BILL HOLLAND: Okay. So, now we’re headed back through Ocean Way.

ALLEN SIDES: Studio D.

BILL HOLLAND: Studio D.

ALLEN SIDES: Uh huh.

BILL HOLLAND: Oh my dear Lord. Okay. [LAUGHING] Where do we start? Yeah, what do we have in here?

ALLEN SIDES: This is an 88R, a sort of a custom-built 88R Neve that we have of which there are not very many around. It’s a great -- As far as ICs go, I think it’s the best sounding IC console that’s been made to date, and we do a lot of film mixing too and it’s a very popular film console. There’s one at the Sony stage and there’s one over at the Fox stage, and we have one here. And we always have a small amount of outboard gear as you can see.

BILL HOLLAND: Small.

ALLEN SIDES: [LAUGHING] Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Very tiny. If you flip around, you can see the whole wall of gear. This is, so we have I see compressors, limiters, EQs. Anything you’re especially fond of in here that, you know, that sort of?

ALLEN SIDES: Oh, you know, I’m very fond of like I’m fond of the original ITI equalizer which was George Massenburg’s first EQ. It’s one of my favorites, and this is like the Sontec Stereo Mastering EQ but it has all ITI boards. Things like that. Yeah, so things, nothing, you know, too unusual in here. Obviously Pultec EQP-183. I’m very fond of the Langs. It’s one of my favorite EQs. It’s one of those devices where you can get something for nothing to a degree because it sort of ring modulates, it resonates at certain frequencies and makes sounds...

BILL HOLLAND: Really?

ALLEN SIDES: ...that are very unusual.

BILL HOLLAND: This is --

ALLEN SIDES: And then of course my buddy Billy Putnam 610 modules. Billy is -- Obviously, I grew up with Bill Putnam and I used to hang out at their house and have [LAUGHING] 10 hours with Billy and Jimmy Putnam, and so the 610 -- the original tube 610 modules which were actually part of, in my original rooms here, those consoles were installed in these rooms, you know, in the ‘60s.

I kind of was always into wheeling and dealing at a young age, you know, from the time. I was actually installing kind of hi-fis when I was 13. I was doing hi-fis for the people like Les Brown and Bob Hope, and one guy I happen to meet was a guy named Sonny Burke, and he was VP of Reprise Records, and he produced all of Sinatra’s albums. Now, Sinatra, basically Reprise Records started in this building.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

ALLEN SIDES: And so Frank, Sammy, [INDISCERNIBLE], well he started that label and left Capitol. Frank hated Capitol because they told him what songs he was going to record and how he was going to do it and Frank didn’t like to be told...

BILL HOLLAND: Of course.

ALLEN SIDES: ...anything. So, he has his -- The offices were upstairs and Sinatra and Putnam were partners, not partners in the studio but partners in the real estate, and Bill started, you know, United Studios, United Western Studios.

BILL HOLLAND: Which is what Ocean Way, the building it is --

ALLEN SIDES: Where which we are right now. Right. The original Studio A and original Studio B, and the Studio A and so it was where Sinatra recorded. It was a very good year, and basically every record from 1961 on virtually. So, Bill and I, I met Bill in a kind of funny situation actually. It was, and I think you read about that probably that thing.

BILL HOLLAND: Oh yeah.

ALLEN SIDES: Universal Audio was -- actually, it started upstairs too.

BILL HOLLAND: Oh really? Oh, that’s right. I remember reading that.

ALLEN SIDES: That’s right. They built all the very first 1176’s and UA 175’s and the 610’s. All that stuff was built upstairs. And then eventually they bought a plant out in the valley and started manufacturing out there. But what happened, how I got involved with Bill was my friend Sonny Burke who was officiating for Reprise, invited me down to a Sinatra session, and as a little kid I went down and I watched it go down and watching Nelson Riddle and Frank record in the room was very interesting. And I went to see some Mancini sessions and stuff, and then I got a summer job there as a runner, [LAUGHING] you know, doing the usual stuff, and I didn’t really meet Bill. I just met him, glimpsed him during that particular period of time but later on, in my wheeling and dealing era, there was a package of equipment sitting out at the UREI plant, which was all the old stuff from United Western which included Fairchild 670’s and, you know, Altec speakers and all kinds of fun stuff, and then the original tube console for Studio One. So, they needed to clear the space. Bill was out of town. I said, “Well, how about I give you 6,000 bucks for this entire lot of equipment?” It was a 40-foot pile of stuff just stacked up plus there was a beautiful old tube board that was supposed to be a one board, and then I said, “How about I give you 6,000 bucks?” and the guy who was at the plant said, “Sure. That’s great.” So, I did, I bought the package. I didn’t actually have 6,000 bucks though.

BILL HOLLAND: No.

ALLEN SIDES: No. So, I wrote a check and I did -- Well, the check he picks up on a Friday, and on Monday I had sold enough stuff to cover the check.

BILL HOLLAND: [LAUGHING]

ALLEN SIDES: So, that’s how that kind of went down then. So anyway, when Putnam got back in town, he was very stressed out because he had had that console alone sold for more than I bought the whole package for.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

ALLEN SIDES: And so he wanted to meet me. So, I went and I met him and we just sort of clicked because apart from being a musician’s musician and a phenomenal studio designer and just an amazing guy, Bill was a very good businessman. And so Bill and I had got into the business of buying out studios. We bought out RCA Studios in Hollywood. We bought out Wally Heider. We bought out International Automated Media. We bought out just -- We bought out, I don't know, 35 or 40 studios, you know, over about a six-year period. And so I would go in and I’d find the deal, I’d make the deal, and then we would sell off all the equipment for the profits and then I kept collecting all this amazing stuff, C12’s, M50’s, you know, great Steinway pianos, ENTs, and so over a period of time we built up a pretty amazing stash of amazing equipment.

BILL HOLLAND: Just gear [INDISCERNIBLE]

ALLEN SIDES: And then but at that same period of time, I was also buying mics from Europe, and I think I bought, you know, probably close to 1,500 tube mics from Europe, maybe even 2,000 tube mics from Europe.

BILL HOLLAND: Wow.

ALLEN SIDES: And I was buying them from the BBC. I was buying them from Osterreichischer Rundfunk, wherever. And they were virtually just throwing the stuff out and replacing it with lovely transistor microphones. And that was even clear to me it’s funny, even when Western Recorders -- Western in the United States were operating, they were getting rid of stuff, and so some of the stuff they got rid of I got like some of the 47s, the stuff that the [INDISCERNIBLE] were getting rid of, I got all the stuff. So actually, I ended up with all the old mics. They didn’t disappear. They stayed here because I brought them back.

BILL HOLLAND: You just brought them back in.

ALLEN SIDES: Right. So, they never got lost.

BILL HOLLAND: That’s pretty awesome.

ALLEN SIDES: [INDISCERNIBLE]

BILL HOLLAND: That’s an interesting story though of how you just amassed the gear because that’s one thing we always wonder is we go into these studios and we went into a studio of a guy who was my age who has ton of just rack mount stuff and he’s got like a huge console and I’m saying there going, “How did you pull all these together?” and he’s like, “Well, I traded this guy and found this in a dumpster, and you know, that’s how I got most of my stuff.”

ALLEN SIDES: Well, me too. I mean it’s like, you know, I mean obviously if you would try to amass this stuff today, the price, what it would cost to put it together is just unfathomable.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

ALLEN SIDES: Very difficult to do. In the same respect, to build a place like this from scratch and try to get a return on your investment these days, it will be tough.

BILL HOLLAND: It’s a different market.

ALLEN SIDES: It is. I mean luckily for us, I mean we do the high-end clients who make a ton of money touring. So, what’s changed for us is that now a lot of the clients pay us directly, and so the labels, probably 50% of our business is label business and 50% is direct from the artist.

BILL HOLLAND: That’s great.

ALLEN SIDES: And so, it’s that things change.

BILL HOLLAND: Of course, the industry changes. Well, let’s move on.

ALLEN SIDES: Here’s a funny thing. You know, when we did that last Paul McCartney album, we had a rat die in the wall...,

BILL HOLLAND: [LAUGHING]

ALLEN SIDES: ...just before Paul came in and it had a lovely sort of scent shall we say, and so we had to dig the walls out to get this thing out of there, and so I got Paul a stuffed rat as a gift.

BILL HOLLAND: [LAUGHING]

ALLEN SIDES: [LAUGHING] I mean it [INDISCERNIBLE]. He handled it very well.