Chuck Ainlay & Mark Knopfler

"With him?" Mark Knopfler seemed amused about us coming along for an interview with engineer and producer Chuck Ainlay at Mark's British Grove Studios in Chiswick, London. Mark predicts it will only take two minutes. Of course, he knows that Chuck has more to say than that. The charming way Chuck and Mark wind each other up about their age and their time in the business shows their natural connection, which has been growing since the last years of Mark's band, Dire Straits, in the early '90s. Besides the Dire Straits releases On Every Street and On The Night, Chuck is probably best known for mixing and co- producing all of Mark's solo records. When we came by, they were mixing Mark's latest release, the double album Privateering, at the well-equipped British Grove.

What got you involved in engineering in the first place?

Chuck Ainlay: Like most people's story, I was a terrible musician but I love music. [laughs] I listened to music, always thinking about it and looking at the back covers. I kept my head inside the speakers all the time. In the band I was the guy who seemed gifted at getting the PA working. I went to Indiana University, and there was a studio in town that had a six-month recording program that I went to. I wanted to get into the studio somehow, but I grew up in a little farm town. There weren't schools for it there. I dropped out of the university and was going to go back home, get in another band and work in a factory. My dad had a client come in that said his son found out about a school in Nashville, so I went down there. Belmont University was the first to come up with a four-year BA program in Music Business. I lasted about two years; then I got a job and one thing led to another. When I got to Nashville I realized how bad a musician I was! There are so many great musicians there. If I wanted to be in the business, I figured I'd better concentrate on engineering.

I remember there was a story of how you got to work with Dire Straits on the On Every Street record. You got a call and didn't take it seriously?

CA: Oh yeah. I was mixing some terrible dance thing, and we were quite behind schedule. There was a lot of pressure. I got this phone call and it sounded like someone with a fake accent saying, "We'd like you to come and work with Dire Straits." I thought it was a friend of mine playing a prank. I said, "I don't have time for this" and hung up. [laughs] When I got home, my wife said, "The manager for Dire Straits called!" My heart sank. I thought I had blown it. Luckily he called back the next day and we made arrangements. I came over here [London] and didn't know anybody. They were the biggest band in the world at the time. I came from the whole Nashville scene, and of course Mark was very into that. But, at the same time, this was a rock-and-roll album.

He got you to bring the Nashville edge to it, along with Paul Franklin on the pedal steel guitar.

CA: Yeah, I think so. Mark's always been amazing that way, feeling trends before they happen. Even with the early Dire Straits stuff, Mark was ahead of the game. I don't think he thinks about it.

What should a project bring to the table to get you interested in it? Obviously with Dire Straits it was a great name and a great artist; but how about an unknown band approaching you?

CA: I'll take a call from an indie band, or some folk artist. It's really that I love music and I try to bring my best to everything I do. Generally, I wouldn't want to be involved with something that was a programmed recording. I literally can't stand it. When the tempo is so strict to the click because it's all programmed, it all feels like it's in a box. I don't get anything from that, and there are lots of better engineers for doing that kind of thing. You can take a recording with live, real instruments and take it to a grander landscape — that's me, that's what I do. I wouldn't say that I'm ideal for every project; but no matter what it is, I always try and do my best. Even if I think the material's not that great, I'm always going to find ways to make myself better. You can learn from anything. You have to keep working. You have to always stay involved in recording to stay sharp and stay on top. Sometimes it's where you did a recording. You'll pull it up and think, "This is terrible." And because it's terrible, you have to try and go really extreme with things. You can come up with some pretty cool ideas that way. There's something good in everything.

I remember that you switched from Nuendo to Cubase throughout the different Mark Knopfler albums.

CA: I switched from Nuendo to Cubase, given that Steinberg upgraded Cubase first a lot of times. The two workstations are very similar. Sometimes they'll upgrade the audio engine in Cubase before they do Nuendo. Recently there was a serious upgrade in the audio engine, so I switched to Cubase and it sounded so much better. Then Nuendo came along. It's got a few more features, and more integration with other devices; so I always end up with Nuendo eventually. Right now I'm working on Nuendo 5.1 because at 5.5 they messed up the Lanes [track comping] in Nuendo and Cubase. I haven't switched. They switched here at British Grove, and it's such a pain when you're comping. You could create a comp and pull it out and put it into a new track. It was so fantastic, and now Steinberg really messed it up.

On the Sailing to Philadelphia record, you started doing drums and bass on tape and got the rest digitally...

CA: Sailing to Philadelphia was a catastrophe, as far as the [file organization] — if you were to try to go back to it now. There're a lot of things I didn't know very well about keeping the [audio file] pool clean, and there're probably lots of bits and pieces. I keep saying that we need to get the hard drives back from the label and consolidate the files on that record. Hopefully the drives will spin up; but I don't know. I have said for years that they need to do it, but whenever I'm over here we don't have enough time. Let's hope that nobody ever needs a multitrack of that! [laughs] George Massenburg [ Tape Op #54] and I were doing a seminar at British Grove recently and we were hammering it into their heads that. "You've got to do documentation," and "File management is so important." Who knows what will be next — 12.6 surround or something where the original multitracks will be required!

You've been recording at 96 kHz for a good while already. Did you think of going even higher, eventually?

CA: We've been recording at 96 kHz for years. Sailing to Philadelphia was also at 96 kHz. Most plug-ins won't run at 192, and you lose the flexibility. Hard disk storage would be pretty ridiculous. Some of the songs we were doing have over 200 tracks; not that they're all being used [in the mix], but from comps and all the different passes. I do like to recapture the mix in 192. You might ask, "What's the point in that?" It's because the resolution is only going to be so great [with a 96 kHz source], but there's something about [how] the higher resolution seems to grab the picture. We're mixing back through an analog desk; the reverbs and everything create their own harmonics. At 96 kHz it's pretty awesome sounding, but at 192 it's the same step up from 48 to 96. It's really a mind-blowing difference.

How do you mic Mark's guitar amps? Do you still use a Neumann U 67, plus a Shure SM57, like on his earlier records?

CA: We've been doing some different things in the first round of tracking. The guitar may be a reference guitar, and he'll want to replay the part. He might put the amp out in the studio where he's got the whole room and he's able to mic it up on its own. But what we generally do is take a DI; if the performance is good, but he likes his new guitar mic'ing or room sounds, I can re-amp it and still use the original pass. We've generally been recording an SM57 and a U 67. Maybe some room mic'ing, depending on the song. If it feels like there needs to be a longer decay in the room we move the mics. [We use Neumann] M50s or M49s, and sometimes a U 47, for room mics. Occasionally we used a Royer R-121 with a SM57 on the last batch of stuff. [British Grove] had the Royers in for trial and they didn't really like the way they sounded. I was saying, "You gotta have Royers. They sound great on guitars, and other things." It's got the right honk to cut through.

The upper midrange...

CA: Yeah, really, it's beautiful sounding. So they ended up buying a couple of R-121s, and a couple of the tube R-122Vs. But they've got an amazing mic closet, with Coles and AEA ribbon mics, a bunch of [Neumann] M 50s, M 49s, U 47s, U 67s, KM 53s, 54s, 56s, U 64s, [Telefunken] 251s, [AKG] C 12s — all the mics one would like to have.

How do you record Mark's National Resonator guitar? The last thing I heard was a Neumann KM 56.

CA: It seems like we're always trying different things, depending on what we're looking for. We'll use C 12 sometimes. Generally I use a ribbon for the National, together with a KM 56. I put the ribbon near the bridge, and the 56 above the finger picking area, and blend the two mics.

I remember when you were talking about drum overheads that you used a pair of AKG C 12s on the Golden Heart record, which was a leftover from the On Every Street sessions.

CA: Actually Mark bought this pair of [AKG] C 12s that came from the BBC when we were working at AIR [Studios]. Bill Schnee had started recording on On Every Street . I don't know who decided on C 12s for overheads, but they had C 12s when I arrived the following week. So when we went to Golden Heart , we carried on with that sound. They sound beautiful on overheads. I think we used C 12s on overheads on the Shangri-La album also. But on the new album we were using DPA 4011s, along with a [Neumann] KM 53, high over the drums. We had an SM57 and a DPA 4011 on the top of the snare drum, and a 4011 on the bottom. I think we were using a Schoeps on the hat. We went between the Sony C-37s on the toms and [Sennheiser] 421s on top. We had these little Electro- Voice dynamics [PL35] underneath the toms. Mostly we were using an AKG D 112 inside the bass drum. Sometimes we pulled it out and used a Neumann U 47 FET outside. Occasionally we'd also use an [AKG] D12 along with it. I use the U 47 FET to add a little warmth to the bass drum for a "front head" sound and combine it with the inside mic to get the attack. A lot of people like to use the Yamaha Subkick, but I don't get it. I really don't like those.

That's a modern sound that probably doesn't fit every style.

CA: Yeah. I use Audio-Technica AT4047 a lot, which I think sounds great on the front head, unless you're going for that double-headed bass drum where it's all about the "boom" — the jazzy thing. The U 47 FET sounds great for that alone, but otherwise you need something else to add to get the attack. In general, with a dynamic, you can get that without that hi-fi attack.

Do you have any favourite preamps?

CA: The Neve 1073s are my general [go-to preamps]. If I had an 8068 [Neve] console, most things would go through that. I do like the 4-band [EQ] with the [Neve] 1081 modules for kick drum and snare drum. Generally, for overheads, hi-hat, and most acoustic instruments, I use the 1073. At home I have these [Sonic Lens] preamps built by this guy at UpState Audio. They sound awesome — really open and clear. I showed George Massenburg the schematic and he said, "The guy's got balls! I had that idea ten years ago, but all the components have to be so precisely matched." They are quite expensive, like $6,000 dollars for a couple of channels. They're beautiful- sounding things. I'll use those for the acoustic stuff when I can. They are very "in your face" and go up to 100 kHz. It seems like every mic you put in sounds as good as it can sound. I like the Martech [MSS-10] pres; I use those a lot back home. Here Mark's got [Telefunken] V76s, and we've got 1081s. That TG12345 console has amazing compressors. Put that on the room mic and, all of a sudden, the room sounds like god. You put them on the Limit setting and crank 'em. We use the vintage tube desk [EMI REDD 51] a lot to try and get really warm things like acoustic instruments or piano. We're changing a lot as we go on. But, in general, if you'd ask me, "What's your favorite microphone and your favorite preamp," I'd probably say a U 67 mic and a 1073 preamp.

Would you prefer tracking with different preamps, or all tracks with the same preamp for some type of coherency?

CA: Some people have that second opinion. I think things get real stodgy when you use [a 1073 for] everything. I'd like to have some things transformerless, or more open sounding, and combine that with the slowness of a transformer. It makes for a more interesting record. If everything was through a 1073 it would sound mushy. I actually had somebody say that they don't like to use all these bits and pieces because they think there's more coherency to the album. But if you're smart about what you're doing...

You have to listen...

CA: Yeah, exactly. There're so many flavors, and some of this stuff — the microphones, the preamps, and the tubes — they all trigger an emotion or a memory, and it makes you go back and pull out memories from previous recordings. So that has an influence on the way I view the record if I'm listening to it. Those "sonic cues," I guess you can call them — I somehow try and reach for those. Just like musicians when they're writing songs and they use musical cues; they're drawing on those to take you to places. Sonically, I try to do the same thing.

But those sonic cues can be dangerous too. Say for an indie band that would like to have an API flavor on their music because it's what their heroes used to use, but it doesn't fit them.

CA: Well, I think that they haven't achieved what they were trying to achieve. They might have had a good idea. There's nothing wrong with a Neve console or an API, and either one of them would be a good console to record on. That's not to say that you've got to have that desk to make a good record! That may be where they were going wrong. Generally, what they think they want to make and what they're making is not the same thing. A young indie band probably doesn't have the experience to get what they want to get either.

There's a difference between your real influences and those you would like to be influenced by.

CA: The main thing with Mark is that he is being Mark and nobody else. Certain songs might lean towards some kind of style, but if you listen to it it's [ultimately] his own style. He might use Scottish or Irish musicians, and the melodies might be reminiscent of an Irish tune in a way, but they're not. He's being an artist. Often record companies sign acts instead of signing artists. You can put clothes on anybody and make a video. It's like this act they've created, whereas Mark is an artist. It's going to be very interesting, whatever he does. If you're making artistic music, it's something that you can live with. It's not something that's made for the moment. We're definitely trying to make music that has lasting qualities about it. And that goes back to the sonics when we're trying to record.

What's the most common mistake an engineer could make regarding an artist?

CA: When engineers begin, they feel like they've got to be the star and that they've got to "make it happen," so they're hooking up all this gear. In reality, it's the musicians that make it happen. One of the important things is to get a great headphone mix. I see so many young guys that don't even put on headphones. They don't listen to what the musicians are listening to. Give the players a great headphone mix for tracking — and not the same as a mix that you'd put in the speakers. It's the kind of mix that musicians can hear and play to; as well as be precise, yet be involved. If everybody's involved in the music, it's going to happen on the floor. There's so much less that you'll have to do in the control room.

How do you record a bass amp if you mic it up? I read that you used the old EMI desk as a DI sometimes.

CA: Yeah, we do that sometimes. Generally I like the big box that Millennia makes [the TD-1]: it's got a tube DI, it can do re-amping, it's got a mic pre, and it's got bass and treble [EQ]. It sounds awesome on bass. I'll use that most of the time back home. Here we were using Telefunken pres with the fixed gain [V72] that Glenn [Saggers, Knopfler's guitar tech] made DI boxes from. We're using Mark's Ampeg B-15 amp. He also has this little Epiphone amp [an old "Junior" with 5- watts, into a Vox AC-30 cabinet] that we were using and overdriving. We were mic'ing both those amps and blending the two. You get more harmonics out of that. We were using a U 47 FET on the B-15.

What would you use on the double bass?

CA: On upright I generally use the Royer R-122V by the neck...

Like at the 12th fret of an acoustic guitar...

CA: Yeah. And then I'll use a [Neumann tube] U 47, straight up from the bridge. And I use a little tiny DPA microphone, the 4099. It has a little clip and a gooseneck, basically mic'ing it straight up at the bridge. I use those to get a lot of growl from that; you get a nice warmth from the body, as well as a percussive thing.

[With Mark in the Neve Room at British Grove]

You had a former home studio in Notting Hill, where you recorded the Notting Hillbillies record Missing... Presumed Having a Good Time in 1990, as well as some of [your solo album] The Ragpicker's Dream. What's the difference between that and British Grove for you?

MK: [laughs] It's the difference between a shitty go-cart and a racecar. [British Grove] is so flexible. You make all your mistakes with your little home studio, and lots of mistakes in other studios, too. I have. This is basically where Chuck and I drew this place up as being somewhere that wouldn't have all the [problems] that you run into over the years. Any recording situation that you envisage, you should be able to do. That's the idea.

If you change studios all the time, and if you rent a studio somewhere, then you have to get used to the place first...

MK: With a lot of other places you've got to fight to get a sound out of them. Partly it's knowing the rules, but you go to battle to get sound sometimes. In here, it seems that people can do stuff and be creative straight away.

One thing I've always wondered — how important is it to strive for the perfect sound to get a song idea across? What does that ratio look like for you?

MK: I don't believe in perfection. I'm not interested in that. I try and make a good record if I can. That's all I'm trying to do. You write a good song and make a good recording of it; that's all it's [about]. But it's easier to do that in a place like this. Just the room- sound alone! It's an enormous difference!

If a room sounds great, you can put up almost any mic and the recording will sound good.

MK: Exactly! And you can work with different microphones and learn what they all do. You really can use the room creatively. It's the same as putting up [Neumann] M 50s for strings — you can put up M50s here for guitars and use the room. That has been a wonderful experience for me. Also, you could play a mandolin in that little booth and have a heavy metal drummer playing in the room and you wouldn't hear it on the mandolin track. So you can go the extremes of recording — you can do a rock-and-roll live recording in the room, which we've done. You can have people isolated, to a certain extent, and control the amount of leakage, if you want to use creative leakage. You put the drums in the room, or in the booth. The Bösendorfer piano can come out into the room, or go into the back booth where it sounds amazing. We're lucky enough to have a fantastic collection of microphones. It's great having a pinnacle of the best in recording, in many ways, with the traditions of recording from both here and in the States. It comes from the experience of the 30-odd years of recording in the States [that I have]. We have that with the API room as well. I love that room. That room is like this; the same sort of dimensions, but it doesn't have the glass there. So you've got the Neve and [the API]. This is a phenomenal sounding control room!

What I'm experiencing right now is the fact that it's not dead. I'm comparing this to so many other control rooms that are damped to perfection, but aren't enjoyable to be in because it feels fatiguing to be around.

MK: Part of the sound is the ATC monitors and the way they're being fitted and rigged. This means that you can play music at a high level and, if you want to, you can talk. You can have a conversation. It will sound great wherever you are in the room. With so many studios, you find that you can put your head in [only] one listening spot and that's it.

How did your personal vision of sound change over the years, from the clear digital of Brothers in Arms to a mostly analog setup for your first solo record Golden Heart in 1996?

MK: I think your palette changes a little bit as time goes on. Some things we recorded with a degree of sophistication, other things we recorded very rough. If we record sessions that are rough and rootsy, we use the Studer [A800].

Is there anyway to avoid making a record sound dated?

MK: Well, the thing about making records is that you're around making all your mistakes when you're experimenting. That's what I was doing — making all my mistakes in public! [laughs] That's what it is, and you just go on.

It's like you have 30 years to make your first record, and everything after that is allotted just a few months.

MK: Yeah! You hope that you're learning something as you're going along. You really do.

You rent out your studio. I remember reading that Peter Gabriel's Real World studio was booked when he wanted to record. Have you faced that situation?

MK: Yeah, but it's supposed to be [available] for people to use. That's also important, because that way, if it is being used all the time, everything is working.

Thomas Dolby was amazed to find out that you keep young interns, and you responded to him that you've got to pass on the knowledge of the analogue gear and techniques.

MK: Yeah, I keep four kids. You know, the main thing [for them] is to keep the tape path clean on those [Studer] A-800s, and the ATRs, and to document everything. I have a number of different mixdown formats: a 1/4-, a 1/2-, and a 1-inch.

[In the API room of British Grove]

MK: That's a beautiful desk. Chuck and I made a record on this in '95 in America. When that studio closed, Chuck gave me a call and said that it was available.

Was that the Golden Heart record?

MK: Yeah.

So you prefer the Neve for recording and the API for mixing?

MK: No, they're both great!

CA: Privateering is actually the first we've mixed on it.

Most of the stuff we've done, we've done on the Neve desk; but we felt that this album was performed in such a way that it didn't need a lot of messing with in the mix. It limits our possibilities; there's not a gate and compressor on every channel, and the EQ is [rather simple].

With your Golden Heart album, I heard it was a pain to mix because some of it was done with tape at 15 IPS with Dolby SR and some at 30 IPS. You had two Studer A800s locked with a Sony PCM-3348.

CA: Yeah, a lot of different formats.

So I guess it's probably helpful that it stays in the same realm at British Grove?

CA: Mark has a CLASP system, and I bring up my CLASP so we can run two 16-tracks straight into the computer, along with things that you want to record direct to digital. It's all synced up. That way we can record 32 tracks of analogue and digital at the same time.

MK: We put 16-track heads on the 2-inch machines.

CA: As for mixing, we have another Pro Tools system set up at 192 [kHz]. We tracked at 96 kHz, but we have that set up at 192, with Prism and Apogee converters. We have three ATR 100s in the machine room; one is a 1/4-inch, one is a 1/2-inch, and one is a 1-inch. We can sit here and A/B all the different formats and pick the one that suits [the mix].

MK: We've got about six different mixdown formats and, you know, any studio should be really be happy with one! But they're all different. It's amazing how quickly you can make a choice. Because one system will work for a particular song.

How do you choose outboard gear? What criteria do you apply sonically?

CA: I use as much as I can so I look impressive! [laughs] MK: [laughs] We really don't use that much. It's quite simple.

Well, most of the time, less is more.

CA: We try and capture the sound going in so we make a choice on where we're heading with the record sonically. A lot of these choices are from years of doing this.

MK: My [vocal] mic might be done with a bit of a Teletronix LA-2A, but there's nothing revolutionary.

But didn't it take years for many engineers to get back to working simply?

MK: It's quite simple [here]. Also the components, as well as the routing, are all very good. When you put the drums on it's like a great wine; it comes through very pure. So you're hearing everything very well. It's like you say, "You respond to what you hear."

CA: I think the engineer was becoming the star for a while. These New York guys were getting points for a mix, with all their outboard gear. The real star is the artist; if you can make them feel comfortable, and get them hearing [themselves] well in the studio, they're going to do it all for you. You don't have to do so much, really.

I've read that you feel you don't have a "sound."

CA: I try to make things sound good — or sound "bad" good. I think I try to approach the sounds for each song, rather than to have my own sound and force a song into that.

MK: If the song is good, that's a start. If you've got great musicians, they will become partly arrangers themselves.

Where did you get these two EMI desks?

CA: The bigger EMI, the TG, came out of Lagos, Nigeria. It was the one that Geoff Emerick used to track the Band on the Run album for Paul McCartney [with Wings]. The other is a REDD 51. It's the last of its kind and of the vintage that The Beatles used at Abbey Road. It came out of Italy. Both have been completely refurbished.

Did you two design the studio together?

CA: I remember we'd been working at AIR Studios, and Mark and I were sitting in the dining area. We started writing on a napkin what we liked about the studios we'd worked in, as well as what we didn't like. We started making a list.

Mark already talked about the sound in the live room. What else did you want to optimize at British Grove?

CA: In most control rooms, you feel cold air all the time. Because of the heat of the console, it seems like the air is pumping so much to make the console cool down. But everybody is freezing in the back of the room. The air conditioning [here] is done in such a way that it flows into the room and keeps the equipment cool, but you don't ever feel cold. It feels comfortable in here; you want to be in here all day long. Sonically your voice sounds right in the room, it doesn't sound all muffled and dead because the room is too absorbing. And you don't hear your voice all over the place because it's not too live. Then there's the idea of having the rear speakers on tracks. Different people have different opinions about the rear speakers and where they ought to be. But the one thing that is standardized is that they should always be equal distance to the listening position. So we had this track built where you could have the speakers at any angle to the listening position. Elliot Scheiner wants to have the speakers all the way back, like 145 degrees. Generally, 135 degrees from center is now considered the optimum angle. But film people still like it at 110, so you can put 'em wherever you want. What's unbelievable about them is that you can actually sit and listen. You can pan things and get them to where a pan feels right when it's going all the way around.