Richard Del Connor .com

i first became interested in record producing when I learned of George Martin's contributions to The Beatles' records. The album REVOLVER became my first project as an apprentice Record Producer to study and understand. When I mixed and mastered the American Zen album, LEVEL 2 = CHRIST KILLER, I put the HIGH TIDES AND GREEN GREEN GRASS album by the Rolling Stones on top of my stereo, so that every time I listened to CHRIST KILLER I would have a benchmark to exceed in more ways than just recording quality--I wanted to exceed it in storytelling, creativity, and representing a period in time.

Some other people who inspired me were Felix Pappalardi, who produced The Cream and Mountain albums, and the other inspirational producer was Mick Ronson of David Bowie's early albums. Vicente gets credit too, but Mick Ronson grew into something more diverse.

"Mixed loud to be played loud," used to be a motto for many of the concert bands of the early 70s. I appreciated that as i had a really nice Kenwood stereo and later even hooked it up to my Cerwin Vega PA monitors with 18" woofers that could blow my sliding glass windows off their tracks.

Then Supertramp's BREAKFAST IN AMERICA threw me for loop. What an awesomely recorded album!

I'd been a fan of headphones, listening to Robin Trower, Jimi Hendrix, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.... and many other producers who impressed me over the years.

Then, in 1979, I got hired to work at the Village Recorder while Supertramp recorded their next album. Fleetwood Mac were recording TUSK and Frank Zappa was recording SHEIK YOUR BOOTEE.

I'd already worked a few years as a recording engineer, and I had already produced dozens of commercials and a couple albums -- so I wanted to see what these guys like Joe Chicarelli were doing and what I could learn from them.

I tried to learn from them, but I kept seeing how I could do better and I could get the talent to play better, I could get the bass player and drummer to lock together better, I could get a better drum performance by...

But they didn't want to hear what I had to say, so it was kind of like watching children argue and wander around aimlessly. There are many artists whose albums would have come out a lot better if they would have had me as their producer.