Waldrep Gets Inside Music

For Mark Waldrep, the magic of music making lies in the way sound is recorded and produced. Sitting in his West Hollywood studio, the Palisadian audio engineer and producer says he believes his new DVD-Audio recordings sound better than live performances, and he presses ‘play’ to prove it. The pure sound of Willie Nelson and songwriter Paul Williams (Barbara Streisand’s ‘Evergreen’ and Karen Carpenter’s ‘Close to You’) singing ‘Rainbow Connection’ fills the room as if the musicians were performing right there, spontaneously deciding who sings each line. ‘This took two takes,’ says Waldrep, founder of AIX Records. ‘It just breaks me up every time I hear it.’ Having worked on behalf of musicians, singers and record labels for nearly 30 years, Waldrep is grateful for the new technologies that have allowed him to develop his newest productions’DVD-Audio/Video discs that include ‘audiophile quality music’ with 5.1 channel surround mixes (the method used in the film industry primarily for sound effects), multiple camera angle video, biographical texts and/or photos from sessions or artists. Some of the recordings have interviews with the musicians or special-interest segments such as a guitar lesson or backstage jam. AIX records an entire record in a single, four- to six-hour period in a live hall without an audience. Most of the music has been recorded in the Colburn School for Performing Arts’ Zipper Hall in Downtown L.A. ‘I love being inside music, not with people clapping,’ says Waldrep, who left his home state of Michigan in 1974 ‘to be a rock star’ in Los Angeles. When playing in a band didn’t work out, he took some classes at SMC before continuing his education at CSUN, Cal Arts and UCLA. Because the DVD-Audio/Video recordings are done in a short amount of time, usually with only two takes per tune, the musicians ‘have to be skilled enough and have been performing long enough to deliver great music in a single session,’ Waldrep says. ‘There’s no going back and fixing mistakes.’ He also wants to record bands who are ‘fun to work with and interested in what we’re doing,’ since AIX’s recording methodology is nontraditional. For example, Waldrep recently recorded a Christmas album with five musicians, including former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber and Waldrep’s favorite pianist, Jim Cox. ‘They had never played the songs together, and the DVD captures that sense of newness,’ says Waldrep, who directs the recordings with about a six-person crew. ‘The biggest high I had was working with Willie Nelson and Paul Williams on ‘Rainbow Connection’,’ he says. ‘The air became rarified because here was this icon [Nelson] taking direction from me.’ When Waldrep played two initial mixes of the recording for Paul Williams, he said the hall-of-fame songwriter looked at him and said ‘I get it, after 30 years,’ meaning that Williams finally understood what music could sound like and the magic of creating that sound. Waldrep strives for those moments that are ‘the reason people should be making records.’ AIX preserves the feeling of real-time music-making by avoiding techniques commonly used to produce recordings, such as dynamics compression, equalization, artificial reverberation and mono miking techniques. Waldrep points out that the use of stereo pairs of microphones for each instrument allows him to create a sound in which ‘the speakers disappear.’ The result is a recording that is 50 percent as loud as a normal commercial release, Waldrep says. ‘It’s quieter than anything you’ll hear on the radio, and as pure and natural an experience as you can create with technology.’ The DVD-Audio/Video discs are ‘my own creative visions,’ says Waldrep, whose company was born as the first DVD-Audio record label dedicated to new high-resolution releases. ‘It’s a pretty personal thing I’m doing.’ Over the years, he has researched, acquired and utilized state-of-the-art equipment, including a $400,000 Euphonix System 5 digital mixing console. ‘There’s been a little bit of debt along the way,’ he says, but admits that the 35 completed DVD-Audio/Video discs were ‘phenomenally less expensive’ to produce because he owns his equipment. His small company consists of four former students at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where Waldrep teaches digital media arts courses three days a week. ‘Music has an intangible ability to get in here,’ says Waldrep, putting his hand over his heart. ‘That’s what it’s always done for me.’ Waldrep has lived in the Palisades for four years with his wife, Mona, and their three kids, Kari, 20, Christopher, 18 and Michael, 16. Kari attends UC Santa Cruz and Michael is in the Highly Gifted Magnet program at North Hollywood High School. Christopher, a recent PaliHi graduate, is a member of the band Half Nelson. For more information about AIX Records, visit www.aixrecords.com or contact Mark Waldrep directly at mwaldrep@aixrecords.com or (323) 655-4116, ext. 102.