Harvey Gerst has been a major-label musician (the Villagers, Sweetwater), hit songwriter (the Byrds), product designer (Acoustic, JBL), engineer, and producer. I his 60's, he repays his perceived debt to those who helped him by sharing his experience with novices on several Internet discussion forums. In response to one question about microphone diaphragm sizes, Harvey replied with a treatise on the history, design, and applications of microphones. He posted chapters over a period of months, complete with photos, graphs, and diagrams, all for free.
His son, Alex Gerst, is a rising star and award-winning producer. His early recordings generated interest that led to the creation of Indian Trail Studios. In recent years the Gersts have overhauled their small facility, nestled in Sanger, sleepy pastureland about 30 miles north of Dallas, Texas. They've constructed a large live room with design suggestions from George Augsperger, cut out a wall to haul in an 11-foot MCI JH-556D mixing desk, and soffit-mounted a pair of 7-foot tall full range custom JBL monitors.
You began as a guitarist.
H: At about 17, I discovered folk music and started playing in clubs. My best friend was working at JBL and got me a job there. I started learning about speakers and amplifiers. One day I said, "Why don't we come out with a line of musical instrument speakers?" The boss said, "Okay. Go do it!" That's what became the D130f, and the 120f. Meanwhile I'm running sound at clubs, hanging around with Roger McGuinn, Dick Rosmini, Rick Ruskin — giants of guitar. I learned very quickly that I wasn't a great guitar player. I was good at rhythm 'cause I knew all these jazz chords. We'd be playing and they'd go, "Take it, Harvey!" and I'd go, "No!" I was happier playing rhythm. I was no threat to anybody. I was in a group called the Men. Roger McGuinn used to hang out when we were playing at the Troubadour. We were the only ones that loved The Beatles. Everybody in the folk community hated rock 'n roll. Roger and I sat down and wrote a couple songs. Next he started the Jet Set, then the Beefeaters, and then the Byrds. The first two songs they did were the two that he and I had written. All of a sudden I'm getting a gold record and royalties. I quit the Men, and they changed their name to the Association.
Everyone knows it's "Wendy"?
H: And "Cherish", "Along Comes Mary". I was still designing speakers and living off of Byrds' royalties. A friend of mine says, "I'm sales manager of this amplifier company, Acoustic Control. Come check it out." I go play the amp and say, "This is the worst I've ever played!" A week later my friend quit cause he couldn't sell 'em. I went back to the owner of the company and said, "I don't think I impressed upon you how bad these amps really are." By that time the place was deserted. His father was fronting him money. He said, "Well, what would you do?" I told him, and the next thing I know, I've been there for eight years designing Acoustic amps. [I took] one year off. I heard this group called Sweetwater. A friend said, "God they're terrible!" I said, "No, with a bit of work they could be a major group." He bet me, so I took off for a year, got them management, got them a record contract with Warner Brothers. They opened for Joplin and Hendrix and the Doors. I ended up as their guitarist for two years.
How did you end up in Texas?
H: About four years later, Alex was born. I guess it was about '70. Jim Morrison died. Jimi Hendrix died. Janis Joplin died. [Alan Wilson] from Canned Heat died. I'm looking around and thinking, "This is not a healthy place to raise a family." I talked to the guys at Roland and said I want to get out of L.A. They said, "Want to be a rep?" I thought, sure why not? I stayed for about eight months in Holliston, Massachusetts, and hated it. In the meantime, I got a Tandy TRS 80 computer. I was really burned out on the music business. In '78 I happened to see that Tandy in Fort Worth was looking for somebody to write manuals for their new TRS 80 computers. I'd done manuals for Acoustic, JBL, and others. I called Tandy and sent them all my brochures. The guy in charge of computer applications is a keyboard player. Guess what amp he owns?
An Acoustic?
H: Right. Next thing I know, a big van liner arrives, loads me up, and hauls me down here to Texas! I worked there five years. One day I'm walking in downtown Fort Worth, about 1987, and coming the other way is Jerry Freed, president of International Music Company, the North American distributor of Akai. They owned Jackson, Charvel, Ross, and others. As we get closer, he finally goes, "Harvey?" I said, "Hi Jerry." "What are you doing in Texas?" I said, "I've been here for nine years working for Tandy." He hands me his business card and says, "We're down the street. Be in my office Monday morning, eight o'clock." I walk in, and he said, "We need a new Director of Electronics and you're it." I started cranking out products for them. I went to my first NAMM show after nine years absence. I renewed these old friendships and got back in the music industry. I lasted at International Music about two years. Jerry Freed was a slave driver. I was working seven days a week, fourteen hours a day. When I left I was writing a manual for the Akai 1214, and I had one at the house that uses the Beta tapes. I bought that and an Akai F900. We moved out here to Sanger about '87. Alex was about eighteen and had been in a few bands. We had our little home studio for demos with Karen and me, and occasionally Alex's band. Alex worked for this audio rental place, and everybody there was in a band. They were all bringing in cassettes of their bands' recordings at studios around Dallas. Alex would play them his tape and just blow everybody away. They'd all go, "Wow! Where'd you do that?" "My dad's bedroom." They'd say, "Can we record there?" I had decent mics, a $10,000 Akai unit, and some pretty rudimentary equipment, but I knew how to use it. Alex kept saying, "We really ought to open this thing up to the public." And I said, "I really don't want to."
When was this?
A: This was like '92. All the demos from studios around here sounded awful. Ours were just so much better that bands just started coming in. We never advertised at first.
H: I don't want to charge by the hour, though we do make that option available now. Initially we'd charge bands $50 a song, and you'd get a finished product. Because every studio I'd go to in Dallas, money was a big focus. When I was in L.A., you didn't think about money in the studio! You'd concentrate on the music. I wanted to get that kind of feel. Have 'em pay the money up front and then we don't think about it anymore. Slow Roosevelt took off like a shot — they're signed to Sony now.
A: They helped finish the room. I've been working with those guys since '95 when they formed. We'd started Slow Roosevelt in the small room because they had a deadline. We ended up with the drum kit in there and ran a snake out to the new console. While Mike, Dad, and Karen were wiring the new room, the drummer was playing in the small room with the rest of the band out in the living room for ambience. By the time we finished the second song, we were ready to move the whole operation into the big room. The night before, we turned everything on once — okay this works — and said good enough.
H: I'm on the phone with George Augsperger. George and I lived in the same building when we worked at JBL. He went on to teach acoustics at the University of Chicago, and later started a company called Perceptions Incorporated. They've done most of the major studios around the world. I called him and he said, "Here's some stuff you can do." This is the only "George Augsperger" room in North Texas.
But you guys had the small room running for years before that?
A: Since about '92. We always wanted a bigger space. Harvey and Karen got a new place. As soon as they moved out, we tore all the walls out from here back [indicates the entire building beyond the small room]. I called every band I knew with someone in construction, and they all came out. Bands built this whole thing.
The small room was the birth of Indian Trail, which was started with the 12-track?
A: Initially. Then we went 24-track with the [Tascam] DA38s. We were the launch pad for a lot of bands that are getting noticed these days.
H: When it came time to put the speakers in the new big room, I had the ones JBL's chief engineer had designed and hand-made himself. We can do serious mastering on it. They're flat from 27 Hz to 22 kHz, plus or minus one dB. No subs needed.
You did a mic once at IMC, right?
H: The mic I designed back in '87 is a forerunner to all the inexpensive mics you see now. It was a four-pattern microphone with a 10 dB pad and a bass roll-off — $349 suggested list. I built prototypes. We advertised in Mix magazine. We took it to AES and NAMM. Everybody wanted 'em, but Jerry Freed didn't want to get in the mic business. I was just puking, because I had done this all on my own time. I was talking to my friend Dick Rosmini back in California. He said, "I'm consulting for Astatic, and they're looking for an inexpensive microphone design. Can I use it?" I said sure and sent him all the schematics. He said, "That's really clever. You'll get credit for it." Next thing I know, Astatic, which owns CAD, comes out with the E200! I called Dick and he said, "Yeah, that's your mic." So I asked "Could I get a pair of them at least?" He said, "Should be easy. Just tell 'em who you are. I told 'em who the idea came from." I couldn't get anybody to return my phone calls.
Having heard the E200, how good a job did they do with your design?
H: They didn't do a great job of it. I'd found a company in Taiwan that made a little cardioid 1/2 inch capsule. You got a tray of 100 capsules and there were maybe twenty that were killer. If you matched these up, you got something that did sound very similar to a Neumann U87 with all the patterns. I like to think I was in some small way responsible for bringing the prices down. At that time the cheapest multi-pattern microphone was the AKG 414 at $1,400. It made these companies look at lower price alternatives. When I do these [online] reviews I keep a little more open mind about mics. I kinda backed into becoming a reviewer. When we got the [Neumann] TLM103, the first review I ever did, I cut a whole record with it. That was on the first R.A.P. CD [a collection of recordings made by members of the rec.audio.pro discussion board]. Everybody on rec.audio.pro was asking if anybody had heard the TLM103. I got one from Fletcher's first batch. I was producing this alt-country guy, and I thought here's a quick way to test the mic. If I time it just right I can get this in as my contribution to the compilation. I'll do everything with the TLM103 — vocals, violin, guitars. Everybody that heard it went, "Whoa! Cool mic!" Then Fletcher says, "You guys really ought to hear this [FMR] RNC." He was the first one that really turned everybody in the industry on to it. Based on what he said, and the fact they were $199, I ordered one directly from Mark McQuilken. At the same time I'd struck up a friendship with the Neutrik rep for Texas, and he said, "Wanna play with our test station?" It measures frequency response, distortion, everything. I got set up with this $5,000 acoustic test station. I opened my mailbox one morning and there's the RNC. I thought, let's see what this thing can really do. I set it for minus 6 dB threshold and looked through the scope. I checked the noise level. It was minus 137 dB. Whoa! I switched the Neutrik to wideband, which was zero to 200,000 cycles [Hz]. I'm sweeping this thing with 6 dB of compression on it all the way out to 200,000 cycles, and it's still at zero! The RNC's literature only claims out to 100 k and a noise rating of minus 120 dB. So I checked for distortion. It claims .003. It measured .0000012! I called up McQuilken and said, "I just bought one of your RNCs. I have an A2 test station here, and I'm getting some weird results." He says, "Like what?" "Well, you claim the thing is 1 dB down at 100 k. I'm sitting out here at 200 k, and I see maybe a quarter of a dB?" He said, "That's about right." "You claim minus 120 dB noise level. I'm reading minus 137." He said, "That's typical." "Well, for distortion you claim .003, and I'm getting .0000012." He said, "Yeah." I said, "Why aren't you printing those results?" He said, "Because nobody would believe it." So I got on rec.audio.pro and told this story, and his sales shot up.
You also wrote about the Oktava mics from the Sound Room.
H: People online would say they're crap. Taylor Johnson called me one day, introduced himself and said, "I'd like you to listen to these mics." I said, "Okay, but whatever I find I will print on rec.audio.pro — good, bad or otherwise." I wasn't crazy about the 219. The 319 wasn't bad. Then I get to the MC012 with the three capsules, and I went, "This is pretty nice!" Then I stuck the Lomo large diaphragm head on there and went, "Oh my God! This sounds like an old Neumann!" I dutifully report my findings and suddenly became the unofficial Russian microphone poster boy. At the next AES I met Brent Casey and said I'd really like to test all the MXL mics. We got them in December 2000, and I posted my impressions in January. Weston Ray, moderator from homerecording.com/bbs, brought that posting over to Home Rec. I recommended the V67, the 2003, and the 603s. Again, sales shot up times six.
When did you work with Al Schmitt?
H: In '63 while I was working for JBL and still playing folk music, I started a band called the Villagers. We were on tour playing Carnegie Hall, Preservation Hall, and Freedom Hall. I get a call from our manager saying, "Come back to L.A. I got you signed to RCA Victor." Al Schmitt was our producer, and we became friends. Flash forward a few years to Jefferson Airplane. Who's their producer? Al Schmitt. What amplifiers are they using? Acoustic. I also resumed friendships with Dave Lindley and Jackson Browne the same way. Dave used to play the folk clubs with me, and Jackson used to sleep on my floor. They end up being produced by Al and using Acoustic amps also. I got to hang out with Al in the control room on a lot of sessions. I learned a lot about mic technique and got to watch him twiddle knobs and listen to balances. We'd discuss stereo versus mono. I did demos at Sunset Sound, Goldstar, or with Dave Hassinger at Sound Factory with Linda Ronstadt. I'm hanging out at all these studios getting to know all these great engineers, and more importantly, occasionally twiddling knobs. I started doing some producing and engineering. I still play guitar and bass. Alex still plays drums.
A: Haven't lately.
H: He's been putting in 14-hour days here.
A: On some stuff I end up playing drums and engineering at the same time.
How?
A: It's kinda tough. Usually I'll get Harvey in there to set the levels, or I'll get one of the players to test the drums while I set the levels and get the tone, then have someone else operate the board and tape machine while I play. I cut the drum tracks, then switch back to being engineer or producer.
H: The important thing for us, because we charge by the song, is to have the efficiency to move bands through quickly. That's why we invested in the headphone mixing stations for the tracking room. You can do your own headphone mix quickly. We don't wind up spending an hour just getting a mix for everybody. That's also why we have three sets of drums, two Les Pauls, a Fender Strat, an ESP, a Nashville six, a twelve-string, nylon strings, and a selection of amplifiers. We keep it all in immaculate condition. Drumheads are regularly changed out. For the guitars, we have a luthier, so our guitars all play like butter and stay in tune. We don't spend a lot of time trying to get their crappy equipment to work.
A: A lot of people come in with guitars that won't stay in tune. Of course it comes across in the recording — every defect in the equipment, especially on the drums. Most studios' weak point is their drum sound. That's where we specialize.
H: All our drums are tuned for the room.
A: Or for the songs. I'll tune them for the key of the song too.
Harvey, I know you like the Behringer ECM8000's as drum overheads. Is that a spaced pair?
