I couldn't figure out where your music career began!
The beginning, in a professional studio environment, was at Electric Lady Studios, as an intern. In 2003 I started sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms.
Had you studied recording?
I'd been doing it myself, growing up on a 4-track, then a simple computer program in high school, and recording bands that I was in. I went to NYU for Music Technology. About a year after being at Electric Lady, I dropped out of school. I thought, "Hey, I'm around the real thing! This is what I came here to do."
What work were they having you do?
When I started, I couldn't go in the rooms at first. It was like, "If you do a good job mopping and cleaning the toilets, come back tomorrow. If you do that enough times, maybe we'll let you poke your head in and do a run for us." It was real old-school. I believe in that style of coming up. I had some great mentors, and I wound up working as an assistant engineer a lot with Russell Elevado, assisting on his mixes around that time.
What was he working on?
As soon as I walked in the door of Electric Lady, D'Angelo was booked in there. Russ was working a bit with him, as well as a bunch of other hip-hop and soul [acts]. We ended up working with a wonderful artist, Krystle Warren, together who I still work with. Russ took on her project as a producer, and I came in as an engineer under him for that. That solidified us working together. We did an album by The Roots called Game Theory and an Al Green record called Lay It Down around that time.
Did you and Russ get on well?
We're great friends, and I think we work well together. I ended up going into engineering and mixing, but I was never the guy who only loved and wanted to be around the technology. I always wanted to be around the most creative, interesting people who were pushing the limit of the art. He was definitely the guy who was... he's an artist in his own right. Had I not met him at that time, I probably would not have stuck with engineering. I wanted to go down a more artistic path, and he showed me that that was something I could do. Part of mixing and recording is putting the art into the sounds and collaborating with the musicians in that way. I was fortunate enough to wind up working with him. We ended up going together to the West Coast to work with D'Angelo.
Where were you working at for that project?
We were going to a place that used to be SF Soundworks that we were taking over for D'Angelo, for a period of time. After that, we ended up at The Plant in Sausalito. We were some of the last people in there, I think. That's when I ended up going into the engineer seat with D'Angelo. It was 2008; I was 24 and I was engineering for him. They called me Benny the Kid, at the time. It was a long process. He's someone who's always challenging to work with, in that he wants new and cool things to happen sonically. He expects you to take sounds and turn it into something different that he wants to hear. He would ask for a challenging abstract idea and sometimes it was like, "I don't even know how that's supposed to be! What is that?"
Would you and Russ confer and try to figure out what to do?
It depended on what was going on. There are stints when it's been me and D, stints when it's Russ and D, and sometimes it's the three of us. It's a lot of passing of ideas and torches, because Black Messiah went on so long that we'd mold an idea – he wanted something to sound a certain way, and I'd get it – and that's what it was going to be like for the next five years. Whatever we honed in on with that piece of gear, it was like, "Print it now." Because if he likes it, we're probably going to stick with it!
That was an extensive amount of time, right?
Yeah, it was a long time between albums. I worked on it for a decade, and they'd worked on it for a few years before I even came into the fold. We'd go and work through for a few months, and then there would be a break. I'd be doing other projects, then that would pop up and take me away, and then I'd go back to projects. It wasn't a straight period of time, but it was always coming back.
What's happening on a record like this, where it's taking years?
More songs and more musical ideas to turn into songs. There's a catalog of so many ideas at this point. That, and perfecting it on a level that few people want to go through. The amount of time can feel trying. We'll be asked to do something three years later. "Put that song up." And if the vocal's a little different, he notices right away! I'd wish I knew what was different. Maybe we were in a different studio at this point, but we'd have the same gear. That aspect could be difficult. But the highs of it – when amazing ideas come out, or when he's there jamming with the band – are so high. Believing in the music and waiting for it to get to the point that we could share it. The belief that we're getting towards that. Now we're in that process for another one.
How does that look to you?
I think it looks bright! Only time will tell. I stay out of gambling on when something's going to come out. There's so much good material; it's just a matter of time.
What led to opening Electric Garden with [co-owner] Drew Vogelman?
Somewhere around between 2013 Drew had The Garden, a little studio space ?– with a lot of gear and the SSL AWS console that's in our B room ?– in a garden apartment under his house in Brooklyn. I'd made that my home when I was mixing a bunch of projects. I did a [self-titled] Chris Dave and the Drumhedz album there, a bunch of Emily King mixes, and a lot of other projects. It had all the gear I needed, but it was a bit too small with just the drum booth and a control room. We wanted an upgrade and were looking for another space. We ended up leaping into building this place. My obsessive tendencies kicked in and turned into all of this. That, coupled with all the talented artist friends and people I recruited to help us. If we were going to do this, I felt like I didn't want to go halfway. I wanted to build a space that hadn't been done before, as far as the feel of it and the whole vibe.
What was in here before?
It was a bean sprout factory. It had been closed for maybe ten years. The control room was where they grew bean sprouts. The water tank that they would irrigate with is now our echo chamber. It's maybe 20-feet wide by 10-feet tall and sloping. It's a beautiful-sounding echo chamber. We wouldn't have built it, but you couldn't remove it if you wanted to. It's a giant concrete and metal structure.
Did you and Drew buy this building?
We're in a long-term lease. Being on two levels, our live room is three feet higher [up steps and a ramp] than our control room. It's how the space was laid out when we got to it, and we went with what was here. As weird as it is, people tend to like it.
You've also got a B room downstairs?
We were figuring out what to do with it when we got the building, but it seems like there's always overflow; or someone wants to record up here, but they want to have one of their producers writing downstairs. The B live room doubles as additional booths for up here, if you have another horn section or you want to put your drummer somewhere separate. It's all video-linked.
And obviously has tie lines.
All the rooms are connected. It gives us more options for how to use all this space.
The control room is large and has a high ceiling. Do you ever get people performing in here?
Yeah. As long as the engineer is cool with going to headphones or picking the right mic. A lot of people will even do vocals in the control room while their band is in the live room; even laying back on the couch!
It's so interesting-looking in here.
I designed it with my friend, Missy Ablin, who's an architect and artist. Her background is in painting and art, and she has her Masters in Architecture. I was like, "I want to build this space and make every part of it cool." I was taking inspiration from the vibey places that I'd been, that we tried to continue in the tradition of. Definitely Electric Lady [Studios], and The Plant, which was a super psychedelic place. Their gobos were all tie-dye! I wanted to build a place that had a built-in vibe, where people come in and think, "We can't do something normal here. We're in a special space." I think that when you walk into a room, different things can be an inspiration for people. Sometimes it's a historic room, and you think, "Okay, Nat King Cole once sang in this live room, so I've got to bring it today." It's hard in New York, because you're walking in off the street but we want you to feel like you're in a different world. "Whatever happened on the subway, I don't even remember that now because I'm in a different space."
What did you describe to Missy that you wanted?
Well, definitely the living wall with the plants in the control room was [in idea from] early on. I'd always been trying to sneak plants into whatever room I was working in as a freelancer. I want the place to be living, so what better than a living wall of plants? That went with our Electric Garden theme. Circles and curves; there are a lot of studios with sharp lines and angles. What would be described as a masculine energy, versus a feminine energy. There's a lot of creativity in the feminine energy, and that was a guiding principle of the design. Definitely with the circles in the front.
Right. You're looking towards a circle of art here as you work at the console.
Doing everything differently than what I had seen elsewhere.
Did you show her pictures of studios and say, "This isn't what I want"?
I showed her a lot of pictures. We also brought in this amazing acoustician, Zackery Belanger [arcgeometer]. He had done a lot of concert halls, but not too many studios. He's pushing the acoustic field forward too. I think there's a lot of, "This control room works. Let's keep building it this way," within the acoustics industry. Having those two free-thinkers on my side definitely helped get us here.
I'm not seeing any visible acoustic treatments like I would normally.
The plants behind you are diffusion, and their dirt is absorption. The front wall's diffusion. The wood behind the circle art is a type of bass trap called a tuned membrane absorber. It's the same acoustic principles, but new ways of getting there.
How long did it take to get up and running?
It was a slow build out. It was probably nine months of construction. Then we opened the A room and it took us maybe another year or so to get the B room fully going.
In the live rooms, there's something that looks like bark on the walls.
It is bark! From poplar trees.
No way.
That was where Zack came across this tree bark product that is a natural diffusor. We ended up with a nice, natural sound with the tree bark and the wood floors.
What's Drew's role in the studio
He was definitely helpful in building the place! We run it together, but he's less involved on a day-to-day. He works in advertising and has a lot of knowledge and experience. He'd built studios before [Dessau Studios in New York], so the experience of getting a place going and having a veteran on the team helped.
Were you working gigs at other places while this was being built, too?
A few, but I cut back for those nine months when I ended up being like a "construction foreman" or whatever, which I had no experience in.
Was it hard, financially, to open this studio?
Oh, it was definitely hard financially. We did a Kickstarter, and we got help from a few places, but it was one of these "if you build it, they will come" feelings.
Has having your "dream studio" made your life a little easier?
Definitely. It's the best place for me to mix in. It has all the gear I need. The fine-tuning that we did with the acoustics and making the room sound great has definitely paid off. It's also great to give others this experience, because there are not a lot of places that are building new studios that are analog-based, or at least with the ability to do hybrid analog, have tape machines, and also have staff and techs who keep it all working. Being able to oversee this place myself, as an engineer, has allowed me to keep the right thoughts in perspective, which you don't always find at other studios when it's a manager running the place who doesn't know what any of the gear is. I think it's helpful.
How many sessions are with outside engineers?
It's booked a lot. I'll be in here for a whole month straight sometimes, but the month before I might not have walked through the door as an engineer at all. That's where having the two rooms helps. I can do a mix downstairs or cut some overdubs.
What were some of the first sessions when Electric Garden opened?
The first session actually was D'Angelo. I got the call, "Are you guys open? Can you do this?" He came in for a month to kick it off. Recently, we had the artist H.E.R., and Anderson .Paak comes in frequently. James Blake was here for a little bit. We're lucky to have people who have found this to be their favorite place to work and keep coming in.
What feedback do you get from engineers working in here?
I get a lot of great feedback on being able to use all this gear. An outside engineer would come in, and they'd primarily mix in-the-box. After they'd been here, they'd generally say, "Okay, now I need a console, and I need some outboard gear."
You ruined them!
