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  Scotty slumped in his chair. “Great.”

  “Come on, Scotty. These days, it’s spectacle that counts. Stop living in the ’40s.”

  Twenty-three takes later, I stood up and stretched. “To heck with this. Make a rough mix of take 4 so they have something to take home.” I hit the talkback button. “Splendid job, ladies. I’m getting hungry. Who’s in the mood for dinner?”

  Scotty stared at all the audio files on the screen with a bleak expression. I kicked his chair. “I want this knocked into shape by tomorrow so they can do overdubs. We’ll bring you a doggy bag.”

  He sighed. “I should have taken that job in the coal mines.”

  2. “My Sound”

  by SCOTTY

  Hi, everyone. I’m Scotty. I’ve been working with Blenderman for about two years. He acts like the world’s biggest mook, but it’s just a shtick. He’s a real prince once you get to know him. He’s busy kibitzing, so he asked me to write today’s diary.

  I came in at 10 a.m., like always. I was amazed to see that Fatal Lipstick were already there.

  They were tarted up just like yesterday. They remind me of the girls I went to high school with, who considered bare midriffs and whore makeup de rigueur for the classroom.

  “The rough mix doesn’t sound like us,” Jasmine complained. “I hafta use my own equipment so I can get my sound.”

  I looked through the glass, and my heart sank. They had brought in their own equipment.

  Jasmine had the latest Marshall amp, the Model X, a tube/transistor hybrid. Old Marshalls consistently deliver the “crunch” like no other amp. But the company went to hell after Jim Marshall retired and became a semi-fictional corporate mascot, like Colonel Sanders or Jesus.

  She had a bright red 7-string guitar, one of those overpriced Korean-made jobs that never vibrate cleanly or stay in tune. Manufacturers are getting away with murder these days, thanks to the general lack of virtuosity in today’s music.

  This is what happens when you buy all your equipment at Banjo Mart.

  “Let me hear a couple riffs,” I said with a sense of mounting dread.

  I couldn’t distinguish a single note. The amp had a severe case of vacuum cleaner tone, which is what happens when you clip the signal one too many times and it turns into a wall of white noise.

  The bass amp was a tragically misguided design from a defunct company. It had a “tube overdrive” circuit that contained no tubes, a 3-band EQ with no useful frequencies, and an overly complicated folded-horn multi-driver cabinet that focused the sound waves 20 feet away. There was also a pedal board, because it’s not a bass tone without digital effects and three different fuzz pedals.

  The drum set was a “Pro” model from the ’70s, with mismatched toms, shallow kick drums, and a steel snare drum with badly warped hoops. I think the heads were from the ’70s too. I’ve heard cardboard boxes that sounded better.

  “Has this drum set been tuned… ever?” I said.

  “Yeah, I got it sounding really awesome,” said Mitzi. “I always tune my own drums.”

  I returned to the Padded Cell and pressed the talkback button. “You ready out there? Rolling.”

  They began “Whoredumb.” Mitzi managed to hit the expensive overhead microphones with her sticks, even though they were directly above her head. I stopped the take and told Alpha to raise the overheads. I set up a rough mix and hit the talkback. “Okay, come on in.”

  The three of them sat on the couch with smug expressions. I said, “Here you go. ‘Your sound.’”

  I hit play. I have to give credit to the mics, because it sounded exactly like it did in the room.

  Jasmine made a face. “That sounds like shit.”

  “Yeah?” I said hopefully.

  She looked petulant. “Fix it.”

  “But this is ‘your sound.’”

  “I wanna hear the same thing I hear in the room.”

  I said slowly, “I don’t think it sounds the way you think it sounds.”

  Jasmine scowled. “Don’t give me that shit. If I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  “Sure. Tell me how to make it sound good, and I’ll do it.”

  “Use your fuckin’ brains that we’re payin’ you for.”

  At that moment, Blenderman walked in. Thank Krishna. He stood with hands on hips. “Are you kids fighting?”

  “They want to use their own equipment.” I indicated the pile of pawn-shop rejects.

  Blenderman motioned me outside. We walked down a long hallway to his office, a small, windowless room with a desk and a phone line.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “Scotty, I guess I didn’t tell you about their contract.”

  “Huh?”

  “It says they have creative control and we’re not allowed to change their sound. But my contract says the product has to be ‘radio-ready,’ according to the official definition of ‘radio-ready’ adopted by the AES.” That’s our trade organization: the Audio Engineering Society.

  I snorted. “Yeah, I saw the paper. ‘Within one standard deviation of the industry average of tempo, dynamics, frequency balance, and loudness.’”

  “That’s right. Two contradictory things, and I have to reconcile them. Of course, once this thing is in the can, Kasugi will spirit away the masters and do whatever they want with them, and the ladies will find out that ‘creative control’ is meaningless if you don’t own the masters. But in the meantime, I have to baby-sit them and let them think they’re in charge.” He pondered for a moment. “Scotty, what do you have in your bag of stupid client tricks?”

  “I don’t think dummy knobs and made-up jargon will work with these girls. They’re dumb, but they’re not stupid.”

  “Hmm. This calls for psychological techniques.” He had a twinkle in his eye. “I have an idea. Follow my lead.”

  We walked down the hall. Blenderman went into a bizarre imitation of Bastarde. He shouted, “Your job is to make the client happy, you little so-and-so! I don’t care what you have to do! You talk back one more time, and I’ll smack your silly head back to next Tuesday!”

  I managed to stifle a grin. I have never once heard Blenderman use profanity. He wouldn’t forget his manners if the sky caught on fire.

  We entered the Padded Cell. The three women stared at him with alarm. “I’m so sorry about that outburst, ladies,” said Blenderman, switching back to his native Kentucky drawl. “This guy has had an attitude problem from day one. If he gives you any more trouble, you just let me know.” They nodded timidly.

  Blenderman jabbed a finger in my chest and switched back to the Bronx accent. “Listen, punk. You’re gonna use their equipment, like they requested, and you’re gonna make it sound good. I have appointments for the rest of the day. I’ll give you one more chance to get it right. If I don’t hear a single by the time I’m back, you’re out on the street!”

  I nodded meekly. “Yes sir.” He left, slamming the studio door behind him.

  “Does Blenderman have a split personality?” said Mitzi, all wide-eyed.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” I said dolefully. “It’s even worse when he’s gakked up. We’ve been through ten assistants in two months.”

  I had a private conference with Alpha and Omega. “The tactical situation is dire. The enemy is determined to stop us from making a record. We have to carry out a coordinated strike and disable their equipment before they realize what’s happening. Alpha, neutralize the drum heads. Omega, eliminate the red guitar with extreme prejudice. I’ll take care of the electronic devices. Go, go, go!”

  Alpha grabbed two cordless drills with drum key bits, gunslinger style, and went to work on the drums. He had the heads off in less than a minute.

  Omega spoke to Jasmine. “Uh, your guitar needs to be, uh, sent out for adjustments. Use that other one instead.” He grabbed the red guitar and disappeared with it. It was going to have an “accident.”

  I opened up the bass amp and used alligator clips to bypass
most of the circuitry. I reversed the DC polarity on the pedal board and fried half of the pedals. Don’t worry, none of them were vintage.

  I examined the Marshall. It had two sounds: ear-bleeding clean and full-on fuzz. I would have to modify the preamp. Unfortunately, the company stopped releasing schematics a while ago. This called for some industrial espionage.

  I logged onto ARPANET and hacked into the company mainframe. I got through the firewall by typing really fast, accompanied by cheesy graphics and video game sounds. I located the secret directory. Pages of highly classified schematics appeared on the screen. I went to work with a soldering iron, being careful not to touch the high-voltage capacitors. A single mistake could be fatal. Five minutes later, I wiped the sweat from my brow and screwed the cover back on.

  Jasmine plugged in and played a riff. “What did you do to my amp?” she protested. “It’s all wimpy now.”

  “We’ll add more distortion later,” I lied.

  The drums were ready, with new, perfectly tuned heads. Mitzi sat down at the kit and played a beat. “What did you do to the sound?” she complained. “It’s too loud and ringy.”

  “I’m sorry, let me fix that.” I grabbed a roll of masking tape and taped up all the cymbals.

  “No, I meant the dru–”

  “Sorry, no time!” I escaped to the Padded Cell.

  The sound was drastically improved. After a few takes, they seemed to be getting used to it. It must have been a novel experience for them to actually hear what they were playing.

  I played a rough mix for them. “So whaddya think?”

  Jasmine scowled. “It’s okay.”

  “You don’t sound thrilled.”

  “It sounds too musical.”

  “God forbid,” I muttered to myself.

  3. “Vibe”

  by BLENDERMAN

  I’m not the kind of producer who spends 24/7 in the studio. I trust Scotty to handle the routine stuff. I’m no Herbert “Dingo” Stevens, who is currently turning his pet veal of a wife, Alaqua Gert, into the biggest pop star in music history.

  Dingo Stevens is beyond obsessive. He invented the “SonoViz Sound,” but he did it without SonoViz. He did it on primitive analog equipment back in the ’80s—an almost impossible technical feat. He went on to marry Alaqua and create a style known as “cyber-country,” which took Nashville’s pop direction to ludicrous extremes.

  I’ve never seen him in person. No one has, except for the handful of lucky bands who are elected to receive the benison of a guaranteed hit-maker. By all accounts, he’s completely insane. A record with Dingo Stevens makes the Bataan Death March look like a walk in the park.

  Dingo Stevens only produces the most bland pop music imaginable, with the widest possible audience. For Alaqua’s latest release, they made three different versions of the same album: a pop version, a country version, and a “world” version. This was actually a scam to inflate the sales numbers, because a triple album counts as three copies sold. Alaqua’s vocals were heavily processed with pitch-correction software to get the unnatural sound that’s currently fashionable, even though she has flawless pitch and doesn’t need it.

  The creepiest thing about the record is that it’s totally purged of any personality or emotion. Stevens is one of the most cynical, calculating people in the business, and that’s saying something. I have a feeling that one of these days, he’s going to wake up with a pair of scissors jammed into his brain and Alaqua standing over him all wild-eyed and hysterical.

  I don’t do that kind of thing. I do the kind of music that marketing mooks describe as “edgy.” While Dingo Stevens is making one record that sells 20 million copies, I’m making five records that sell five million copies each. I refuse to spend more than four months making a record. I’ll pump the musicians and technical staff full of stimulants and make them work for six days without sleep if I have to.

  The top producers in the business are myself, Dingo Stevens, Sleazy-G, Phil Spector, and Pi Zero, the time-traveling robot from the year 2972. I’m the youngest of the bunch.

  Unlike what’s-his-face, I have ethics. I would never produce a talented band and change their sound to make it more commercial. I only work with bands who genuinely suck. I reprocess them in SonoViz until they suck on beat and in tune. Then I send the mix to Vlado Levitsky, Kasugi’s mastering engineer, who makes it 6 dB louder than the Big Bang.

  Suck + SonoViz + Vlad = guaranteed hits. And that, my worshiping disciples, is all you need to know about record production.

  I dropped by Studio B in the evening. The whole place, including the Padded Cell, was decked out like Hallowe’en at Aleister Crowley’s house. Jasmine was in the live room, lighting about 1,000 candles in brass holders. She wore a tight black dress, a pointy witch hat, and fishnet arm stockings, like a hooker dressed for a funeral.

  Scotty said, “She insisted. She needs more ‘vibe’ before she can do her vocal.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s getting ‘vibe’ all over the floor.”

  She used a piece of red chalk to draw a large pentagram on the floor. In the center of the pentagram, a vintage tube microphone was suspended upside-down over a velvet-draped altar. It was a Neumann “Hitler Mic”: a bulky cylinder with a torpedo-shaped capsule on top, developed in 1932 for the Nazi propaganda machine by a team of scientists and engineers, its capsule so acoustically perfect that it hasn’t been surpassed in seventy years. This rare microphone is what Gillian Hitler uses in the studio—he’s destroyed three of them so far—so of course Jasmine had to have one.

  Jasmine wafted into the Padded Cell and pointed at Scotty with a long, black-painted fingernail. “Kill the lights, sub-creature. I need darkness to perform my rituals.”

  I said, “Rituals, huh?”

  She impaled me with the Evil Eye. “I must summon the genii of the underworld, so that I can express my loathing for human existence.” She returned to the live room, high heels clicking, and Scotty killed the lights. She switched on some black lights.

  She walked to the center of the pentagram, and began to speak. “O Lord Satan, fill me with Your hatred and contempt for all earthly creatures who dwell in the vile, disgusting sunshine. To prove my worthiness, I make this sacrifice to feed Your unceasing hunger.”

  On cue, Sandy and Mitzi came forth in funereal garb. Sandy handed Jasmine a blonde-haired baby doll, and Mitzi handed her a kitchen knife. Good Lord, what now? I kept a smile frozen on my face and tried to spot my phone in my peripheral vision.

  Jasmine placed the doll on the altar and viciously stabbed it, screaming, “Die! Die! Die!” It actually appeared to be bleeding. Nice touch.

  She solemnly laid down the knife. She said, “I have freed the spirit of this innocent babe from its fleshly prison, so that You may be nourished by its life-force energy. I beg You to reward me for my devotion, and fill me with Your immortal hatred and scorn.”

  She pointed one black-tipped finger at Scotty. He cued “Whoredumb.”

  She screamed the lyrics in a high-pitched voice like a child demanding a cookie:

  Sinning seven days a week

  No one’s virtuous or meek

  In a world that’s full of shit

  How can I be degenerate?

  Packaged sin is such a bore

  Everyone’s a stupid whore

  Degradation so complete

  You made the Devil obsolete!

  It’s all been done a million times

  Every note and every rhyme

  Eat a corpse or fuck a nun

  You might get on Page Thirty-One

  Nothing left to desecrate

  I’ve got no object for my hate

  Your social order makes me sick

  Suck a big nuclear dick

  Suck it, bitches!

  She then proceeded to make lewd gagging sounds. It was too much. I fell on the floor laughing. Scotty was making a heroic effort to control himself. Thank Anubis the Padded Cell was soundproofed.

  The ritual comp
lete, she came into the Padded Cell and sat down on the couch. “Was that totally evil, or what? Everyone is going to kill themselves when they hear it.”

  “Yes,” I said innocently, “that seems to be a major theme in your work.” Scotty fought to keep a straight face, and set up a rough mix. It was only a little less funny the second time.

  “Very nice,” I said. “Why don’t you give us another take, and Scotty will comp it.”

  “Nah,” said Jasmine. “It has to be done in one take. If I sing it twice, it’ll lose its magickal potency.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, I can’t be expected to explain the higher mysteries to the uninitiated,” she said airily.

  Gillian Hitler is an artist I’ve never had the privilege of working with. His backup band consists of Barbarella Castro, Leia Tse-Tung, and Uhura Mussolini; he owns the names and replaces the musicians designated thereof at his merest whim. His magnum opus, Emaciated Faggot Messiah (Whipping Himself in the Shadow of Gehenna), in which he adopted the persona of a postmodern, self-hating Christ, is a recording legend. It was recorded in a Hollywood mansion with three SonoViz rigs, a fortune in vintage microphones and outboard gear, a hundred-odd amps and guitars, and a roomful of vintage synths. It took two years and six million dollars to finish it, and the producer was driven to a nervous breakdown.

  At one point, Fräulein Führer decided that all the vintage gear wasn’t inspiring him enough, and proclaimed that he would only use equipment that was cursed. The producer went to great lengths to obtain the following: a ride cymbal that was used by Buddy Rich to beat a trumpet player to death; the exact SM57 used by Richard Nixon to deny that he was a crook; an Ampeg SVT that was buried in a vacant lot for 20 years because the owner had an LSD freak-out and believed it was possessed by demons (it still worked; old Ampegs are built like tanks); and a Marshall Plexi that belonged to a Christian rock band, one of those get-rich-off-Jesus outfits, until it shorted out during a show and electrocuted the singer just as he was wailing “Take me home O Lord!”

  The original guitarist was fired halfway through the sessions for not being degenerate enough and spoiling the band’s image. He was replaced with a grinning, bald-headed coprophile, and his meticulously ornate guitar parts were replaced with fuzzed-out industrial riffs. The Plexi was deemed “too Hendrixy” and thrown off the studio roof. The resulting album, musically and lyrically dumbed down to achieve maximum demographic penetration, was pronounced a masterpiece by the label and given a $10 million marketing budget.