On a recent visit to Detroit, my friend Chad Gilchrist (a member of His Name is Alive, Outrageous Cherry, and his own Symphony of Science & Sound) played me a cassette under the name E.S.P. Family. It was a recording of communist miners' folk songs played and recorded by Warren Defever on an old wire recording system — sounding faint from time, but recorded recently. It was as if he turned on the old AM transistor radio to a distant station. It was a great medium for the simple folk songs that could be picked out of the tin. I wanted to find out more.
Long before this project, I was aware of Warren's innovative production through recordings of H.N.I.A, only recently becoming aware of the many other projects he has been involved in. I called Warren at his home/studio in Michigan and we had this discussion which started with the wire recorder then wound through the decades back to somewhere near where it started.
What was the device used to the tape of old communist miners' songs (E.S.P. Family)?
A Webster Wire Recorder, and as far as I can tell, it goes back to the late 30's.
What was the "tape"?
Early on, when they were experimenting with basically magnetic tape, they tried other substances as well. They used magnetic ribbons, magnetic wire, magnetic tape. This uses spools of wire.
Is the wire round or is it flattened?
Basically round, but it's really, really thin. Extremely thin and very breakable. In the owners manual it recommends using shorter reels until you've gotten used to it, before you use the longer reels. Early on, I lost some really good performances that were on a one hour spool of wire. It was incredibly difficult to work with. The good part is, when it breaks, you can just tie it back in a knot.
Any loss of time?
It moves very, very quickly. I imagine it's 30 inches per second. When it's going that fast, chances are there are potentials for danger. But at the same time, if you just wind on it then you can get it to go pretty smooth, once you know what you're doing.
Is the recording mechanism based in magnetic tape technology similar to what we have now?
Yep.
Did you use whatever microphone you needed?
Actually, the way it's designed, it's got a built-in mic and a built-in speaker. For me, with that kind of thing, it's important not to mess with it, not to "fix it up", not to modernize it. So, we used that microphone. We used that speaker. And if we're going to record something with it, we use that microphone and we'll transfer that to something else. We'll actually mic the wire recorder and transfer (the original recording) onto DAT or reel-to-reel or whatever.
Do you just do a play back and mic the output (of the built-in Webster speaker)?
Yep. And it was before they had the word "play". They used the word "run". [laughs]
I really like that one.
Can you play it over and over again, or is it a pretty temporary recording, like earlier home-recordable 78s?
As far as I can tell, it's actually pretty sturdy. It's up to the actual tape itself. And I've had really good luck with it. As long as you don't break the wire, you can continue to play it back. I've got a couple boxes of wire now but I don't know what I will do if I run out. I don't know that you can go to the hardware store and get spools of wire... I don't think you can do it, plus I don't think there are sources to get it.
So the wire came magnetized already?
Right.
So it has a little 3 or 4 inch speaker you play it back through?
Yeah, it sounds really good. It's all tubes and it gets super hot and it's really great. You can kind of smell it kind of burning all kinds of dust.
Like an early 78 player — all self-contained?
Yeah, and it takes a while to warm-up.
Do you know when these recorders were first developed?
The earliest known reference I've seen to wire recorders, was the early '30s... '32.
Where was yours manufactured?
It was manufactured in Chicago. Compared to tape, they aren't quite as easy to deal with. A couple of times I've had it fly off the reel and when you get hit in the eye with this... it's a little different than getting hit in the eye with tape.
Were wire recorders developed for any particular use?
I have heard that originally they were used in the home but I don't think it really caught on very well in the general public. At the same time you could get one of these, it was just as easy to get a disc cutter, you know, cut your own 78's on a rec-ordable disc.
The all in one kind that came with built-in speakers, a radio, a record player, as well as a separate platter for recording? I had a chance to buy one at an estate sale with a big old mic included, and a guy that saw me looking at it snatched it from under me for about $90.
That's too bad. I have one that's a little different. It's from the '50s and it's probably meant for people doing speeches and stuff, that someone is going to type it up, but it records on little flexi-disks. It's really cool. It sounds great, plus it has very old time, lo-fi microphone.
So, do I dare ask — do you lean towards analog or digital?
I like both. I record a lot of stuff to tape. I've got a really good 4 track ?" recorder. At the same time I record a lot of stuff on 24-track ADAT. Early on when I was in high school I recorded at a studio (Garageland Studios in New Boston, MI). I had a job there. It was the home of Len Puch, with records by The Gories, and Snake-Out and Elvis Hitler. When I was there, everything was tape, and I learned things like editing, mastering, stuff like that, and I'm still pretty good at that, but lately I've been using ProTools, so I do a lot of editing on that, as well.
Do you generally go direct to digital when you do that?
No, usually not.
You blend the two?
Yeah, I like just constantly moving stuff around.
No worry about signal loss or anything like that?
I would rather you get a little extra loss in there. I would rather it sound a little bit worse.
And have the flexibility?
Yeah. Ninety percent of records I hear, it's not what I want to hear. A lot of time I find a lot of really bad records... like records from smaller countries, third world countries — recordings in places where they just didn't "have it together", where it wasn't a giant industry... they can really have got a good vibe. There are so many bad Jamaican records, where the kick hiss is so loud or whatever, but they've really got such a vibe, and that's maybe more what's happening.
That's what's important. The music, essentially, is always the bottom line.
Right.
Were you into digital pretty early on, with keyboards, or anything like that?
No, that kind of came later when I got various samplers and drum machines and stuff like that. I've got a number of different synthesizers and samplers now, sort of on the side. I call that my hobby.
Do you like ProTools as an editing unit?
Yeah.
Do you do mastering for your group, His Name Is Alive, as well?
I do pre-mastering, essentially.
Have you ever worked with mastering?
Yeah... It's really great. When we mastered the Stars on E.S.P. album I went to Los Angeles and we did it at the super-most expensive mastering place in Hollywood. They have a chef that works there so at noon all the engineers and clients take a break and this guy cooks a magnificent lunch. The place itself was really cool. It'd been around for a long time and it really had the vibe of... not so much this is, you know, the future of mastering. It's more like we know how records are made, this is how the good ones have been made and that's how we're going to make ours.
Good work ethic over the latest dials and whistles?
Yeah, they had a good blend of this is the way we used to do it, this is the way we're doing it now, mixed with here's some new stuff that we've tested out and it's working good. It fits in with, at least, the moral outlook of previous masterings. I think there are so many good sounding records that are old, and there are so many bands, or even producers, that think they're just improving on what went on before. Really it's just a new bad idea, and there is such a lack of research (or the knowledge of the history of records) in music within the record industry.
People don't listen enough to the greats, or the variety even.
They don't even realize that everything they're doing, someone else has gone through that before. They're not learning from those mistakes or from what was done right.
So you don't see any advantage to starting and/or ending in analog or digital?
Right, it makes no difference. There are really good all digital recordings, and it depends on what your mood is that day. I can see the advantage in the simplicity that you can probably get to, once you know what you're working with, in digital editing.
ProTools I've heard of. Do you know of any affordable entry level digital editors to start with?
I started with what was called Session 8, which was still high end but not very expensive digital editing system, by DigiDesign. I've gradually upgraded to what they call ProTools Project, and now I've got the full ProTools, but it was a real gradual process.
Have you done much with vinyl?
Yeah, all our records thus far have come out on vinyl as well. The last record we did a whole separate mix for the vinyl. So... we did it all in mono. We added a whole extra layer of tape echo and spring reverb. We had a good spring reverb laying around, pretty old, it also had a tremolo, and it was all tube.
Nice. Have you ever made any interesting gadgets of sorts, recording tricks?
Occasionally, I'll make something. I have this thing called the "electric gourd," but I usually am not that involved in that sort of business. The guy I live with, who plays in a band called Princess Dragon Mom, built this thing called the "electric bear."
The Electric Bear? What miraculous wonders can the Electric Bear produce?
It sounds just like you're being attacked by a bear.
Do you have to get near it?
Yeah, and he plays it. I think making stuff is cool but I guess I'm in too much of a hurry to make stuff. You know, sometimes you'll make something by accident, or you'll be working on something and you cross the wires the wrong way and you'll get something new.
If you don't break it.
But to specifically make something new, no.
Any studio tricks that you've accidentally fallen into that you recommend?
There was one studio that I'd been working with a band in, around Detroit, and it was a really good studio. It had all super expensive vintage gear and the engineers and owner were really well versed in that sort of equipment, and had been around a while. I figured out the way I leaned on the board, leaning my arms on the board, one of the tracks which was the track the guitar was on, it actually got brighter- there was more high end- depending on how hard I leaned on the board. So, pretty much you just gotta fool around a little bit. I got this one drum machine, this old drum machine, that's meant for, you know, you connect it to an organ; there is one knob for drum fills, but if you have the drum fill turned off, and if you turn that knob while there's a beat playing, it turns into kind of a wah-wah. So really you just kind of gotta kind of stick your fingers in there and turn stuff that isn't supposed to do anything.
I take it you record other people as well as yourself. Do you work differently with your own material?
Occasionally, I'll do that. But the main thing really, if something sounds bad, then I'm more likely too work hard on it.
But if it sounds good just let it go?
Yeah. Why wreck it? But as far as wrecking stuff, yeah, I could wreck anything. I can make anything sound bad.
How do you best avoid that, get opinions?
No, no. That's fine. That's what I'm trying to do.
Oh? O.K. Well, any more about the wire recorder? Can you still get one?
It's really the only one I've seen, but once I got it, once I saw what it was, then I noticed-- just going to different resale shops, church rummage sales-- that I would find the spools of wire, whereas before I may have seen them but never even recognized what they were. Now, I've been finding more and more spools of wire, which is good, because I think there is a finite amount of pre-recorded wire in the world. I need to collect as much as I can.
So you've been collecting stuff that's already been recorded?
Yeah. I got a whole box of spools by a man, an older man, whose son had been a Baptist preacher, who recorded many of his sermons, many songs of himself, at church, and there is a compilation of that stuff that isn't finished, before I tape over those. That's real good.
Nice. So you can even do re-recording over those. Any groups that you've really enjoyed working with?
Pretty much, I've tried only to record those I've been friends with, or really, really liked. We're not really, like, "open for business" here since it's all in my house. Lately I've been turning down more things than ever just cause, you know, "Who are these people, what do they want", how do I know?
Yeah, it's wonderful to work with people you already know you want to work with.
Right. And it's good that they understand that, you know, I'm gonna sit here and try to mess 'em up and that's my job and that's why they're here.
Jenny Toomey, of Simple Machines, said good things about your easy, laid back ways of recording people.
We have a real friendly recording studio here. She's really good, has got a good ear and she's very open, so it always goes good working with her. You know, I'll go, "Here's your song back. I took out all the music. I just added noise and I ruined your vocals so they sound really bad." and she'll just go, "That's great." She'll like that.
Great. Where could one get a recording of these wire recording's of communist mining songs (known as E.S.P. Family)?
You should be able to get it on a tape on a local label that I try to help out with. It's called time STEREO.
time STEREO, P. O. Box 531671, Livonia, MI, 48153
(They have a catalog with cool stuff from the Detroit area like: Godzuki, Princess Dragon Mom, Noise Camp — "read kids, noise, camp", Noise Camp Remix, Little Princess, Control Panel 2, and even the chance to buy a small table "Made of sturdy wood. Choose whale or gorilla".)
