Tim Latham: De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest & Britney!

Tim Latham has spent the past 24 years quietly making some great sounding records (except for when he's been nominated for and won a few Grammys), first in-house at Battery Studios in New York, recording and mixing some of the most acclaimed hip-hop of the '90s (De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest) before making albums with Lou Reed, the Fun Lovin' Criminals, Black Eyed Peas, Kid Rock, Erykah Badu and Argentina's Los Ratones Paranoicos amongst many others. I dragged him from Queens to Manhattan for lunch and conversation to find the common thread in his diverse discography.

How did you start out?

The traditional route. I went to school — Berkelee — and graduated not knowing anything. One of the first jobs I had was at a studio that recorded sound-alikes for karaoke machines, which was quite an education. They sounded exactly the same as the records. It was a three month crash course in learning how to get the sounds of songs I grew up listening to. Then I went to Battery Studios the same week it opened its doors. I was hired as an intern, but it grew pretty quickly, so I started doing a bit of everything after a few months. Obviously assisting, but also at night I was engineering, because they were associated with the Jive/Zomba [labels] there was a lot of stuff like D-Nice, Boogie Down Productions and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. It was frustrating; even though the administration for the label was in the same building, I would get credited as "assistant" when I mixed the Fresh Prince record.

You did some French hip-hop artists — Fabe, Passi and others. Did that come from your New York rep?

Yeah that's exactly why!

You're primarily known for mixing. Was that a departure from what you'd been doing before?

In order to be someone who can record really well, you have to be a good mixer — it's kind of backwards. The brief education that I got at the karaoke place taught me more than I could have ever learned anywhere else. I had the knowledge, but as you know, there's not many live instruments in hip-hop and R&B. But I was born in 1968 — I didn't grow up listening to hip- hop, I grew up listening to...

What hip-hop is made from!

Exactly!

When you started working with the Fun Lovin' Criminals, did you record all of that?

Every note! They gave me the green light. I asked them up front what they were going for — "Do you want it to sound like Beck or more like Steely Dan?" They said, "Steely Dan," all three of them. And they didn't question anything I did — they just let me go. "Whatever you think is the right thing to do — just do it."

How did you hook up with them?

It was from the hip-hop side of what I was doing — the Tribe Called Quest stuff actually. I was out in Los Angeles working with The Pharcyde and this A&R guy from EMI said, "Why don't you come down and meet these guys?" I was going home the next day, so I met them and maybe eight days later we were in the studio and five days later the record was done.

You did the first album in five days?

With three days of rehearsal. They were starving hungry. I said, "This is the best way to do it." They trusted me. We went in the studio on Tuesday and it was done by Sunday. Then EMI made us sit around in the studio for another month!

Where was that done?

The Magic Shop [Tape Op #66]. Everything up until Welcome to Poppy's we did on tape. I held out for the longest time before switching to Pro Tools, just because I didn't think the sound was there yet. When HD came along, the plug-in architecture was a lot better and there was no looking back. When we did Livin' in the City, the Criminals were a bit hesitant as to whether Pro Tools would sound the same, so I recorded the drums to Pro Tools and tape simultaneously to see if they could tell the difference. Hands down, they said, "Get the tape machine out of there" — no difference. Often with the Criminals we work quite a bit at Walter Becker from Steely Dan's studio on Maui — when he's not using it, it's available for rental. So I'd work out the budget, go to the Magic Shop for three days, work 24 hours a day and then take the rest of the money and rent a house on Maui and do the vocal overdubs, tambourines — anything you don't need a studio for. We did it a couple of times — you could be recording a tambourine or you could be recording a tambourine in paradise.

Often the Fun Lovin' Criminals stuff is either sampled or they interpolate or replay parts of songs. Do they bring in demos made from the original samples?

With them we'll replay or reinterpret the samples. I dig back into the karaoke work for that one! I've been doing it long enough, knowing how different microphones sound and what the most appropriate application is. Going back to Pro Tools, I had to retrain myself how to mix. I'm not the brightest guy, but I just had to muscle through it. Where before I knew how to just reach out and turn some knobs, I now had to figure out what plug- ins got me a similar sound and not get hung up on the name of the plug-in or what it looked like. There were some expensive plug-ins that I thought sounded like shit and some that people were surprised that I used. If it sounds good, I don't care.

So you mainly mix in the box now?

Yeah, I'm not afraid to admit it. Some people are and a lot of people tell me, "You can't mix in the box," but I disagree, and so would a lot of other very accomplished mixers. The way the budgets were going, I had to retrain myself to mix in the box so that I could do quick recalls without spending thousands of dollars on studio time. I did listening comparisons and you know what — it might sound two percent better to mix on a console with outboard gear, but it's 1000 percent more complicated and aggravating. For two percent it's just not worth it. It's become very political: You've got the bass player's girlfriend saying, "I can't hear the bass!" What do you do? They know, or expect that you can make the change in five minutes — and more changes again, again, again and again. I think the biggest challenge is convincing people that it's done. Being born when I had the luxury of working in analog and understanding it really helps me in the world of zeros and ones.

You mixed a track on the first Britney Spears album.

A couple of them. The songwriter and producer for half the album was Eric Foster White. I'd worked with him on quite a few records before that. He was quasi-managed by Zomba, and actually he was one of the first guys I knew working totally in Pro Tools. We did a bit at Battery Studios, but we did a lot of the work in a studio in his house.

That seemed like the odd record out on your CV!

Well, there are a few odd ones. It's kind of schizophrenic, which is intentional.

Keep things bit different...

Not just that — fads come and go. My passion is music, not genres. I started turning down tons of hip-hop work because I didn't like it. I didn't want my name attached to it because the content was degrading and I just didn't want to be part of it. I tried to work my way into different genres, but I was able to do it. It's kind of funny that my CV is stuff like Ol' Dirty Bastard, and I won a Grammy for a Broadway cast album. There's everything in between — Britney Spears and Lou Reed! A lot of Latin records too...

So was the hip-hop thing just purely because your first job was at Battery? It's all the music that was being recorded in New York.

There was no rock 'n' roll being recorded then.

So it was more of a work opportunity than it being your favourite music?

It was a work opportunity, but of course I was very fortunate to be working with A Tribe Called Quest on their first record — Q-Tip is incredibly talented — or De La Soul. At that point Leaders of the New School hadn't been signed yet, but you had Monie Love, and the rest would all hang around. You'd have 15 people in the studio all having a great time.

Some of the records you worked on are widely considered all time greats: Del, Bush Babees...

Yeah, Del tha Funky Homosapien's No Need for Alarm, Da Bush Babees, the Black Eyed Peas' first record, Mad Skillz (I did three tracks on that), Craig Mack, Nas...

Oh yeah you did the "One Love" single!

Off Illmatic - I was just there! I got along great with those guys. De La Soul and Tribe was some of the most fun I've ever had in the studio. But I also didn't want to get pigeonholed into that, which is very easy to do. I've recently been working with an English producer who used to manage the Rolling Stones — Andrew Loog Oldham. We did two records from Argentina — straight up rock 'n' roll. It's been quite an experience — he's been in the industry actively making records since before I was born! It has been a challenge and it continues to be a challenge that my career is top- heavy with hip-hop. People get confused or deterred like, "What are you good at? You can't possibly know anything about live drums if you do hip-hop!" So it's still a case of, "Here's a CD — listen. Here are tracks with drums I've recorded," and then they get it. You just get a great drummer with great drums and you throw some microphones in front of it — that's as complicated as it gets!