Sound City

[Wiz]

I just watched the movie "Sound City"...

Dave Grohl made a film about sound city studio in LA, and the NEVE console that was contained within.


it was great.


a movie, dedicated to a neve console....


its on iTunes, also, it sounded really good too.

Some great footage, and great sound.

check it out

[obutcher]

I saw it last night at George St Cinema. Very entertaining and lots of gratuitous shots of the console! It gets a bit self indulgent at the end with Dave Grohl recording with various people, but who doesn't want to see Paul McCartney perfom in the studio on a massive screen with the sound turned right up?

[Wiz]

I saw it last night at George St Cinema. Very entertaining and lots of gratuitous shots of the console! It gets a bit self indulgent at the end with Dave Grohl recording with various people, but who doesn't want to see Paul McCartney perfom in the studio on a massive screen with the sound turned right up?

you know, I thought I would start to gag when that stuff started to happen, but I felt quite the opposite.

I really enjoyed seeing them in the studio writing and playing together.. .there was a great moment when Dave Grohl says "why can't it always be this easy?" and McCartney replies "it is......"


I laughed out loud.

great moment.

[walding]

Yep +1 here.

Saw it last night (thanks again lee) and it was most enjoyable.

Seeing macca jam out with the nirvana rhythm section was amazing.


Ps Stevie nicks singing through a 47 through the neve through god knows what else sounded err um not quite on it to me. Nice wig she had on though.

[rob]

just watched it through itunes with the home stereo turned up. I thought it was very good and while a tad indulgent at times, that was far outshadowed by the sheer enthusiasm.
Who would have thought back in 1990 that Dave Grohl would turn out to be such a capable and good spirited chap?

[obutcher]

Another great moment was when Paul says into the mic "I'll just go for a take and you can tell me what works and what doesn't", and Butch Vig in the control room giggles to himself "I get to tell Paul McCartney what to do!"

I'm glad they got Rupert in to chat about the console and they emphasised things like getting the drums to sound right and getting people to play live for vibe etc.

[waitup]

I just watched this last night. Cool flick. The studio stuff was great and the sound was awesome.

I have to say though, in my opinion most of the music came out 'less than the sum of its parts'. All of those people have made great music in their own right, but somehow together I think a lot of it came out pretty bad!

[rick]

its on my list of things to do tonight actually !


when i first started in this business , most neves in australia where in disrepute , 301 had just bought a ssl
rhino had a ssl, metropolis /aav bought an ssl alberts had just bough or were getting an ssl .

at festival we had the neve custom ordered 8026, its the sister to the sound city one .. before i watch the doco , i KNOW festivals was the first neve board in that format becasue i have seen the documentation between rupert and my boss during the long pre ordering stage ..it lives at byron bay now but i hesitate to tell anybody this ..

as i can't abide make tom richer or give him any cred he wasnt hip enough to know about with out my help

and besides the rocket scientests have recently modified it to look so un- neve i am flabbergasted at the idea that those guys claim to have or still own the neve company .. the mods may be practical but f@#$ they are ugly and just wrong .. any way i digress

Now i have never shared this story .. because who the f@#$ would have been interested .. but now theres a Doco

well

anyway Bob Dylan and tom petty and the heartbreakers came in to festival records to record a song while on tour .. everybody in the entertourage was very enthusiastic about our setup .. "oh we would like as ssl " i said enthusiatically ..
"why "said Tom petty ( this was 1986 btw )
all our best stuff was done at sound city on the same old neve you guys have ..
"who can i speak to about buying yours ..? I will help you guys get that SSL
in a heartbeat .."

mon afternoon after the session had finished , tom petty walks back into the record company to find me to finish a game of table tennis that was shut off early and for me to take him to meet the boss to make an cash offer on the neve..

Now i didnt get to sit in that meeting because , suddenly .. Petty was getting the carpeted executive hallway treatment and i was a just back room guy .. but when they walked out .. Tom was saying "ok well you guess just let me know .. any time .. and i mean any time .."

he looks me in the face and says
" .. nah they wont sell it .. its just like sound city .. they are caught in a F@#$ing time warp .. I F@#$ing love it .. "

He looks up at a "modern " promo poster of whitney houston ( at 18 in a wet bikini..) next to an ancient cat stevens poster then says

"and here I am on at the bottom of the world doing a tour backing Bob Dylan.. I am so with the times ...I F@#$ing love it .."

I am still giggling to myself decades later ..

Sound city Doco .. let me see it tonight me things..

[ChrisW]

Back when I was a studio drummer in the 80's, people would avoid tracking on an SSL. They loved them for mixing.
Air Studios was one of the hottest tracking rooms in town because of the custom Neve.

[Ben M]

Watching Macca jump on Dave (like a 16 year old lad) at the end of the flick was fun. You could see by the look on DG's face that he was thinking...OMG Paul McCartney just wrestled me.
Good fun flick. Well done DG!

Oh and the bit when Joe Barresi says "you could piss in the corner of the studio and no one would've known".

[walding]

Hey Rick I knew that story.

I had the immense pleasure of tracking and mixing on that board when it was at festival.

I only have a cassette tape left as the dat doesn't play, but it's one of my fondest memories.

I didn't know it was the sister board though.

Ha lee will be impressed.

[Lee Cardan]

Yeah screw you guys and you're fabulous tales of supreme talent and Neve consoles!
Us young fellas can only dream of stuff like that..
It was a pleasure as always hanging with you Mark!

One thing im really happy to take away from that film is that we (i) should make our own amazing moments in time rather than trying to recreate those from the past. That's only come to mind in the past few months for me, and this really reinforced that. As Nick pointed out, i also thought the music they were jamming on was not all that amazing considering (except for that one with Trent Reznor on keys -that was great), but that's kind of exactly it, make your own future, I just found it funny that those jams almost contradicted the moral of the story

Piss in the corner was classic, he said it like maaaybe he did it once !

[rick]

Watched it , loved it ..

only thing is seems like a lot of incredibly rich rock stars are living the studio dream in that movie
great to see .. now for the rest of us ..
back to work ..with those pesky computers
anyway we can

[rick]

maybe tom misner can make his own movie about his neve desk ?
the festival neve which was the first neve console ordered with 1081 modules
the sound city console looks like 1084 modules to me .. which was not an option when festival ordered theirs
it was 1064 , 1073 or the mystery 1081 module .. my boss must have thought f@#$ it
its murdoch money he wont notice .. but in case he does lets do it right !

this photo was some after it was first installed at festival .. but see how it looks .. mint !

.. and exactly how it looked the day I started !

well actually the world was in colour by then

Sound city cracked me up .. there is a photo of tom petty playing ping pong it that studio too !

everything i have seen lately cracks me up

that tv show madmen .. ? 1965 in new york was 1985 in sydney where i worked

but a 1973 neve was 1973 neve everywhere !

photo.JPG

[Chris H]

photo.JPG

that's a great photo Rick! Looks like an MCI 24 trk and maybe an Ampex 4 trk? Who are the people in the pic? Probably not but is that Doug Ashdown, 4th from left?
.......would be good to have a thread on Australian music photo's.

[rick]

Couple of early festival employees and an unknown
( By me ) Band
First 24 trk room is Australia

[zenelectro]

Thanks Wiz,

Downloaded / watched it last night. Bloody fantastic.

A lot of current day musicians and engineers really need to watch this movie. So much of what he
says is very true.

It's ironical, I do service work for some of the audiophile fraternity and a growing number are going back to 1/4"
2 track / buying boutique label tapes.

[Ruxton]

such a great inspiring doco, you can grab it direct from http://www.soundcitymovie.com cheaper than iTunes and in 1080p too!

It's actually a pity all that had to be condensed into such a short documentary, but it was still great to watch and experience.

[tunetown]

Loved it. Anyone know the room dimensions??

Damn you Protools....!!!