Greg Thompson in the spotlight
Posted on December 17, 2007
Filed Under In The Spotlight, Software And Plug-ins, Studio Shenanigans, Take A Walk On The Live Side |
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Greg Thompson has been a pro audio engineer for about 15 years. He cites his first love as making rock records. He’s worked with artists like 50 Cent, Iggy Pop, Norah Jones, The Killers, Pink, Sherryl Crow, and more than a careers worth of others.
“I’m the chief engineer at Kampo in Greenwich Village. I work regularly as a crew member on ABC’s Good Morning America, on the Record Plant Remote truck, and I freelance when I can. I spent a long time at the now defunct NYC Hit Factory, but we don’t like to talk about that.”
Audiotechnews found Greg a funny, friendly and likeable guy, more than willing to share a few stories and some experience. So much so, that we took advantage of his good nature, got him drunk and REALLY got him talking.
(The drunk bit is not true).
Here’s some of what we spoke about. The rest of the interview is available to RSS subscribers.
ATN: You’ve worked with a massively eclectic array of artists now, but there must have been times in your career when you’ve thought ‘How am I meant to record this?’
So tell us about them! 
“Well, I got to spend quite a few years assisting many other engineers at many levels of the industry so I got to see all sorts of methods used on all sorts of instruments for all sorts of genres. Many engineers brought an attitude of “this is the only way to record ________” and I sort of saw through their bull, because i’d seen plenty of situations where that method either didn’t work, or there was an alternate that worked just as well. I spent time with engineers who’d spend an hour on each instrument swapping mics out and wearing out musicians, and guys who got killer sounds in no time flat and worked seamlessly and invisibly with the flow of the musicians. I worked with guys who wouldn’t accept microphone substitutions when they were asking for some pretty esoteric mics in large numbers, and folks who could roll with the situation and whatever was available from the mic locker.”
“Many bands come through with a fixed touring setup that I can’t change much or the band will get cranky. Some bands will have mic endorsements and carry all their own mics and I have to deal with what they give me with minimal substitutions. More often than not, that leads to me having to deal with at least 1 element in the mix that is simply mic’ed with the wrong tool for the job.”
ATN: Have they become career highlights for you because you worked through and delivered a successful product?
“Mm.. Hard to pick any one particular band or situation. I’m always proud when I do something for a live show or something that’s meant to be short lived like a broadcast or webstream and winds up on an album, enshrined forever. Occasionally I’ll even get credited for it too. That’s happened several times, and I’ve only found out about most of those things by being vain and tossing my name in a search engine.”
“But lets see who some of the coolest bands were……”
Only for subscribers
ATN: Do you have any particular gear that you consider puts the ‘Greg Thompson stamp’ on things? Whether its a particular mic/pre-amp for a kick drum, outboard effects or plugins?
“No. I believe that gear comes in 2 types - priceless and worthless. An original C-12 or U-47 may be as close to “priceless” as microphones get, but if it starts crackling midway through a recording, then it has just become “worthless” to me. I’ll take 10 working SM-57s over 1 “touchy” U-47. Also, because I do a ton of live band on a stage or in the same room, I never get to use something like a 47 or a C-12 because their pickup pattern is too wide for me to get a usable vocal or acoustic guitar sound. So in that situation, mics like that are worthless to me.”
ATN: Going into it more - whats your ideal gear rider for a recording session?
“I never want to see a Beta 52 on bass drum.
You’d better have a damn good reason to be using a Neumann KMS 105 on vocals. That’s about it.
Both mics sound good on the right source in the right situation, but I’ve been hosed by those 2 mics more often than any other microphones combined.
ATN: What are you working on right now?
“Right now I’m doing mostly television work that’s pretty unglamorous, but pays the bills in between doing the big video shoots.”
ATN: Anything you’d like to work on/anyone you’d like to work with?
“I always joke that I’d like to work with Led Zeppelin or that whomever I may be working with sounds good, but they’re no Led Zeppelin, but I believe that you should never work with your idols if you want to keep them as idols. Because once you work with them, you’re exposed to their shortcomings and it ruins the illusion of what makes them your idol in the first place.”
ATN: What should we look out for of yours in 2008 then?
“Keep an eye open for things posted online from Clearchannel and AOL, as well as some indie band releases and the occasional band performance I mix on Good Morning America.”
ATN: Anything else to add?
“It’s a brave new world out there for folks working in audio. Anybody can afford the gear to record and mix the music, and so anybody does. Few musicians under 40 feel that they should pay to make an album, when they can do it themselves for free. Few labels feel they should have to pay anybody to record an album since the bands can do it themselves for free. Few people feel they should pay for music since they can download and share copies of it for free. The same 10 engineers have been mixing every album you hear on the radio and TV for the past 10 years and they’re not retiring anytime soon. I see advertisements for schools to teach you “the exciting career of audio engineering” and they pump out students by the hundreds every year. I don’t know how many folks breaking into the business are going to be able to do it for a living, so keep that in mind when you decide you want to take out a loan and open your own recording studio.”
I’m willing to bet there are dozens people out there who think they can do what I do faster and better and are willing to do it for half the price I charge. I have a wife and 2 kids to look after. I have bills to pay. I need to save up for my retirement and college for my kids. This isn’t the dream job they promise you in the ads for those recording schools, and if I’d put as much effort into selling life insurance or mutual funds as I had in working my way through the studio system, I’d have a heck of a lot more to show for it. I still enjoy going to work almost every day, and I look forward to pulling up the faders and seeing what cool things I can do. I’m not sure how many other people actually enjoy their job as much as I do.
The rest of the interview is available to RSS subscribers only (and there is some cracking stuff in there). Greg is an engineer after my own heart. Any type of live sound involves some sort of compromise in order to make the overall result the best it can be. Anyone who says otherwise….?
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