Recording - September 2019 - 26

TOTO

the stereo bus, and then they spend too much time EQing the EQ
and that's their thing-but they never listen to the sound source!
A great engineer like an Elliot Scheiner or an Al Schmitt,
they come out and they listen to the drums or the guitar amp,
they walk around the room. They listen to the sound. Then they
know where to set up the mics. When you go into the control
room, it sounds incredible. Then you look at their EQ and it's
like, one click at 10K, a click at 30, and if they want to change
the sound, they move the mics around because it's the sound
source they're trying to capture, not the gear.

Listening to the albums on the box set, you guys have
some songs that are pop, some that are smooth jazz,
others are fusion, and some that are just straight-up
heavy! And despite changing and sadly losing members over the years, it's always unmistakably Toto.
We never really talked about it, but every guy brings something a
little different to the collective musical gumbo that is Toto. It's our influences, and experiences from playing on other peoples' records.

Is it true that Toto is the backing band on Michael
Jackson's Thriller?

Yes, most people don't know that on the song 'Beat It', that's all Jeff
Porcaro on drums, Steve Porcaro hitting the downbeats on synth, me
on guitar and bass except for the solo, and then Michael singing.
'Human Nature' is completely a Toto song, with all of us playing and Michael singing. I could go down a list of songs and
albums that nobody knows we played on. Sometimes I played
guitar on a third of all the songs on the top 200 at a given time.

See, you are The Wrecking Crew of the 80s!

What's interesting is, I play these songs exactly the same
with Ringo on the All Starr tour, and it doesn't sound the same.
To this day, when we play together it still comes out sounding
like I guess what Toto is supposed to sound like.

Toto's last album was made in 2015?

Actually, there is what I guess you could call a new album
in the All In box set. It's called Old Is New. It's ten new tracks
where we wrote new stuff, and we also pulled out some old
songs and finished them. With the technology now, we can go
back and play with our twenty-something selves, and fix the
chorus that was messed up, and we did that.

What was it like, going back and mastering these
tracks with Elliot, Reuben and Gavin?

Those guys were the real geniuses, it was like they were able
to remix the record without remixing it. Such brilliance. We sat
together for like a week, and we did it all in chronological order, from the very first album to the new one, and it was really
a trip. Some of the stuff I hadn't heard in forty years.

Did you have any favorite moments that stand out,
like things you'd forgotten about?

There are whole decades I have forgotten about! [laughs] When
we were listening and talking, everybody had a different memory of
the same event, and it was really fun and enlightening to hear them.
Again, we listened to it all in chronological order and most of
it stood up really well. You know, there were a few cringeworthy
moments, particularly lyrically. We were kids, what did we
know? But you could also really see the growth of the band. It
was very much "This is your life!"
Each song or record is like a photo album, and not just for the
musicians. You play a song to somebody from their high school
years and all of a sudden-they're there! You know? Music and
the sense of smell are the two things that can do that.

Steve, thanks for taking the time to talk. I look
forward to seeing you guys on tour and hope everyone enjoys the box set!
Thanks!

Gavin Lurssen and
Reuben Cohen-
Lurssen Mastering
Gavin, give us your background. How did you get
into mastering?

Gavin: I went to Berkeley College of Music, graduated in
1991, and immediately 'borrowed' my mom's car to drive out
to LA where I decided I was going to take any job I could get
as long as it was in the music business.
I ended up hooking up with Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, who
was one of the original mastering engineers. The job was an entry
level, pick up the sandwiches, sweep the floor kind of job. Then I just
rose up the ranks. This was still back when there were only a half a
dozen mastering houses, and you had to really be a proven entity.
You couldn't just go out and buy some software and hang a shingle.
26 RECORDING September 2019

Reuben, how did you get into mastering?

Reuben: I started as a teenager at the Mastering Lab. I was
actually the last guy that was working at the facility in Hollywood before it closed down, and I met Gavin there. When
Gavin decided to break out on his own and start Lurssen Mastering in 2006, I followed him, along with a couple other members. We've been here for thirteen years now.

Tell me about Lurssen Mastering. Are you digital,
analog, or both?

Gavin: Everyone is digital these days, but we are also a full analog
studio-in the case of the Toto box set, 100% analog processing.

Recording - September 2019

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