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Los Angeles-based Dan Horne wears multiple hats – he’s a bassist and bandleader of the instrumental quartet Circles Around the Sun, and a Grateful Dead tribute band called Grateful Shred. He’s also a producer and engineer, working with artists such as Cass McCombs, Mapache, The Chapin Sisters and Allah-Las, to name a few.
Dan recently sat down to talk to us over Zoom from the backyard of UHF Studios, his new space where the loudest sounds you can hear besides the music are the birds that have made their way to the area as the weather gets warmer. The studio was envisioned as a tranquil getaway where artists could hang out, create music, and make use of the wonderful analog gear that Dan has collected over the years. The latest addition to UHF Studios is a 24-channel Neve BCM10/2 Mk 2 console, that brings the warmth of analog and the flexibility of digital to his sessions.
Read on to learn about what drew Dan to this particular Neve console, how it integrates with his other equipment, what it was like working with Vintage King, and what kind of gear he loves adding to his collection.
Tell us a bit about your studio and the work you do.
It’s a house that I converted into a studio and it has a cool setup: the lower floor is the studio and the house upstairs still has a kitchen and living room, so it's a nice peaceful setting in the quiet hills of Glendale. I'm trying to create a comfortable environment.
My last studio was a very typical recording studio in an office building in Studio City, and it was cool, but somebody – I forget who it was – said, ‘This is cool, but Dan Horne's studio needs to have a barbecue and a place to hang out, to be comfortable and chill’, so that's more of the vibe here. People are hanging out, writing and working on songs in one room, cutting vocals in the other room.
What drew you to the Neve BCM10/2 Mk2 and what are some of your favorite features of the console?
I like how simple it is. It does basic tracking, simple mixing, and the workflow is really intuitive. I also like how the signal path is not a compromise – there are 1272s everywhere. So for me, it’s a combination of being simple and having the signal flow be what you want in the right places. That’s what got me excited about it.
In terms of DAW integration, I mostly use the console as much as I can. It's easy to create buses and submixes in Pro Tools, which I do a lot, but I try to stay mostly on the console.
The monitor section has multiple inputs, so I can easily switch back and forth between the tape machine or the computer or whatever you're listening to, like Spotify, for example. I don't do Atmos or 5.1 or anything like that, but I have a couple of different stereo setups that I use. It’s cool that it's really easy to set up headphone mixes and talkback. One cool feature I've set up is a producer talkback with a button on a microphone that I have – it has a button and a producer or whoever can turn on and off the talkback through that. I have a rule that I won’t hold down the talkback button for anyone else in the control room. I’m not a mind reader!
I mix and monitor with the console, and the Simple Input feature is cool. I go straight from the mic pres into the computer and then there's an easy way to go back into the console using the Simple Input. I have the new Lynx Aurora(n) 32-channel converter which I got when I got the console, but then I had my old Lynx Auroras as well, which I am able to still use perfectly with the new setup. The customer service at Lynx is A+++. I have those normalled to the Simple Inputs, which makes the workflow really easy to switch digitally rather than having to patch when I switch back and forth between the Simple Input and Line Input. It's all really fast and easy.
What do you think of the sonics of the console?
Everything seems to sound pretty good and punchy and it has a good amount of flavor. One of the main things I've noticed is that I don't get asked for as many revisions on my mixes; I would say, on average, it's gone down from four or five revisions to two or three, which is great. [Laughs]
How did you customize it for your studio’s needs?
It’s actually pretty cool because in their manual, they have a patchbay layout, so based on that, and with the help of James Good, I ordered a DB-25 patchbay setup with all the cabling based on their suggested layout. That made it really simple to set up with my current equipment, and that was a big help. I found it to be pretty intuitive, so that was great.
I have a 24-track, 2-inch tape machine, so that was one of the reasons I chose 24 channels for the console. It was a pretty seamless, intuitive integration; I didn't do anything too complicated.
How has the console impacted your workflow?
When I mix, there are only two stereo busses, so I'll put drums on one and everything else on the other, which is kind of what I used to do anyway, so I don't know…I like to keep it simple.
What was it like working with James Good and Vintage King during the purchase of the console?
They were super chill and really helpful with all the cabling, so that was really nice. They also helped me build the patchbays and they helped me with the delivery, so yeah, it was very easy. Since then, I’ve had some service questions and they are quick and super nice about it, so it's been good.
What are some of your other favorite pieces of outboard gear in the studio?
I have an old EMT 140 plate reverb that is normalled to the reverb send on the console. I pretty much always use that for reverb and it sounds great; I feel like it’s a thing that creates the sound of my studio.
I also have a mix of a few vintage pieces and some gear from friends that make equipment, like Highland Dynamics and MagicDeathEye. I mix that with different weird pieces that I’ve collected over the years.
What monitors are you using?
My main monitors are the ATC SCM25s, which I really like. Those have become sort of a standard in L.A; a lot of studios have them, so you can kind of bounce around town and have that reference point.
I also just finished a build project where I repurposed some Altec 604s that were in my giant UREI 813s. They were too big for my new studio, so I took the Altecs out…I didn't even know that they were Altecs until I looked and it’s so cool!
My friend Colby Buddelmeyer designed some cabinets for them. He has access to modern test equipment so, rather than using an old design, he tested the Altecs and designed new crossovers and boxes to maximize their potential and they sound great.
Which microphones do you find yourself using most often?
I have three Neumann KM56s that are my go-to mics; I feel like they create my sound a little bit, so I use them a lot.
My friend Ian Sefchik also built some really nice tube mics for me. I love using gear that has been made bythe talented wizards of Los Angeles, and Ian is a great designer of equipment.
When I go on tour, I like to go to the local music store in whatever town I'm in. I always find cool things, like Electro-Voice mics, or old Unidyne dynamics. Although they can be finicky, I love using those, so I test out each one. They all sound different, but it’s a fun way to mix it up. Every mic has its own little character, and I like collecting weird stuff like that.
How do you feel about plug-ins?
I really like the plug-ins that come with Pro Tools, and my other most commonly used plug-in is iZotope RX. That’s my favorite because if you have an instrument that's making some noise but you love how it sounds, you could either go down the rabbit hole of trying to find the weird buzz, or you can be like ‘It's cool because I know I can fix it later, because I have the iZotope RX plug-in for that’. That's one of my favorites!
Ian made some plug-ins of the MagicDeathEye compressors, which are these really cool, kind of weird plug-ins, and I like their MagicVerb reverb plug-in as well.
I also love using the Waves IR-1 plug-in because you can make your own reverb with that. It’s really intuitive and once you figure it out, it's easy, so that's really fun. I also really love the Tape Delay that comes with Pro Tools; that's my favorite.
I collect all this analog gear, but I do try to use plug-ins when possible because I also like to get stuff done, so if you can do something in the box, go for it.
Do you have a go-to signal chain for recording or do you use something different every time?
I use the console mostly, and then sometimes I'll put the Highland Dynamics BG2 compressor in there, or the MagicDeathEye, or the newer UA 1176 unit that I have; I'll use one of those depending on what I'm recording. So, usually, it’s the mic pre into some compressor, and that's it.
On the song ‘Leave The Light On’ from your new album Count The Clouds, you have a great-sounding pedal steel. How did you process that?
The band that I'm recording with right now, were like, ‘We've never actually seen you play pedal steel’, [laughs] but I do play the pedal steel, in the studio mostly. On the song, I put a fuzz on it and it's just a cool way to add a different flavor… you can't really tell what it is but it’s cool that you picked up on it because it's kind of mysterious.
What's a typical day in the studio like for you?
A cool feature of the studio is that I have a couple of extra rooms, so right now, we have an artist and an engineer staying here and we’re pretty immersed in recording. It's cool because we're up in the hills in Glendale, but it feels like we're kind of out there. It's really quiet, you can't really hear the traffic, there’s just birds. We try not to leave, but we can get into town in like 12 minutes. There’s a Whole Foods, a couple of bars and restaurants really close, but it feels like you're far away so it's cool, like a ‘best of both worlds’ situation.
Are you working on any exciting projects right now that you're able to talk about?
Right now, the artist that I was talking about that’s here is a harpist called Mikaela Davis and we're making her record. She also plays in one of my bands called Grateful Shred, which is a Grateful Dead cover band. We just made a record, which is kind of a radical concept for a cover ban,d but we thought that would be a cool thing to do. We just finished that, so that should be coming out soon.
All photos by Stephanie Nicole Smith
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