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When Chip Freeman set up SuSuSound Studio at his lakeside property in Northern Michigan, he intended for it to be a space where he could pursue his longtime passion for mixing. Things didn’t go quite as planned, and SuSuSound soon became a full-fledged recording studio with top-of-the-line gear including a 32-channel API 1608 console, ATC SCM45A monitors, an AVID HDX system with HD I/O, and a UAD-2 Satellite DSP accelerator.
We sat down with Chip recently to talk about his vision for the studio, what he thinks of his new gear, and what it was like working with engineer/technical consultant Jason Carson, and Vintage King’s Jacob Schneider during the build-out.
Tell us about your vision for SuSuSound and the kind of work you do at the studio.
This has always been a passion of mine, and I've been doing it, informally, for a very long time – ever since I got to see the band Yes live. Close To The Edge was one of my favorite albums and the engineer/producer was a guy named Eddy Offord, who became my hero at a very young age.
I had a rare opportunity to actually spend a day with the band when they were on tour because I had written Eddy a letter saying, “I'd really like to come see you work”. Believe it or not, he called me at college and said, “Sure, come on down!”
So I went to Louisville, where Yes was performing, and it was a remarkable day for me. The only reason I mention all of this is that, after a while, I realized that I wasn't going to be an engineer like Eddy Offord, but I was a person who really liked to mix music. So this studio was really an opportunity for me to follow my passion, which was mixing.
After I retired, my wife and I had the idea of building this place, so it was our project together. We were just at the start of it and my wife suddenly passed. Eventually, I got back to it and that's when I flipped the switch on this to go from being just a mix room to being a studio; the room had been designed in such a way, it could be anything. By the way, its name is derived from Phil Collins’ song ‘Sussudio’.
I was going to ask about that!
My wife's name was Susan and when we were younger, we’d have our four kids packed in the van, headed up for a vacation in Michigan, and we had one cassette tape in the car – on one side of it was ‘Rubber Soul’ and on the other side was the Phil Collins album. When it got to ‘Sussudio’, everybody in the car started singing. I got really sick of that song. [Laughs] I wanted to name the studio for my wife and it was the first thing that came to mind.
When I started it as a studio, my intention was to do it on a commercial basis. The mission was to enable up-and-coming artists to record themselves in a professional manner rather than doing the ‘8-track in the bedroom’ thing; they could get a really nice recording of their demo at a very low price.
As I started to market it, I thought, “I don't know how to market it because I don't want anybody to know about this place!” [Laughs] It’s sort of remote, on a lake, in an area that is rural/residential and it would be a very bad idea if people were driving down my dirt road making a lot of noise and getting the neighbors mad. Then I had an epiphany over the winter – I ran a business for 40 years, so why would I want to run another business? This is stress I do not need. So I decided that this would be a hobby – have fun with it, have people come in, and I will record them. If they want to bring an engineer, that's great; it means I get to learn, but I'm not going to charge them. It enables me to be very selective about who comes into the space.
My first real session in the new place was with an artist from Michigan named Joshua Davis. Josh was a bit famous because he was a runner-up on ‘The Voice’ in 2015. He said he learned a lot on ‘The Voice’ but after that was over, he went back to who he was, which was an incredibly talented and very rootsy singer/songwriter.
I was fortunate enough to record him doing a few of his new songs. I was scared to death but then Josh came in and he's a great guy, and his band were phenomenal players; I set up the session the way I normally would and the session went really well. That was a good way to start.
After that, there was a local reggae band from Columbus, Ohio called The Quasi Kings that my son is part of. So I went from roots all the way over to reggae, which was much louder and they brought their own engineer, which was great. I just sat and watched and he was phenomenal; I always welcome that.
Let’s talk about some of the great gear you have at SuSuSound.
That’s all Jason Carson! We’ve known each other for a long while, and when it came time for me to do this studio, he led me the whole way. Here's a guy who spent 20 years actually in the business at a very high level – he’s got a degree in engineering from the Berklee College of Music and worked at The Record Plant in LA – so I'm thinking, “Just tell me what to do”.
What drew you to the API 1608-II console?
When I told Jason that the plan for the studio had changed – that it was no longer just a mix room – we needed a console. We talked about that for a long time and finally, partly because I thought it looked really cool and partly because Jason said it was his favorite console, we chose the API 1608.
Jason said we needed to have a dealer come in, and when he was at The Record Plant he had worked pretty much exclusively with Vintage King, so I got connected to Jacob Schneider, who was absolutely all in from day one. Between him and Jason, it was a really good team. Jason would suggest things and Jacob added a lot of interesting aspects to the choices because he is extremely knowledgeable.
What are some of your favorite features of the console?
My favorite feature – and I was told this would be the case – is how great it sounds for drums. It has those great analog API preamps that sound amazing. 90% of the time, my signal chain starts with the API preamp.
I love the sound of the console; I love how it feels, the look of it… The console I had felt plastic, compared to the API. It just feels solid, like a freight train. I have great photos of folks trying to get that console into my studio through regular doors. [Laughs]
Jason was here for the installation, he set it all up, and he showed me some of the great features of the API, like the patching, for example; stuff that I never really had an opportunity to work with hands-on. The console has unlimited patching capability, and this is the first time I ever had that sort of thing where anything I want to do, there's a way to do it with the patchbay.
That’s been fascinating and I learn more every day that I'm using it! There are a lot of buttons, and people always come and say, “How did you learn all those buttons?” Well, if you think of this as 32 times the same thing, it makes it a lot easier because every channel is exactly the same! [Laughs] So I love the board, and somehow those preamps handle the drums like nothing else – that's the API!
How have you been liking the ATC SCM45A monitors?
Given that this was initially meant to be a mixing space, the monitors were critical and the ATCs were always on top of Jason’s list. They’re like nothing I'd ever heard before – I never had a speaker that was anything close to the ATCs in terms of audio quality.
I added a sub to the ATCs and it was like the earth moved; the low-end response was astounding. Without the sub, it was pretty damn good, but with it, it's incredible. I try to mix at a very low level to protect my ears; I mean, I'm in my seventies, and if I wreck them, it's all over.
I have these songs that I listen to, just to get my ears in shape, and one of my favorites is a Lyle Lovett tune called ‘North Dakota’. It's a beautiful ballad, you’ve got Rickie Lee Jones doing background vocals, and it sounds great as it is. But, before listening to it on the ATCs, I never understood what imaging meant. So now I’ve got these speakers, and all of a sudden, I can hear depth! The sound field was incredible; it’s like you're immersed in it! I can’t even imagine what the Dolby Atmos stuff sounds like on these speakers.
For example, when Rickie Lee Jones comes in singing her backing vocal, I could hear her off of his right shoulder – behind him and just off to the right. It's like, “Wow, so that's what imaging is all about!” – speakers that not only define where left and right are, but how far back things are. You can actually picture her standing in the room…it's a quality of sound that I was not familiar with at all.
How has the AVID HDX and HD I/O interface impacted your workflow?
After the console and monitors, we selected the AVID HDX system. I would have had nothing of this if it was just going to be a mix room, but now suddenly we're a 32-track HDX studio on a board that has 32 tracks.
It’s hard to describe the impact because my previous experience was basically a laptop computer running Pro Tools and I thought it sounded great. HDX is like taking the blanket off of it somehow – all of a sudden it's crystal clear! The quality of the signal is amazing and you really have to work hard to go lo-fi! [Laughs] If you want to screw it up, go ahead, but alternatively, you can record it well and then screw it up; there are plenty of effects that make it sound lo-fi.
With the speakers and the console and the AVID, Jason and I call it the perfect system because, audio-wise, it's consistently high-level stuff.
What are some of your favorite microphones at SuSuSound?
Jason recommended the Telefunken ELA M 251 which, of course, sounds amazing. Then, enter Jacob, and he recommended adding a Neumann U 67, which I think is perfect for vocals.
Every time we did a session, we would do tests with the microphones and record them. In the case of The Quasi Kings, we tried the AKG C414s, the U 67, and the U 87Ai. We did blind tests and then all of us would sit in the room, I would play the recordings one at a time, and we’d pick our favorite. Everybody landed on the U 67. It's pretty much been the microphone of choice for everybody I’ve recorded just because it's incredible. The 251 is nice too, but not like the U 67 – it’s a different microphone entirely.
Then Jacob said I needed a good set of overhead microphones and suggested a matching set of the Coles ribbon mics, which do sound great to me.
What has it been like working with Vintage King and Jacob Schneider while setting up the studio?
I’ve got to tell you a Jacob story, which is very cool. The company that designed the studio is called Haverstick Designs, they're based in Indiana; Jacob referred me to them. So now we have Jason referring me to Jacob, and Jacob referring me to this architectural firm. Gavin Haverstick and I became very good friends and he did a marvelous job on the design and build of the studio.
Gavin was coming in for one of his tests but I didn't have the ATCs yet. Jacob grabbed a pair of speakers that he thought sounded really good – the Focal 6.5 inch 3-way monitors – stuck them in a car, and drove them up to where I was, which was a good 3 hours away from where he was, just so we could have speakers for this test. Then he left them here, mostly because I was going to be needing them until the ATCs came in. The end of that story is that I eventually bought them from him because I liked them so much! I mean, they're not ATCs, but they're different; it's like the 251 and U 67 – they give you a different feel and it was cool to have them.
Jacob and I have been good friends ever since – he does stuff like that, which is great. He also handles things if I have a problem. For example, the power supply for the U 67, a vintage, went out one day in the middle of a session and Jacob coordinated getting it fixed and back really fast. I rely on that kind of help extensively!
Tell us how you’ve been liking the Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite and UAD plug-ins?
I use it all the time. They have some plug-ins, like the Lexicon 480L Reverb, which are amazing.
I love plug-ins! I use FabFilter all the time and it’s just amazing; I use their EQ and compressors extensively – they sound so good and have so much flexibility. The other plug-ins I love are from SoundToys; I use their reverb unit a lot. I've got some Eventide plug-ins as well and they sound amazing. It's a whole world, and it’s cool.
It’s also a learning curve. In the beginning, I would use some presets, things like ‘Bright Guitar’ and when I got rid of all that stuff, it sounded way better, which was amazing to me. So that was a big lesson for me as far as plug-ins go – avoid packaged things, or things that say, “You can sound like so-and-so, just use this plug-in!” It's not me; it's not what I sound like – what I'm doing now is what I sound like. There’s way more flexibility in individual plug-ins.
Do you have a go-to signal chain for recording, or do you use something different every time?
For vocals, it’s the U 67, then a 1073 clone going into a real 1176. I have a BAE 1073 that I use, and it sounds great.
What's a typical day in the studio like for you?
For me, it’s a little lower-key than most, perhaps. I am going up to the studio for a couple of weeks in January; I have some folks who are going to come in and record during that time period because they’re too busy playing live during the warm months.
I will probably go back there again in early May and stay through October. I get to hang out in my studio all day, and about 80% of that time is spent learning Pro Tools and just going over stuff that I do.
So my typical day is pretty laid back. I might have a session, and once I get over the jitters about doing it in the first place, I kind of fall into it; it's like, “Okay, I know how to do this”.
Are you working on any exciting projects right now that you're able to talk about?
I had a project going before I came home for the winter with a fellow named Tobin Sprout, who was a founding member of the band Guided by Voices; they’re credited with being the originators of lo-fi. Tobin visited the studio, liked it a lot, and we started a session with a few songs that he wanted to do so that project may continue this summer.
He’s an interesting guy. I think that to him, it's all about the song, and not so much how it’s recorded… he writes poetry, in a sense. He’s a great visual artist as well. It’s a bit hard to make my setup sound lo-fi because it's not; I just go with it and try to figure out how to get what he wants.
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