I've recorded with Nick on a few occasions, and it's always been a really enjoyable experience. The laid back atmosphere is really condusive to creativity. Bands and songwriters are notoriously bad about communicating their creative vision, or getting what the song sounds like in their head to end up sounding that way when it's recorded. Nick is all about making what you want to happen, happen, and being a musician himself, puts him in the position of knowing exactly what the bands are going through. Greg Joyce from Strawberry Burns told me that their album could probably have been done in half the time they actually took to do it, but they were having such a good time, both working on the album, and hanging out and watching reality shows on Nick's digital cable that nobody wanted to rush the project. Nick does a great job with tracking all the instruments, but I am particularly impressed with the drums sounds he captures.

As you'll see during our discussion, Nick will soon be upgrading his equipment so I'm sure his future recordings will only get better and better. To contact Nick to discuss or schedule recording, send an e-mail to: crushtheclownrockmusic@hotmail.com.

SCS: I'm sure you got your start recording your own band and solo albums, but how long has The Laboratory been in operation as far as recording other bands?

Nick: I recorded Jarek Olivetti's band "Tulip Jiggle" back in high school on a Tascam Porta05, but aside from that I've been recording the music of others for perhaps a year and a half. It wasn't exactly something I set out to do, it just sort of happened, and while it was happening it dawned on me that recording other people is really fun. It's like going to a rock show, only you're the only person in the audience, and the band plays the songs over and over for you.

SCS: How long have you been into recording?

Nick: I was like twelve when my brother let me "borrow" said Porta05, and I have yet to give it back. I'm twenty-five now, so roughly twelve or thirteen years.

SCS: Why don’t you share with the readers what your equipment setup is like?

Nick: My equipment is rather primitive by recording studio standards. Like i said, this just sort of happened, so i never really looked out to buy any super nice equipment. I picked up a Roland digital 8 track in '97 and have pretty much stuck to that. I run it through my stereo through the optical and coaxial connections. I've had in my possession, of late, a five channel mixing board that i use to mix drums down to stereo before landing it on the 8 track. I'm kind of keeping an eye on it for Greg Joyce. It was once an 8 track mixing board, but somewhere along the road, three of the faders were STOLEN! So now it is a 5 track mixing board. The microphones I use, I’ve been sort of accumulating over the years. I've got a couple of Japanese made Shure condensers that Greg's grandfather sold us, along with an SM-57 and an Audio Technica dynamic mic and a couple other no-name mics that perform their job of reproducing soundwaves into electrical signals, so I use them. Sometimes cheap microphones sound super rad. Sometimes not.

SCS: How many recordings were done on the 4 track, and how many with the Roland 8 track you have now?

Nick: I recorded six albums on the four track. I think so far, I've done eleven on the eight track, and I’m in the process of finishing up four at the moment including A Situation compilation, The Bad Sects full length, and a Crush The Clown full length.

SCS: You’re upgrading to DAW, correct?

Nick: Yes, a mother of a DAW.

SCS: Is it gonna be ProTools based?

Nick: I don't believe so. I've never worked with Pro Tools, but I think what I’m getting is a program developed by Roland. It's a twenty four track digital audio workstation with its own mastering room. I'm not sure how well the mastering room is going to work out, for the fact that I’m not exactly familiar with the whole mastering process. I guess this room is supposed to enable one to forego the process of sending out a final mix to be professionally mastered, but I'd just as soon leave it to the professionals. They are, after all, professionals. They probably know how to use Pro Tools too. I think the first project I’ll undertake on the new machine will be to upload all of my previous projects and try mastering them for my own listening pain. Maybe see if I can figure out what's what before desecrating any new subjects, I mean clients.

SCS: Besides Tulip Jiggle, who was the first band you recorded outside of your own?

Nick: Besides the Tulip Jiggle cassette we did in high school, the first band i recorded was Smilin' Joe Fusion. That was basically Matt Martinosky (forerly of The WT), Jillian Thiel (Cuff's & Muff's, The Thielgoods) and me drinkin' whiskey and creating a monstrosity of Matt's songs. The disk sounded great after all was said and done, although it is all sort of a blur in retrospect.

SCS: Who are some of the other bands you’ve recorded?

Nick: Strawberry Burns, Project:Wet, Gunter, The Bad Sects, The Honey Hush, Post-Trendies, Junior Mighty, Ideal Cleaners, Benjamin Kushner, John Gapp, Dan Kaspari, Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares, The Thielgoods, and Crush The Clown.

SCS: I think I knew about all of those except Ben and Dan, what did you do with them?

Nick: Benji did this tune for the soundtrack of this Nebraska football documentary that was supposed to have premiered at the Great Plains Film Festival, but the director didn't get it done in time. To my knowledge, it's still not finished. Kaspari came over to do a couple songs just for the fuck of it, but some sort of a little black rain cloud was floating 'round that day or something, because I don't think any of the stuff we did will ever surface onto anything. The song Dan wrote was great, but something about that day really fucked everything up. I guess some days are like that.

SCS: Do you have any favorite equipment that you like to use?

Nick: My favorite piece of equipment is my imagination. I like to capture the sound as naturally as possible, and then fuck with it after it's down on "tape". I really enjoy experimenting with the placement of sound all across the stereo spectrum, with different pans of the same track, but with different effects and eq's. I can go completely overboard though if I’m all by myself, so it helps when other musicians are there to tell me that what I’m doing sounds completely ridiculous. Working with other musicians has given me a lesson on the art of subtlety; seeing how fucked up I can make the recording sound without the artists noticing. My imagination is the only equipment that I can turn on or off. Everything else is pretty much being used all the time. I really don't have alot from which to choose.

SCS: Do you have any strange micing techniques that you’ve used?

Nick: I've tried all sorts of things, from singing through a mic'd guitar amp to sending vocal through a central vacuum system, but of late, I've been keeping everything pretty much straight ahead. The whole digital editing thing really lets you control the sound you're getting, so wacked out microphone techniques seem to be sort of archaic. Maybe I could capture some different textures if I were to experiment more, but rarely am I whimsically inspired to put a mic at the top of a staircase, or run a guitar through a separate amplifier that's out in the garage. Perhaps I'm in the wrong. Perhaps we are all being morphed into a universal consciousness by this goddamn digital revolution.

SCS: Who are some engineers or producers that blow you away?

Nick: I'm not much of a record geek. The only names that really stick out in my mind are Tony Visconti, Butch Vig, George Martin, that dude from The Cars that's been doing Weezer albums (Ric Ocasek - T.D.). Like I said, I'm not much a record geek. I was blown away by the job Brendan Mcginn and Bright Calm Blue did on the new Bright Calm Blue record. it kicked my ass.

SCS: I like what Ric O. did with the Weezer record, but he produced the "Do The Collapse" album by Guided by Voices, and he just absolutely sucked the life out of it by over-producing and way over-compressing the whole thing, so I was kind of dissapointed after that, so I'll probably never hire him to do one of my albums. Let me ask you this. Are you strictly engineering or are you ever stepping into the producer role, for example, suggesting tempo changes, arrangement ideas, making a singer do multiple takes if YOU’RE not happy with the take, suggesting pre-production work if you don’t feel the band is ready to be recording, stuff like that, or do the bands you’re working with pretty much have their stuff ready to go when they get to you?

Nick: I pretty much go by the idea of letting the artists be artists. If I get an idea, I'll bring it up, or if someone else has an idea, I might make a suggestion to make the idea more conceivable, but never would I say, "this song's too fast." or "this song needs another chorus before the bridge." The artists pretty much know the songs when they come in, and I for one, would feel rather insulted if some fucking record producer were to say to me, "this song doesn't need drums. In fact, this song doesn't need bass either. You've got to get rid of the band. We can do it all with computers nowadays." I'd really hate to insult someone's artistry, and I can't think of a better way to do it than to tell them they're doing it wrong.

SCS: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in recording anyone?

Nick: Digital glitches. They happen and there's nothing you can do about it once they've happened. The only defense, should a digital glitch occur is to shut down all the equipment without saving what you've been working on. I'm still amazed by the fact that there is a Strawberry Burns cd to listen to. There was a period of time when I thought it would be impossible. of course, I never told them this. We were also running pathetically low on disk space and I had to spend a whole day erasing every second of silence on each individual track. It was quite the challenge, but I'm glad it happened that way because now I know what to do should I ever be in that kind of situation again.

SCS: Equipment wise, why did you choose to go with a DAW?

Nick: Some people are die hard analoguists. I on the other hand, am fairly comfortable with the digital world. Editing is a piece of cake, and the sound, although distinctively digital, is pretty much an exact representation of the actual sounds. I've heard many different points of view on digital vs. analogue, but mine remains in favor of digital. Besides, there's always the option of running the digital signal to tape, and then bumping it back to digital. As far as glitches are concerned, it's a minor sacrifice one must make in order to have the convenience of digital editing. I've never had a glitch that completely destroyed a project. Also, I’ve been working with Roland software for like six years now, and I'm thinking it will be a pretty comfortable jump from one Roland machine to another. I had considered getting a PC and some software, but I didn't want to have to get a multi input sound card, or have to buy a patchbay or a new mixer or anything like that. Digital audio workstations rule.

SCS: What do you think is the best project you’ve worked on and why?

Nick: Strawberry Burns was the most fun to date. It was a really natural thing. The whole band came over every session, everyone's ideas were addressed and decided upon in a non totalitarian process. Pat Clinch was always bringing coffee from the mill. The sex wasn't bad, and in the end we came out with a product that I think we were all pretty happy with. Strawberry Burns will always be a soft spot in my heart because of the camaraderie.

SCS: What do you like best about recording?

Nick: The camaraderie.

SCS: What don’t you like about it?

Nick: The monotony. To make a record involves listening to the record over and over to the point of physical pain. Sometimes it helps to step away for a while. Periods of below par productivity can be awfully frustrating.

SCS: If you could have any piece of gear in your studio what would you get?

Nick: I'd like to have some sort of a tube compressor. something really warm like from the seventies or something. I'd also like some more microphones to play with, but mostly, I want a warm and fuzzy tube compressor. That and a big old four foot bong, with which to smoke my tobacco products.

SCS: Check the Didgeridoos & Bongs section of the Musicians Friend catalog, they've got quite a selection to choose from!

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Unbeknownst to Nick, I contacted some of bands he's worked with about their experiences working with him. Here's what they had to say:

Ted Alesio - Ideal Cleaners:
The great thing about Nick is that he is extremely easy to work with. Although I've only worked with him on a couple Ideal Cleaners tracks for the Lincoln Rock Collective compilation, he was very accommodating and up for the session. It just seems like he is into making good music and he does a lot with very little to make that happen. He works with a minimal studio and for me that helps focus everything on the "less is more" approach - which I think tends to yield better results when recording. He was calm and attentive throughout the recording and mixing process and let us rant and rave as much as we needed, but also gave helpful opinions when asked. It would be great to work with him again.

Dan Kaspari:
I quickly recorded a song w/ Nick back in July. I tracked drums, three guitars-electric and acoustic and bass, and vocals. we did a quick mix of it and were done in...3 hours. My recording vibe wasn't exactly right on target and he was just waking up so I think we were both a bit off the queue. He laughed at my outrageously sloppy guitar playing and that was a plus; although terrifyingly embarrassing for me. He was patient with the takes I had to take more than once, and the ones we kept as first takes...well: 'nuff said. This track was recorded for my new solo cd. It'll probably never see the light of day. I would imagine it's probably been erased by this point. If it isn't-who knows- it may end up on a floppy disc in Japan under the pseudonym name "Dan Shitzsky and the Flushers" Nick was a treat to record with even though it was a complete waste of his time. I enjoyed his hairdoo. Nice experiment.

Strawberry Burns:
The Laboratory rules! Nick is an f'n mastermind. Strawberry Burns *hearts* Nick Westra, and the Laboratory Studio.





- Tery Daly