klickitat band camp

My wife wanted a Scottish Castle, or pretty much. We looked everywhere in the Portland area, but one Sunday we stumbled upon a seemingly giant colonial in Irvington in NE Portland with these white columns out front. It seemed immense when we happened upon it. We hadn't even walked through it, and I was already having a panic attack. The thing was over twice the price of what we could afford, and looking up at it (literally looking up), there was just "no way." Walking through it seemed endless, nearly 5,000 square feet, four floors, five bedrooms, and a huge finished basement. It even had a guest wing closed off by French doors with three extra bedrooms, which is how it became doved "Band Camp" by musicians who fly in to record.

After much consternation, we bought it. And so began about two years of intense remodelling. I'm sure I acted like a bratty 14-year-old because all I wanted to do was record. And here was a giant project to undertake. Although the home was a gorgeous colonial from 1927, the previous sets of owners had remodelled it during the '60s and '70s. It looked like the party ended in 1966. The bathrooms contained purple "love spas," and many rooms had upwards of 4-5 layers of wallpaper. I hate remodelling. The first thing I did was buy a sledghammer and knocked down all the Brady Bunch kitchen cabinets. We redid the bathrooms with subway tile and clawfoot tubs and showers, repainted, and essentially re-did the whole house back to the 1920s to the period when it was built. Attempting to build the studio up and record for those first two years, though, was tough. I was constantly battling dust, noise, endless projects upstairs, and just not enough time. In the end, though, it was worth it. The painting was complete, and the pictures were hung. The home was featured on the Irvington Home Tour, and I was free to turn my attention to the studio. As an aside, it is also featured in a November/December 2009 Article in Old-House Interiors. But who cares about the interior! I'm into microphones!

Buying beds is one thing, but buying outboard preamps and limiters and great microphones is quite another. At the risk of sounding, well, like I'm boasting, I had a very simple goal in putting this studio together on Klickitat. I've recorded at many studios, and I've pretty much hated my experiences at every single one of them for several reasons: too expensive, the engineer is not a musician, or at least not very inspiring, the places are stuffy and not relaxing, and the gear is good or fairly good, but spotty. Also, I hate waiting and waiting and waiting, and then suddenly being put on the spot. And so with this I came to a simple resolve: I wanted to put a studio together that had the best equipment ever manufactured in any decade in the world - ever - in a relaxing environment, with rates that no other studio in Portland could touch. That may seem like a lofty goal, but other than love, faith, family, and good health, that's about the only dream I've ever had. I love recording, and I hate top shelf studio rates and arrogant studio engineers that can't play Chopin Etudes. That may sound snooty, but if the engineer can't truly orchestrate, why would I want them producing songs that should be orchestrated?

So began several years of intense buying. I became quite familiar with Ebay, last minutes swoops to snag rare gear, and locating gear around the world. Risky, yes, but worth it. Once I almost wired $8,000 to a fake seller of a vintage AKG C12 tube microphone. On the way to the bank I decided to call the seller and actually talk - and it was a 12-year-old kid in Texas! His dad's ID had been stolen, and some overseas crook set up a bank account in Manhatten. Close one! I got the AKG c12, and even earlier more pristine model, four years later in 2009.

The thing about a good studio is that you need a lot of different pieces of outboard gear and microphones. The list could become endless pretty quickly, so I had to prioritize. There was no way I could buy everything at once, and so I adopted a policy that I follow today, and it has taken years: consult experts and follow their advice. For guitars and guitar amps I consulted Portland guitar virtuoso Tim Roth, who made lists of "must haves" (Plexi, vintage Twin and Vox amps) and "dream purchases" ('68 Martin n-20, gold top Les Paul). For limiters and microphones, I turned to Tom Robinson, who simply e-mailed me a list - Neumann, Telefunken, Gates, Altec, vintage dbx, Colins, UREI, Neve, RCA, CBS, and Meisner. These aren't new microphones and limiter/compressors - most were manufactured between 1958 and 1975. I started picking it all up one item at a time, paycheck to paycheck, and by trading up. I have made my self broke 100s of times over just to get that amp, microphone, or those tube limiters "I just gotta have!" But it has all been worth it.

Having recorded upwards of a 100 bands in the studio through 2006, and having amassed a pretty ridiculous collection of gear, I decided to take one final leap - buying a fully restored Neve console. It is custom broadcast console, similar to a 53 series, but it has room for 80 series modules as well. It is a very cool and great sounding recording console. The sticker price was absurd and as much as a small house, but we took the leap and exhausted upwards of 6 months commissioning it and installing a new Pro Tools HD3 rig. At that point, I consulted with various studio owners, including my friend John Vanderslice in San Francisco who owns Tiny Telephone Studio, and I decided to allow a few quality house engineers work here and open the studio up to a larger client base. That began in late 2007, and the feedback has been phenomenal. Musicians can play an incredible Steinway, have access to a Klaus Heyne modified u47, and track through a fully reconditioned '70s Neve console and racks of vintage limiters - all at a truly affordable day rate. No one else in Portland can touch this place gear- and rate-wise, and that will continue to be the goal. This isn't to disrespect other studios. Not at all. It's because I love and respect musicians and songwriters.

The idea isn't to have the most or the best toys and hoard them, but to have the best available to struggling musicians to use to make their records! I don't want to die owning a bunch of expensive pieces of studio equipment, I want it to be used by artists; used to inspire them to make great art. I believe that great guitars should be played. They should not be stored. Gear should be used. It has a life of its own and should be used for that purpose. Ultimately, this studio is for the artist, because there are too many studios out there with broken, ill-maintained equipment, stupid high rates, and second-rate brand name gear. Forget it. The next step will be to relocate into commercial space, but it's so cool where it's at I may just keep it here - indefinitely? I love records being made here, by me or others. I love the way the bottom floor shakes. It's just a cool and inspiring way to live. The greatest thing for me is to see how happy artists are recording here and telling me over and over that this place is just "off the hook." Yeah, true enough.