Tag Archives for " The Decemberists "

My guest today is Larry Crane, editor and founder of Tape Op Magazine (started in 1996). He is also owner of Portland’s Jackpot! Recording Studio (since 1997).

Larry is a freelance producer/engineer who’s worked nationwide, and is also the archivist for the Estate of Elliott Smith. His career has taken him down many paths working as a record label owner, radio station music director, DJ, record distributor in sales, freelance music journalist, book editor, and bass player playing in bands since 1984, including Elephant Factory, Vomit Launch and the Sunbirds.

He's spoken on and moderated panels about recording for TapeOpCon, SXSW, NXNW, NARAS, AES, and CMJ. And has worked with many artists including Sleater-Kinney, The Decemberists, Jenny Lewis, M. Ward, Go-Betweens, Elliott Smith, Stephen Malkmus, Quasi, David J, She & Him, Richmond Fontaine, and more.

I remember back in 1996 when my mentor Brad Jones (also a guest on the podcast in episode 34) came back from making a record out on the west coast and handed me a small xeroxed folded “zine” that he said some kid was making out of his bedroom in Portland.

It was full of interviews from the alternative side of recording, and shared the perspective of the record producer underdog. It was aptly named “TapeOp” which was traditionally the first role of a new engineer in the big old school studios. But in 1996 a Tape Op represented those of us with a four track making our own records on cassette tapes and home studios. It was the coolest thing I had seen in recording culture back then, and has never let me down in 20 years.

TapeOp Started as a "Zine"

I think people have a hard time understanding if they were raised where the internet was always around why you would xerox, staple, and mail something to people. But for people to connect back then about esoteric topics like recording at home or small recording studio stuff, that was the way you had to do it otherwise you just had no voice. When the magazine started I was doing the magazine layouts on cardboard. Using glue sticks, paper, printing things out and gluing them in place. 

How Did You Record Miss Misery by Elliott Smith?

The best thing was to get out of the way. He was this personal who had very strong musical arrangements kind of finished in his head, you just had to facilitate and get really straightforward sounds. I miced the kick, snare, overheads, done. We didn’t have very many mics for that record. I think the overhead mics are audio technica 37R’s, the kick drum an RE20, the snare was a 57. It was simple! 16 track 2in, a Mackie Console, and a Langevin c3a for the vocal. There’s a piano and we used Pro37s (small diaphragm condenser). Those are great mics $130 a piece. They don’t have a shrill top end so they record well. The thing that was amazing is when you track stuff like that and push the faders up it sounded great because the arrangements were so concise.

Lynda.com - Online Courses

This has been really cool. For years I’ve done workshops at my studio and I had happened to be in a meeting with David Franz who runs the lynda.com part of that. It was a meeting for TapeOp and I said I’d love to do something like that because I was thinking of doing some of my little bits as videos. The great thing about doing Lynda is that it’s for a school so when people watch them you get royalties. I can do concise comprehensive courses have them them up there! For the initial start they sent a 4 person crew up with a producer and a couple cameras and it was just awesome they take and edit it and finish all the stuff for it. The platform Linda is great. It’s $25 a month and you can watch every video that’s on there.

Q- What was some of the best advice you got early on?
A - Probably to do TapeOp and go interview all these people making good records. The magazine started because I had been writing for a couple of different magazines and a local weekly and everything went defunct right about the same time. I wanted to keep doing interviews and things like that and I thought if I was going to do a music magazine they all have the same format. So I thought about doing a small zene and threw that idea at friends and they all liked it.

Q - Q- Share with us a recording tip, hack, or secret sauce.
A-I’d say just cutting things. Arranging, cutting things out, cutting frequencies out, just don’t put as much into the final mix as you think it needs.

Q -Share a favorite hardware tool for the studio
A-The Tama Rhythm watch is a metronome that you can tap along and figure out a bpm of something. The great thing about it is even if you’re working in ProTools, using your own metronome you can start and stop and do stuff in the middle of a song. I love having the independent metronome.

Q -Share a favorite software tool for the studio
A-Isotope RX5. I think it’s pretty amazing and once you get comfortable using it you can match room ambiences and things like that. You can reduce reverb on a track, all kinds of stuff.