Recording Engineer/Producer Part III

Spent yesterday doing some tech work in a time-capsule circa 1983 recording studio.  Today’s perusal of RE/P Magazine c.’85 feels especially poignant.

I had never paid attention to the name ‘Dennis Lambert’ before, but wow what a list of credits this dude has.  The Four Tops ‘Ain’t no Woman Like The One I Got.’  Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds.  Survivor.  The Grass Roots.  And Player’s ‘Baby Come Back.’

RE/P identifies Lambert as a master of the ‘Crossover Hit,’ which basically means that his music has an incredibly broad appeal that spans multiple listening tastes.   Based on his credits, I think this is accurate.  Dude had a book published called “Producing Hit Records,” and I think he earned the right.  This interview was conducted as his active career was coming to a close.

Sony Electronics recently unveiled a new product called the SONY DASH.  It is a ‘personal internet viewer,’ sort-of like a clock radio-meets- iPad.  I worked on the product launch for months as music-supervisor and never once did I recall that SONY actually had a major pro-audio product named DASH in the 80’s/90’s.  The DASH digital-multitrack has vanished to that great of a extent.  Crazy.  These gigantic, expensive machines were the historical bridge between 24-track analog tape and DAWs like Pro Tools.  A lot of really, really big records were recorded on the DASH, but at this point, they offer neither the ‘sound’ of analog tape nor the convenience/editing ability of DAWs.  God only knows where these monsters have ended up.  Feel like I saw one of eBay for like $1500 last year.

Here we have a competing digital multi-track from Mitsubishi.

Effectron!  What happened?  Where did your knobs go?  Bad move guys.  Unlike the circa ’82 blue Effectron with the great, tactile interface, this later digitally-controlled version was not a hit.

Love, love my DBX 900 rack.  I have five 903 compressor cards, one 902 De-esser, and 2 of the gates.  These are a great value in outboard gear and they take up so little space.  Highly recommended.

As much as I like older audio equipment, I do not miss hardware gates.  Not at all.  Thank you Pro Tools and the Digital Hygiene that you make possible.  There are certainly many creative applications for these devices, but overall this is functionality that is much better served by the DAW.

Seems like a pleasant lady.  Interesting how FOSTEX is really going after the non-technical-person market here.  As-in., “I write songs. I want to record them.  Don’t care about specs ETC.  Here’s a pic of me writing a tune.  Here I am looking pensive.  Also here’s the product.”  TASCAM had a very similar product range at the time, but conversely, they wanted to convince you that their 16-track 1″ machine was ‘actually serious kit, for real!’