here’s my plant story:
the plant is is a living piece of rock and roll history that still has all of the best ingredients for making truly great recordings: wonderful recording and control rooms, a mix of vintage and new equipment, and a vibe… and even though big studios are a rare and vanishing breed today, one thing that the plant could always do better than any home studio, is bring many different types of people together to one wonderful and inspiring creative environment. a revolving musical door with artists creating in different rooms all under one roof. meeting accidently in the hallway, or by walking into an open control room or studio door across the hall. playing video games or eating dinner… artists meeting each other, engineers meeting producers… kind of controlled kaos, but you never really know who you might run into… new relationships, new possibilities, a truly inspired workplace. a vibe.
the other thing that the plant studios can do better than any home studio or recording school is provide mentoring and hands on training by professional producers and engineers for the next generation of recording engineers on real sessions. anyone can have a protools rig in their house and read books or search the net about mic’ing a gtr cabinet, but how many kids get the chance to be an assistant engineer on a real recording session and see and hear first hand how an engineer chooses and sets up the mics, what amp is being used, where they put the amp and why, solving acoustic problems every step of the way, and and then hear a great example of what it sounds like when it’s done well? then repeat that experience many more times as they meet and learn from different engineers over the course of a career as a second engineer and see and hear how they do it. then take all that experience and make their own decisions and develop their ears as they create great sounds of their own.
i came to the plant studios in 1992 as a graduate of the college for recording arts in SF. i remember seeing the notice “janitor wanted at the plant studios“ on the school bulletin board. of course i swiped it off the board immediately and ran off to call about the position. i went in and interviewed with the studio manager rose greenway and technical director curtis drake, and i felt an immediate connection with them as people and with the studio building itself. fortunately the studio owner’s arne frager and bob skye were willing to give me a chance and offered me the janitor job. i was completely thrilled.
i spent many months enthusiastically cleaning the entire complex (four studios) every day before the sessions started, getting lunches (life before interns and runners), the daily 5:15 pm run to fed-ex thru rush hour traffic, and all manner of client pampering. by hanging around after hours i was able to get into the studios and assist on nonpaying spec sessions and learn the patch bay and how to operate the consoles and tape machines. this is also how i learned recording session etiquette and basic studio work habits… the things that you can’t learn from books.
then one day, out of the blue it happened… arne called me into his office and told me i was fired as the janitor… and after a painfully long pause, he added that it was because he was hiring me as an assistant engineer on the new metallica boxed set that was going to be mixed at the plant. within a couple of days mountains of tapes were arriving for the session, and word that the producer bob rock and engineer randy staub were delayed for two weeks in LA with motley crue. the mountain of tapes had to be organized and ruff mixed for song selection. so there i was in studio A at the plant, sitting at the SSL console with lars on my left and james on my right, ruff mixing live metallica. how great is that.
over the next several years I was very fortunate to work at the plant on countless recording sessions with many great artists including: Metallica, Stabbing Westward, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, G3, Santana, Savage Garden, Voivod, Speedealer, Verbena, Testament, Dragonlord, Machinehead, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Train, Blueland, Primus, 4 Non Blondes, Rivals, Bigfoot in Paris, Hostility, Swarm, Rob Cavestany (Deathangel), Steve Smyth (Testament/Nevermore), and many others.
I also met and learned from many wonderful and talented engineers and producers including: Bob Rock, Jerry Harrison, Mike Clink, Mike Fraser, Randy Staub, Toby Wright, Ed Buller, Jason Newsted, Karl Derfler, Manny LaCarrubba, Fred Catero, Chris Manning, Vincent Wojno, Colin Richardson, Tom Lord Alge, Ross Hogarth, Scott Matthews, Dave Way, Jim Gaines, Mickey Hart, David Tickle, Arne Frager, Mick Guzauski, Walter Afanasieff, and Dana Jon Chappelle.
I will always be grateful to arne and the plant for giving me my start, and for the recording education that I gave myself by working closely with real engineers and producers on all of those great sessions over the years. the plant really helped to shape my career as a successful professional recording engineer, and I thank them for that.
sending the love…
cheers,
kent
