Chris Estes: Behind the Gear w/ CLASP

Nashville's Chris Estes has been producing music for over a decade and, after years of frustration trying to replicate the analog audio of his youth in the digital realm, he conjured up CLASP (Closed Loop Analog Signal Processor), a seamless interface between digital audio workstations and analog tape machines that has found a home in both small studios and The Beatle's old gear. See Tape Op #80 for a review of the CLASP system.

How did you get your start in audio?

My parents encouraged me to learn electronics and computer programming, but they didn't encourage me to become an inventor. Their perspective was, "You've got to go to college and you've got to work for the government. Music will make a nice hobby." I wanted to attend one specific school to study audio engineering and my dad said, "No, that's not real engineering." So I didn't go to school at all. All through my early adolescence I was building stuff. We wanted a video game and my dad's response was, "If you want to play video games, you can write your own code."

Did an Atari computer show up around the house then?

A Commodore 64. My dad and my uncle would geek out writing Pascal, Fortran, assembly language and Basic. We had all the books, so I taught myself to write code. By the time high school came around I signed up for a computer class thinking, "This will be a breeze and I'll love it." It was horrible. It was so antiquated and so far behind — I was bored. I went on the road, played rock and roll and said, "Fuck college." This, of course, pissed off my dad. He still doesn't know I designed CLASP. But yeah, I definitely give credit to him — he taught me a lot.

So how did you come up with CLASP?

I was spending so much time mixing on digital, trying to get it to sound like what I heard in my head. I'm 42 years old, so when I was growing up I listened to a lot of vinyl and cassettes. I was dissatisfied with the way everything I was working on was sounding. I would go back and listen to some of the recordings I had done on tape and they sounded better. They sounded bigger, fuller, more listenable and musical than the stuff I was doing with all the digital emulations. I had the idea for CLASP and I sat on it for a little bit. Then I had a chance meeting with David Atkins, who owns Argosy Console, Inc. He visited our studio and I asked him, "How did you get started? I have an idea and I was told I should go ahead and get it patented." He said, "Oh definitely, that's what I did." He told me what to do and I did it. I've got a great legal team, and it took five years just to get the first patent issued.

Once you had the intellectual property locked down, what did you do to develop it?

That was the hardest thing — convincing people that it would actually work. There was no proof of concept and no prototype. One of the first businesses we met with was Quantegy. I had an elaborate PowerPoint

presentation I put together with animations in it. I met with the owner of the company, the chief chemist, all the engineers and product managers, but they were going into bankruptcy and didn't have the funds or resources to develop the product. I thought I'd take it to somebody and say, "Hey, I've got this thing and I own the intellectual property. You just develop it." That didn't work out. Other people I met with were like, "Oh yeah, we can do this, but it'll cost half a million dollars." So my wife and I took our life savings and we prototyped it ourselves. Mike Porter, who has been the AES chairman here in Nashville for quite awhile, was one of the product managers from Quantegy who was in that meeting. Mike and I formed a friendship and kept in touch. He's been a huge help. I can't take all the credit for this — I've had people that have really encouraged me and been helpful.

What disciplines did you have to teach yourself to develop this?

I had to do a lot of research and ton of prototyping. We did so many prototypes — you have no idea. When we first started out we didn't have a license with Avid to make it work with Pro Tools. Everything had to be developed from scratch, as far as communication protocols. It's all custom — the metal work, the circuit board layouts and power supplies. I auditioned different circuit designs for the audio path. "How are we going to control all these different machines, going as far back as the [Studer] J37 that The Beatles used? How is it going to be intelligent? How will it know what machines are being used?" It seems very simple, but it's very complex.

Do you have to modify each CLASP for the tape machine that it's plugging into?

Nope. The cables that control the machines are proprietary; we make the cables, but the box is standard. There's no modification. There's no firmware bullshit, no DIP switch bullshit and no "modifying your machine" bullshit. You get it, open it up, and plug it into your machine and go.

You mentioned that tape sales are increasing directly because of CLASP. Are you seeing any other impact on the analog tape world?

Well, it's sort of an interesting thing. There are people buying tape who weren't buying any tape at all. Maybe they're not buying as much as someone who's doing a project with strictly tape recording methods, but at least they're buying some, as opposed to none. It's sort of raised the awareness of using tape as part of the signal process. People try to make plug-ins, but let's get real for a second here: if you do a session with one of the greatest singers in the world, are you going to use a really great vintage mic? Or are you going to put up a crappy RadioShack mic and say, "It's okay, we've got the microphone plug-in. What did you need? Oh, you want an[AKG]C12? I've got the preset right here. Don't worry, it's going to be the same." Now think about that for a minute. Microphones are electromechanical and electromagnetic; so are tape machines. I've tried microphone-modeling plug-ins. Do they sound like a real C12? Hell, no. There will always be people who want real analog gear. Period. People are so fucking critical about tape. They complain about this or that but you know what? It's analog and it's a really important piece of recording history. We tried to get rid of tubes. Look where that went. Did tubes go away? No. What do the best guitar amps in the world have in them? Tubes. Let's face the facts: if you've got the real thing, how cool is that? It's an interesting demographic that we have. It's people that have never used tape before. It's also people that know all about tape, or used to use tape but now they're rediscovering it again, but in a different way. Everybody wants the Pro Tools workflow. They want to be able to make their playlists instantly. They want to be able to cut and paste instantly. They don't want to rewind. They want to have unlimited track counts. You can still have all of that while using your tape machine, virtually invisibly in the background. That's the deal.

Do you feel that you're keeping some of the digital companies in check with CLASP? Like they missed the boat?

No, I don't have any kind of attitude like that. I think digital is great for serving a purpose. But, at the same time, I've always liked the electromagnetic, electromechanical thing you get from a tape machine. I like the way it sounds. This is about bringing everybody together. It's not about digital versus analog, or analog versus digital anymore. Now you can have the best of everything.

How has CLASP performed in the real world?

It's been great — totally rock solid. The whole system is designed to be user-serviceable — everything's socketed.

What was it like to deal with Avid?

That was one of the coolest things. I love hanging out with them. They gave us a developer's license and they went on record to say that CLASP is awesome. Not only is it awesome, but also it adds value to Pro Tools.

What's the hardest thing that you've had to do in this process?

Initially learning how to work with the dealers and distributors. Just understanding reps, dealers, margins and percentages. That was challenging at first.

What's been the most fun?

The most fun thing is getting to sit in on a session with Lenny Kravitz (or another musician) and see them working, making their record with your invention.

So, what's on the horizon?

There's a bunch of cool stuff. I wish I could talk about it. You would totally freak out.