AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 10

When session engineer Pete Mitchell returned to B Studio, Reed’s little girl had taken his place behind the main Solid State Logic mixing board, and she was altering his settings during a playback.

Reed was in the middle of the super-sized high-tech room, surrounded by drum computers and synthesizers.  Terence “Junior” Washington, the deeply Black B-boy who was Reed’s co-composer & performing partner for Harlot’s album, had long since split.

When the music segment ended, Reed said, “Mute the effects buss this time and play it through while you’re panning it left.  And take the volume down, like it’s going off into the distance.”

“I thought you said the Kawai has auto-pan,” Blue said.

“It does, but it’s taking me forever to figure it out.  Just do it from there.”

“OK, Dad.”

Pete held the sandwiches quietly, and watched the kid punch back the mega-buck Studor-Revox multi-track machines, and cue them up from the remote control as if she had been doing it since the day she was born.  The kid was as happy as a Trekkie on the bridge of the Enterprise.  In front of her: 128 identical strips of ultra-modern, computer automated electronics to absolutely control each input.  Each strip with enough knobs and buttons on it to addict a person, and make necessary the creation of a Knobaholics Anonymous.  The sum total of the 128 channels, with the accompanying mixing and output controls to the right, was a vast sea of electronic switches, sliders, potentiometers, VU meters, LED indicators, and more, stretching out in front of the tiny little girl.  Her fingers danced over them like a pro.

The music played, and she panned the exploding toms from far right to dead center.  They faded as if disappearing into the distance.

Without even looking, the little kid’s hand slapped back at the remote control beside her, and the sound stopped while the 2-inch thick tape on two of the machines in the corner rewound.

“Well?” she asked, as she moved into the Edit mode on the huge SSL mixer to save the changes.  Her finger hovered over the button.

“Write it in,” Reed said.  “That was perfect.”

She did, overwriting the mix.  “Now what?”

“Now we wait for Pete to get back.  He’ll have to pull some high-tech bullshit to add some Doppler and distance ambience.”

“What’s Doppler?” Blue asked.

Pete Mitchell remained silently standing just inside the control room door, while Reed explained Doppler.  Reed used a cool sound stage, preferring to monitor at only about 85-90dB.  That was quiet compared to the hot listening levels at most other studios, but it had been loud enough to cover the sounds of him entering the room so that they didn’t know he was back yet.

Mitchell thought maybe Blue was here tonight to meet Harlot.  A maid had dropped the girl off.

It was 10:30pm.  Harlot and Kenny D should have been here two and a half hours ago.  It didn’t look like either of them was even going to show.

“Dad, I thought you said the Kawai could tune each drum different for every hit.”

“It can.  But——”

“But you’re not smart enough to figure it out?”

“Something like that.”

“Dad, let me run it through ‘Baby’ and then add reverb on the last hit.”

“Go for it, genius.  Just play the C-Section for me; I want to clean it up a little.  Make it loop.”

The kid programmed the multi-tracks to repeat the C-Section indefinitely, and then jumped out of the control chair, excitedly, to create a new patch.  She stopped as she saw Pete Mitchell standing behind her against the wall, with the food in his arms.  He was regarding her with disapproval.

“Ooops!” she said, knowing that she was infringing on his territory.  She smiled desperately.

Mitchell looked at her coldly.  Now he wasn’t even needed as an engineer.

But he slowly smiled because the kid was so charming.  “Go for it, genius,” he said, and she happily sprang to it.

The multi-tracks forwarded to the right spot and started to play.

“Food!” Pete shouted over the music.

Reed came over, shut off the music, and grabbed a sandwich and an Anchor Steam beer.

Pete and Reed both stood there, munching away.  Pete was thin, a guy of 25 in grandpa spectacles, and goatee.  His face was long, sad, and oval.

Reed was about to say something, when KD came in.

“Kenny D,” Reed said.  “It’s fucking about time.”

KD smiled.  “KD, the man, he always late.  KD, the lyric, it always target.”  He spread his arms majestically.  Tanned to the max, all white surfer cool clothes, beach bum laid back.  KD was 29, going on 50, but nobody could stick words together like he could.

“Hey, KD!” Blue said, when he looked at her.

“Hey, little Blue.  Ain’t this past your bedtime, or somethin’?”

“No way!”

The men bullshitted for a few minutes, throwing around industry gossip.  Finally, Mitchell handed KD two audio cassettes.

Reed said, “I don’t want to hear it on cassette.  Let’s hear the digital Master.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” Blue said, jumping out of the control chair to set up the tape.

“Hey, do you do love poetry?” Reed asked KD.

“Huh?  You missin’ a few channels, Reed?”

“Oh, shit,” Mitchell said.  When Reed wasn’t talking music, he was hot over some babe he had met at Yosemite.

“No, I don’t mean lyrics.  I mean poetry.  You know, like, poetry!  No music, just the words.  There’s this girl.  I want to write her a poem.  But nothing happens.  I can’t write for shit.”

KD was smiling; whitest caps contrasted by Southern California tan.  “Love poetry?  That’s the dark realm of the dull, man.  Just give Tina a Brody Brothers CD.”

Pete laughed.  The Brody Brothers were world-class wimps, falsetto princes whining the most obnoxious pre-teen panty-moistening guck.

Reed said, “No, not Tina.  This girl’s special.  She’s a literary type.  She’s actually a poet, herself.”

KD walked over and sat back in the listening couch behind the SSL mixing-board.  Reed followed, and sat in the comfortable chair next to it.  Pete went over to where Blue was threading tape.  Blue was listening so intently to what her father was saying that she had virtually stopped what she was doing.

Since KD wasn’t replying, Reed said, “So refer me.”

“Tiffany & Company.  Give carats and coke.  Nobody reads anymore, man.”  Thinking of it, Kenny D brought out his compact, drew a careful line on the mirrored surface, and snorted it up through a gold tube.  “The printed word is dead.  Serious entertainment comes audio-visual.”  His eyes sparkled.

The Digital Master was ready to play.  But both Pete and Blue were waiting for the explosion.  Reed had firmly laid down the law to Pete Mitchell that he would fire the first employee who brought an illegal drug on premises.  And Blue’s bottom still tingled whenever she thought of the joint she had been caught smoking.

As the high charged through KD’s system, he remembered that Reed was down on drug use.  Instead of offering the drug around, he put it away.

To the surprise of everyone, Reed seemed oblivious to the cocaine.

“Come on,” Reed said.  “I’m serious.  Who can write some love poetry for me?”

KD blinked again.  “I can do some lines for you.”  He winced at the phraseology.

Reed produced a picture of Courtney.  “Her name’s Courtney.  Courty, for short.  She’s attractive, as you can damn well see, she’s witty . . . she’s everything.”

KD looked at the picture, and then at Reed.  Everything.  The thought was sobering.  Reed was way gone.  “Done.  As a favor.”  He smiled; the teeth sending reflective beams throughout the darker corners of the studio.  “Was there some music?”  After all, he was here to write song lyrics.

“There was, and there is,” Pete Mitchell said, before the conversation could get any more out of control.  He punched up the first song.

“Ah,” KD said, as the first rhythm hit his ears.  “Crank it.”

Mitchell eased the sliders up to about 100dB, the maximum comfortable listening level for most people.

“Crank it!” Kenny D shouted.  “Turn the sucker up!”

Mitchell smiled, and then shoved the sliders forward.

1500 watts per channel, rms.  Custom, highly efficient loudspeakers, with accuracy and transparency matching or exceeding anything obtainable at any price.  The coils of each mid-range and bass reproducer had been rewound to SoundSync’s specifications to maximize transient response.  The monitoring area was EQed an honest plus or minus 1dB from 32 cycles per second to 20,000 cycles per second, with a correctable slope only -12dB down at 20 cycles per second that could be brought up ruler flat for medium level sound check purposes.

The pure, exquisitely crafted audio thundered forth; the digital drums exploded, Terry’s tight low bass stunned the body and blasted the ear with the impact of a velvet sledgehammer, while synth counter-melodies wove almost painfully seductive emotional tones, and spine-tingling textures.

No, Virginia, you can’t get sound like this at Stereos R Us.

COURTNEY, Chapter 11
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47