by Ramone, Phil
Looking back, I’m not sure how Jim Boyer and I functioned—let alone survived. One night Jim left the studio and walked into the Beverly Hilton with a fifteen-foot piece of two-inch recording tape stuck to his shoe. He was so tired it took him a few minutes to realize why everyone was staring as he crossed the lobby.
Not long after I began working on Yentl, fellow producer Tom Dowd visited me. When he looped back through Hollywood a few months later, he was shocked to find that I was still at it. “Phil, you look green,” he said. “I’ve made two albums in the last three months, and you’re still sitting in the same damned chair!”
Although the original masters were analog, it was a real kick when CBS/Sony chose Billy Joel’s 52nd Street to be the very first commercial CD ever released.
When Sony asked me to remaster the album for that first CD, I insisted on replicating the original two-track mix that Jim Boyer and I had made for the original LP. I didn’t want to use the LP assembly master that contained EQ and other processing; I wanted the first-generation multitrack mixdown tape, so I asked Columbia to give me the tape I’d originally handed in so we’d have prime sources for re-mastering. Even though Sony was their Japanese partner, CBS was reluctant to let the tape out, and agreed to do so only when I promised to carry it to and from Japan myself (it stayed on my lap the whole time).
52nd Street packed a solid punch, and the CD remaster we did in Japan sounded much better than the LP, with improved clarity and strikingly deep bass. People don’t understand the physical limitations of vinyl, but we could never have translated the deep bottom end we heard on the master tape to an LP. Going from LP to CD was like going from black-and-white TV to color.
During my trip to Japan, I spent a lot of time with Sony executive Norio Ohga. Ohga gave me a CD player, and when I got back to the States I took the player and the 52nd Street CD to WPLJ-FM in New York and asked if they’d listen to the new format. They played a couple of the CD tracks on the air, and the telephones started to ring.
“Why does what you are playing sound so much better?” callers asked. Even with all of the wires, antennae, compressors, and transmitters that an FM radio signal goes through, people could hear the difference.
Another example of how technology can be adapted to what we do in the studio is the EDNet fiber-optic system—a digital cable system that transmits high-fidelity sound from one studio to another using sophisticated telephone links, and Dolby encoders and decoders.
When I started talking about using fiber-optic phone lines to make Frank Sinatra’s Duets, my colleagues thought I was crazy. My response was, “The technology is there to serve. Why not use it?” With EDNet, a producer can record an orchestra in New York, a vocalist in California, and background singers in Chicago—all at the same time. How could that be bad?
The question I debated when considering the use of EDNet on Duets was “Can I make it easier for Frank Sinatra to be in the studio, and have a good time?”
Don’t forget: Practically everything Sinatra did in his career was live. Even his studio sessions were recorded live with the band, in front of a small, invited audience. In his prime, Sinatra was the guy who said, “If we can’t get it within the first few takes, there’s something wrong with us.” His commitment to excellence taught me a valuable lesson about immediacy, and from the moment I met and worked with him in 1967 it became the core of my work ethic.
Recording Sinatra’s Duets wasn’t just about technology—it was about how to get the other performers attuned to his style of singing. I tried to make it as easy as possible for them to harmonize with Frank, even though he wasn’t in the room.
I created lyric sheets that broke down every line, so we could map out which lines the duet partner would sing (it’s something I do for all the duets I record). We adjusted the orchestrations in some spots, because when one vocalist sings to another vocalist’s prerecorded track the keys don’t always match. I remember Natalie Cole saying, “I thought I could just phrase with him so easily—it took me a half hour to figure it out.” Sinatra did musical things that no one had ever thought to do.
Original lyric leadsheet for Gladys Knight–Frank Sinatra recording, Duets, 1993 Phil Ramone Collection
When you tell someone, “You’re going to sing a duet with Frank Sinatra,” they say, “Wow! Thank you!” The magic moment was when they first heard his voice—the most incredible voice of any time—coming into their headphones. Imagine a twenty-two-year-old rookie ballplayer stepping out onto the field for the first time with one of their boyhood idols. No matter who you were, Sinatra made you feel like a rookie again.
I flew to Detroit to record Aretha Franklin, because she wanted to be looking at me when she sang to Sinatra’s vocal. The first time I played his recording of the song it frightened her. “Can I do this?” she asked. “Of course you can,” I assured her. Few artists respect talent as much as Aretha does, and that made it a beautiful affair. After she finished adding her part she said, “I need to write Frank a letter to let him know how much I love this.” “Why don’t you tell him on tape?” I suggested. “It’ll mean so much more if he can hear it from you.”
Taking the duets idea a step further, Danny Bennett—Tony’s son and manager—called me in 1997 and asked if we could pair his dad’s voice with an existing record by Billie Holiday.
Tony was recording On Holiday, a tribute album of Billie’s songs, and he wanted to end the record by singing, “God Bless the Child” with Holiday, who had died in 1959. The problem was that Billie never recorded the song in stereo, so there was no way to isolate and extrapolate her vocal.
Columbia A&R man Don DeVito wasn’t deterred, and searched until he found a 16mm film featuring Billie singing “God Bless the Child” from the 1940s. The arrangement was sparse (piano, bass, guitar, trumpet, and sax), and the rhythm section was placed so far back in the mix that you could barely hear Count Basie’s piano. The recording’s redeeming factor was the vocal: Billie’s voice had been well miked, and it was clear.
Here’s where the wonders of digital sound restoration came into play.
First, we cleaned the film’s audio track by transferring it to digital and processing it through CEDAR and Sonic Solutions noise reduction systems. These computer programs miraculously remove the ticks, pops, hisses, and clicks from vintage discs, tapes, and films, and they worked wonders with the Billie Holiday soundtrack.
Then, I asked arranger Rob Mounsey to help identify and isolate as many of the instrumental notes in the original film performance as possible. Using digital equalization and phase controls, I found a way to reduce the frequencies of those notes so they were almost inaudible. What we were left with was Billie’s voice with almost no music behind it.
Next, Rob transcribed the original arrangement, and we had a group of musicians play along with it in the studio. We followed the exact blueprint of the Basie chart, and rerecorded it honoring the integrity and tone of the film performance. We now had three separate elements to work with: Billie’s cleaned vocal, the original Basie band performance, and the re-created (newly recorded) band performance.
The test was in mixing these three tracks together and overdubbing Tony’s new vocal. In some spots we let Basie’s piano dominate the mix, and in other spots (where the film had been damaged or the sound was distorted) we emphasized the new piano performance. In some places we removed Billie’s voice to accommodate Tony’s. We created a credible instrumental and vocal track using a monophonic film, a newly recorded band, and a live Tony Bennett vocal, enabling Tony to do something that he’d long dreamed of doing: sing a duet with Billie Holiday.
As with the Sinatra duets, I took some heat for the Bennett/Holiday recording. “Come and sing with your dead grandmother,” someone joked. “Ramone will take care of you.”
I stand by my assertion that restraining an artist or producer from using the technology creatively would be like telling George Lucas that using special effects in Star Wars was unacceptable because th
ey weren’t real.
Digital editing, mixing, and mastering systems like Pro Tools, Cue Base, and Nuendo have revolutionized the way records are made. Analog-to-digital conversion has become an art for some audio designers and manufacturers, and high-resolution (24-bit 96k) consoles like the Pro Tools ICON, Yamaha DM 2000, or Euphonix System 5 with 166 inputs have supplanted our trusty forty-eight-track analog boards. A myriad of processing tools, and lightning-fast, high-capacity computers like the Apple G5 have helped computer hard drives replace analog and digital tape recorders.
One of the delights of working in the digital domain is the speed with which edits and fixes can be made. Recording and editing multiple takes on the spot gives the artist a very good idea of what the record will sound like before they leave the studio.
Fortunately, I’ve worked with many artists who developed their skills and work ethic before they had so many technological options. By and large, they’re receptive to using technology to further their artistic vision—they don’t lean on it to compensate for lack of preparation.
Tony Bennett—who began recording on monophonic analog tape—is an old-school performer who completely embraces new technology.
When we recorded Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues—a collection of duets with Diana Krall, B.B. King, Billy Joel, Kay Starr, Sheryl Crow, and a handful of others—Tony marveled at the swiftness with which we cut together a composite from multiple takes. The Sheryl Crow date stands out for me, because it illustrates how the technology makes recording more efficient.
Tony, Sheryl, and the accompanying jazz combo arrived at the Hit Factory in New York at six thirty on the appointed evening to record “Good Morning, Heartache,” and from the first take it was apparent that Tony’s and Sheryl’s voices melded beautifully. As Sheryl caressed the melody, Tony sidled up to her at the mike; their coziness made it sound like they’d been singing together for years.
As the takes progressed, I scribbled my impression of each performance on a legal pad. “The sax solo in takes three and six were the ones to remember,” I told Joel Moss, the engineer. “And Tony’s final verse sounded better in takes one, two, ten, and fourteen.”
Sheryl’s vocal became stronger as the evening wore on, but there was something special about her first few takes—the vocals were drenched with the pathos and vulnerability implied by the lyrics. These thoughts were duly noted.
By the fifteenth and final take, I had a definite idea of how I wanted to assemble the parts—a rough blueprint for editing and mixing the track. “So you’re really going to sew all this together right now?” Tony asked when he came into the control room.
He’d learned the art of recording at the same time as I did—when we edited with a razor blade and splicing tape. But the wonders of digital make editing a snap, and within a few minutes Joel had a rough cut of “Good Morning Heartache” ready for Tony and Sheryl to hear.
Could I have accomplished the same thing by editing analog tape? Sure—I’ve done it thousands of times. The beauty of digital technology is that it enables me to edit faster and more precisely, and in this instance, let the artists leave the studio with a greater sense of satisfaction.
The advances in recording technology have been invaluable to artists, engineers, and producers, but what about the consumer?
Until recently, the record industry ignored Internet delivery because it was ill informed. I remember going to the labels with a group of fellow producers to convince them that the future of music was tied to the Internet, years before it took off. No one dreamed that the Internet could one day dominate the music market.
Some of us had enough faith in it.
In 1997, Larry Rosen, Jon Diamond, and Dave Grusin formed N2K Encoded Music—a company dedicated to bridging the gap between traditional (CD) and Internet delivery—and I was hired to head the music side of the company.
The goal of N2K was to link online technology to the music by encoding video material on the disc and allowing computer users to link directly to the N2K Web site, where they could download singles and hear exclusive concerts.
For the first few months, the video programming on N2K discs was encoded on CD-ROM, which was problematic because of glitches that arose on some computer platforms. After receiving hundreds of complaints from customers who couldn’t access the CD-ROM material on our discs, it became clear that we needed a better format for encoding.
Knowing that DVD technology had been developed (and that the film studios were readying their catalogs for eventual DVD release), Larry and I approached the four major electronics manufacturers (Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi), and asked them when they would have the technology to author and manufacture DVDs in place.
When they answered, “One year,” we went off on our own to figure out how to author a glass master for DVD. This was a year before DVDs hit the market; there were no standards, and matching audio to video—and creating chapter titles and menu bars—was laborious and expensive. We ruined three glass masters (at a cost of $20,000 each) before we got it right.
The first N2K DVD music album was Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story. In addition to the two-track stereo mix, we included a 5.1 surround mix with video accompaniment.
N2K lasted only a short time, but during that time we were on the cusp of an audio-video revolution. We took a positive step forward at a time of technological uncertainty, and I’m proud to have been associated with it.
Audio and video technology continue to advance at a frightening pace; the changes we used to see over the course of a year now come within three to six months. It took years for the CD to replace the LP as the playback medium of choice, and now that it’s so widely accepted, mainstream record buyers are hesitant to upgrade to a higher-resolution format. Will they someday replace their CD collections with high-resolution discs, chips, or memory sticks? And with the success of iPods and numerous downloadable music sites, will there even be a need for hard audio media in the future?
The future is here.
Digital streaming, computer downloading, and high-resolution A/V are the next wave in audio technology. While the DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD formats didn’t catch on as expected, other high definition video formats like HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-ray Disc systems are beginning to hit the market.
In the last fifty years we’ve gone from mono to stereo to 5.1 surround sound, and even that is poised to change; soon, we may have 6.1, 7.1, and 8.1 home theaters.
Audio, video, and video gaming have all become part of the “family entertainment system,” and each medium is racing to integrate technology from the others in an effort to create the definitive entertainment product. Sophisticated sound has even gone mobile: Recording engineer Elliott Scheiner recently developed a 5.1 surround system for Acura, and it’s successful because the car is the place where many people are listening—and watching.
When I produce television or concert specials, I record them in surround—even if the initial product isn’t planned as a 5.1 release.
For example, not long ago, Frank Filipetti and I taped Elton John’s Red Piano show at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and it was cut live to fifty separate tracks. In addition to the standard microphone setup, Frank used a Holophonic microphone: a large ball containing capsules on the top, bottom, and sides (three capsules in front for left, center, and right channel information; two capsules in the rear for left and right rear surround information; and one capsule each for the top and center rear channels).
Where does it end?
Just as the finest-grain film, the best lenses, and the most expensive camera can’t condense the subtlest gradation of color seen by the eye into a photograph, a sound recording—analog or digital—can’t give you a flawless reproduction of what you’d hear if you were seated tenth row center at the performance. It can, however, proffer an approximation that’s damned close—better, in some respects—and I’m glad to be living at a time when the technology to create the ultimate listeni
ng experience is seeking a new peak.
With Ray Charles, 1986 Courtesy of Sam Emerson/Redbox
TRACK 24
Back to the Artist: Ray Charles Genius Loves Company
As I said at the start, making records is all about the artist.
My life has been graced by a series of musical bookends, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how people from my past seemed to wend their way back into my life. I first engineered for Frank Sinatra in 1967, and produced his last two albums in 1993 and 1994. Elton John and I met during a live radio broadcast in 1970 and we’re still at it, recording live shows in New York, London, and Las Vegas. Then, there’s a man who’s influenced more styles of music than any other artist I know—Ray Charles.
When Atlantic Records released The Genius of Ray Charles in 1959, people stopped to listen. It wasn’t an R&B album, nor a jazz album, or even rock and roll. It was a mercurial blend of all three, and with it Ray Charles annihilated tradition.
I felt special, because I’d witnessed the fury he unleashed on “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’,” and “Let the Good Times Roll” firsthand in the studio, before anyone else heard the full thrust of musicians from the Basie and Ellington bands, plus Ray’s own powerhouse rhythm section.
Ray’s impeccable musicality was impressive; he could hear mistakes in the arrangement that no one else would ever pick up on. “No—I want dotted eighth notes there,” he’d say, or, “Hold on! That second trumpet should be B-flat at the start of the verse, and Mr. Tenor Man—your note should be a G. The chord is a G-seventh.” All of us marveled at his aural acuity.
The sessions for The Genius of Ray Charles were one of the first times I’d seen a real audience in the recording studio. Normally, Ray and his piano would have been positioned in the center of the room, with his band behind him. On these dates, he was pressed right up against the control-room window glass—that’s how many people were crammed into the studio. Until that night, I’d admired Ray, and thought of him as a fine R&B singer in the tradition of Big Joe Turner and the other luminaries recording for Atlantic. That album turned my head, and my admiration into love.