Return to RobinFrederick.com

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: create more choices

My friend No'am forwarded a news item about the closing of a well-known L.A. studio and it started me reminiscing. Here's an excerpt from the story. The complete piece included info on the closing of famed New York studio, the Hit Factory. If I can find it online, I'll add a link and writer credit.

-----------------------------------
"The music world is losing two legendary recording studios this week. It is a sign of changing times and though I don't lament change for the better, this is a very sad week for people who care about such things.

In LA, the famed Cello Studios is closing. Formerly part of Ocean Way, it was originally known as Western Recorders and was built by the father of modern recording, Bill Putnam. He was not only a genius at studio design but also equipment design, having built and marketed several pieces that are highly prized.... This studio was the site of many great recordings, including Pet Sounds, and just about everybody worked there - the Stones, Elton John, Sinatra, Bing Crosby....Most depressing of all is that the rooms will be gone. There is no substitute for good acoustics and proper sound isolation, and most home studios are just some equipment plopped into a spare room or garage. These rooms, especially Cello, cannot be replaced with an electronic reverb, and it is just a painful one-two blow to those who love the history of pop music recording."
----------------------------------

This was the first I'd heard about Western closing down. I worked there many times though not on the kinds of projects anyone would remember. Mostly low-budget television and film sessions. I did record four singles there with Larry Carlton producing. It's Larry I remember, not the studio. The building and the rooms themselves were barebones, no-nonsense, just as hard-working as the session musicians who came and went daily. Although many big names recorded many famous albums there, it was never your sushi, limo, and hot tub recording sessions. Just good equipment and a great mic collection. Next door to Western is the infamous mastering studio of Bernie Grundman where Brian "Big Bass" Gardner has created some of the bassiest bass sounds a subwoofer ever freaked out over. It's a small, unpretentious place where the carpets are shag, the lighting is dim, and the walls could use a paint job but they've got 37 Grammy Nominations this year. It's all in a seedy part of Hollywood that most people would rather avoid.

It was always just "Western" or "United/Western" long after they changed the name to Ocean Way. I never even knew they changed the name to Cello. I can't say that I'm all misty-eyed over losing it. Capitol Records' studios still have the best live echo chambers ever built - big concrete rooms underneath the building that sound like nothing else, especially nothing else that's digital. We haven't lost that one yet! A few years ago we did lose a studio that upset me - Goldstar Recording on Santa Monica Blvd. where Phil Spector developed and recorded the legendary 'Wall Of Sound'. It was another one of those down-at-the-heels, utilitarian places - nothing fancy, linoleum on the floors, ratty sofa in the lounge, smell of coffee and cigarettes and pot from all night sessions. Nobody said much when they bulldozed it down. It too had an underground concrete chamber for great live echo. Let's see now...linoleum floors, ratty sofa, concrete reverb. Maybe someone's garage really is the best place to record instead of all these fancy, hundreds-of-dollars-per-hour, sushi-snorting, hot-tub-bubbling, jet-setter rooms with fancy equipment. True, it's hard to afford a Neve mixing board for your garage on a musician's salary but there have been some great records made on equipment studios can't even give away these days. It's still, and always will be, in the ear and the talent of the music maker.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Read A Brief History Of Love Songs by Robin Frederick at the Sound Experience Music web site.

Copyright 2005 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.