 Welcome to the captain's lounge studios. I'm joined today at the table by Brett Batterman Who is renowned as being one of the best sound engineers in all of Colorado? Brett welcome to the table. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm glad you could be here for a rational recording because this is the first time I actually had a chance to sit down with a real live professional sound recordist. I have muddled around in this at the theater and at home You do it for a living. First of all, why don't you just give us a quick introduction of whom you are and what you've been involved with? Well, I was born and raised in California got my college degree there Have been in music all throughout my academic career starting in fourth grade and then up through high school and college Being in the choir and the jazz band so a strong musical background and love of music for my whole life And then once I realized that you know you could make money and go and start a livelihood in this I began in radio doing production and promotion Working at the college radio station, but then at the local clear channel cluster at the time and then worked my way all the way up to being an on-air talent and Doing quite a lot of production commercial production making little zips and things to stick on the radio After that after I finished college. I decided this is something I wanted to do full-time But wasn't really up to speed on most of the audio engineering Knowledge that I needed so I went to school in Phoenix, Arizona for a year just to get up to speed to what I thought would be proficiency To start my career Once I finished school there I went to New York City and started working at Searsound the oldest recording studio in New York City Worked there for a while, but then as is typical in the studio game you end up moving on rather quickly So I started just venturing around doing more audio engineering I was a producer for a radio station at Kohler Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island And then started picking up gigs doing live production sound for Broadway shows So the things like altar boys and naked boys singing evil dead the musical and so on That must have been fascinating sort of moving from a hospital to Broadway. Yeah I mean a difference quite a different environment And the hospital is a really interesting time in my career because I was a part of therapeutic recreation These are permanent patients slash residents who live in the hospital whether they have you know Whatever medical issue may ailed them they are living there now And so as a part of this therapeutic recreation They would have their own show on the radio and then I would be the producer for that show So they're selecting the music doing the air brakes And I'm doing the equipment and the pressing play on the music and things like that's interesting because it In my childhood I spent rather too much time in hospital and British hospitals used to do exactly the same thing Yeah, well, and it's a good way to you know kind of disconnect from what's ailing you at the moment music is a wonderful sound and healing and Yeah, I mean I made some really wonderful friends and colleagues there. It was a bit. It was not quite the sort for me You know, I'm a little probably just too sensitive to work at a hospital. That's intense like that It was a yes. It was like one flew over the cuckoo's nest with large wards and aggressive Patients and residents careful. I played mr. Rock Lee and one You know, I played nurse ratchet earlier too But that but part of it was also that you know being a deep and sensitive person creative it was a time to Do some service and right and you know extend my heart to people who are in a low place So and and help to uplift them, you know, the music is for the upliftment of mankind Mm-hmm, and we would do our best to help bring others to that place So you're in New York you've done your work at the hospital. You you work Broadway Do you also work off Broadway as well? Didn't yes, um, eventually, you know, you're making connections I wasn't particularly happy at the hospital. It was paying the bills, but I wanted to kind of move on So I was taking freelance gigs at you know every place under the Sun that would need a gig or that I had a gig Um, and eventually I ended up being the full-time sound engineer at the zipper theater Which was an off-off Broadway theater that did a lot of gosh everything they did many runs of Jacques Braille They did Margaret chose sensuous woman was a show that I worked on which is a burlesque show lots of local burlesques including Murray Hill Hey Murray yeah all kinds of wonderful New York types and the real like Freaky crowd, right? I love them. They're my people so when I was when I was involved heavily in the theater I always wanted to do Jacques Braille Yes, a live and well and living in Paris because that has got some of the most incredible songs in it Uh-huh, but that you ever hear in a musical. Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah, really. They're absolutely incredible Okay, so you're in New York But now you're in Colorado in person. Yes What made you leave New York or was it just getting because when we were talking before the show you you mentioned Hotels yes, and what a pain in the proverbial. Uh-huh. They are yeah, why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Well, I ended up moving to Washington, DC with my then wife and we I Started working in hotels for presentation services audio visual which is a very large company that it's in many many hotels all over the world And I was working at the Willard Intercontinental which is the hotel right down the street from the White House. It's on Pennsylvania Avenue Oh, okay, and It's just a completely different beast, you know, you're doing hotel events. I was wearing a suit to work every day While also doing large AV setup setting up speakers and projector screens and taping down cables All while wearing a suit and trying to mingle with I mean I met the everybody at that hotel I met the president. I met Al Franken, you know Bob Weir and Mickey Hart from nice grateful debt Yeah, I mean and so on I met the entire cabinet under George W. Bush, right? I was there for Obama's inaugural when everybody was losing their minds Yeah, like that must have been a fun one to do. It was intense. Yeah, that was that was the real like I met a historical place Yes time so Yeah, and of course we won't mention the fact that there's a rumor that the the the battle him was actually written there Yes, but we won't we won't talk. Okay Because it was a rumor. Uh-huh. Where do I hear the rumor from? Oh, that's right. It was me. Yeah, that's right Yeah after my old friend Hunter absolutely now when you're working a Broadway or sort of like any theater backstage Never any carpeting. It's always normally concrete floors or lino floors or whatever Much easier to move stuff around but as soon as you hit the hotels You're dealing with you know plus carpet nice carpet. That must have been a pain. It is a pain Well, it just ramps up the the labor so much more, you know, you're pushing these giant we call them Cadillacs Just large black boxes on cast on large castor wheels I've seen them and they're be a full of a thousand pounds of who knows what and Yeah, just getting them around It's so much more labor. I can't I really have to underline that part because Some people think I go you just sit at the console the whole time during the program It's like no, no, that's the easy part of the show The hard part is pushing all this stuff around getting it on and off a truck That's right But it getting it into a lift and hanging it from the ceiling, you know and trust and everything so it's a lot It was a real grind It was quite a lot of labor I can imagine and it's very difficult to gain efficiencies because you are you can't have an install Situation you are constantly turning over setups. You know, okay raising and lowering new screens There's the whole rental component of like this screen has to go to Vegas now So we have to get this other screen and these other project and so on. So yeah, it's a logistical a logistical nightmare Yeah, and the staff luckily we have staff to take care of that but the labor is what I was doing. Yes, and that's The clients are very demanding because as they should be because the price is exorbitant. Oh, I can imagine. Yeah, it's it's Kind of a soak if you ask me But I mean that's the way you do if you want to do an event a hotel you're gonna get soaked Well, especially a hotel like the Willard. I mean they are they are expecting absolute 100% perfection. Oh, sure Yeah, well, that's where everybody who's anybody stays, you know, Kobe Bryant any embassy the embassy of Iraq Iran Right Nicholson, you know, other Presidents. Yeah, I served all of those people Now meeting those people is sort of like a nice little payback Do you miss that life at all? No, no, I'm not the sort to kowtow to celebrity I would you know, there are people that I respect and admire. I will be nervous around them, but You know average folks or average folks, right? I I'm coming from a very Germain background. You know, my dad was a farm boy. I grew up in agricultural towns. So I'm I feel very blue-collar Oriented in my origination right attitudes. So you're in Washington, DC You're sitting down one day at the bar probably having a nice frothy beer and you're thinking what am I gonna do next? Yeah What happened? Well, I don't know if you've ever been to Washington, DC, but once yeah, how did you like it as a tourist? Once was enough. Yeah, just like it was just like you when I visited New York back in women's that that would have been 82 Yeah, once was enough. Did you have a subway with all the graffiti on it? We never went down in the subway, but we got a we got a cab from Which airport to be flying to LaGuardia to our hotel, which was right on Central Park And I don't know why the taxi driver did this But we're driving through one area of New York and there were burnt out cars and vans Along the side of the road the buildings look like they were totally unsafe So we get to the hotel check into the hotel and with Peter Moore and a very good friend of mine and Okay, Pete. What should we do? Let's go out and find something to eat. Fine So the distance from the hotel front door to the to the site to the end of the sidewalk where the taxi ramp was was probably about 50 feet We both got propositioned twice From the door to the taxi. Yep I've never been back. Yeah. Well, and it's such a strange thing because when I was there I call it the Disneyland time. Yes. Like in fact on page six of the New York post There was always a picture of some young Lady wearing a handkerchief and face down in the gutter completely smashed and it's like that is a giant Target as far as I could tell but that was the eight time it was like that Yes, you could just do that and nobody would lay a hand on that. There's an ostensibly I know it's it's a little bit reckless in my opinion Anyway, let's get back on sure So I was bringing up because everybody has many people have a very different impression of DC than living there I think as a tourist, it's fantastic and I tried to engage all of those tourist activities Whether it's going to the Smithsonian that's free all the free stuff, you know, right? However, the weather is terrible the people are inconsolable And it was totally the wrong place for me. You just didn't you never felt at home. Absolutely not quite the opposite You know feeling the stress of like, oh, I don't fit in here and I don't like it, right? So I was looking just to transfer with my company, you know make it easy on myself Keep a job and so I was looking at everywhere from Vancouver, British Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii Because they do a lot of they do a lot of movie making up there, don't they? Oh, yeah TV show sure one just moving within the AV company was going to be a total It's you know one role to the exact same role at another hotel And eventually I you know gained traction they needed my role here in Denver at the Weston Denver downtown right by Lanny's clock tower Oh, okay. Yeah, a 16th Street mall. Yeah, and so I just negotiated a swap and Moved on out and frankly it was the best decision I ever made. There was quite a lot of hurdles DC is a very expensive place So it was hard to build the nest egg to rent the truck gas was $4 at the time. This was in 2011 and I Thought about it's like everybody's oh, it's gonna be so expensive and it's like I would give every cent I have every object I have to get out of here because it is a quality of life situation I am burning my life away and hating it so Whatever it takes man, whatever right it takes and I mean that's like chump change compared to like fleeing your home in The Soviet Union during the war. Oh, absolutely. Whatever absolutely, but I really resonate with that because it's like I don't want to be here You're saying it's the gas is too expensive I would pay any amount if a genie popped up and was like pay me and I'll get I'll relocate you Yeah, like take it all take it all so um, so you're not you know, so now I'm in Colorado Yeah, had you been here before I had been here once. Yeah, I came out with a mentor friend of mine John chimp and he Yeah, just showed me what it was like and how wonderful it was nice wide open spaces outdoors Yeah, but then of course being in Denver, so I'm working at the Denver downtown I began doing live sound gigs for Megan Burt who's a Colorado favorite and Yeah, just you know as you do in audio engineering circles music circles, you know branching out finding new colleagues and new friends eventually I left the AV game and Just spent some time like kind of gathering myself applying to new jobs and eventually now where I work is at the National Center for Atmospheric Research Okay, I'm producing their multimedia events and videos Yeah, and that's where I've just been that means I've seen some of your stuff I wouldn't doubt it. Yeah, and I've been there. This is my 10th year So I'm completing my 10th year and it's fantastic. It's a real birds and nests on the ground job for my field So isn't it a bit of a pain getting to work every morning? Oh, it's not terrible. No, I mean I come from California So traffic there is on a whole another level, right? Yeah, it's in order of my I've lived in London So I understand exactly what you're talking about. Well, at least London has you know public transportation. Yes Yeah, in California. It's a little rougher London drivers treat traffic lights like the start of a Formula one race When the lights turn to green everyone moves at the same time. That's right Why is it Americans wait until the car in front is at least 10 feet away before they start moving You got to finish writing your text message. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I Should have known I mean that's what you do Anyway, right, so you're in Denver. Yeah, and once I got the job at the at NCAR I moved up to Longmont and Yeah, I started working on music here. You know produce the first album in town Because you have your own studio right here in town. Don't you? Yeah, I have a recording equipment and been you know Just accumulating equipment and working my way up perfected my skills And yeah helping the local people fulfill their recording. Okay. Was this the first time you've actually built your own studio? You probably sort of had one as a kid Because I know you were sort of interested in sound even way back then sure well, I think building a studio probably goes into a Changing the building, you know making the building how it needs to be to function as a place to facilitate sessions I definitely I've done that before in the first studio. I worked at in Stockton, California We fabricated tons of isolation rooms and then you know doing everything from floating the floor Disconnecting the walls decoupling the walls putting Dap and all of that coffee everywhere, you know to isolate sound bleed and things like that and not only that but now with so much online content and information you can really Minimize the amount of intrusion you do if you want to do something in your house, right? You know so many years have gone by where artists will rent a house and just bring in all the equipment and they don't bring in a ton of Extrasound dampening or anything so I try to focus along those same ideas keeping it functional and minimal but also Able to change between you know, it's 95% of the time. It's just my house. I don't have a session in there Right, so I keep it able to transition between both and then also be very effective and productive as a recording space You know no bleed. I'm sure what I intrusion of outside noise. Absolutely now. I know Our producer wants me to talk about this hardware and software Mm-hmm What sort of microphones you use or do you have specific microphones for a specific task? I Think that there's specific microphones for specific tasks. It definitely you must have a mind for what you are going for What you yeah what you're shooting for and what it will look like and feel like down the road sound like I suppose Yeah, the kinds of microphones I've been leaning more towards tube mics They are more expensive, but the quality is often they're just more forgiving. Okay now to Mike. Yes What does that mean? That means that there is a tube in yeah a vacuum tube in the microphone and that functions as the main Gain increase in order to provide a line level usable level coming out of the microphone Oh, okay, uh-huh. Whereas many microphones. I mean used there's a microphones and then there's preamps many microphones Need significant pre-amplification before they are at a usable level Tube microphones are often already at that usable line level because that pre-amplification has largely taken place in the microphone with the tube Using which makes an awful lot of sense really when you think about it Uh-huh well originally it was a no-brainer because then you could troubleshoot Problems right like whether it's a buzzing or hum you know any of that kind of stuff You can trace it to the line switch a power supply switch a capsule whatever you have to do Yeah, and get on with business so I I had the pleasure of actually going to a recording studio in Where are we northern Denver? and Actually a couple of people that have come down here shawana and Stavros cross They were recording their their song that down there. So I went down to the studio They wanted me to videotape some of it and I was astonished because the engineer was sitting at his computer Which I'm sure yep, you do the same thing And this goes back to what we talked about with a meatloaf and all the rest of it Sort of like they'd record a segment and then they'd play it back and sort of Stavros would say well Can we take that down a little and he just went whoa whoa whoa down done and I'm stood there going software Yeah, I could not believe what you're able to do now. Yeah, it was unbelievable What sort of software do you like using um right now? I'm using pre sonus studio one as my software I grew up using pro tools. Yeah, but in my opinion Did you design an avid left a lot of the meat on the table? You know, they would make you pay extra for this or that special special function. Yes, and every other Software developer has really incorporated those functions largely within the software itself at no extra cost Right and pre sonus seems to really be you know They they originally just made that software so that when you bought their hardware interface You would have a software to get going recording yourself Yeah, but it became so popular because it offered all this functionality that these pro softwares I mean you can do it in there But as often it is a little bit more of a headache Not quite as an intuitive as a modern drag and drop software would be mm-hmm And that's what I mean by leaving meat on the table, you know if you want People to buy your product. You must incentivize them, especially when your competition is giving every other thing that you're not giving at Gosh a third the price a quarter of the price right depending on Admittedly pro tools is still what they would designate as the industry standard Mm-hmm But I think that that is along the lines of if you work in commercial studios You will be able to go from studio to studio and know that there's a pro tools rig there that you can use As you would use it studio to studio and that's similar to how there will be a Neumann u-87 at every studio Yeah, there will be a whatever Neve pre whatever there is a la2a at every studio that you're like, okay This is a common tool. I can use it the way I always use When we were doing the elephant man at the the theater or a long time ago that was to be in when oh my goodness 93 94 something like that anyway I was asked to do all the sound for the show and There's one bit where I can't remember the characters name now But the Indian stands right at the front of the stage and he's it's thinking and they did not want him to to say the lines They wanted me to have him thinking the lines So I wanted to add a little bit of echo and a little bit of you know, this and that and the other and I found This tool called cool cool edit. Yeah, I know what a great program That was only to be totally ruined by adobe, but we won't go into that basically What a great little program that was when you consider the when it was written yeah, they were really doing some good stuff back then Oh, absolutely, especially in the nonlinear editing. Yes format, which required so much horsepower that really wasn't necessary From these larger, you know did you design right come out with an interface that had you had to have a PCI card or something to connect to Quite a bit of horsepower to run that stuff. Yeah, it's cool edit pro just worked It just what I it's what that's what I started in radio production using was cool edit pro and then transition to Odo Adobe audition Yeah, it was kind of interesting because rendering was always a little bit slow a bit. Yeah Until I was on a 386. I mean that shows how long ago when you were going back And a friend of mine, let me the math co-co processor plug that little baby in Yeah, instant well unbelievable and what was nice about the render is that did you design will drop? Like you halfway through a bounce or a render and it'll say oh Da year we've experienced an error and cool edit pro never did that never did that no never did that Which is this is what I mean by leaving meat on the table, you know Yet in school they would we would always go back and forth like why is it like this and our teacher would bring up the picture of The guy whose job it was to fit to like address customer concerns. Yes Yeah, and it's like it's this guy's fault because he's not responding to the industry demands So you have to give the customers what they need. Yeah, exactly. You really do one be responsive I'm be responsible. Otherwise you're just gonna take it on the chin and everyone's gonna hate you And someone else someone else will do it. Yeah. Yeah one This is what the real truth story of what we just I just said is Yeah, pre-sonus. I've never ever had a session crash. I've never had errors. I can bounce without fail I've never had a bounce fail, right and I cannot say the same for did you design I remember having to do version updates and just taking a whole Saturday and be like well This is how I'm gonna fart around with did you design all day? Oh my gosh. Yeah, and like all that time I've gotten back. I can go for a hike or yes Do whatever I do whatever I want read a book. Absolutely. Listen to more music. Maybe work on another session. Absolutely Would you rather be working in the environment that you have built for yourself? Where you can do everything basically sitting down on a computer screen? Or would you rather be back in the 70s and the 80s? Where you had to be so innovative in Creating what the artists were looking for I remember seeing a documentary Pink Floyd actually doing dark sides of the moon and It was absolutely incredible because you know, they're running tape all the way around the studio to get long echoes Yeah, the big tape loops and what they were doing was unbelievable. Yeah, and then right at the end This is before the automatic Mixing automation There's five of them. Yeah all there mixing together. I mean truly be so where would you have been happiest? um You know, I'm a pretty Amiable guy. I Also have come to realize that I don't sit well in the studio life And I just mean being in a dark room 14 hours a day for months at a stretch. I like to get out To that question. I would say that both Both scenarios have their advantages disadvantages at the time. You wouldn't really know the difference I think and are talking to you earlier I mentioned that I would really appreciate the professionalism of old sessions and just you know it back in the day They used to wear lab coats. Yes engineers with what I mean, and that's how serious they took it But then you know moving forward to you know, some of my mentors like Bill Schnee and Al Schmidt They They emphasize so much that you need to know the tools and know how to use them to facilitate the mission Right, and I think that that that idea and culture remains the same today as it does back in the day You know in the 60s and 70s when we're trying to push the envelope You know, everybody's working to the same masthead and the same mission similar to a marriage or a band, you know a bond and If you can put that first then everything else seems to fall into place, you know similar to acting in the method You do as much research as you possibly can and then when the moment comes you release and let things happen Knowing that like yeah, my skills are all there. I can deliver we're gonna deliver now and If anything happens if there's a problem, I can take care of it, you know And that builds confidence to ramp up your own productions Right ramp up your own skills your own productions and eventually have Satisfaction that you didn't even think was possible in absolutely in your gigs and your deliveries Brett thank you so much for coming into the studio this morning, and it's good to see you here in the captain's lounge and Hopefully we'll be able to get you back in the future And we can investigate some other interesting things from our talk that we had before sitting down to do this Yeah, we sort of went in all different directions. Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me Nigel. You're very very welcome Thank you so much for tuning in for another Rational what are we going to call this show rational recording? Why not? I've never done one of those before Everybody thank you very much for watching. I'm Nigel Aves your host signing off from the captain's lounge studio and once again Brett Thank you so much for coming in today Goodbye