Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Interview with Dave Sinko, Nashville audio engineer

My name is Candace Corrigan. Welcome to The Nashville Nobody Knows, a program of interview and performance of Great music that is usually outside the mainstream radio machine. This show is brought to by Mailsteward, for archiving email on the Mac. My guest today is Dave Sinko, one of my favorite recording engineers, who lives in Nashville Tennessee.

Candace: Dave, tell me something about yourself. How did you get into engineering?

Dave: I started with music of course, playing in little acoustic trios, and stuff and I was always the one who ended up doing audio. So I really started in live sound. Later, I got into building musical instruments, and I did that for a number of years, building mandolins and guitars, which I think really helps me today, in recording instruments, especially acoustic instruments. There were a couple of other things in between, but...

Candace: Like boat building?

Dave: Yeah, well, I studied yacht design for a while, and I built custom racing yachts, which is actually a lot like building mandolins. They're a lot the same. The physics of them is almost exactly the same.

Candace: But then you came here for music and then?

Dave: And then I got to Nashville, and I realized how good the players really were here in Nashville, and decided I should just stop and record the guys that could play a lot better than I could.

Candace: Dave, I have asked you to choose some of the projects that you have worked on. This first song is Appalachian Waltz?

Dave: It's Appalachia Waltz. It's Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor and Yo Yo Ma. It's a classical trio. I was approached by Edgar Meyer to record this record, and Appalachia Waltz was all recorded here at Sound Emporium. It was a really a challenging project; the first time I had ever gotten into classical, or semi-classical type recording. I enjoy applying the principles of classical recording and kind of blending them with more contemporary recording and finding some different ways to do things.

Candace: Such as, what did you do that was different, that combined the classical with the more modern?

Dave: It's more in the terms of mikeing techniques. I'd go out and listen to what was happening in the area and where they were sitting, and how everything was arranged, and arranging the microphones according to that - Not using devices like compressors and EQs, where the microphone is picked to work on a specific spot on a specific sound, as opposed to putting up a microphone and processing it to work the way you want it to, it's a little more like believing what is coming out of the end of that microphone and using it, and then modifying what you do, to get it to sound the way you want it to sound.

CD: Appalachia Waltz

Candace: Oh that is lovely. Edgar Meyer's Appalachia Waltz.

Dave Sinko, tell me about working with Andrea Zonn. I have her record and I love it. Tell me about working on this project.

Dave: Andrea Zonn is just one of the most beautiful people in Nashville. She is an incredible talent, and she brought me her tracks to mix, and this song we are going to play is one of my favorites on the record.

CD: Love Goes On

Candace: That was Andrea Zonn with Pages, a song written by Tom Kimmel and Jenny Yates. Dave, let's talk about the next stunning piece of music. This was written specifically for these musicians.

Dave: Short Trip Home was four players. It was Sam Bush and Mike Marshall from the bluegrass world and Joshua Bell and Edgar Meyer from the classical world, all in pieces that Edgar basically wrote for those guys to play. Having played with all of them for years, he knows kind of what they do and how to best use their talents, so he wrote stuff just for them on this. And it was about, on my end of it, putting it altogether to record at a recital hall at the University of New York, Recital Hall C, I think it was. And this is one of the only records I've ever been able to do where there's been no processing, whatsoever. What you hear on the record is microphones turned up and balanced, with no other processing, even in the mastering process. I'm proud of that.

CD: Short Trip Home

Candace: Dave, This next artist that we are going to feature is more the Nashville some people might know. I will always remember the first time I heard Don Williams. It was in the car. I was so impressed with his voice. And you traveled with Don Williams for some time.

Dave: I was on the road doing live sound with Don for seven years and loved every minute of it. Every show was like making a record with Don, everybody would give a hundred percent every time. It was such a great effort, on the road, all the, just a bunch of beautiful people who were easy to get along with, and we all learned so much in the school of Don Williams. Some of my best friends, ever, were in that organization. This record, An Evening with Don Williams Best of Live, was the title of it. We did a series of concerts in England, and we recorded all these shows right out in the middle of the floor, I had the recording machines and equipment right on the floor, no recording truck or anything. It is mixed with just the live room sounds and no additional effects, so there is nothing artificial about the recordings at all. It's just like it happened. The one that I picked was You're my best friend from the Royal Albert Hall in London. And it's, i's so cool because there's all these people singing along with Don through the whole song, and you hear these six thousand voices ghosting along with Don on it, and its just a real moment, and one of my favorite recordings.

CD : An Evening With Don Williams Live

Candace: How fun is that to have 6000 people singing along. Don Williams. Tell me about working on this particular selection Old Tyme.

Dave: Old Tyme is from Edgar Meyer's Uncommon Ritual record, which we recorded partly at the old Saint Bernard Academy here in Nashville.

Candace: Yeah, yeah, the one with that great old chapel with the immense ceilings. Oh, the acoustics must have been astounding in there. But did recording there have special problems?

Dave: We had to do it at night, and it's a steam heated room, so we would have to turn the steam heat off, and wait thirty minutes before we could record, and then we would record until we were too cold, and turn the heat back on again. And the rest of it we did at Ocean Way studio here in Nashville. But it was just an all trio project with Edgar and Bela Fleck on banjo, and Mike Marshall on mandolin. It is still one of my favorite projects. Edgar seems to keep cropping up that way as my favorite projects. He is definitely the most challenging artist I've ever worked with.

CD: Uncommon Ritual

Candace: Edgar Meyer from Uncommon Ritual, Old Tyme.

I see that your next selection is Ol' Harpoon from the CD: Jelly Roll Johnson and a few Good Friends. Tell me about this. This must have been a fun one.

Dave: People in Nashville know Jelly Roll as being one of the great harmonica players of our time, and I think time will tell us that he definitely is that. This record was just, the whole vibe of it was fun. It was all done very live in the studio. Verlon Thompson sings this one. It's just one of the ones I liked.

CD : Jelly Roll Johnson and a Few Good Friends

Candace: Oh I love that. Jelly Roll Johnson

For your last selection, bless your heart you have chosen a song that you engineered for me on my cd The Love I'm In

Dave: That track was a great performance on everybody's part, it was Jim Hoke, and Pat Flynn, and Stuart Duncan and Kenny Malone, and both Larry (Paxton) and Dave Pomeroy played bass on that record. They both did a great job.

Candace: Dave Sinko thank you for being with us, for sharing all this great music, People out there listening, don't forget to vote for us as your favorite podcast on podcastalley.com. Just click on the black vote for me box in the upper right sidebar. Here it is, Where Moses Stood.

CD: The Love I'm In

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