> STUDIO MARK NEEDHAM
Strictly come mixing >>>
Needham currently works out of his studio, The Ballroom in Los Angeles, California
After graduating from school at the age of 16, Needham headed to San Francisco with his guitar teacher to establish the Blue Bear School of Music in the early 70s. He eventually split with the school and founded local studio Bear West, a three-room facility on Howard Street, where he picked up engineering credits with fingerstyle guitarists Duck Baker and Dale Miller, both of whom released albums on the Berkley- based independent label, Kicking Mule.
M Racking up studio hours tracking and mixing for jazz
This begs the question: how do you know how much time and effort to put into a mix? How do you know when to stop, when it’s as good as it can be, or when to keep working because those last few tweaks might just make it? “That can be a dark hole because it’s always tough to know when to quit or when to keep on going. Are you just going to continue to travel down a dark hole or are you going to see some light at the end? It’s always a hard decision – to either keep going and maybe waste more time or scrap it and start again with a new direction, or even move onto something new altogether. That’s a
“
When mixing, it’s always tough to know when to quit or when to keep on going. Are you just going to continue to travel down a dark hole or are you going to see some light at the end?
Mark Needham At 16 Needham began working at Blue Bear Music School
very hard call to make. I’ll usually know when it’s right but knowing when it’s wrong is much more difficult. “There’s a certain point when I think I’ve exhausted a lot of opportunities and none of them are working that I know that I have to go back and figure out what it is that’s wrong with the arrangement or the parts that’s making the thing not work. It’s tough to throw in the towel on something. But I know when something strikes me as right.
“I know intuitively and fairly quickly when something is really working. If its not, I’ll go straight back to the start and find out why.” >
markneedham.com
36 audioPRO December/January 2010/11
greats such as Pharoah Sanders, Rodney Franklin and Joe Bonner, Needham soon landed his first gig as an assistant producer on ‘hard bop’ jazz pianist Cedar Walton’s 1982 recording, Among Friends. He continued to work within the jazz scene throughout the early 80s, mixing albums by Nat Adderley and John Hicks, while also recording and playing with rock acts such as Taj Mahal and Nicky Hopkins. Needham was then approached by producer Erik Jacobsen to work with him on The Sopwith Camel. A year later, Jacobsen told him about an artist who he’d seen playing in local San Francisco clubs named Chris Isaak. Jacobsen liked his sound, so together they worked with Isaak to put together a demo, which helped get him signed to Warner Brothers Records. In 1985, Needham was hired by Warner Bros as an engineer on Silvertone, Isaak’s debut album. Though Silvertone was not a hit until the song Gone Ridin’ was featured in the 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet, Needham undoubtedly realised from the moment he set foot in the studio with talented rocker Isaak, that it was a break into the big time as an engineer. Through this role he found himself behind his first big console at the renowned Fantasy Studios, which, just as it is now, was one of the most in-demand tracking facilities in northern California. Needham has remained side-by-side with Isaak
throughout his career, engineering on nearly every album he has released; however, along the way he has scooped a raft of other high profile credits, including Elton John’s Road to El Dorado, the multi-platinum- selling Hot Fuss by Las Vegas rockers The Killers, and the recent studio and live albums by Fleetwood Mac, which Needham counts among his career highlights. Today, although he occasionally makes use of third- party studios, Needham primarily works out of his own private facility in LA known as The Ballroom – an actual former ballroom located in Griffith Park, Hollywood – where he is assisted by second engineer, Will Brierre. Currently he is working with artists such as The Eagles’ Don Felder and Blondie, while beginning pre-production for Chris Isaak’s 11th studio album.
www.audioprointernational.com
ark Needham is a jack of all recording trades: a producer, engineer and mixer with an impressive four decades of studio experience.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60