By Will McGuirk
Architecture, as much as audio, has a place in the life and work of music producer and engineer Mark Howard. The look, feel, vibe of a recording studio is of such import he will create such a studio where none exists. Howard learnt the art of acoustic spaces by working with Daniel Lanois but he is a producer in his own right, a producer of records yes but also of books. 'Recording Icons / Creative Spaces' is his latest. It is a collection of behind-the-scene photographs of the spaces he has recorded in and his clients inside them, Bob Dylan, U2, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell among them.
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Mark very kindly agreed to an email chat with Slowcity.ca.
Slowcity.ca: Hi Mark, thank you for doing this, the whole recording thing is beyond me but I'm fascinated by it. Going through the book it seems you like to have the music makers gather in one space?
Mark Howard: “Working with musicians all in one place makes for a family-like experience. No one is late or missing. Also create a creative tightness while recording. These days of small budgets it also is a way to spend more time on the music. Recording studios and the hotel take up all of people’s budgets”
SC: What is your favourite place to have recorded in and why?
MH: “I look for places with high ceilings to record in. They make for better sound with air around it. Low ceilings don’t breathe as good as the big room. Makes for great rock records.”
SC: In the pictures some places have carpets, some slate flooring. How important are the acoustics of the room itself to your decision in choosing locations?
MH: “Carpets are important for deading the room if it’s too reverberant and Indian rugs look beautiful :) Wood floors are best too”
SC: Were there times when recording sessions were scrapped from one location in favor of another, because of vibe or acoustics? if yes what happened?
MH: “I tried to switch locations on Bob Dylans records time out of mind. We started the record in a old Mexican porno theatre in Oxnard California and it sounded amazing but Bob thought it was too close to home so we went to Miami to Criteria Studio. The second I walked I in there I hated the room. It was a Video blue screen room, all plaster and nothing sounded good in there. I tried to rent the Bee Gees studio but they said no. So I had to make it work.”
SC: You must have hundreds if not thousands of photos, how did you choose the pictures and what is the overarching narrative do you think you were trying to express?
MH: “I have thousands of photos and editing was hard. I showed the book publisher 300 that I had picked as my best then they said cut it down to two hundred. I’m so close to them and feel like I left so many out. But at my book signings I will project the photos from the book and lots that got cut. I’m going to do a commentary on them all.”