Robert Carranza

It's a warm, sunny, February day in Los Angeles as I take the Vine street exit off the Hollywood freeway. Immediately on my left is the Columbia Records tower, one of this city's many "temples of sound" where, in the '50s and '60s, recording history was made on a daily basis.With its subterranean echo chambers and cylindrical 'stack-o-wax' design, the building is a symbol of past innovations from a bygone era, and a fitting landmark as I head into the heart of the Tinsel town. I'm on my way to one of L.A.'s newest recording studios, also owned by a label and replete with modern day innovations. Brushfire Records serves as the headquarters of Jack Johnson and his manager Emmett Malloy. Their studio is operated by veteran engineer, mixer and producer, Robert Carranza. Robert has been recording in L.A. for almost twenty years and has worked with the afore-mentioned Johnson, Beck, The Mars Volta, Los Lobos and Ozomatli. I had the pleasure of working with him on my band's most recent album, and quickly discovered that Robert was a guy with a brain to pick.

This studio seems compact, yet it's very complete.

I think what's really interesting about the studio, and the whole building, is that we are solar powered. The fibers that come from making denim [Bonded Logic's UltraTouch] are in the walls for insulation.

And soundproofing too?

Yeah. They actually have a great STC rating [sound transmission class]. All of the power in here is low- wattage. Most of the gear I have is not really soaking up a lot of power. The [Solid State Logic] AWS [900] is very conservative in terms of energy. Everything gets turned off. The lights in the studio have a two-hour clock on them so they shut [themselves] off. You have to wind the clock again. All of the wiring is recycled from different studios that were going out of business. Cable is cable. All we had to do was cut the ends off and re-solder. We recycled a tape machine from a friend of ours. We went out and bought some things new. The philosophy here is about being able to make our records and not soak up so much power and energy in doing so. I think we did a pretty good job. Is it perfect? No. Is it working? It works great.

It's definitely a big step forward. How many solar panels are you running?

I think there are thirty-five up there. The last Jack [Johnson] record [Sleep Through the Static] was 100% solar power. The sun is feeding the panels, the panels are feeding the walls and the walls are feeding the amps. The guys are feeding the guitars, which are feeding my microphones that feed the Pro Tools and tape. It's this whole cycle. People trip out when they come in. "Solar power? Really?"

"Is it going to die in the middle of my take?"

I actually had a guy ask me that. "I think my amp sounds different." Then he said, "Oh, I had the wrong pedal in."

You started off your career as the guy who worked at every studio in town.

I feel I was searching and my search came to an end. When I started off, I worked at all these places and I got to work with a bunch of people in different studios. But a few years ago we started seeing a lot of these places closing. That came into my decision a little bit, but mostly it was because of the people. When Jack [Johnson] and Emmett [Malloy] approached me and said, "Do you want to be a part of this?" I said, "Let me think about it." I talked to my wife to see what she thought and I realized, "This is a nice fit."

The time was right.

And I liked the people who were here. I found a home. I really feel like there's something special here and it reminds me of going back to the days of Atlantic Records — Tom Dowd (whom I really admire), [Jerry] Wexler and [Ahmet] Ertegün. They were the pioneers of their time. They kept it insulated and more of a home/family kind of a thing, and I feel like we have that in a different way. The whole label and artist and studio — everything all in one — can be terribly difficult at times but it can be so rewarding at others.

How do you think the recording process has changed from those days to the present?

The way we record now — we're too much in a rush. Nowadays you write a song — you're in some pro studio, you're in your home studio — "Let me get it out. I'm going to do it right now." It's so instantaneous that we don't take the time to see if something's there or not. To really hone in and ask, "What is this? What am I trying to say?" Most people don't listen anymore. It's a shame. Most people want it to sound good now but they don't want it to feel good. Sound is a byproduct of music making. It's emotion that we're being sold on. They go hand in hand, but songwriting is such an underrated craft.

You brought this up a lot when we were working together — that a lot of the technique you use to record the music is inconsequential.

Sure. You can take any song and record it five thousand different ways. I wish I could say that I'm the "end- all be-all" as an engineer or mixer, but I'm not. I'm just one of the guys that do this for a living. We have to progress and as a byproduct things change. But the songwriting part of it and paying attention to what the words say and what you're trying to evoke emotion from — I don't think people pay much attention anymore.

You're saying the process, from the inception of a musical idea to the final recording, has been compressed. What specifically do you think is contributing to that?

Instant gratification.

That's a bigger social phenomenon.

That comes into the recording process reflected in people having no patience. I've had a lot of sessions where people say, "My headphones aren't working!" "We haven't got to them yet." There's a certain speed I like to work at and a certain ebb and flow of how a session could go. Most people now act like, "I want to go. I want to get this done." There's no time to sit back. "What are we trying to say here?" Jack's last record was all done on tape. "I never did a record on tape. I want to try it." I grew up with tape, so I know what to do with it and how to make it sound good. To me, digital or tape, there is no difference anymore. It's what medium you prefer to work in. Using tape really reminded me of the old ways of making records — the pauses in-between. The rewind time. The time to take a reel off and put another reel on, fill in the track sheet, write down times. I'm not trying to romanticize the process, but it was so much easier to pause in between songs and say, "Okay. We're working on this song today." Then you're in that mood. That would help you get to the next level of that song. I have had this happen to me a few times: When I was laying down a vocal it's, "All right, give me another one." Well, we didn't even listen to the previous one.

You didn't go back and listen.

"Give me another one. I know I can get it better." I can understand if someone feels like that wasn't the one, but sometimes it is the one. You should at least take a moment to listen and see if there is anything in there. You get into this whirl of multi-tasking. For some people, technology has helped with that. Like Beck — he has a lot of ideas and likes to throw them down instantly. Midnight Vultures - that album couldn't have been done any other way than with Pro Tools. He had so many ideas that he had three different studios going on at one time. He had Mickey [Petralia], Tony [Hoffer] and the Dust Brothers [John King and Mike Simpson] all going at once. I would come in and say, "What's going on here today?" It was randomness and that's okay. That's part of the process for him, but it also led to a lot of confusion in the end. That outcome was a little bit of a spastic-ness. I think that comes off in the record a little bit.

Compared to some of his other stuff.

I'm not saying it's a bad record. Beck is great at what he does and it's not a dis on him. It's just an example of one of the many ways to do a record. I'm at the point now where I'm trying to slow things down a little bit.

When you're in the studio and it's, "The clock is ticking and the dollars are adding up." It's always the engineer who is last guy who can do anything else but man the controls. How can engineers set boundaries in their work environment?

I wish I could tell you there's no disconnect, but there is. My job is to set it up, get the sound right and make sure technically that nothing [bad] is happening. Did a mic go out? It takes all your focus and everything around you is bullshit. Your wife calls? "I gotta call you back." There's this moment of anxiety during [a take of] the whole song and all of a sudden you're done and you get the calm. I've been doing that for almost seventeen years and that doesn't go away. If I lose that feeling, I don't want to do this anymore. There is something with adrenaline that happens that gets me off. I can't explain it, but I get caught up. Now I'm starting to be more, "I've got to stand up. I haven't stood up for over two hours. I need to drink water."

Water! Food!

There have been a few moments where I'm, "Guys, I need five minutes" and I step outside for a few minutes. When you have a relationship with a band, they understand that. Working with The Mars Volta was interesting. Thomas [Pridgen], their new drummer, was, "I'm not feeling it right now." Here we are sitting at Ocean Way, the clock is ticking and dollars are adding up and he was saying, "I just need a minute." A minute would turn into five, five would turn into ten, ten would turn into fifteen and then finally he'd go, "I'm ready." They'd go in there and they would nail it. I respected him for that. At first I thought, "Wow. He's wasting so much time." The reality was he focused on what he had to do. It's like a good athlete running a marathon. He has to stretch. He has to prepare.

Recording seems very technical. It's electronics. It's physics. On the other hand, it's just an experiment.

I won't say any names, because I'm sure he reads this magazine, but I was at a studio one day and I walk in and the engineer had tape measures and a laser pointer on the drums and I was amazed. I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm getting the sound." I looked at the drummer and he looked at me like he was bored out of his mind. I just can't do that. I'm just not one of those guys. If you want to do the math — sure, it works. I can tell you that every foot is a millisecond delay and all that. I don't work that way. I work by feel. Set it up. If it's not sounding right, go out to the room and move some microphones. Try some different things and find out what the problem is. That's what I think our job is more than anything — we're problem solvers.

Working more by ear.

With a band like Los Lobos — who are such amazing players — we'd spend more time setting up the song than [it took to get the song]. They'd go in and talk about it. Everyone [was]sitting around having a bite to eat, and they're, "What are you going to play?" "I don't know." They sit down — "Okay, it sounds great. My amp sounds good. We're good. Roll it." Three minutes later you have a track. We listen to it. "That's pretty good! Let's just do one more for fun." They come back and we have two takes down. "Let's do one more." One more and we've got three takes.

And you're gold with three takes.

It's fun. Then, you've got someone like Omar [Rodriguez- Lopez, The Mars Volta] who comes in to the studio and he's like a sergeant — he's so focused. He knows just what he wants and he's ready to go. He expects everyone else to be on their game. That's an intense energy to be around. They take it super seriously without being super serious about it. It's a lot different than being around someone like Jack [Johnson], who is not so regimented. I really think that you have to mold yourself to the way of whomever you're working with. I try not to leave any fingerprint that I'm involved on a record.

Do you think that transparent style allows you to move between all these different projects?

I'm a fan of music. I think that allows me to cross those boundaries. To me, the heaviest, darkest, death metal band in Norway is just as crazy and exciting as Mozart. It's all music to me. It all creates emotion. That is the thing I get my rocks off with. From hearing a symphony to hearing the death metal bands — they're all the same to me. People will be, "Dude, yesterday you were doing this hardcore band and today you're doing surfer music." They don't understand.

It's not genres and cliques.

It's not cliques and styles, it's just emotions. I want to do it all. Can I do it all? Sure. Why not? Who says we can't? I do a lot of film work, too. Film work for me is a whole other aspect. It's a whole different challenge.

Do you approach orchestral recording in a whole different way?

No, it's very much the same. It's really balance. You get guys that can play and balance themselves, it's amazing. Nowadays you get a drummer who comes in and he's got a club for a hand and he just kills that snare drum and he's barely tapping the kick drum. Or he's killing the kick drum and he's barely tapping the snare. I've recorded a lot of drummers and I appreciate when they come in and they've got it together.

They've already mixed themselves a little bit?

That's where you can put one mic up and it can balance itself out. Drums always seem to be such a discussion in these forums and people always want to know, "How do you get those kick drum sounds?" You should be able to put one mic up in the right spot. Other than that, you start putting up close mics. The same theory applies to orchestras as to recording a drum kit. You can't have the brass section blasting. It's going to kill the violins. You have the spot mics to clear things up if you need to.

It seems like a lot of engineers will put a snare drum through a certain preamp or compressor because that was the single chain on some famous album from 1974.

It's what we're taught. I've been blessed to be able to with the greatest engineers and producers who have ever lived. When I started working in the late eighties as an assistant with guys like Eddie Kramer [ Tape Op #24 ], Gus Dudgeon, Bob Ezrin [ #31 ] and Roy Thomas Baker, I was just another guy in the room. Schlepping their microphones or patching something. But in my world, I was getting an education and taking it all in. The biggest thing I learned is all that [gear talk] is bullshit. What really matters is what is going on in that [live] room. If you have a drummer who can't play for shit and is inconsistent — that's his sound. No compressor is going to make him a better drummer, so you need to respect what's there. You need to go, "Okay, maybe he's not the best drummer, but he's got some fuckin' amazing personality on those drums..." You need to focus — not on the weakness but the strength. When I was younger I would spend hours EQ'ing the snare drum, trying this and that, thinking, "What the fuck? Why doesn't that sound good?" I would drive myself crazy. I happened to be doing this one session down the hall from Glyn Johns [ #109 ]. He walked in and I was sitting there trying to EQ the snare drum. He asked me, "What does it all sound like? I've been in the hall and I've heard you for ten minutes solo-ing that snare drum." I thought, "He's right."

You've got to step back.

We get caught up in that kind of thing. We all learn our own ways. The best thing about this business is that we're able to make mistakes and learn from them. Hopefully you're not making mistakes on other people's time, but we've all done it. A lot of this business is how you deal with people. I've had the extremes from dealing with a guy who would do heroin every day to a guy who is focused and ready to go. I'm supposed to be the "psychiatric" guy in the middle dealing with their problems.

You have the band members who are either super vulnerable or super...

...baked. I've never had a drink in my life.

Really?

I've never smoked in my life and I've always been pretty even keeled. I know how to have a good time, but I don't have a good time in that way. I've seen the junkies. For whatever reason they're there and they have this opportunity. I'm not going to question it. I'm here to do a job. I'm here to be creative. All I ever ask is to be respectful of me and I'll be respectful of you.

That is the main boundary right there.

I've had people try to move my boundaries. It's not about pay. I do this because it's a creative collaboration with people. That's what I love. I've started to feel comfortable saying we make music. Up until recently, maybe within a few years, I always felt like I shouldn't put myself into that mix. I would say "they." I changed my vocabulary. I feel the people I work with now allow me to say that.

Do you think the change in your vocabulary reflects the change in your feelings? Did this take place before Brushfire studio happened?

Over the past ten years or so, I've had a lot of opportunities from a lot of different bands. Other people have said, "We want to build a studio. Can you run our place?" I've always walked away from those [opportunities]. I've always been appreciative of it, but I've said "Thank you, but no." It wasn't until Brushfire came along that is felt right. We talked about what the possibilities were here. After doing a couple of records with Jack and seeing what kind of people run this place, I realized they are equally as passionate as I am. That's what made me feel like I could be comfortable here. r

Contact Robert through: www. tsunamient. com

David Brogan is a drummer and songwriter with the band ALO. www. myspace. com/davebrogan, www. alomusic. com