RECORDING June 2022 - 20

Log
L Session
Jeff Beck at
Capitol Studios
Les Paul
og
West Coast - East Coast
Producer Bob Cutarella masterminded
the idea for Capitol Records to honor Les
on his 90th birthday. Les had a long history
with Capitol. In the late 1950s, Les
was hired to design the echo chambers
at Capitol Studios. These cavernous,
trapezoidal echo chambers were dug
30 feet below the parking lot of the famous
Capitol Records building and can
be heard on countless albums. Universal
Audio has since modeled them for the
Capitol Chambers plug-in.
Two-thirds of the tracking took place
at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, and
the remaining tracks were cut at EastSide
Sound in New York City, where
I mixed the entire album. The whole
process took about five months, which
was the longest I had ever worked on a
single album until Angelheaded Hipster:
The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex [see
last year's Session Log].
og
L Session
started driving out to his house with a portable audio interface and laptop to play
him mixes and do his guitar overdubs.
Les' home was a museum with recording gear and memorabilia everywhere,
along with a sea of electric guitars, including the prototype of " The Log, " a solid-body
electric guitar. When you entered, you were greeted by a wall of Ampex
351 tape machines (of which I have two at EastSide). In a side room was an API
console, where we did most of the overdubs.
Class is in Session
Les Paul
Les Paul is, of course, the inventor of
the solid-body electric guitar. He also
invented multitrack recording, overdubbing,
phasing, tape delay, and more.
In addition to being a pioneer, Les
was an exceptionally smart, witty and
funny grandfatherly figure. His catering
requests included peanuts, non-alcoholic
beer, and mac and cheese. I have
fond memories of Les' dirty jokes and
countless stories. It could be a concert,
a historical event or even just discussing
pizza and Les knew the year and the
location, followed by the exclamation,
" I was there! "
Les lived in Mahwah, New Jersey,
about an hour outside of New York City.
In addition to playing his weekly Monday
night show at the Iridium Jazz Club
(which I was lucky enough to catch), he
did come to EastSide Sound for some
of the sessions. However, we couldn't
ask an 89-year-old man to come to the
studio that often, so the producers and I
20 RECORDING June 2022
Those sessions were like being in audio school and church at the same time!
I always walked away with a new trick of the trade, a new tool, a new lesson
or even a new guitar. Les was using a Gibson Les Paul Recording model for the
sessions, and I bought one for myself and had him sign it!
Initially, we set up a bunch of amps for Les to choose from, but my, albeit fuzzy,
recollection is that he actually wanted to go direct and sit in the control room with
us. I think we plugged him into a Neve preamp, and that was it! When we asked
him about distortion on his guitar, we all found it funny and unbelievable when
Les told us he never played with distortion. Because it was invented after he had
already been playing for years without it, he never developed an interest. This
record was the first time his guitar went through some distortion on a number of
the songs (although he plays clean on most)!
Ribbons
My obsession with ribbon mics started around this time. Wes Dooley of AEA
heard about the album and insisted on lending me two (then new) AEA R92
ribbon mics. They sounded bold, full and beautiful! I used them on some of the
vocals, guitars and horns before sadly sending them back.
I'm sorry I don't have more gear info, but these sessions happened almost 20
years ago, before iPhones and the iPhoto app. I know that on the vocals for Alsou
Ralifovna Abramova, I used a combination of an AEA R92 ribbon mic, a RØDE
NT2000 and a Neumann U 67 mic because I wanted to test the RØDE against
the tried and true Neumann.
During these sessions, I also learned about the Royer R-121 when Peter Frampton
came by EastSide Sound to record his track. He brought his personal Royer R-121
to track his guitar amp. It was new to me at the time, but I was impressed by the
sound of the mic. A few years later, when I could afford it, I bought a pair for myself.
The Right Place and Right Time Make All the Difference!
Another memorable session for the album was the one with Buddy Guy. To this
day, it goes down in my personal history as the earliest recording session I've
ever done. Buddy Guy came to lay down guitars and vocals on a track, initially
cut in Los Angeles, and he wanted to do the session at 6 am! We had to get there
around 5 am to set up. Buddy taught me that you could use a Fender Bassman on
guitar for a fabulous beefy tone.

RECORDING June 2022

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