When I first met you, you had that 16-track 3M M79 tape deck at your home.
I lived on top of a mountain – the highest residence in the county. It was the end of the pavement, and after that it was only logging roads. There was no traffic up there, and it was the quietest place I've ever lived. We never had to worry about anyone hearing us, and we didn't have to worry about noise coming in. I ran a snake out of the bedroom window and into the detached one-car garage and set up bands in the garage. You and I started at an interesting time. There was all this old technology that was on its way out and dropping in value. Then we had all this new technology coming in, like [Alesis] ADATs and [Tascam] DA-88s. Everyone wanted a Sony DASH [digital tape deck] machine – they thought that to be a professional recording studio they had to have that. You and I were able to experience this older gear and buy them for pennies on the dollar. The great thing is that I think it taught us to use our ears.
Yeah, and our screwdrivers and soldering irons! [laughter]
I think the point I'm making is even a little deeper than that. There was all this gear that people didn't even know the name of. I bought my Gates Sta-Level [compressor] for $50. I was told that people in Nashville use tube compressors. I was into guitar tube amps, and I was naive at the time. You can't find one for $50 now, especially an original from 1957. It sounds gorgeous and I use it every day. At the time, I judged it with my ears. In a silly way, you have to listen with more than your ears. You have to listen to your heart and ask, "Does this thing convey any emotion or feeling?" If it does, then you use it. We went through so much gear! I did a lot of records on ADAT that I still think sound pretty good. It comes down to the person, and the way that they think about music. I'm much more interested in arrangements, tone, and texture.
What do you think drew you to recording back then?
I had played in bands and was a music theory major in college. I had always performed music, but once I started recording, I kind of quit playing. To me, it was almost like I'd found my instrument. I really enjoyed playing, and I was a decent player, but I wasn't great. But once I started doing this, I got completely absorbed. I still am.
Who were some of your early clients?
I was in college, and the people who were in my group of friends were also musicians. They introduced me to other musicians. We were recording for fun, really. I had a little success with some early recordings. I've gone back and listened to some of them, and they're not that bad!
If you're careful enough when first starting out, you hopefully don't make big mistakes.
I didn't have enough gear to make mistakes with! Once I found recording, I became a very bad student. It was at that time I remember going down to Powell's and meeting you.
I think what kept us friends for so long is that we're not in competition. We've helped each other over the years. I remember calling and saying, "My tape deck's broken. Help me!"
I'll never forget the 4th of July when you had Pavement [Tape Op #15] at the studio and the tape deck was broken. I was at the park with my family. I was like, "Don't worry. I'll be right there."
I still owe you! What led to you and your family leaving the Portland area and moving to Oklahoma?
You remember back in the early days of the internet, we had rec.audio.pro. It was a list. I didn't have a computer, so I would go over to my brother's house. I met so many people on that list who I'm still friends with. I met Tony SanFilippo because we both had 3M machines. I met a lot of other people, but I met a guy in Oklahoma City who was building a studio. He had all these questions about how to lay out the control room. Evidently, he was really serious about building this place, so I started giving him suggestions. "Here's where you should set up your monitors. Here's where you should put your screen for Pro Tools." We talked a lot. Through all that, he said, "Man, you've helped me so much. Come down to Oklahoma City and do a session here." Back then, in Portland, I was mixing a lot, but the odd thing was that I had to book three to six months of studio time in a row to mix all the records I was working on. The studio owners would be mad at me for this. Most studios now would dream of having a client who was going to book over 300 days per year. But at the time, they all resented me for it. For the most part, the guys who were running the studios wanted to be doing my job. Rather than look at me as a good client, I think they looked at me as being a nuisance because they couldn't be in there doing what they wanted; or they had to tell other people, "No, Craig has the place." I never understood that. I had to start traveling all over the country to mix records, and that meant I was out of town seven to nine months out of the year.
I remember that era.
Yeah. I'd be in Nashville or Chicago. There was a band that wanted to mix, but we couldn't get studio time in Portland. I called up the guy in Oklahoma and asked if I could come down and mix the record. He said, "Yeah, come on down." I really liked the place. He had it set up so that I could get the mixing done, but then I would stay for a while afterwards; he had sessions booked he needed an engineer for. That was great. I went home, and then the next thing I knew I had another record to mix. I went down, and he would have me come in early and do a bunch of sessions for him. At the time, it was hard to find an engineer in Oklahoma City who knew how to handle a big studio like that: one who was well-versed in the consoles and different systems, and knew how to run a session. There were about two years where I was constantly flying back and forth from Portland to Oklahoma. Eventually it started to wear on me and my family, so we moved to Oklahoma. I think we had the studio booked 320 days a year, which is insane. Being that it was built on top of the home where the guy lived, I think it got to be a bit much for him.
The proximity of a studio to your home can be overwhelming.
Yeah. Then I realized one day that it probably wasn't going to work out. I looked around to try to find a place for myself to land there, and found I really couldn't. There were a couple of producers here in Nashville who I was working with, and they both said they wanted me to be here. One of them actually offered to put up money for the console, and he found my first studio space for me.
Who was this producer?
His name is Neil DeGraide. He and I are still close friends. He's out in Louisville. He has got his own studio up there, and, in the process of all this, he's become a very good mixer himself. So, he doesn't really need me as much anymore.
You engineered Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour record a couple of years ago and even mixed some of it?
Along with Shawn Everett [Tape Op #115] and Serban Ghenea. I really wanted to mix more of the record than I did, but that's not how music works. Getting someone really good involved to help do your job does not make you look bad; it only makes you look better. I got to work on a record with Serban, who's been one of my mixing heroes for a long time. Shawn Everett, too. Both are guys I look up to, and whose work I enjoy. To have my name appear next to theirs; how is that not going to work out for me?
Did you take a try at mixing all the songs on the album?
Yeah, I mixed the whole record. My versions were to go show the label. They were certainly not rough mixes, like end of the night on the board. They were like, "We're going to sit down and really make sure they get an idea of what this record's all about." When I listen now, what Shawn and I did is still fairly similar. He mixed most of it. What Serban did was fairly similar as well. We had some different tastes, like what delay to use. The biggest thing between Shawn's versions of the mixes and mine is that I think mine sounded more '70s, like Fleetwood Mac. He was a lot more aggressive with mix processing than I would have been, but I like how it sounds.
It sounds cohesive.
