what we called a "shipper". A lot of people call them interns. You were a shipper, and then after a while you got to go in and help set up these huge sessions. Some of them would be forty to fifty piece orchestras — things like that. Then there would be rock 'n' roll going on downstairs. I became an assistant and then an engineer. Then MIDI kind of took over and tracking rooms started fading away. Jingle companies used to do demos [at studios] all the time but then they started doing them all in- house. That had been the bread and butter of the larger studios. Someone started putting up a huge building next door and that ended up closing the doors of Media Sound, because of the construction. I got out of Media and started going freelance. I met Eric [Ambel] at Media when he was with the Del Lords. Then I ended up living down the street from him. We'd stop and talk about anything but drum machines, so we thought maybe we should work together. "Man, you actually play guitar and I could move some air with this signal?" In those days a lot of people would come in to do a session and it would consist of a drum machine and four racks of synthesizers and they gave you a patch cord. I didn't really think of it too much as engineering.

Did you keep working during that period?

I did keep working. For a while I got into this place that was doing karaoke. Other than being an assistant to engineers like Mike Barbiero and Michael Brauer [ Tape Op #37 ] at Media, karaoke was one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. A guitar player sits at home, listens to a CD and says, "Okay, what did he play there?" He can back it up, play the lick over and over and figure it out. As an engineer you don't really get to do that. However, imagine if someone gives you a Neve console, two 24-track machines, a CD player and says, "Match that drum sound. Here's a ton of vintage mics to do it with." That's basically what I did. I matched drum sounds. I did it from ten to six. If I was in the middle of a record at six o'clock, my co-worker would take over the session and I would tell him, "You better punch out at the chorus." I did that for a year. It started getting boring after a while.

Were there revelations for you too, as an engineer, trying to match sounds of different eras?

Yeah, it was really cool. I loved trying to do the old Motown stuff and then doing some '80's hit by Bon Jovi. By this time it was probably 1990 or something. There were records that I probably never would have listened to, but I did learn something. For the majority of time that I worked there, I got pigeonholed as the guy who did the drums or anything that required more than one microphone. I always loved to track a band playing — that's the exciting thing to me — so I was always better at it than most. Some of the guys knew how to program synths much better than I did. After that I was just freelancing. I worked at Studio 900 a lot, which was small, but I met Keith Richards there and I got to be a part of Main Offender. That was a lot of fun.

You got to go from mimicking The Stones' drum sound for karaoke to tracking a Stone.

I didn't tell him what I had been doing. I was just in the right place at the right time to get on the Main Offender project. I also worked with Keith when he was putting songs together and it was great. I had stations for him to play. The piano setup, a couple of guitar amps and a bass amp. He had a DAT of Charlie Watts' or Steve Jordan's drum beats and I'd play them over the speakers and he'd start playing stuff and getting riffs together. He was trying to organize the things in his head, but you had to keep up with him. He always knew if you were listening or not. When I was at Media I worked with Rickie Lee Jones doing the same thing — where she came in and had all these ideas for songs and she was trying to put them all together. There was a drum machine, so basically it was use of the drum machine as a click — that was it. She would play different instruments. When the record came out I thought, "I remember that chorus, but it didn't go with that verse." That was interesting for me. This kind of work helped when Eric and I put together our own place. We wanted a place where creativity could flow.

I know you also write songs, so to be able to watch Keith or Rickie Lee Jones and see their methods — did that ever motivate you to start working in different ways?

Working with Keith was pretty inspiring. There are certain artists that I've worked with that are probably lesser known but I really liked their songs. I would get inspired again and perhaps write lyrics a week later. With Ricki Lee I saw the editing process going on, whereas with Keith, he was developing the music at that time so he was trying all sorts of ideas. He just wanted to keep playing. He's happy when he's got a guitar in his hands. I do remember writing a couple of songs the summer we were working on Main Offender. Popa Chubby covered one of them. It was kind of an exhausting summer, though. We worked from 9:00 pm to 9:00 am just about every day — five days a week.

Oh man. A strange weekend after that.

I would go home and sleep all weekend. Keep in mind that Keith's project was four months long. I'm not working like that anymore. Most of the time I work during the day, start late in the morning and work into the early evening, but there are times when I keep going. Sometimes I go in and work on a project where I'm required to record one song and it has to be completed that day. It may take fourteen hours and there's nothing that can be done about it. There are also times when people are working on their song and they say, "Oh, I've got this idea. I've gotta put it down." You have to be ready to record. It doesn't count if you don't record. Record, because the musician is playing and sound will be dealt with later. Maybe the level is not really up, but the whole point is to get the most inspirational performance you can. Don't stop somebody that's playing to say, "Wait a minute. I've decided I need to move the microphone a half an inch to the left." Don't stop the whole band because the high-hat mic has moved.

That is a vibe killer. If you push them out of the zone, you're focusing on the wrong thing.

To me, it's all about vibe. You've got to find a vibe for mixing. You have to listen to the way the singer sang. If you solo the vocal track and you think, "He's angry"; then make the bass drum slap! Push all the gear. That affects the whole mix. My mixes are more about vibe than about being technically correct, but I hope they are technically correct! When I listen to music I want to feel it. I want it to pull me into where that person was when he or she was writing it. Listening to a Daniel Lanois [ Tape Op #37 ] production will put me somewhere else. If anyone asks, "How do you set up your [UA] 1176?" I say, "I don't know." I have general rules about where I start the process. You can see we have a lot of outboard gear we've collected over the years. Every piece does something [unique]. I like music to breathe like it's supposed to.

What projects happened after working with Keith?

After that was when I met Eric [Ambel] again. He was working with Nils Lofgren [Crooked Line] at the time. We thought maybe we should work together. I'd kept freelancing. There was a time when practically everything I did was in another studio. I was floating around working with all kinds of people in places throughout the country, as well as overseas.

At a point like that, how were you getting the work?

Getting recommendations. Eric was producing a lot of things at that time as well. I knew a lot of people via my work from the years before. Godfrey Diamond, an engineer I had assisted at Media, started producing and he called me to engineer. There were a few jobs like that. From there, somebody would say, "Maybe you should work with Tim." I'm kind of a laid back human being, and not quite as intense as a lot of people — on the outside.

That's your selling point.

Yeah. If someone requested, "I want somebody that's not in my face and gets a good guitar sound", my name would come up and I would get a call. You do one project and you meet somebody that's doing another project, so it just keeps going.

Does that world seem a little different to you now as far as freelancing and [working in] different studios?

It does to me now. I still do it occasionally. Freelancing of that measure has slowed down for me, mainly because of Cowboy — people love the vibe here. All of the sudden I had all my tools in one spot. Not only the outboard, but the instruments that are here. People come in to this studio and see there's a banjo, there are great guitars everywhere, of course great amplifiers.

You can see where everyone is at in the open room and start rolling.

Right. Some studios have three cue systems. You might be talking to one person, but the other two aren't hearing you — that kind of thing. Or, they have a private cue but they've got the talkback switched off or something. It makes it a little difficult to communicate. This way communication is much easier. Most people think, "How do you do hear what you're recording?" When you put a snare drum mic into a Neve mic pre, you pretty much know what it should sound like and if that is what you want. If the microphone is in the right place and the sound is the sound you want to record, what is the problem? I get a good signal to work with and later I can manipulate it anyway I want to.

Do you get a lot of jobs where you're working with a producer or producer/artist?

We've been doing some projects where Eric will do pre- production, or pre-mix production. He will be in charge of arrangements for people, or helping artists get their arrangements together, and then they bring me in to mix. I recently finished a project where we worked like that called Miss Ohio. Really great songs.

EA: We have the same iMac based Pro Tools rigs at home now. If I came to the studio with my hard drive, I could grab a few things to work on at home.

So when you go home, what are you working on? Are you working on editing or comp'ing?

EA: My rig had gotten really slow. Now that my rig is good again, I've been doing some songwriter stuff that works at my house. We'll come in here later for a real rhythm section.

Like adding real drums onto a session recorded to a click?

EA: Yeah, [Toontrack's] EZdrummer. I love that thing.

Our rigs at home are pretty much the same thing: EZdrummer, Pro Tools LE and I use Reason as well. When we get in the studio we simply balance it through the board and use whatever outboard gear you want.

You've got plenty of rack gear as well as a console.

This is something that has recently developed because of the technology. We've been doing the digital thing for a while. I was one of those people who was forced down the road, or went down the road, kicking and screaming. I didn't want to give up the tape machine and I haven't given it up totally. I have my addiction under control so that I can use tape for tracking and mixing. Overdubs get done in the computer. We have a 16-track headstack, and a 24 as well, and we'll put down the rhythm section — usually bass, guitars and drums — and then we drop that into Pro Tools.

How long have you guys been working in this space?

Approximately eight years.

When we interviewed you [Eric] for the mag [issue 13, 1999], you didn't have this space going at that point in time.

EA: Everybody goes through a partnership that doesn't work out. We used to have our gear at 33 1/3 Studio and we owned everything but the console, yet we had to pay to use the studio space. It was like, "Wow. That's not exactly right." Then we went out and found a console.

We had always talked about having this [Neotek] console.

The Neotek Élan?

Yeah. We got seduced at [33 1/3 Studio] by the beauty of the room, the height of the ceiling, and the fact that it had an old Neve console. It was a "broadcast" Neve, but it was still a Neve.

Where did you find the Neotek? Does it have any good history?

Well, it was at Word Music in Nashville. EA: It was custom ordered. That's why it has the white, sort of Lord-like...

"Word" Music, I get you.

Word Music jumped on digital quickly. When the first Pro Tools rigs started coming out, they got one and turned this board off. It hadn't been on...

EA: Yeah, it sat under a blanket for years. It was basically brand new. Every once in a while we'd pull a module and find that the screws were unstressed.

We went and picked it up ourselves. I saw it and thought, "Wow, this thing is beautiful." We had already looked at other studios that had them. They were all worn out. This one was really great. Our space started out as this one room. Now we have the adjacent room and an identical room on the other side, but we don't have a door to it. It's more of a storage area.

Are there other people in this same basement area still?

EA: There's one recording studio. There is also a band — this was originally someone's rehearsal room. One of the guys from the Blue Man Group used to be next door. Martin's Folly moved, so we're on our own in here.

How did you find this space?

EA: Martin's Folly was a band that we had worked with in the fancy studio that we had to vacate. We wanted to get our stuff out of there, even if it meant storing our gear. We moved it [to the current space] and realized, "We could set up our stuff and still not be in the way of those guys when they rehearse." They had one PA speaker and a monitor on the floor. Martin's Folly made their early recordings with us standing in the exact spot that they always stood, their rehearsal room.

How comfortable can you get?

It really helped. You could hear the difference in the performances. It was really comfortable for them. Virtually everyone who comes down to this space immediately gets comfortable. It's akin to somebody's living room, not a studio. We never intended to stay here. We were getting the wires run and all the proper connectors for the outboard; meanwhile we still hadn't found a piece of real estate. We said, "Let's turn it on and see if it works." That was it. We just stayed. Eventually we added more gear, added another room, put up diffusers and started trying to control the bass to get the low-end where we wanted it. At first the board was too close to the wall.

All the instruments in here — do they belong to both of you?

Yeah, and yet there's a division of things. The guitars are mostly Eric's. They're great guitars that he's collected over the years. Each one has different pickup configurations so that there are a variety of available sounds. I've got things that are out of the norm, like a sitar, banjo and all of the acoustic guitars in Nashville tuning. A young band might not know Nashville tuning off the top of their heads, but instinctively they've heard it. They usually think it's all the bottom rolled off with more EQ.

I've turned a few people on to it. We have one strung up in my studio. What other gear is handy here?

EA: We've got a bunch of snare drums and some kick drums. We've collected some keyboards. We have my wife's grandmother's Hammond A100 organ and my wife's mom's piano. It's challenging dragging all this stuff around New York.

I remember doing sessions where I had a Neve rack, and I'd be going to some studio where they had a fourth floor walk-up. "I can't do this!" Our drums in the studio sound really great. A lot of drummers have mentioned the sound, "Wow, these toms ring for days!" It starts with the instruments, so you have to have it right.

When you track a band in here, where do you put things? The drum kit is behind the console.

I have isolation cabinets for the amps.

These are isolation cabinets by Demeter? [SSC-1 Silent Speaker Chamber]

One is by Demeter and the other one is by Randall. The Randall has the same ten-inch speaker that would be in an [Ampeg] SVT. The Demeter has twelve-inch [speakers] that would most often be used for guitar. We also have a key cabinet and a couple of cabinets behind the wall — we put the guitar amp in that room. Usually the singer is in the control room.

Do you try to do a lot of live tracking? For instance, if someone is playing acoustic guitar and singing, do you set that up and see if you can catch a whole band in here?

That's all I've been [doing] this past month. The Travelling Band are from England. Roscoe was producing and I was engineering. Their set-up includes acoustic guitar/singer, electric guitar, bass, drums, a keyboard player and another acoustic guitar. Last time when we tracked them, the two acoustic guitar [players] were in the control room and one of those guys would be singing. This year I gobo'd him off and took his guitar direct. He had a Taylor [guitar] that had a good sound. I had a mic close enough that I could get a little bit of the acoustic sound with the vocal. It's folk-rock music, so the drums tend not to be too loud. Every vocal was done while the guitar player was singing live on that project.

"That's your take."

And later the guys came in and put their vocal harmonies on. We'll also do a lot of things where everything goes down live and then the singer does another couple of takes of the vocal and it's comp'ed later. We recorded the Dukes down here when Eric was playing with Steve Earle. Steve was playing a [Gibson] 335, which is essentially an acoustic guitar.

It's loud for an electric.

When he'd punch in [vocals], he'd play guitar along so you could drop in.

When can we expect some more Cap'n Pappy tunes?

I was working on new Cap'n Pappy last night.

I downloaded three songs off the website. They're so funny.

Cap'n Pappy is proof that you shouldn't drink and work! I was mixing this record for an artist, Jeff Arundel, and I started singing in this [strange] voice. On the last mix Jeff and the producer, Rob Arthur, went and had a couple of beers. They came back with a six-pack and said, "We have an idea." One of them started playing drums and the other one played bass. At this time Mary Lee [Kortes/Corvette] had this banjo down here.

EA: That banjo has a piece of twine for a strap. She purchased it on the street. It has no back on it.

They handed me that. They said, "You've got to get into character." Roscoe's got this sword — I don't even know where it is anymore. So, they hand me this sword and I said, "Cap'n Pappy!" They're like, "That's it!" I sat down with a beer, the banjo and the sword — [I] started talking and that's how it all began.

There are currently only three songs?

Yeah, except that I started one last night. If they're songs — I don't know.

Vignettes.

Pappy rants.

www. timhat. net www. cowboytechnical. com