Frank Filipetti

I met up with Frank Filipetti at this year’s NAMM show. An incredible engineer, Filipetti is also one of the more vocal members of the METAlliance, as can be seen in this video (mac) (windows). Filipetti is someone who has been very friendly and made himself super accessible to people in the music industry. He has a joy of life and of his work that is infectious.

How did you become an engineer?
I was a failed singer/songwriter. [Laughs.] I had like three record deals, none of which did anything, and I didn't sell any records. I had a publishing deal as a songwriter with Screen Gems, for three years, and it got to a point in 1979 where they didn't pick up my options. I used to get a weekly salary from them. I think it was $250 a week to write songs. And at the end of the third year, they didn't pick up my options, so I didn't have a job. I had just finished a record for Life Song Records, but they had broken up and lost their distribution deal. So I didn't have much going for me at that point. I used to do all my songwriter demos at Right Track, which at the time was a demo studio down on 24th Street [NY]. Screen Gems used to do their songwriter demos there, so I used to do my things down there. I got to know the owner at the time, Simon Andrews, and when all this other stuff fell through, I went to see him and told him that I thought I had pretty good ears and could engineer, but I had no training. I was 30 years old at the time, and had been trying to make it as an artist for ten years, so I really didn't want to have to spend two or three years as an assistant. We knew each other pretty good, and he knew I had some good ears, so he gave me a shot. So I started working there, and in the first month I did my first session. Within six months I was chief engineer, and within the first year, we built was is now the room on 48th Street, which is now called Legacy Recording Studios, but was Right Track Recording Studios for about twenty years. That was my home.

Why do you think you became so good?
I think part of why I became successful was because I spent ten years sitting on the other side of the glass, always trying to get the engineer to try out or do what I heard. I used to see these guys take on the attitude that the project was theirs and not mine. When I first started out, my first instinct was that I knew what it felt like sitting on the other side there, wanting to get a sound, or not hearing what the engineer was going for. So I think I’m very empathetic with the people I work with. I think I had good ears to begin with, and think I had an intuitive knowledge of certain things like frequencies, and sounds. But I really think it was the empathy that I had, being more interested in getting what they wanted than what I wanted. I think that helped me tremendously. Once I started engineering, within the first year, I was working with Peter Asher on a film, The Pirates of Penzance, and within three years I had a Number One single with "I Want to Know What Love Is," from Foreigner. It was just an amazing ride after that, which was quite incredible to me after trying to break in as a songwriter for ten years. I start engineering, and a year later, I'm working with Peter Asher, a guy that I was always trying to get my songs to. So I think it was the empathy, and having some talent. I've always felt that "this is the artist's project." When the artist walks out of here, it’s their name is on it. My name may be on the disc somewhere, but their name is at the front of it. They're the ones who are responsible for the content, they’re the ones who get criticized. I could go and do a dozen projects a year, but this is their one shot, this is their one chance that year to sell a record, or to make a name for themselves. So it's much more important that they get what they want. And I've always held that philosophy.

That's unusual in this world where there's so many egos, and everyone trying to be an artist.
Yeah, I think it is. And it's one of the things that has held me in good stead. I started producing records with Carly [Simon], and with James Taylor and Foreigner, even back in the middle '80s. My manager at the time, who was Tommy Mottola, was saying, "I don't want you to be doing that much engineering anymore. I want you to strictly go as a producer." But I loved working as the second guy. I love working with other producers and helping them get their realizations. So I never wanted to give it up. Some have said that's hurt me, because the more you engineer, the less people look at you as a producer, but I'm just very content with what I've done and what I've been doing. I would never want to stop mixing, and I would never want to stop doing the tracking, and I never want to stop working with other people. I love working with Phil Ramone. I love working with Peter Asher. I love working with Chris Montan, and the people at Disney. I love all the people that I work with who are producers in their own right, and I would hate to give that up. I've never felt the need to own a project; I've always felt just as happy collaborating.

Let's talk about Universal Audio, the hardware. Do you have a lot of experience with using the UA hardware?
Yeah. I first came to UA through the hardware. At the time, I was out in L.A., working on the first Korn album that I worked on, which I think was in 2000, it was called Untouchables. Normally, here in New York, I have my own set of gear, all that stuff. But I was out there in L.A., and I wanted to try a bunch of new things. We had a couple of 1176s there that I've always loved--I've always had the old original gear and all that--but we were having trouble locating ones that were reliable. I had to take a couple of them up to Vancouver with me, where we were doing vocals. I was very concerned about taking up old equipment that I couldn't rely on, because we were going to be up there for six weeks. So I took along a couple of the reissues of the '76, the UA reissues. And to be perfectly honest with you, the two that I took up, that I had purchased, they didn't sound quite as good as the better of the two older '76s, although not by much, but they sounded a lot better than the second of the two. But they both were much more reliable, and they sounded great. It was kind of a thing where I said, you know, if these were 20 years old, and the parts had worn-in a little bit, they’d probably be at least the equal of any 1176 I've ever had. And whatever UA did, they didn't cut corners. They did it right, and I fell in love with the company and the product.

I listened to the UAD-1, and I was just floored. I thought, "Nobody's making plug-ins like this."

When the software plug-ins came out, at one of the industry shows, I ran into them. Now, I've always been a console man, and I have $100,000 worth of outboard gear of my own, all hardware stuff, I had never been a plug-in guy. But I said, "These guys are so good at doing these reissues, let me see what their plug-ins is like." So I talked to them, and I got two UAD-1s at the time. I listened to them, and I was just floored. I thought, "Nobody's making plug-ins like this." It really sold me on using plug-ins. And in fact, to this day, on my Nuendo rig, it's the only plug-ins I use. I only use the UAD stuff. Literally, when I mix--that's the only plug-ins I use. Now on my Pro Tools rig, I use UAD and I do use a couple of the Waves plug-ins, but everything else I do is UAD. I just think they are so superior to anything else that I use; I really have no need to go outside the box. I've been very, very happy with them. This is not any bullshit, and I've told the people at UA this before. I would not be using plug-ins today if it weren't for the UAD. I always thought the idea of working with a software emulator versus the real deal didn't make any sense to me. And it wasn't until I got your stuff that I realized, boy, this stuff actually works. I don't need anything else to mix with, other then the UAD plugs. Everything else I use is hardware.

I had no idea. That's amazing.
That's been it. I use the Neve plug-ins. My favorite is the 670 emulator, the Fairchild. When I put that across a drum kit, it floors me how good it is. I got the Plate 140 when it first came out, and I have never heard a digital reverb sound like the Plate. I use plate programs from Lexicon and from TC, but they're hardware units. I have a 960 and a TC 6000 and I do use their plate programs, but they don't sound like a Plate 140. They have a good sound, but they don't sound like a real EMT Plate. And the Plates from UAD are the only digital Plates I've ever used for that sound. Actually, I have two great plates here at Legacy, and I try not to let this get out too much, but I stopped using them. I'm using the UAD instead because it's absolutely reproducible and it sounds as good to me as what I have here. And the problem is, what I have here from one day to the next--it could sound great one day and not so great the next day. And I can't afford that anymore. If I'm resetting up a mix, I need to get back identically to where I was. I mean, this is no joke. I literally, with the exception of one or two of the Waves plugs, all I use is UAD.

You never met Bill Putnam, Sr., did you?
No, I never did get to meet him. I didn't start doing this until 1980, and by then, I don't know that Bill was even working in the industry anymore. I sure wish I did, he’s one of the two—he and Frank Zappa are two of the people that I never got a chance to meet or work with that I surely would have loved to do so.

How do you approach working in different genres, from Carly Simon to Korn, Foreigner?
I approach them all the same, actually. I only take on projects that I love, and I've always loved all kinds of music. While I was growing up, I'd listen to classical, I'd listen to jazz, I'd listen to rock, I'd listen to pop. When I'm driving home at night, or when I'm listening to music at home, one day it'll be a rock album, the next day it'll be a metal album, the next day it'll be a classical piece. I've always enjoyed anything that's really well done. I don't care what the genre is. And likewise, when I'm working in the studio, I actually live for the joy of being able to go from Carly Simon to Korn, to James Taylor to Luciano Pavarotti, to Elton John, to a Broadway show. One, it keeps me current, it keeps me on my toes, and it also keeps me from getting stale. I know that a lot of guys that stay in one or two genres, after a while, you kind of know what you're going to get on their records. I love being able to do a Carly Simon record, and work in that genre, and then go out to L.A. and work with Korn and totally get charged up. And then, by the time I finish that, I'm ready to do something else again. I've been fortunate that I feel as comfortable with an orchestra as I do with a rock and roll band, and it's been a great treat for me to be able to do that. I hate when people put you into a box or peg you as something or other. I remember when I first started working, when Tommy Mottola was my manager, apart from telling me he wanted me to stay in the production side, he also says, "I just want you to do rock and roll, because rock and rollers are very finicky, and they don't like to know that you've worked on Carly Simon, or a James Taylor record, or something like that--they want to know that you're edgy and hip." And I said, "That's just too bad, because I don't want to do just that." There have been times when it's been an issue, but I find it quite remarkable that a Jonathan Davis and Michael Beinhorn, who were doing Korn at the time, they called me up and said, "We just love the sound of your records." Even though the hardest record I had ever done at the time was Lick It Up, with Kiss, I'd never done anything like the real heavy-metal stuff that Korn was involved in, but they said, "We love your records." They were confident enough in what they were doing to say, "this guy is good." When a good engineer or a good producer is good at what they do, they don't have to be stuck in one genre. So they opened up a whole new avenue for me.

Phil Ramone and Frank Filipetti