GC PRO ADVISORY BOARD: Joe Barresi

To see Joe working in the studio is truly inspirational. He is a consummate musician, engineer and producer. He seamlessly blends the finest analog equipment and traditional recording techniques with just the right amount of modern technology. The results are always amazing.

Joe, surrounded by gear and festive decor at Bay 7. The obligatory "The is supposed to be a candid shot of the guy mixing" photo. We could mix like Joe if we just had this console. And any semblance of talent. A rack of killer analog gear in the foreground. A pair of Studer 24 tracks in the background. Joe's favorite setup for tracking drums. A gear freak's wet dream. "No one will ever hire me to do a Barry Manilow record anyway." No studio is complete without a frighteningly realistic human heart on the console.

GC Pro: Give us a little background on what got you into this business and who your influences were. JB: I started playing guitar when I was really young, like seven years old. One of my best friends did a lot of recording so I used to just hang out with him in small studios, and that’s how I got introduced to the world of studio work. I ended up going to school for awhile and studying classical guitar and recording bands at the studio they had at the school. Finally, I just moved to California, cause I had a lot of friends out here. I got a job at Cherokee doing maintenance work and repairing guitars at night. One day, Sound City’s tape machine broke and they needed a guy to run it. So, I became a tape op. GC Pro: What year was that, when you came to L.A.? JB: December of 1988. The day after Christmas, I got in a car and drove west. Had a job before the new year. GC Pro: Did you know at that point you wanted to be an engineer, be a producer, be in the record business? JB: I knew it was too tough, playing in bands all those years. I didn’t want to be a musician the rest of my life, so I decided it would be better to boss them around instead (laughs). GC Pro: Where was your first full-on engineer gig? JB: There were two guys that were mentors to me: Jason Corsaro, an East Coast guy who did Power Station, Soundgarden, Madonna and Chic, all these records that sounded better than anything around them. He would come out to the West Coast a lot to work, and I assisted him on a Masters of Reality record. We became friends. From then on, whenever he would travel to the West Coast, he would hire me to do some engineering for him, to assist him. He taught me a lot. The other guy, actually my really big break, was a guy named Garth Richardson, who asked me to do some demos with him for free for three days, which I was glad to do because I loved the records he had done. That turned into three years worth of work. GC Pro: What was his specialty? JB: He did the first Rage Against The Machine record. He did this band called Chevelle that you hear on the radio right now. We did the Melvins, we did L7, we did a band called POL. We did so many records together. He was a huge influence and a great friend. GC Pro: There was lots of heavy guitar on those projects. Has that been your forte? JB: Yeah. I play guitar, and I have an insane collection of amps and pedals, so it’s something that I’m really into. Some guys are drummers and are really into drums; I have one snare drum. That’s it...that’s all I need. GC Pro: So along with your engineering and production chops, you bring all kinds of toys to play with to get guitar tone? JB: To get everything. I’ve got some bass gear, I’ve got outboard gear, but my favorite thing is guitars. I like to create overdubs that don’t sound like they were overdubs. With different sounds, different amps, different pedals…always looking for something new. GC Pro: I see you’ve got a whole bunch of toys on this project. What are some of your favorites that you never travel without? JB: Whenever I’m mixing, I never leave home without my Sontek EQ, an Alan Smart stereo compressor to put on the bus right before the EQ, and a TubeTech stereo compressor that I use for drum submixes. Those are really the mandatory pieces. I also have a Studer Valve A/D converter that I use to hype up my DATs or CDs, add a little bit of distortion and gain. I use the Furman bass enhancement system, the Punch 10, a lot. The spatializer retro that Dave Reitzas turned me on to. Crazy box, makes stuff go outside the speakers, or make mono stuff very up front. The Wem delays. I have at least five Watkins Copycats. The brand new one, this digital one, is just phenomenal. I never leave home without that. It has 40 presets in it, it has echoes, it does Ursa Major-type reverbs, it does flanging, chorusing, tremolo, vibrato, distortion. It’s ridiculously good. GC Pro: I see you have some Geoff Daking modules here. JB: I love Geoff Daking. I have two EQs and two compressors. The compressors are amazing. To me, they’re just incredibly transparent, and you can compress the shit out of everything and it just doesn’t sound like you compressed it, it just controls it. The EQs are phenomenal too, they’re very Trident A-range type. Great top end, really good on guitars. On this record, I actually brought out the Cooper Time Cube. I don’t think anybody’s used it in years. GC Pro: Tell us a little about this project you’re working on now. JB: It’s a band called Bad Religion. We tracked it at Sound City in December, and we’re in the mix process at Bay 7 right now. Brett Gurewitz produced the record. He’s the head of Epitaph and in the band, and is the main songwriter along with singer Greg Grafton. It’s a great experience. Brett’s a great engineer as well, so it’s been a learning experience for all of us. GC Pro: During the tracking phase, what are some of your essential tools? JB: I have a kick and snare chain that I use the Focusrite Red 3 compressor on, and a pair of API 550a’s right after the compression. I have a pair of V76 preamps that I use all the time on bass, or a vocal, or whatever, toms…I have a bunch of V72s, Royer 121s, 122s for combo amps and for rooms, or stereo overhead sometimes. I’ve been using this Blue Mouse quite a bit for bass and I really love it. Sounds really great. GC Pro: What’s your favorite large-diaphragm vocal mic? JB: Believe it or not, we did some massive shoot-outs on this record. We rented a bunch of stuff, and the thing that blew everything away was the U-87, which I haven’t used in years. Also, this Martek mic pre is something I got turned onto on this record. GC Pro: The MSS-10... JB: Unbelievable. Blew away everything in sight. The vocal sound was an 87 with a Monster cable, right into Pro Tools. In the end, we used an A/D converter, an Apogee, but originally we’d just run right into Pro Tools. GC Pro: I see you’ve got a couple of Studers fired up. JB: We cut drums to tape, then dumped it into Pro Tools. GC Pro: That’s the only thing you tracked to tape? JB: Yeah, unfortunately. That wasn’t my idea but it worked out. I don’t mind cutting guitars and bass right to Pro Tools for expediency, but there’s something about drums that doesn’t work for me. I haven’t tried tracking drums straight to HD yet, which is probably next. We also used a lot of Little Labs stuff too, this crazy phase box that he makes, the IBP. We used a bunch of his PCP interfaces to split guitars and bass. GC Pro: In this hybrid world of working in a workstation and using tape, what’s your best-case scenario? JB: I love cutting vocals to Pro Tools. It's unbeatable. With this singer, there's nothing to do, no Auto-Tune, no correction, no nothing. He gives you great performances. It's a blessing. Usually, you're not that lucky, so you have more reasons to comp vocals in Pro Tools. If I could, I'd cut everything to tape. The one thing about Pro Tools is that it allows you to put stuff aside and not make a commitment, which turns into longer records, serious indecision. Recording on tape has a limit! It’s convenient to mix back into the box, though. I can put instrumental mixes and stem vocal mixes and re-blend stuff later on, if needed, without having to recall them completely. I don't like leaving it like that, but it does save time and money sometimes. I actually just got the new Sony Oxford plug-ins too, which I’m curious to try out. GC Pro: The EQ? JB: Yeah, the EQ and a Transient Designer-type thing, and the compressor section. And I’m really interested in reverbs, because sometimes I do stuff at home and you just can’t make a reverb sound good in the box, although Altiverb sounds fairly okay. GC Pro: Have you heard the new Waves convolution reverb? JB: No, but a friend of mine is doing some testing on it right now. GC Pro: There’s a new Digi one as well. JB: I would totally be into it. There’s such a great plate here, and Sound City has great plates. Just to be able to make a copy of it and be able to use it is a phenomenal thing, just to sample that real reverb, not fake reverb. GC Pro: You mentioned the Transient Designer, which is a unique box from SPL. How do you use that? JB: This has been a savior, this box. I just discovered it. Sometimes when you get a snare track and it has a lot of leakage, and you want to compress it heavily in the mix. Gating doesn’t quite work, so what I‘ve done is use the Transient Designer to pull out the actual snare and just leave the leakage, and then super gate the snare and add it back in, or sample it, or whatever, and it sounds incredible. GC Pro: So just pulling that information out- JB: It’s voodoo, this box. It’s crazy. I don’t understand how it works, but I can take the point away and just leave the reverb. Last time I used it on a record, there were no room tracks, but it had multiple overheads. So I put the Transient Designer on the overheads and got rid of the cymbal attack and just bring up the ambience in the overheads and that was my room. It’s crazy. It’s unbelievable. Or if you’ve got a kick drum that’s been put to tape so hot it’s lost all its warmth, so can actually dial back top with no EQ. GC Pro: In new technology, what do you think is the most exciting thing that’s come out recently, or that is in development right now. JB: Software-based stuff. There’s some crazy plug-in stuff. It’s out of hand. GC Pro: You mentioned Altiverb. JB: Amazing. The fact that you can download other rooms, use real-sounding reverbs. I also like the fact that you can sample real reverb, rather than downloading a hall in Amsterdam or wherever. Husky and Mike Patton just put a tone through the plate at Sunset Sound Factory and put up Mike’s vocal and added a little plate on it in Logic. It sounds unbelievable. GC Pro: Changing subject a little, in terms of the industry itself, where do you think making records is headed? Do you think engineers and producers will need to diversify with scoring a video games and other things more and more? JB: I think that budgets are so low that you’re going to have to either do records in your own place or find secret places to work. I’ve got a laptop/M-Box situation. It’s amazing, the power you have in a briefcase. Hook up Pro Tools and an M-Box. There’s 32 tracks you can edit. You can do vocals in a bedroom, in a bathroom, in an airplane. Edit your drums as you’re flying across the country. Tracking at a real studio, then going to a smaller place to do overdubs, and finally coming to a real studio to mix. But what’s weird to me I that I think kids right now are starting to realize that records, even though they listen to MP3s and downloads – the shit sounds so bad – so they’re coming in with old records and saying, "Why does this sound like this?" And they’re starting to realize that they need good gear. GC Pro: And projects that are made well. JB: Yeah. And the current slew of engineers are kids that never used a tape machine, or never used a console. They’re just cutting into a box their whole life, and they don’t…their idea of engineering is sound replacement. They don’t even think about getting good sounds. They can put a sample on it. They don’t need a good vocal performance, they just auto-tune the vocals. They won’t even leave an out-of-tune note as a vibe. That’s gone these days. So, musically, I think kids are more educated, but the engineering aspect has really gone downhill. I think it’s going to be awhile before people actually realize that, when they’re afforded the opportunity to work on real gear. GC Pro: A little bleak, but it’s the reality today. Do you have any quick thoughts on the record industry? It’s obviously going through a massive transition. Do you think small labels and indie labels are going to be the future? JB: I think so, but I actually think it’s kind of good for the music industry to get burned right now. I think people want to own something anyway; I know I like to go out and buy CDs and buy records. But I don’t like to go out and buy one that sounded amazing on the radio and then I go buy this $20 disc and its got that one song on it, and that’s it. And it’s not even the same mix that I heard! It’s been re-mixed for radio, and it sounds completely different. So, I think it’s good for the music industry to re-think what they’ve been packaging. It’s time to sign good bands, and make good records. The A&R community is a joke. These guys are afraid to do anything unlike what everybody else does. Nobody has the balls, nobody knows good music. GC Pro: Maybe this will shake it up and come back in a small label form where music and the performance really matters. JB: And you don’t need to make expensive records either. You can make a record for five, six thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars and everybody can make money off it if you know where your market is and how to do it. GC Pro: What else are you good at? What are your other interests, or does music absorb your entire life? JB: The thing about music is, I'm working on it all day. When I’m off, I still like to go see bands play live. I love looking around at a club and seeing people smiling and getting excited about music. I like hanging out at music stores, checking out gear. I don’t have a life. I haven’t played golf in three years. It’s all-absorbing to me. Especially now in the computer age. Just keeping updated on technology, downloading current software, seeing what the new box is, the new piece, the new whatever. I subscribe to 20 different magazines to see what’s going on in the world. GC Pro: What are some of your favorite projects in the last couple of years? JB: I did a band called Tomahawk, which is one of Mike Patton’s bands. Great example of a fast, good, cheap record. Two weeks. Real players. Cut drums in two days, bass in two days, guitars in two days. Mike sang the whole record in a day and a half. Recorded more songs in the extra half day. Mixed it in six days. 14 days we got a record for under $30,000. You’re gonna recoup that in a week. I was in Sweden recently with a band called The Backyard Babies. They’re like the Swedish version of Guns ‘n’ Roses. Took my friend Pete from Sound City to help me out. That came out good. I was also there doing a band called Turbonegro, who are phenomenal. They’re like the Alice Cooper of Norway. One of the greatest guitar players I’ve ever worked with. Comes from the Stooges camp, plays great Seventies rock guitar. Great bassist. Super fun. Great band. GC Pro: There was that Aussie band last year, what are those guys called? JB: Stereogram. They were just here in town, playing with another band I worked with called Fiction Plane. They’re a great band. I do a lot of stuff for Epitaph, like a new band called the Matches, and a band called Special Goodness, which is Pat Wilson, the drummer from Weezer. He’s a phenomenal guitar player. They did it with my friend Chad Bamford at his place, and we just remixed it. GC Pro: Sounds like a steady stream of fun projects. JB: I’ve turned down a lot of high-paying work for something I think is cooler. That’s the only thing I can honestly say I have learned. Doing it for cash isn’t worth it if you don’t really like it. I’ve turned down four times the cash that a little band gives. No one will ever hire me to do a Barry Manilow record anyway.