GC Pro Spotlight: Rob Cavallo

In both of his roles -- that of award-winning producer and as a senior VP or A&R at Reprise -- Rob Cavallo has led an extraordinarily successful career. His breakthrough was the creation of Green Day's seminal album Dookie. He has co-produced every Green Day album since then, including 2006's Grammy winner American Idiot.

With a resume that includes a wide variety of platinum sellers and motion picture soundtracks, Rob is adding his signature touch to Kid Rock's new album, scheduled to be released on September 25,2007. In between his busy activities, Rob found some time to sit down with GC Pro to discuss the latest addition to his personal studio, a new Ocean Way Monitoring System.

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GC Pro: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today Rob. Tell us a little about your decision to put the Ocean Way monitors in your personal studio.

Rob Cavallo: One of the things that I’m excited about is having a home studio that’s really at a professional level where I can really take my time to design the sound of a new rock band. If you’re in the rock producing business, there are a lot of records that you go back to that are standout records. You go back to Back in Black, Led Zeppelin I, Van Halen I, you know, the Black Album by Metallica. They’re among the few that really stand out, that people go back to all the time and go, "Well, how’s your studio sound? Let’s use this."

GC Pro: What are the elements you listen for when using these albums as a reference?

RC: In all those records, there’s such energy, and a clarity to that energy, whether or not the drum room is very wet or very dry, or it’s got a long reverb on it, on the guitar, in the sense of a Van Halen. Or, if it’s a very dry Seventies sound where everything is punchy and clear, like on AC/DC’s Back in Black album.

What I want to do here is… now that I have the time, it affords me the luxury of listening to the sound of a band and capturing, in its truest sense, what that band should sound like. It also offers new things you can come up with to communicate the sound of a rock band. But in order to do that, you need to have the right tools. You need to have the right kind of microscopes, so to speak, to hear what you’re going for, to be inspired by it, and be inspired by the band.

GC Pro: So the goal was to have a private studio with the monitoring quality of a world-class control room…

RC: And that’s where Allen’s monitors come in. These monitors allow me the kind of clarity to sit there and imagine, "What can I do to get great sound? Something hopefully new to come out of these speakers." If you’re inspired by the speakers, you will come up with something new! You will. You have to actually live up to the speakers. If you’re a decent producer at all, you want to make it sound better than anything else that’s ever been done, if you can. Or, at least as appropriate to the band as you can. And, if you’ve got great speakers sitting in front of you, it actually allows you to carve sound and soundscape, so to speak, and punchiness in drums, or…

GC Pro: In a different way than you would with nearfields…

RC: Yeah, in a very much different way. Not to mention the fact that there’s been a lot of influence in hip hop. There’s low end and openness in hip hop production style that is really there for a reason, because they really wanna hear the bottom. They really wanna hear the boom and crack of a kick and a snare in such a way that the earth is shaking.

Now, imagine if you could apply some of that kind of thinking to a rock band as well. That’s why I’m really looking forward to working with these monitors. While we try to design new sounds for the upcoming rock bands that have yet to have been discovered. Or, new rock albums by bands that their sound is still emerging. That’s really what I’ve been thinking about.

GC Pro: That’s a great description.

RC: We’re going to carve away.

GC Pro: Carve away and help develop the cool new bands of the future.

RC: If you can’t hear it, you can’t get there.

GC Pro: To me, it’s like an experience, listening to these speakers, it’s like you experience music, as opposed to just listening. It’s a whole different thing.

RC: Yeah. I went into the studio with Lil John, and he’s a great producer. The difference between a rock setup and a hip hop setup couldn’t be any more different. I mean, they’re using mostly direct sounds that are prerecorded, for the most part. Rock guys are using mostly live sounds that haven’t been recorded. The intersting thing is, when you go to a hip hop session, the subwoofers are cranked to the level of stun (laughs). You’re sitting in a room that’s pushing what feels like 110dB SPL, or whatever it is. Usually, the speakers are distorting.

But what a great way to feel what you’re doing. Lil John told me, they’re trying to emulate a club. A lot of times, what some of those guys are doing is they’re actually using club speakers to get that feeling of being in a club. Imagine if can have that kind of huge, big banging sound, but have it be accurate.

GC Pro: It becomes shocking when you’ve got that kind of low frequency information, and yet it’s completely articulate. And that’s a great point: a lot of time, big speakers don’t translate so well. Allen’s systems are so amazingly accurate and give such a beautiful stereo image that they seem to translate incredibly well. Has that been your experience?

RC: Oh, God, yeah. I mean… having used these speakers before, in terms of going to Ocean Way and slaving over some mixes or some tracks that might be early on in the stage of recording, the first week or two when you’re just getting bass, drums and guitars and things, going, “God, I hope we’re getting the right flavor here. I hope we’re getting the right thing.”

One hundred percent of the time, when I take it home on night number four, I’m driving out of Ocean Way, it’s one in the morning, and I put the CD in my car on the freeway, I’m always going, “Oh, this is great!” because the translation factor is perfect.

GC Pro: It exceeds your expectations.

RC: Oh, yeah!