Make Mine Music

With love to all

musicians, singers, producers, engineers, and anyone else interested in music and recording sound history:

This book is the result of the many requests for information that I have received while doing a series of seminars on music recording at colleges and universities in America, Europe, and Asia and a multitude of letters and inquiries regarding the subject.

I will attempt to adapt my experience and knowledge gained through countless hours spent in the recording studio, recording on countless miles of tape and on every conceivable kind of digital audio workstation. I have recorded almost every type of musical instrument and every type of voice, including horses, dogs, cats, chickens, cows, and an assortment of birds, crickets, and frogs.

My heartfelt thanks to my best friend and wife, Bea, for her pains spent, hour after hour, day after day, reading and correcting my manuscript. Her encouragement and great soul food (when I needed it most) was more important to this project than she’ll ever know!

I am extremely grateful to both Robert Moog and Roger Linn for sharing their meaningful insight into this fascinating subject with us.

My gratitude and appreciation to my good friend Björn Asplind. His efforts and marvelous wisdom are always right on time! My genuine gratefulness to my good friend Trond Braaten for his sincere friendship and his always knowledgeable help. (Okay, guys — don’t forget the Bregott!)

To my wife Bea, the best insulation I have ever found. Bruce

Foreword

I have personally witnessed how music has evolved over the last few decades. To me, the most interesting factor of that development is that, during that time, music has remained the singularly most influential medium the world has known.

Having played so many roles in music, I think it is producing which gives me the most pleasure, because it allows my first loves to always stay close to me: arranging, orchestrating, conducting, and scoring films — my preferred means of musical self-expression. To place the paint on the blank canvas in just the right space and time. To create something from nothing.

Early in my career, while doing that very thing, I met a young dude at Universal Studios in Chicago by the name of Bruce Swedien, who seemed to share my excitement in creating recorded music images that originated in our own imagination. We have been kindred spirits ever Since.

What has made it comfortable for us to spend countless happy hours together in the studio is that both Bruce and I share the knowledge that music is the denominator — the great leveler — the joyous equalizer (no pun intended). Music touches us all in so many wonderful ways, whichever side of the control room glass we’re on! It’s all good!

Quincy Jones

Copyright © 2003 by MIA Musikk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2009 by Hal Leonard Books

An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation

7777 West Bluemound Road

Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices

19 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10010

Originally published in hardcover in 2003 by MIA Musikk, Norway

Printed in the United States of America

Editor: Björn Asplind

Copy Editor: Tom Mulhern

Graphic Designer: Anna Wirsén

Illustrator: Katja Rautalin

Consultant: Trond Braaten

The following people were also very helpful during production: Göran Folkestad, Per-Anders Nilsson, Ki Rydberg, and Angela Strolia

Photos by Björn Asplind, Trond Braaten, Guy Charbaneau, Jim Cunningham, Sam Emerson, Matt Forger, David Goggin, Rob Herrera, Adam Lundquist, Bengt H. Malmqvist, Ileana Padron, Bea Swedien, Bruce Swedien, Norm Theland, Peter Wade, and Getty/Hulton Archives

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swedien, Bruce.

Make mine music / Bruce Swedien ; foreword by Quincy Jones.

p. cm.

9781476855066

1. Swedien, Bruce. 2. Sound engineers—United States—Biography. 3. Sound recording industry—United States. 4. Popular music—United States—History and criticism. I. Title.

ML429.S97A3 2009

781.49092--dc22

[B]

2009002567

www.halleonard.com

Table of Contents

What’s Been Goin’ On?

Microphones In The Past

Stereo Music Recording Technique In The Past

The Good Old Days...

The Chicago Years,1957-1976

What Is Music To Me?

Making Thriller And Bad

We Are Known By The Company We Keep

Has Technology Improved The Quality Of Recorded Music?

Recording

Microphones Are The Voodoo

Basic Microphone Technique

Mixing Pop Music

Surround Sound

Past, Present, And Future

On November 10, 2001, Bruce Swedien Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Luleå University of technology in Luleå, Sweden, presented under ruling of King Carl XVI Gustav.

Introduction

I began work on this book about twenty years ago, when I was living in Chicago. My original intent was to write a book with a purely technical sum and substance, relating my view of techniques that I had learned in various studios and in school (I studied electrical engineering with a minor in music at the University of Minnesota).

As the work on this book progressed (in fits and starts, over the next fifteen years or so), I began to realize that quite possibly I had a bit of story to tell. When I started work as a professional, at Universal Recording in Chicago, I was only twenty-two years old. That point in time was the end of the Big Band era. Music recording was in a state of revolution. I got to spend every day in the studio with the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman and so on... The year just before my work at Universal was spent working for RCA Victor in Chicago, where I recorded not only the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but a couple of absolutely spectacular Chicago Big Bands. (And some fantastic smaller bands too!)

Working on this book, it has become clear to me that I am fortunate enough to have worked with, and counted as friends, some of the greatest musicians, music writers, producers, performers and just plain studio folks in this industry. I have often thought that in actuality, my true role in the studio has been that of the fortunate student. The sometimes long but constantly delightful hours that I have spent in the studio have made me realize that I have learned a great deal from an absolutely fascinating segment of the true nobility of the music industry.

To me, music has always seemed to be organic in myself. Perhaps it’s that way, to some degree, in the soul of every human being. To be a part of the creation of music seems as necessary to me as eating or breathing. I simply must listen to music every day of my life in order to feel complete and satisfied with my world.

There is almost nothing else in my life as important to me as recording good music. I love to listen to live music, but to me the real central interest of my being is in creating a recording of popular music that entertains the listener in an elegant fashion.

Memorable recordings start with purely emotional values, not technical values. I’ve never heard anyone leave the record store humming the control console! On the other side of the coin, of course, I think it would be good for a lot of musical people to acquire as many technical skills as they can.

If you don’t have the technical chops to put together a viable listening system, all the wonderful musical ideas in the world won’t get on the recording. I believe there’s a happy medium.

I don’t believe in secrets. I have, now and then, been admonished by a producer or artist that I have been working with for freely talking about a technique or method that I have devised for achieving a certain sound. I think we all bring a piece of ourselves to the work at hand. We all have very different Sonic Personalities. Therefore I happily give what is on these pages to you.

Bruce Swedien

What’s been goin’ on?

Starting Up

I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I’ve been associated with music all my life — music of all styles. My mother and father were both professional musicians, so I had that meaningful musical input very early in my life. My mother sang with the Minneapolis Symphony Women’s Chorus when the Minneapolis Symphony was under the direction of Antal Dorati. As an 11- or 12-year-old, I used to go with my mother to her rehearsals. Hearing the women’s chorus singing Mahler with the Minneapolis symphony was an incredible experience, and I think that made a big impact on my sonic mental benchmark. To this day, I can’t get that incredible sound out of my head — it gives me goose pimples thinking of it.

You can see that my interest in music recording really had its origin in my first experiences listening to classical music. If I had to pinpoint one piece that really turned me on to music as a youngster, it would have to be Debussy’s La Mer. I heard it for the first time when I was about 10 years old, played by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dimitri Metropolis. The sea has always fascinated me — I am most definitely a water person — so I guess La Mer by Debussy captured my musical imagination for that reason.

I’ll never forget the moment that I saw 100 musicians scraping, blowing, and bashing their instruments, and the seemingly unrelated, but absolutely gorgeous, dream-like sound that filled beautiful Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis. That was the instant that everything musical made great sense to me. That was when I became a bona-fide, card-carrying, top-drawer music junkie.

The sea has always fascinated me

Savaina, Bahamas

Mom and Dad were unconditionally supportive of my interest in music recording

Ellsworth and Louise Swedien

Music Junkie

A bit later, when I was about 13 or 14, my father asked me, Bruce, is there something that totally interests you — absolutely and completely? I think he was trying to ask me, What do you want to do for the rest of your life? I replied something like, Make mine music! (That’s where the title for this book originated.)

I first became intrigued by the art of recording music at the tender age of 10 years. My dad gave me a disc-recording machine for my tenth birthday, and ten minutes later I had decided on music recording as a lifetime career. That was all it took! I have never regretted that decision.

By the time I was 15 years old, I was working in a small basement recording studio in Minneapolis. My summer vacations from school were spent recording any willing musical group. This early focus of attention and energy has helped me a great deal. I’m lucky in this respect, because as a result my energies have never been diluted or side-tracked. During high school, I recorded everything from Minnesota-type polka bands to black gospel singing quartets in the living room. In addition, I had an illegal radio station in the garage so that I could broadcast my recordings to the whole neighborhood.

Magnacord tape recorder

I was very fortunate in that my mom and dad were unconditionally supportive of my interest in music recording. They were absolutely fantastic, and they were patient beyond belief. I almost ruined the house! I drilled big holes through the walls for wires. I tore down plaster from the ceiling while hanging speakers. I blew fuses and almost started fires because my recording equipment overloaded all the circuits.

Later, I attended the University of Minnesota. Bea and I had just gotten married, and I was running the recording department for Schmitt Music Company in Minneapolis. They had a wonderful studio, and later — about 1954 — I bought that studio and the business from Schmitt Music. My father and I then bought an old movie theater in Minneapolis on the south side of the downtown area, which we converted into a recording studio. (Incidentally, it is still a world-class recording studio.)

The first studio, Swedien Recording, 2541 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis

In those days, we were so poor that we couldn’t afford bona-fide, factory-made acoustical treatment. Instead, we used egg cartons as a substitute for acoustical tiles. For weeks and weeks, Bea and I glued egg cartons to the studio ceiling. Actually, the studio sounded quite wonderful.

I’m sure you can see that music has easily held my interest for many, many years. Recording music is beyond any shadow of a doubt, no less interesting to me now than it was when I was a youngster. Of all the arts, music is the most glorious. Music touches the heart of every human being — even those rare people who boast of being tone-deaf have, at some point, been moved by music of one sort or another. To me, music is the only true magic in life!

To me, music is the only true magic in life!

Technological developments have changed the process of music-making over the years, but they have not changed people’s reasons for playing and listening to music. At the present time, good music — either live or recorded — is available to essentially everyone in the world, on a scale that would have been unimaginable 100 years ago. The paradox of popular music is that while the making of pop music records has become more and more complex, it nevertheless remains a significant part of our daily life.

Phonograph

It has always been interesting to me that in the early 1880’s, Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone’s inventor, first became interested in the phonograph, and he and his two associates, Chichester A. Bell (Alexander’s cousin) and Charles Sumner Tainter, applied for a U.S. patent on a machine that cut, or engraved, a groove in a cylindrical surface of wax. The most significant cultural importance of these very first music-recording devices was that by capturing the uniqueness of specific performances, they made much more widely available the emotional qualities of those performances. In other words, the unique sound of a singer or instrumentalist could be widely heard; their performances could be endlessly repeated, without reference to sheet music or written notes.

These days, sharing music is much easier. With the advent of high-quality home-playback equipment, it’s possible when we press the play button on a CD player that a track will express some sensitive aspect of someone’s soul. Most modern teenagers can comfortably sketch out his or her identity with a play list of favorite music.

Since I was very young, music has always seemed to be organic in me. Perhaps it’s that way, to some degree, in the soul of every human being. To be a part of the creation of music seems as necessary to me as eating or breathing.

I take the music that I am involved in very personally

I take the music that I am involved in very personally. That’s primarily because I think that music voices feelings, and that for eons music has articulated very personal feelings to whole groups of people. A few years ago, I was discussing this very thing in the control room with a couple of musician friends. All three of us felt pretty much the same way, but with varying degrees of intensity. As we were talking, I realized that I could almost give up food more easily than recording music. For those who really know me, that is saying a great deal. There is almost nothing else in my life as important to me as recording music.

If the coming of the phonograph record killed off live bands by the dozens, it also provided the economic bait to start dozens and eventually hundreds of recording companies and facilities all over the world. These recording enterprises give employment to bands, musicians, singers, and composers, and in addition give musicians a creative release that otherwise would not have been there.

Music Recording Studios In The Mid 1940’s

As a professional in music recording, I have been involved since the days of the big bands. During this period, I have seen many fascinating technological changes in this industry.

The first and probably most memorable change I personally witnessed was the switch from the direct-to-disc recording format in the early 1950’s to magnetic tape recording format. I’ll never forget that day, in 1952, when the first high-quality, professional magnetic tape machine came into my life. I was working at Schmitt Music Company as recording engineer in their small but excellent recording facility. A big truck backed up to the loading dock and delivered an Ampex Model 401 monaural tape machine. After trying a few edits, splices, and some other experiments, it was very apparent to me that this wonderous new machine was going to be a big part of my new life in the studio!

The next important change for me was the introduction of multi-track recording. This is the segment of the music-recording process where we freeze the musical sound sources of a song or piece of music, on separate, discrete tracks on one piece of magnetic tape. Once we have the musical performance and its musical sound sources on separate tracks, we can begin the mixdown process, where the relative balance values can be altered to effect a change in the emotional character of the music. With the recent development of relatively inexpensive, but still quite high-quality home-studio-type multi-track tape machines, the advantages of this technique are available to every home-studio owner.

We need to study the history of recorded music before we can develop the future. In other words, I think it’s very important for each of us involved in the production of recorded music to understand what happened in the studios of the past to be able to move forward today.

Here are some important facts and dates in the evolution of music recording studios and the music recording medium from the mid 1940’s. Many of the facts are from personal experience, as well as details from a paper presented by Milton T. Bill Putnam at the 66th convention of the Audio Engineering Society in May 1980 (with Bill’s kind permission). Bill was my mentor and a brilliant engineer,

Milton T. Bill Putnam

Bill was my mentor and a brilliant engineer

I will tell you more about him later. Now I will try to describe the part that record companies and the allied music industries played in this evolution.

In the middle 1940’s, as World War II ended, the recording industry was dominated by the major labels: Columbia Records, RCA Victor, Decca Records, and the younger, up-and-coming Capitol Records. In 1946, Mercury Records (now Phonogram) came into being in Chicago, and by 1948 was an important label. MGM Records came on the scene at about the same time. There were a few small, independent labels, but they had little impact on the record industry as a whole.

In 1947, more and more independent record labels came into being. These small labels specialized in certain types of music and their products targeted those markets. Here are a few of the areas of music that the independent labels supplied: Rhythm & blues (frequently called race records at the time), country, religious and gospel music, spiritual music (southern black singing groups), jazz, and skating rink music.

The studio atmosphere and decor were very clinical and institutional

The studios and facilities of all the major record companies were quite similar in design and scope, and studio processes and the internal discipline of the studios were quite rigid. In addition, the studio atmosphere and decor were very clinical and institutional. And, although recording rooms were fairly large, control rooms were quite small. The operational policies, regarding recording technique within each label or company was quite inflexible. In 1946, the distribution of the recording facilities was as follows:

RCA had studios in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood. In 1957, I worked for RCA at their studios in Chicago.

Decca had studios in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood. In 1947, Decca began using Universal Studios in Chicago.

Columbia owned their own studios in New York. They used the WBBM (CBS) Radio studios in Chicago, and then later they used Radio Recorders Recording Studios in Hollywood.

In 1947, Capitol Records had its own studios on Melrose Street, in Hollywood, in the old Don Lee Network Building. Capitol built studios in New York in 1953.

In 1946, there were not very many independent recording studios that were well known.

In Hollywood, Radio Recorders was the leader.

In 1946, Universal Studios was founded in Chicago, and by 1947 was well known throughout the industry.

In New York, Bob Doherty and Doug Hawkins operated the WOR Radio Recording Studios and recorded for many of the independents of the time. Soon after came Bob Fine Studios and then Fulton and Gotham Studios.

In 1956, Capitol Records built the famous Capitol Tower building in Hollywood. The studios in this historic building represent a distinct advance in the technique of music-recording studio design. Mr. Michael Rettinger used the latest state-of-the-art acoustical techniques in the design of these beautiful-sounding rooms. He employed a variable room reverberation-time treatment with large hinged splays to change the reverb time in the studio.

Nashville came onto the scene later as an independent recording center with Owen Bradley’s Bradley’s Barn studio paving the way.

Sound On Records

For most of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the major labels continued to record most of their pop music acts with their traditional, highly disciplined techniques, and groups signed to the labels were required to record in the labels’ facilities.

Columbia Records was the first of the major labels to allow musicians and technicians outside the controlled studio environment and attempt to get a more live sound on record. They used beautiful-sounding Liederkranz Hall in New York for some big band recordings. The sound of this elegant, large room on those records was a giant step forward from the pinched, narrow, little studio sound of the day. At about the same time, pop artists such as Mantovani and The Richard Himber Orchestra made some highly successful records in England. These lovely-sounding recordings are fine examples of the large hall open sound.

I had many happy hours of sessions with Leonard Joy

Not long after Columbia’s pioneering efforts to improve recorded sound, RCA began using Webster Hall in New York to record the Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra. The records produced during that period are outstanding examples of this type of sonic advancement. Decca followed by using Pythian Temple in New York. I remember visiting Pythian Temple in 1956, at the invitation of Decca Records A&R (artists and repertoire) director Leonard Joy. I had many happy hours of sessions with Leonard Joy, in both Minneapolis and Chicago. In Minneapolis, I recorded the Whoopee John Wilfhart Polka Band for Decca Records, with Leonard as producer. In Chicago, Leonard was the producer when I recorded the Jan Garber Orchestra and the Wayne King Orchestra for Decca.

I was absolutely knocked out with the idea of recording with a big-room sound

I was absolutely knocked out with the idea of recording with a big-room sound, but I distinctly remember thinking to myself in 1957 that big bands were definitely on the way out and that this big-room technique was not going to last for long. It didn’t.

This effort on the part of band leaders, record producers, musicians, and technicians to record a deliberately more reverberant sonic image played a big part in the development of the echo chamber. Acoustical treatment of the labels’ studios of the day was fairly dead. My early days in Chicago at RCA were spent working in recording rooms that were quite typical of that era: Acoustical treatment mainly consisted of drapes, acoustic tile, polycylindrical diffusers on the walls, and carpeting on the floors. Some of the music studios had an area of floor that was wood or tile, in a half-hearted attempt at some live space.

Most of the attention of the acoustical technicians of the era was paid to deadening rooms with a great deal of soft material. This made the reverb time in the high and mid-frequency ranges quite short and gave a fairly dead effect to the resultant sound. Little, if any, attention was given to the middle-low and the low frequency end of the spectrum, though. This fact, I believe, contributes to the muddy and unseparated sound of many recordings from that period. Recordings made during and prior to the mid 1940’s had little apparent separation of the instruments in the sonic image for this very same reason.

This deadening of the high frequencies and lack of attention to the low-frequency absorption of music recording rooms resulted in a great deal of secondary pick-up by the microphones used during sessions. (Secondary pick-up is the sound that a microphone picks up of the instruments that are not in its intended hearing pattern.)

Using The Men’s Room

There was, at that time, another equally important reason for all the low-frequency mud and coloration in those 1940 recordings. In the late 1940’s, there were few studios that had the luxury of a room designed specifically for reverberation. Most of the recording studios that were experimenting with the use of controlled reverberation for artistic effect had to employ spaces designed for other, less glamorous, uses.

In the Civic Opera Building in Chicago, at that time the home of Universal Recording Studios, Bill Putnam was using his favorite men’s room as a reverberation, or echo chamber. From time to time, as Bill loved to point out, trespassers would ignore the Out Of Order sign and go ahead and use the facilities anyway. Then, of course, there would be the