Ray Charles Tracks with M-Audio
Over the course of his impressive career, two-time Grammy nominee Terry Howard has had the honor of working with some of the industry’s most renowned artists—not the least of which is his two-decade relationship with musical genius Ray Charles. Known in the industry for his golden ears, it was his aural discernment that took him years to embrace digital technology. That same discernment led he and Howard to M-Audio Delta cards for Charles’ first-ever digitally recorded vocal track. Golden Ears Howard has never ceased to be astounded by Charles’ perfectionism and musical aptitude. “Ray has the epitome of golden ears,” Howard attests. “Of course, everybody believes that’s because he’s blind. But people don’t realize that he was seven when he became blind, and he was three years old when he started learning to play the piano. And with all the other artists I’ve worked with, I’ve gotta say it’s not because he’s blind that his hearing is so attuned. It’s really because of his love of music.” One weekend Charles called Howard into the studio to check on a kick drum that, although panned center, sounded a little heavy in the right channel of the mix to Ray. Though Howard couldn’t discern a problem, he got out a reference tape of tones and discovered amazingly that though everything else was flat, the left channel was a mere quarter dB down at 100Hz. “I went to college and got a degree in acoustics,” explains Howard, launching into a favorite anecdote. “One thing I was always taught was that the average person can hear two to three dB of change, and a trained ear can hear a dB and a half. The best trained ear can only hear about a half a dB. Well, here was Ray complaining about a quarter dB! I put the alignment screwdriver in the slot, I tweaked that quarter dB, and as soon as I did Ray said, ‘That’s it, that’s it! Stop, you’re on! Put the music back on.’” From analog to digital Charles has always been a leader in cutting-edge technology. He was one of the first private musicians to purchase a mixing board, and also one of the first to obtain an 8-track recorder, then a 16-track, and on up to a 48-track digital machine. He originally chose a 48-track Studer because he preferred its sound to the Sony 3348. However, he didn’t immediately jump into digital recording with a DAW because the bottom line has always been “How does it sound?” “That’s what took us so long to get into DAWs,” Howard relays. “Even at the cutting edge, they all had an earmark sound. I could walk in and say, ‘oh, you’re using SADiE,’ ‘you’re using Sonic Solution,’ or ‘you’re using ProTools.’ An analog guy could tell right away that you’re using a DAW. But as technology and computers progressed, and when 24-bit/48kHz came along, Ray and I finally were able to accept that a DAW could sound as good as our digital Studer 48-track.” The introduction to the new technology brought more issues than just sound quality. Howard explains, “The next lesson we learned in dealing with manufacturing companies—besides all the bells and whistles, and of course how the gear sounds—is how does a company stand behind a product, or better yet, a customer? So our agenda in going to DAWs was finding companies that A) really supported the product, and B) were interested in our way of working, rather that forcing us into a certain way of working.” Cakewalk, the company that makes the Sonar software that Howard and Charles have used for years, recommended that the team check out M-Audio for hardware solutions. “As I got in with M-Audio, I would say, ‘This is great, but if it did this, it would be fantastic.’ And M-Audio took the approach of listening to us, always interested in what we had to say. I like somebody that wants to hold my hand—not because I’m a known engineer and producer and I work with Ray Charles, but because I’m an end user.” Making the jump Charles and Howard frequently used M-Audio’s Delta series sound cards after transferring files from ProTools to Sonar, and before bouncing to the digital 48-track Studer. Despite these forays into the digital realm, Charles had never actually recorded a vocal track directly to disk. When Charles tired of all the transferring, he asked Howard if there was any way to circumvent the arduous process. Excited about Charles’ willingness to record direct-to-disk, Howard called M-Audio to provide the gear and support for that momentous occasion. “The guys from M-Audio came down to the studio with the extra stuff we needed. Within a half-hour we had the computer set up and ready for Ray to come in and record. The one thing Ray had been concerned with was the latency issue, because digital audio going through a computer in any system can cause a bit of phasing. To the average artist it’s not a problem, but to a perfectionist like Ray, it’s a nuisance. We found that the control panel of the M-Audio Delta audio cards lets you get true zero latency, where it puts the input back into the device without going through the software. Within a few seconds we got the latency down to zero, and then we laid the track down. Ray was happy and I was happy.” Howard reports that the digital session was a total success. “Ray couldn’t tell the difference between our 48-track Studer and the digital recording,” he enthuses. “It also made the record label happy because we were doing this for a Pancho Sanchez release and we were able to keep the whole record in the 24-bit/96kHz domain.” Reference monitors for discerning ears Howard began integrating M-Audio products like the DMP3, Audiophile 2496, MIDISPORT 8x8, Delta 1010, and Tampa into Charles’ personal studio. However, he was initially dubious that M-Audio’s small, inexpensive SP-5B reference monitors could compete against his $1500 pair of Spendor LS3/5s, which he uses along with a Bryston 3B amplifier. “They competed remarkably against my Spendors. Now they’ve gotten to be my main pair of speakers. I’ll mix on the M-Audio speakers and turn them down, and my mix is accurate right down to the Spendors. So I know I’m getting a good mix off the M-Audio speakers. The other thing I found nice about the SP-5Bs was the portability.” Trust your ears Through his many years of experience, Howard has stockpiled a wealth of advice to offer those still studying his craft. “Learn two things with your ears,” he advises. “Learn to reference your ears, and learn to trust your ears. I’m finding more and more that young people aren’t learning how to reference their ears, aren’t learning how to listen for distortion. They think they can retune it later, but the bottom line is that a lot of times if you don’t get it right from the get-go, you’re not always going to be able to fix it to make it sound pristine or perfect no matter what you do digitally. So start learning to trust what you hear, and not always be swayed by what the other person says.” |
© 2007 by M-Audio, All Rights Reserved.