Chicago has always boasted great recording dens, from Bill Putnam's [Tape Op #24] Universal (the forerunner of Hollywood's United Western) to the mighty Chess Studios on South Michigan Avenue. While those landmarks long ago closed shop and the major labels are gone, Chicago has never suffered for lack of studio talent — especially over the last decade or so, when the indie music scene here took off. Behind Liz Phair's rise was Brad Wood, and Steve Albini [#87] made his mark not just with Nirvana's In Utero, but his own bands (Big Black, Shellac) and acts from the Pixies to Poster Children.
Engineer-producer Mike Hagler, the owner of Kingsize Sound Labs, may be lesser known but his records need little fanfare. Consider Wilco's Summerteeth, Lloyd Maines, the Wilco-Billy Bragg Mermaid Avenue discs, Neko Case's Canadian Amp, Jay Bennett, Five Style, Butterglory, Jon Langford's various projects (Mekons, Waco Brothers), Tim Easton, The Handsome Family, Heavy Duty Felt and the Pulsars. That one-time major label electronic pop band was fronted by Hagler's ex- studio partner, Dave Trumfio, and Hagler doubled as the Pulsars' studio guitarist and keyboardist. All told, it's one substantial track record for someone who came to the recording business at an age when many rockers turn in their picks and sticks for good.
"I didn't get into this until I was 32," says Hagler, now 43. "I was a parts manager at a car dealership, and like a lot of people in their twenties, I wanted to be a rock star." Now he's a studio standout. Yet to visit the Kingsize digs — located in an old Illinois Bell training facility in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood — you might think that you stumbled upon the wrong place. Talents as large as Hagler's aren't supposed to work in rooms as small as this. Measuring about 20-by-16 feet, with a 16-foot ceiling, it was once Kingsize's B room when Hagler, Trumfio and third partner Ken Sluiter rented space on the other side of the building. And while his equipment list includes a Pro Tools HD system, a Studer A80 1/4" mixdown machine, Genelec 1031 monitors and some boutique outboard gear, there aren't gobs of gadgetry blinking at you.
But Hagler likes it here, so much so that he lives in a snug, simple loft above the isolation booth. What's more, there's a disarming quality to the spartan, industrial surroundings, one that gets bands to cast off fears of stuffy studio vibe. Much like the room, Hagler's records lack gingerbread. They have a clear, focused quality — even as he draws on an adventurous palate of off-the-wall ideas coaxed from effects boxes, detuned instruments, Space Echos, digitally-twisted keyboards or whatever's lying around from a previous session.
Hagler's work also proves that the most important tools for any studio craftsman are his ears, mind and heart. After working many sessions with Mike, I've noticed some things that emerge as noteworthy constants. He is patient to the point of transcendence. He doesn't strain to leave his pee marks on a project. He personifies a musician's locked concentration as he preps a mix, which he can often do in under three hours. Though he labors hard to get it right, there is nothing labored or forced about his sound. During downtime, he noodles with crossword puzzles and is an avid reader of the New Yorker. He favors the odd combination of shorts and brown socks. His sharp sense of humor breaks up session tension. In search of new sounds or ways to improve his craft, he's a restless experimenter and perfectionist. And though he often deserves more credit than he gets for shaping the records he's worked on, I've never heard him complain about it or exhibit signs of slick self-promotion.
'By the seat of my pants'
Hagler landed his first serious recorder in 1979, a Tascam 3440 4-track reel-to-reel that predated the hugely successful Portastudio cassette decks. "I bought it from some guys who were in a Beatles cover band. I think I paid like $1,000, which wasn't a bad price back then — and I was gaga. It got a really good sound. I still have a lot of the tapes." Learning proper recording techniques meant diligent hunting for mentors and information. "There were no real pro audio shops locally at that time," Hagler says. "Music stores were all catering to guitars and drums, so it was reading articles on The Beatles, and just finding it out piecemeal — and learning it constantly by the seat of my pants. Everything I've learned is by the seat of my pants. I'm not really into reading manuals. I like to dive in, to have a piece of gear that is easy to use."
In the mid-'80s, Hagler acquired a Soundcraft 12- channel board (this becomes a refrain during our interview, as Hagler mentions this as the first in a line of pieces he could kick himself for later selling). "The recordings we did early on worked well. I just had a naturally good ear and I could pretty much work with a piece of gear until I got the most out of it. I loved to write songs, and I wanted them to sound as good as they could. So anytime I ran into someone, I asked for advice." The seminal lessons he learned — in particular from Mark Wesselhoff, a jazz fan who became an early recording partner — still show in Hagler's work. "He was not into overproduction. He stressed setting up the mics right, having the right mic preamps, no EQ."
As anyone who once sported big hair knows, such methods flew in the face of the "big production" style of many 1980's recordings. Hagler remembers hearing the big hits of the day and thinking that "it seemed daunting, like you had to have all this equipment, all these gadgets. There was a time later, when I started Kingsize, when we were gear nuts. Now we've honed it down to the pieces of gear we like and use. We still have the 2"-tape machine but I don't really have a preference."
Wait: No preference, analog versus digital?
"It depends on what the client wants. I love the depth of analog, but I love the speed of digital. And a lot of clients can't afford reels of two-inch tape. In digital, you can manipulate things in cool ways. People make great records in both formats. You have to do what feels right." Hagler says this with an open mind and easy laugh. To him, it's simply not a debate worth agonizing over, as so many recordists have and do. As he puts it, "I don't want to discourage people from making music."
The men who would be Kingsize
In 1986 Hagler was 26 and living in a dicey neighborhood on Chicago's North Side and Dave Trumfio was a high school senior and working as a salesman at Music Gallery in Highland Park. "I was living in an apartment with a guy and we just turned it into a recording studio and drove our neighbors nuts," Hagler says. "We had this long, eight-foot table and it was just covered with boards and a tape machine [a Tascam 38- A 8-track by this time] and an Echoplex — another piece of gear I shouldn't have gotten rid of. It was really bizarre. One night there was this horrible racket and there were two big Samoan brothers out in the hallway beating each other up." Trumfio lent his voice to some of Hagler's songs, and started coming by several times a week to learn the recording ropes — and so it went until Hagler got kicked out of the building and the two lost touch until 1992. In the meantime, Trumfio had taken some engineering courses at a local college and landed a position at Sea Grape Studios, where he worked on lots of house music.
"He really encouraged me to start taking [recording] seriously," Hagler recalls. "We started a band together — Larry Cash Jr., an angular noise-rock band with weird anti- pop leanings, but we had hooks, too. He was living in a rented house, and in the basementLarry Cash Jr. would practice. And that's where he would push me to work on real projects. It was called the Kingsize Sound Den."
"I kind of threw him into the fire," Trumfio recalls. "Mike's the guy that made my decision when I was really young, 18 or 19, and he was the first guy I met who had a home recording setup. He was doing these great recordings out of his apartment. So Mike pretty much inspired me, and I held him in this place where he's my mentor. He got these great sounds with a Soundcraft board, a 1/2" 8-track and an AKG 414 mic. I always thought he had awesome ears, and always trusted his ears over mine — and still do, at some level."
When it came to becoming partners, "I was intimidated at first, but something just clicked that this was what I was meant to do," Hagler says. "I was working this auto parts job and I hated it. I had a company car and benefits and I wound up quitting — without a dime in my pocket."
Trumfio: "I was like, 'We can do this, we can really start a studio. And over several meetings of drinking beer and pondering, I just grabbed him and said, 'We're doing it.'" Soon enough, the risk paid off. Hagler and Trumfio found space in the Illinois Bell Building. Trumfio's father co-signed for a $15,000 loan. They drew up soundproofing and floor plan diagrams — designs Hagler wound up executing mostly on his own after a contracting snafu. Kingsize Sound Labs opened in May 1993, three months behind schedule and just in time. Sporting a Fostex G16 16-track 1/2 ", two AKG 414s as their best mics and a rickety Biamp board, "We finished the studio, laying the carpet three hours before the first client showed up," Hagler says.
