Machine: Fine-Tuned
By Dustin Driver
If you want to create the perfect album, it seems logical to go to a guy who calls himself Machine. Sure, he’s got the perfect name for the job, but he also happens to be one of the best producers in the business. He’s shaped hit bands like Fall Out Boy, Armor for Sleep, Eighteen Visions, and most recently, Grammy-nominated masters of metal Lamb of God. But Machine is much more than just a rock producer. In fact, he despises your typical, cookie-cutter rock recording. He’s a master of musical matchmaking, drawing the best sound out of every band, regardless of the kind of music they play.
“When I met Lamb of God I told them how much I didn’t like your typical metal recording,” he says. “That got me the gig. You can’t take the metal out of Lamb of God. They are metal. But they wanted a different sound to their metal. And it worked.” The band’s “Sacrament” stormed the Billboard charts, hitting number 8 during the first week of its release. A song from the album, “Redneck,” has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Metal Performance category.
Machine is a monster in the studio, squeezing awe-inspiring performances out of bands. He’s also a mindreader. He absorbs a band’s vibe, spins it around in his head, and produces albums that expose a band’s inner workings. “A great producer has the ability to tap into what’s special about something,” he says. “I’m tapping into other peoples’ passions.”
To accurately portray that passion, Machine uses a Mac Pro running Logic Pro chained to Apogee interface gear — creating a fully native recording solution. “I’m always looking to make a better record and Macs have always been the better computers for making music,” he says. “I’ve always used Logic. These are my tools — they’re solid and they simply work.”
Natural Progression
Machine was practically born a musicmaker. Both his parents are classical musicians by trade and the young Machine was immersed in notes, scales, chords, and meters. When he hit high school he grabbed a pair of drum sticks and a guitar and started rockin’. Then came the four-track and eight-track recording decks. “I got into recording as a way to get my music down,” he says. “It turned out that I was kind of a natural at it — I was really good at getting sound.”
Naturally, Machine found better and better machines to work with. In a short while he was programming drum loops for friends and hip hop artists in New Jersey using Notator, the precursor to Logic Pro. He was recording tracks for his friends using his newfound computer equipment. He was massaging tracks, mixing albums, and molding bands. He was, in every sense of the word, a producer. “But I didn’t know what a record producer was,” he says. “I was just recording and helping out bands. It was just what I did every day.”
Then he got hooked up with White Zombie. “I did a remix for them that went platinum,” he says. The doors flew open and suddenly Machine knew exactly what a record producer was. “V2 records had just started and I got a call from some people at the company,” says Machine. “He was looking for a producer and he hired me to work on a new act.”
Through word of mouth, and some awesome work, Machine nabbed a legit gig with a cutting-edge label and never looked back.
But wait. . . how did Machine get his name? “It’s a nickname I got while working as a bartender in college,” he says. “The boss gave me the name and it just stuck. It’s comical to me now, but I don’t regret using such a kooky name. It’s memorable and it’s been a big part of my career.”
Machine gets to the heart of a band and lets its sound spill out onto an album. “To me, a record producer is more like a director,” he says. “I’m in the studio like a movie director, getting it out of them. It’s about developing a level of trust and friendship. I’ve had people cry while they’re singing. I’ve had people get extremely angry. It produces a result.” The producer has tuned his ears to listen for emotion as well as perfect pitch. “I can listen to some records and tell you what the band was thinking when they made the record,” he says. “Having that ability is the most important thing for a producer.”
Tools are also important and when Machine lays down an album, he uses Logic Pro. The producer became hooked on the program early, when he was penning his own music. “Logic is a songwriter’s tool,” he says. “It’s a sound designer’s tool. It’s a music sequencer and it looks and acts like songwriting.” It’s also the producer’s primary sound recording device. “I record everything using Logic,” he says. “And now I’m using the Apogee Symphony system with Logic. It allows you to connect to any Apogee converter and run 9624 kHz, high-definition audio really fast. There’s basically no delay. It feels like real-time recording, which is a huge deal to me. It’s really the perfect native solution for the Mac.” Logic Pro is at the core of everything Machine does. “When I go to work on tunes, I want Logic in front of me,” says Machine. “It’s my instrument.”
The trick in using that instrument, says Machine, is cutting tracks that don’t sound like they were cut on a computer. It’s a subtle skill, one that takes years of working with digital devices. “I’m almost anti-computer recording,” he says. “I’m sick of records sounding like technology. I love tools and I love technology, but I use the Mac and Logic as a tool to create great music. My work doesn’t sound like it was overly edited or overly tuned on the computer. It sounds just the way I want it to.”
Part of the Herd
Machine wants the records he produces to fit the act he’s working with. He wants albums that move, inspire, and, generally, rock. Again, it’s all about the band. “I get a band and I look at them,” he says. “I look at what they’re into, their fan base, and I design a record that fits.”
The best way to know a band is to become part of a band. When heavy metal masterminds Lamb of God asked Machine to produce their album, he effectively joined the herd. “They really treated me more like a band member than a producer,” says Machine. “And that really is the only way to get an awesome album out of a band.”
Lamb of God (and the band that spawned it, Burn the Priest) has cranked out seven records in almost 15 years of rocking. The band is at the nucleus of American heavy metal and is one of the hardest-working outfits in music. “They are the most disciplined, serious group of guys you’ve ever seen,” says Machine. “They are non-stop, always on tour, always making albums.” Machine spent countless late nights working with the meticulous band, creating “Sacrament,” an album that was unlike anything the band had ever recorded.
“On your typical metal album, the drums sound like a drum machine,” says the producer. “You can’t hear the bass guitar, the guitars are seriously scooped in the mids and nobody pays attention to the vocals.” “Sacrament” was still metal, but it wasn’t typical metal. Machine recorded original drum performances and instead of looping a few perfect hits, he quantized every hit in the performance. The drums were perfectly timed, but they weren’t artificial. Bass guitar and vocals were pulled out and refined. The approach yielded a hit album and propelled Lamb of God to a Grammy nomination.
A Rockin’ Career
Machine is electrified by the Grammy nomination, but it’s just one step in his career. “I’m blessed,” he says. “I get to be in many bands. I get to join them briefly for a limited time and work with them as a member. And as long as I can keep putting out great records with them, I can have an endless career.”
The producer is currently working on a remix for hip-hop stars Gym Class Heroes, proving that he’s not just a great rock and metal man. He’s also using his songwriting chops to crank out songs with pop artists. “In the future I want to work with bands that want to develop,” he says. And as always, he wants to remain malleable. “I pride myself on being the producer who doesn’t have a strict method or style or sound,” he says. “I want to keep designing sounds that work with specific bands. I want to keep coming up with different, great music.”
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