Tchad Blake: Binaural Excitement

This inventive American has graduated from aiding and abetting producer Mitchell Froom in his sonic escapades to full production duties on a variety of live and studio albums. Paul Tingen talks to a devotee of binaural recording who's more than just a dummy head.

Anyone out there who's exploring today's ever‑cheaper CD‑quality recording options should sit up and take note. If you're working with live music you could do a lot worse than following the example of American engineer and producer Tchad Blake. Try, for example, this bit of outlandish inventiveness: take some leads, two cheap Lavalier mics, a tiny portable DAT recorder, plus a multitude of batteries and DAT tapes. Stick the Lavalier mics in your ears, connect them to your DAT recorder, and put your head in front of whatever it is that you want to capture. Record for a few hours, moving or turning your head when you want a different balance. Then spend a few more hours editing the lot in a hard disk editor, add PQ coding, transfer back to DAT, and send off to the CD factory. Before you know it, you've got a CD. This is exactly what renowned American engineer and producer Tchad Blake has been doing in recent years, with some stunning results.

The new sister label to Peter Gabriel's Real World label, Womad Select, has released several CDs that contain material recorded by Blake using this method, called binaural recording: Dawn Raga, by the famous Indian electric mandolin player U Srinivas (1995); Made In Sardinia, by Sardinia's number one guitarist, Gesuino Deiana (1997); and Kaira Naata, by the Gambian kora player Pa Bobo Jobarteh and the Kaira Trio (1997). All three CDs contain some more than excellent music. Blake's talents were also recently put to use by Robert Fripp's Discipline label, on a CD release featuring the talents of Chapman Stick player Tony Levin, drummer Jerry Marotta, and flautist Steve Gorn. The evocatively‑titled From The Caves Of The Iron Mountain was indeed recorded in a cave, and saw Blake walking around the cave and floating in a boat in an underground lake, with mics in his ears to record special sound effects.

Blake's interest in binaural recording and environmental noises goes back a long way, and it's only recently that he has found an outlet for it. Via transatlantic telephone from his house in Hollywood, the 42‑year old American explained: "I've always been interested in environmental sound. When I was young I used to record stuff with a mono cassette recorder while I was just walking around, or getting in the car, closing the doors, and driving off, things like that. I just loved those sounds. I used to be a guitar player as a teenager, then did some work in photography and odd jobs here and there, and when I was 25 I started work at Wally Heider's studio in LA, as a janitor and runner, and immediately put together my own binaural system using their equipment, sticking little microphones in my ears and walking around Hollywood recording city sounds. This was around 1979‑80. After three years at Wally Heider's, I moved on to work as an engineer for a small demo studio, and then I worked at The Sunset Sound Factory for nearly five years as an assistant engineer. It was here that I met Mitchell Froom, in 1986."

Contrast

The meeting with producer Mitchell Froom was a turning point in Blake's life. The two hit it off, and have been working together ever since. They've been responsible for a whole string of records, many of them extremely influential. Froom brought Blake in for the last stage of Crowded House's debut album, Crowded House (1986), and since then they've gone from strength to strength, doing two more albums with Crowded House, and working with Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega, Los Lobos, Paul McCartney, Richard Thompson, The Pretenders, and the illustrious Latin Playboys (1994). Blake also worked alone as a producer and engineer with Crowded House's Finn brothers (Finn, 1995), The Wild Colonials, Soul Coughing, and has also produced and recorded Sierra Leone's SE Rogie (RW, 1994), Madagascar's Justin Vali Trio (RW, 1995) and Zimbabwe's Thomas Mapfumo (WS, 1997). The weird, wacky and wonderful Latin Playboys album featured Los Lobos members Louie Perez and David Hidalgo, as well as Froom and Blake, and was based on 4‑track Portastudio material that Hidalgo recorded in his kitchen (see SOS November 1994). It was on this record that Blake managed to find a serious application for his environmental binaural recordings for the first time.

For me the studio is a fantasy world, a place to make things happen that couldn't possibly happen in real life.

Blake: "I've kept on doing binaural recordings throughout the years, but I never had an outlet for the idea. I suggested it many times, but it never seemed to fly with artists or producers. Then it finally started a little bit with Kiko, and on the Latin Playboys project we ended up using a lot of natural ambience to complement Hidalgo's demos. Some of the binaural stuff came from my archives, some of it I specifically got for the record. I walked around the block collecting sounds, and for the song 'Rudy's Party' we put binaural microphones on the roof of the studio, and recorded the street sounds that went on at the same time as we were doing some overdubs downstairs. I think binaural ambience and music are a great combination. I record music at home, and all my demos have a binaural aspect, whether it's just atmospherics, or something like a weaving machine from India laying the basis for the rhythm. On Mitchell Froom's new solo album [out early 1998] we used the rhythm made by some guys in Venice cracking 30‑feet whips as a basis for one song. I love that contrast between music and binaural stuff. When you're listening to it via speakers, rather than headphones, it's not truly binaural anymore, so it becomes more of an effect which changes your perspective of the music."

These days, Blake uses two different binaural recording techniques. One involves a dummy head; in the other his own head is promoted — or demoted — to dummy head: "If I'm in a controlled environment where there's no wind, usually indoors, I use the Neumann KU100 dummy head. It's the state‑of‑the‑art binaural recording microphone. When I'm outside and walking around, and really in the field, I use my little portable setup — two omnidirectional Sony ECM50 Lavalier mics which I stick in my ears, attached to a headband that keeps the wires in place. The Sonys are these kind of clip‑on lapel mics. They're not great sounding, but they work quite well in a binaural situation. For some reason, they lose some low end when you stick them in your ears — I'm not a very technical engineer, so I don't know why. I just like the way they sound. I've tried other microphones, but besides not fitting in my ears properly, they don't sound as nice as the ECM50s."

Music In Context

When Blake is recording outside the studio, he uses the tiny Sony TCD D7 portable DAT to record both the Neumann dummy head and the Sonys. He explains: "I record straight into the D7 — no effects, no extra mic preamps. I just love the way the D7 sounds. I've never heard my binaural stuff sound better over headphones than when I listen back to that machine. There probably are machines with far better mic preamps and things like that, but it's very important for me to have backups when I'm doing field trips to places like the Gambia or Zimbabwe. I take two sets of everything with me on field trips: two sets of microphones, two sets of D7 DAT machines, and tons of batteries and tapes. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was using the Sony Pro DAT, because of all the battery packs I'd need to take with me. Sometimes I don't have access to AC to recharge the batteries for a few days, so AA batteries are vital. On certain field trips I also take the Neumann head with me, but that's a luxury, because I also have to bring some sort of mic stand, extra cables and batteries, so it takes up a lot of room, and travelling in buses becomes a hassle. I need to travel by car when I carry the Neumann, and that's not always possible."

According to Blake, the albums he made with Sardinian guitarist Gesuino Deiana and Gambian kora player Pa Bobo were both recorded equally with the ECM50s and the KU100: "When you hear me on the Sardinian record being outside and walking around or sitting in a car, or you hear sheep, or that guy playing harmonica in the opening track, which was recorded in a pizzeria, that's all done with the Sonys. The music that has some ambience was recorded in a church with the dummy head. The sleeve says that most of the recording was done in Real World, but that's a typographical error — everything on the CD was recorded in Sardinia. Part of the point of doing these binaural recordings is that I want to give the listener a sense of where the music comes from. I don't want them to just hear the music out of context. It's a way of showing what helped the musician develop his or her style. For example, when Gesuino Deiana is playing he listens to every sound that he hears. Whether it's a car passing or a dog barking, he'll actually mimic that on his guitar a little bit and he'll incorporate that into his compositions. He doesn't get heavy about that, it's just something that happens, often totally unconsciously.

"In Gambia I didn't only record environmental noises with the Sonys, but also some of the music. Some stuff was recorded in remote villages and it was just too difficult to bring the Neumann. Also, when I'm recording with a lot of people around, the Neumann tends to attract too much attention, whereas when I have the Sonys in my ears, bystanders think that I'm just listening; they don't realise I'm recording, so they leave me alone. Another advantage of the ECM50s is that when you record wind with them, it actually sounds like wind. You don't get that sound of collapsing capsules that you get with other microphones. The Neumann can't handle the tiniest bit of wind — it immediately goes crazy and doesn't sound good at all. But with the ECM50s, if there's wind I can adjust my head a bit, and what you hear is the wind around my ears; it sounds very natural. I've also recorded a CD in Zimbabwe, which will be released next year on the Womad Select label, as the first in the 'Document' Series. This series was Peter Gabriel's idea, and each CD will feature different artists from one country. Peter is also planning to put some stuff out in this series, but my work will be just me, going on trips and documenting them. Everything on the Zimbabwean CD is recorded with the ECM50s, and in one case I'm recording a shepherd playing an oil‑can banjo in the middle of a storm. There's an intense wind, and it actually sounds great."

Uncomfortable

For people attempting to record music, rather than environmental sounds, with binaural microphone techniques, recording wind as naturally as possible will generally be the least of their concerns. They will be more concerned with getting the music on tape to sound as good as possible. Blake offers a few anecdotes about how he achieved this, mainly through upgrading his own 'dummy head' to an intelligent one: "The thing about using the ECM50 mics is that I can mix on the fly, purely by positioning myself. The kora was the most difficult instrument to record; it's about as quiet as an electric guitar played without an amp. Traditionally, people used to play percussion with small sticks on the sides of their instruments, but these days they're playing things like the balafon, which is a kind of marimba, with a resin mallet, or there are loud drums playing too, so you can hardly hear it. When I recorded the Gambian record, I had to bring my nose to about an inch away from Pa Joba's fingers. And when the balafon then did a solo, I'd move my head four or five inches away from the kora and turn it slightly towards the balafon, so it comes in stronger and moves from the left channel to the centre. I must admit that after these recordings I did have a sore neck, purely from having to bend myself over the kora and stay in one position for a long time. The other thing about recording with these in‑ear mics is that I can't swallow, because it makes a huge noise. I've learnt how to keep myself from swallowing through proper breathing."

I've used reverb on maybe two records in the last 10 years.

All in all, it seems binaural recording can lead to some uncomfortable situations. There have traditionally also been a lot of doubts over its technical merits, but Blake is adamant about the advantages: "I know there are other stereo microphone techniques, like MS recording and the Blumlein arrangement, and I actually have a Soundfield microphone myself, but I prefer the sound of binaural. When you record a moving object like an animal with a stereo pair, when you hear it go from, say, left to centre, there's a small area where there's a slight phase discrepancy. For a moment the sound changes, and that sounds very weird and unnatural to me. I know people say that the problem with binaural is that there's no actual centre, that it's very difficult to get things to sound right in front, but I've never found that to be the case. Or, at least, only when you record something that's very close to your face — then you can get the feeling that it's coming from behind. Binaural isn't perfect, you don't get 100% accurate localisation, but I simply love what it does. It sounds fantastic and really natural and spatial on headphones. I also love the way it translates to the speakers. It's no longer truly binaural when you listen to speakers, but it has its own sound, which is really cool, almost like a fishbowl effect. You get this depth that you don't get from any other kind of stereo miking technique. And finally, it's great for field recording, because it's cheap, really portable and really simple, and I'm not carrying anything in my hands, so I can walk around, take pictures, do all sorts of things."

Quick

Blake has also applied binaural recording techniques in the recording studio. He recorded Dawn Raga, the wonderful CD by the Indian electric mandolin prodigy U Srinivas, entirely with the Neumann head at Real World, into a Panasonic DAT recorder and without any compression. Through an oversight, the CD sleeve doesn't mention this, nor does it mention that Blake produced the album. Dawn Raga is one of the best examples you'll ever hear of how good binaural recording can sound under controlled circumstances. The song 'Angels Heap' on the Finn brothers' album was also recorded binaurally, and Blake asserts that since he bought the Neumann in 1992, it's his regular overhead mic for drums. He also found the weirdest usage for the Neumann head and two rubber tubes when he had Louie Perez sing into them for a track on Mitchell Froom's forthcoming solo album, which was produced and engineered by Blake: "I taped two rubber tubes to the ears of the binaural head, and then joined the other ends of the two tubes together. Louie sang into the two tubes sitting side by side, and if he moved ever so slightly to the left it would mainly be picked up by the left ear of the head, and if he moved to the right it would be picked up by the right ear. This gave a real weird resonant sound in the binaural head."

Tchad Blake: "For me the studio is a fantasy world, a place to make things happen that couldn't possibly happen in real life."

Once Blake has recorded his binaural projects, he edits his material with his SADiE hard disk editor. Blake: "Portable DAT recorders and the SADiE are two of the reasons why I am able to put out these binaural recordings at the moment, and do it very cheaply and quickly. In the past I used quarter‑inch tape and had to edit and crossfade with it, which required the technology of a pretty major studio. Now I can do the editing at home on my SADiE, which has a lot of hard disk space, and Exabyte and a CD‑R cutter. I normally only do balancing of levels and flow in the SADiE, and I sometimes bring the low end up a bit in the ECM50 recordings, because of the loss of bass in the recording. I also occasionally do some crossfades, or blend different recordings to get an effect, like on the Zimbabwean record, on which I created a collage of sound. I mix things onto DAT, and then it goes straight to the CD plant, though the Iron Mountain CD was first mastered by Bob Ludwig. But the Womad Select stuff wasn't even mastered. These CDs are made very cheaply, usually recorded in a day, and then edited in the SADiE in day. I like working that quickly. The Thomas Mapfumo CD was recorded live in the big room in Real World with traditional close‑miking techniques, in four hours, and mixed in about two!"

Producer Mitchell Froom has said that he prefers "to focus on the 98%, not on the 2%", when asked whether he prefers analogue or digital recording — with the 98% being the music, and the 2% being the difference between analogue and digital. Tchad Blake echoes Froom's point, although he admits to a slight preference for analogue: "It's not that important to me. My preference for recording with analogue in the studio is largely because it's simpler and it's cheaper. With digital, if you want to edit you need two machines and more tape. Whereas I love to edit analogue tape. Give me a razor blade any time, man, I love to cut tape! (laughs). I also like what happens to the low end using analogue recordings at 15ips with Dolby SR, and so almost all my studio recordings are done on that format. I'm forced to use digital and the SADiE for my binaural recordings, but if there was a reel‑to‑reel recorder as small as the Sony portable DAT, that also gave me Dolby SR, I'd record on that."

Extreme

Blake and Froom's relative indifference towards the recording medium they use is a reflection of their basic recording philosophy, which very simply is that music matters much more than technology. They'd rather focus on helping musicians make good and original music than on patching things up or glossing them over with complicated and expensive recording techniques. Blake is an engineer who likes to create sound effects at source, as with the aforementioned rubber tubes and binaural head, or using "mechanical filters, like wooden pipes, didgeridoos, metal pipes, tin cans and boxes, cardboard boxes and tubes, and so on. I'll put springs in a tin can, place that in front of a drum, and put a microphone in it. I must admit that I've been doing it a little bit less recently, because I felt that I'd been over‑using this approach, but it does have a number of huge advantages. It's a lot of fun, and it's very difficult to duplicate these mechanical effects. Some people see the latter as a disadvantage, but I think it's great because it forces you to come up with new ideas every time. In my view, records that are created with a lot of mechanical experimentation tend to sound more original and unique than records that are made primarily with synths and samplers, although there are, of course, exceptions. A weird sound doesn't only give more character to a track, it's also easier to fit into a track, and that track needs less overdubs. Mitchell and I found time and time again that an unusual sound defines a track more, so you need to build less around it."

A weird sound doesn't only give more character to a track, it's also easier to fit into a track, and that track needs less overdubs.

Blake's love of sonic experimentation at source doesn't mean that he's averse to using effects, with the notable exception of digital reverb. He explained why: "I've only used reverb on maybe two records in the last 10 years. Instead I prefer to use distortion and compression to create ambience. I really like recordings that are 'in your face', that sound very dry and intimate, and feel as though they're coming towards you. I was put off reverb, because I really disliked the big, bombastic‑sounding records of the '80s, and also I'm not a very technical engineer, and I could never achieve that sound. So I had to find another way into engineering and create my own sound. My major influence in that was the records I collected in the early '70s, mainly British progressive rock. Bands like King Crimson, especially their Starless In Bible Black period and their Island album, Van Der Graaf Generator, Henry Cow, Slaphappy, Kevin Ayers, Soft Machine, Caravan — their records shaped what I like in sound. It was often really dry‑sounding, not so well recorded stuff, with cardboard box‑sounding drums, and things not balanced properly, like a hi‑hat being way too loud or something. That sound had a big impact on me.

"I also often record drums in dead little rooms, and then, using delays and distortion, I create something that sounds like an ambience. I have these old solid‑state Spectrasonic 610 compressors. They're not very hi‑fi at all, and when you put the drums through them they distort. They're just bad compressors. You don't hear the distortion unless you solo them, but it gives the effect of a reverb. I also use a lot of Sansamp guitar amp simulator on the drums. I'll throw a little kick and snare drum into the Sansamp and mix that in with the original kick and snare sound ever so slightly. Sometimes I'll throw that out of phase to drop the kick drum down an octave. You get a very cool sound doing that.

"Also, when I put these compressors on the overheads recorded with my Neumann head, it sounds as though the drums have been put in a room 10 times the size of the room in which they really were recorded. I love the contrast between recording hi‑fi, which is what the Neumann head is, and adding a little bit of an incredibly distorted and compressed track in the middle. So you hear the hi‑hat in one channel, but then you hear the compressor come up on the hi‑hat in the middle. I also love using guitar‑pedal analogue delays, because they sound dull and woolly, and they distort a little. I often use them on vocals. I prefer that over the sound of digital delays. I have an Electroharmonics Microsynth and a Ludwig Phase II synth — which is a guitar pedal with four different effects in it — plus a Podium compressor. The Podium is an extremely lo‑fi thing that's made for conferences and public speaking, to adjust the level as the speaker moves towards and away from the microphone. It's really very, very poor, just a terrible compressor, and I use it on drums a lot."

One of Blake's most simple sonic tools is panning. Mitchell Froom has stated that "panning is for me a very emotional thing. There has to be a reason why you pan things in a certain way." Blake remarks that Froom "probably places more importance on panning than I do, but it's true that I use it as a means of expression. I don't mind it sounding strange. Many people in studios want things to sound as if they could happen in real life, and ask: 'How did that musician suddenly move from left to right?' I never understood that. I like extreme, unnatural panning, like placing sounds far over on the left or right without reverbs or delays. For me the studio is a fantasy world, a place to make things happen that couldn't possibly happen in real life."