by Ramone, Phil
“The most remarkable characteristic of A1 was the leakage. No matter what you recorded there—mass ensembles, big bands, little bands, or a soloist—it sounded good. There was a formula: You knew that the ambience, leakage, and echo sounded a certain way and if you put the instruments where they needed to go, you got an unbelievably smooth, transparent sound.
“There were places in the room where certain instruments sounded their best. When I heard the elongated string sound on the Midnight Cowboy theme, I was blown away—and that was before I worked there! I later learned that the strings were purposely recorded in the back left corner, which had a high-frequency air to it.
“A1 was a large room—the footprint was nearly 2,000 square feet—and once the sound left an instrument it was reflected off the floor because the walls were so far away. If you stomped on the floor, it went Boom! It sounded like you’d struck the head of a drum, because of the way it was floated. There are only three other places in the world where I know this happens: Skywalker Ranch, Symphony Hall in Boston, and Carnegie Hall in New York,” David concluded.
Hearing is believing, and if you’d like to hear why everyone loved the sound of 799 Seventh Avenue, you might sample some of the important singles that were recorded there: B.J. Thomas’s “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”; the Midnight Cowboy version of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”; Dionne Warwick’s “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “This Girl’s in Love with You”; and Simon and Garfunkel’s “My Little Town.”
Then, there are the famous albums: Van Morrison’s Moondance; Elton John’s first American concert broadcast, 11-17-70; Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years; Phoebe Snow’s Phoebe and Second Childhood; Kenny Loggins’s Celebrate Me Home; Billy Joel’s The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, and The Nylon Curtain; and the very last recording I made before the building was razed in 1984, Frank Sinatra’s L.A. Is My Lady.
When I think about A&R and the other defunct East Coast studios of that era, I remind myself that while the structures may be gone, the records that were made there will outlive us all.
Listening to the Orchestra “in the room,” 2003 Phil Ramone Collection
TRACK 12
The Session
Few music lovers get to hear music as it sounds when it’s being created in the studio.
Once you start locking doors, turning off the phones, and hanging up signs that say CLOSED SESSION, people get curious.
Who can blame them? The allure of the studio is what brought me into the business, and knowing a bit about what happens during a recording session will help bring you closer to the music.
I’ll start by explaining how I operate on a typical day when I’m recording.
On the first day of a project I need to be as focused as possible. I get up early, have a cup of tea, and leave for the studio. The time I spend alone in the car gives me a chance to think about the work we’re about to do. During my hour-long drive I concentrate on the music, listening to the artist’s rehearsal tapes and demos.
If I call anyone from the car, it’s my production assistant or the engineer. I’ll ask if everything is on schedule, and whether they have looked at the drawing that shows how I want the musicians seated and where the microphones should be placed. While the assistant engineers will get them in position, I still like to tweak the placement of microphones myself.
I expect everything to be set when I arrive at the studio.
Production is a team effort, and when I go into the studio to begin a new project I feel confident that the key players on my team are watching my back.
A dedicated office staff is essential to keeping my professional life on track, and through the years I’ve been blessed with some of the best executive assistants in the business. Today, Nancy Munoz and Lisa Perez keep my schedule on an even keel.
One of the people I rely on most to keep things running smoothly in the studio is my production coordinator, Jill Dell’Abate. Jill sets up recording budgets, hires the musicians, and books studio time. She knows the very best musicians in each city we work in, whether it’s New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, Paris, or London.
A savvy production coordinator can make or break a project. So can a competent recording engineer and technical crew.
I’ve noticed that many of my technical associates share a work ethic that’s similar to a professional athlete’s.
In baseball, players are rated according to five tools: speed, power, instinct, defensive skills (fielding), and offensive skills (hitting). A five-tool athlete is considered an elite player who’s in a league of his own.
The same rubric can be applied to recording engineers and record producers—and how they approach their responsibilities during a session. Here are the five tools that will help insure success in the studio:
Treat your artist well
Know the most direct way to record
Know which microphones to use
Know where to place the microphones
Trust what you hear
There are hundreds of electronic connections in the recording chain, and the time to find out that there’s a hum in the line or that a recorder isn’t working is not when we hit “Record.” Unnecessary delays cost time and money, and cause tension.
Before a session, I question the crew:
“Did you test the microphone by having someone sing into it?”
“Has someone sat and played the drums to get a rough balance?”
“Have you checked the headphones and cue mixes?”
“Did you make a test recording to be sure that all of the cables and recorders are working as you expect? Just because the meters work doesn’t mean that the sound is good…”
The cue mixes—what the musicians and vocalists hear in their headphones—are vital to me, and I encourage my engineers to keep a pair of headphones handy so they can listen closely if the singer goes out of tune, which is the first sign of a problem with their cue mix.
Have they got enough pitch? Are their phones too loud, or too soft? Is there enough rhythm? Can they hear themselves, or are they hearing too much of their own voice? A glitch in any of those areas can send a vocalist off key in a second.
I expect my engineers to be in tune with the room, the artist, and me at all times. If a guitarist is playing a guitar solo and I say, “Punch in the middle four bars,” I count on the engineer who is running the recorder to listen closely. If the solo is over but the player is still blazing away, I don’t want to have to say, “Don’t punch out—keep recording it.”
When the artist arrives at the studio, I greet them myself.
If the artist isn’t familiar with the arranger or musicians on the date, I’ll make the necessary introductions. I’ll offer them tea, coffee—whatever they need to help keep them fresh. Vocalists especially need hot beverages available to hydrate the vocal cords and keep congestion at bay.
I’ll go out into the studio to be sure that the music stand and lighting are adjusted to their liking, that their headphones are comfortable, and that the cue mix we’re giving them is what they need.
Listening “in the room” also gives me a snapshot of what we should be striving to capture on tape. The most important thing I can do for the artist before we begin recording is to make sure that they’re singing or playing into the right microphone.
I lavish generous attention on the selection and placement of microphones, and the types of microphones and techniques engineers and producers use to capture the sounds of the orchestra could fill a book.
Because I often work with singers, getting a clean vocal is my number one concern. The voice is a superb instrument with infinite color, and there are many variables that go into choosing the right microphone for a vocalist.
Some singers (such as Elton John and Billy Joel) have a lot of dynamic range; they can go from a whisper to a shout in an instant. Others (such as Paul Simon and Dionne Warwick) have good tonal range,
but they don’t sing loudly.
When I begin working with a singer, we’ll put up a selection of two or three mikes and record them singing into each one. When we play back the sample recordings I might say, “My personal favorite for you is number two—I think it expresses your warmth,” or, “This microphone will allow us to hear all of the color in your voice, but you’re going to have to ‘play’ the mike.”
The mike I choose also depends on the physicality of a vocalist’s performance style. Some artists can stand still in front of a directional microphone and stay within the scope of its sensitivity. Others move around when they sing, which requires either a different microphone or another sensitivity pattern setting.
Generally, condenser and ribbon microphones work best for vocals.
When Judy Collins came to A&R to record Judith (which included “Send in the Clowns”), I wasn’t pleased with the sound that my standard vocal mikes were giving me. Judy’s voice is delicate, and I found that a Sony C37—a microphone I wouldn’t normally use on a vocalist—gave her vocal timbre extra body and warmth.
The C37 also helped me bring the warm expressiveness of Peter, Paul and Mary to their records that I recorded, including two of their biggest singles: “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “I Dig Rock and Roll Music.”
As I mentioned earlier, when I first began recording them, Peter, Paul and Mary all sang into one microphone. I’d set them up around a single omnidirectional mike, and away they’d go. After a while we switched to using three microphones because they felt it gave them better control over their sound.
I favored placing Mary’s microphone in the center, with Peter to her right and Noel to her left, in a semicircle. Giving them each their own mike definitely helped me: I fed each vocal mike to a separate track on the tape, and it was much easier to make edits with three separated vocal tracks. I wanted a close, intimate sound on the guitars, and miked them with a pair of Neumann KM54s.
Billy Joel’s vocal mike was a Beyer M160 dynamic ribbon, and it worked well because of the rejection—its ability to nullify all but the sound that came directly into the top. Since we recorded Billy live with the band, the Beyer helped keep most of the piano and drums out of his vocal track. That microphone also gave Billy a big, smooth sound without a trace of distortion.
Because he overdubbed his vocals, I didn’t need to worry much about leakage of other instruments into Paul Simon’s mike. The Neumann U87 or a Sennheiser shotgun condenser microphone reproduced his voice beautifully.
I kept special microphones—such as those used by Judy Collins, Paul Simon, and Billy Joel—wrapped in velvet bags, and locked them in engineer Jim Boyer’s microphone case, or my office. Our vocal mikes never left their cases unless the artist was in the studio. Vocal microphones were rarely used on other instruments—and never on an instrument that produced high sound-pressure levels, such as a drum, trumpet, or electric guitar amp.
Conversely, I took the precaution of keeping the microphones that I liked to use on bass and drums out of circulation.
Assigning microphones to specific instruments or artists, then keeping them out of circulation is critical.
When a vocalist sings into a microphone, the fine misting from their saliva coats the inside of the capsule, making it in essence their own personal instrument. If you send that microphone out to be cleaned, it will never sound exactly the same again.
To maintain consistency, I ask every engineer I work with to keep a record of the make, model, and serial number of the microphones we use on a session. I also ask that the studio keep the most critical microphones used on a project (vocal or instrumental soloists mikes) out of circulation until the record has been mixed and mastered.
What happens after we’ve set up the microphones and the musicians are in place? I begin setting the levels by calling for each instrument to play:
“Strings, letter C, first four bars please. Thank you.”
“Muted trumpets, letter B. Okay, can I hear them open? Thanks.”
“Percussion, can you give me a timpani roll, please? All right…”
I move through each section, and they respond as quickly as I speak. This exercise assures me that everything is working properly.
Are the faders set at the appropriate volume? Is there any distortion? Does the sound I’m hearing through the board match what I heard while I was standing out in the studio?
Once I’m satisfied, I’ll ask the conductor to run through a song so I can get a balance.
The best way to get a starting mix in the control room is to open up microphones quickly and get the padding (how loud or soft each mike should be) established right away. Then, you can begin finessing the color, and adjusting how loud one instrument is compared to another. That becomes a mix. What doesn’t become a mix is when you’re fussing around with things to satisfy your ego.
The time you have to get a rough mix is limited, and in the early days I could be impatient about it.
When I was coming up the ranks no one ever said, “You’ve got fifty minutes to get the balance—take your time and give us your best sound.” What they said was, “Give us your best sound in rehearsal—we’re going to roll the tape now.” I can’t tell you how many times I wasn’t ready. You adjust on the fly, and on the playback if you can. In those days we weren’t recording on multitracks, and once you set your balances, you were stuck with it.
Once I’m satisfied with the setup and balances, we’re ready to record.
Before I bring you backstage to visit Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Billy Joel in the recording studio, I’ve got to mention my philosophy on two things that often cause distractions during a session: telephones and visitors.
There are two places where phone calls are unwelcome: the bedroom and the studio.
Years ago, when we called a break the musicians would rush out to the lobby and call their answering services to find out where their next gig was. Nowadays, a sea of cell phones comes out and everyone makes calls from the studio. I have no qualms about telling an artist that unless it’s a dire emergency, the studio telephones must be turned off until the break.
The topic of visitors is a bit thornier.
I prefer to maintain a closed-door policy when we’re recording, but it’s not uncommon for an artist or band member to ask if they can bring a cousin, friend, music student, or their mom to a session. When the visitor arrives I politely say, “Please sit next to me and wait for the break to ask questions.”
Why is having a visitor in the studio such a big deal? Visitors can cause distractions.
You’ve also got to trust those who visit the studio, and be certain that they understand that what they’re seeing and hearing is in its most basic form. Eavesdropping on a recording session is like watching the rough cut of a film: There are notes to be fine-tuned, volumes to be adjusted, and instruments to be balanced so they sound proportional. Those things won’t happen until we edit, mix, and master the record.
If I know that we’re expecting a visit from someone special—the artist’s mom or dad, let’s say—I’ll be sure to stay late to prepare a couple of mixes for them to enjoy. Why not? They’re the ones who made sacrifices—got the kid lessons and maybe moved from place to place with them for the sake of their talent when the artist was young. I think about things like that because I remember the sacrifices my family made for me.
Although it may be rough, what we play for any visitor has to sound good. I don’t want Mom, Dad, the artist’s manager, or a record company representative to say, “I can’t hear my son/daughter/client’s voice.”
Like many stars, Billy Joel traveled with a small entourage, and we devised an equitable way of handling all the family, friends, and record executives who wanted to visit his sessions.
When we were recording, Billy’s retinue wouldn’t come to the studio until the end of the week. It took the heat off of Billy. “Tell them it’s my house rule that visitors can only come in on Friday night,” I said. Billy (or any other
artist) could overrule me—and they sometimes did—but Friday seemed like an appropriate time to relax and enjoy the work we’d slaved over all week.
If it had been a productive week, we might have one or two finished songs to play for everyone. I’d get a couple bottles of wine, the band and their friends would sit around, and we’d enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Those Friday-night soirees were great fun.
Elizabeth Joel (Billy’s first wife and manager), Brian Ruggles (his concert soundman), and Steve Cohen (his lighting director) would usually show up. We knew when they liked what they were hearing ’cause they’d holler and cheer like mad!
After listening, we’d either open more wine and replay the songs, or go out for dinner. There were many Friday afternoons, though, when we found ourselves in the midst of a bang-up session and said, “Let’s not have any interruption tonight.”
En route to the Grammys with Simon, Matt, and Karen, late 1970s Phil Ramone Collection
I must say that I loved when my wife and sons dropped by the studio. My older boys, Simon and Matt, enjoyed seeing “Uncle Paul” (Simon’s namesake), or “Uncle Billy.” When my youngest son BJ was born, we named him after Billy Joel.
Record company people always wanted to visit, and they had the right to come in at any time to hear what we were doing. In addition to hanging with the stars, they liked to keep an eye on their investment.
I never wanted to play an executive or A&R rep something that was too far removed from the final product, so I’d say, “Why don’t you come in after the second week, and I’ll play you three tracks?”
In the days before they arrived, I would obsess over every detail.
Which tracks should we play? How should I mix them? What order should we play them in? How loud should we play them?
Record executives loved getting the royal treatment, and Billy Joel has a way of schmoozing ’em like no one else I know. When we held playback sessions for the label people, Billy would mingle and share some of the stories behind the songs. His presence—and his irrepressible passion for the records he was making—went a long way toward keeping the label people happy.