Marc Of Quality

At age 17, Marc Urselli opened his first commercial recording facility in Italy, before moving to New York where he continues to work at the legendary recording studio EastSide Sound as resident chief house engineer. In an impressively varied career he has written, produced and recorded with artists from all over the world, composed music for TV and film and worked on commercials.

He has garnered several Grammy awards, including for his work engineering and mixing the entire American Made, World Played album by Les Paul and friends (featuring Sting, Joss Stone, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, Sam Cooke, Joe Perry, Mick Hucknall and others). He described collaborating with Les Paul as an immense honour.
"Not only did I get to work with some of the most talented artists in the world," he said, "I actually engineered for the very guy who changed the world of engineering forever. So for me to be in the presence of such an icon, and yet was so sweet and nice, was priceless!”
Urselli grew up in Switzerland and Italy, his mother a classical fan, his father fascinated with country and western.
“It was strange,” he admits, “because he is 100 per cent Italian, and I guess he got into that music watching John Wayne westerns. The middle-ground during family road trips was folk and pop music like Simon and Garfunkel and Phil Collins, or oldies. When I started to assert my musical tastes it got very tricky!”
His parents believed learning music was important. Urselli had no problem with that.
“Swiss schools had a weekly music discovery hour during which, even at a very young age, we made instruments from objects. Italy had no such thing, so at the age of eight, I asked my parents to send me to drum lessons, which they did. When I was about 11 they enrolled me in a music course. The teachers wanted me to study violin because I had good pitch. I insisted on studying piano for three years.”
His listening diet back then was wide and varied. Was there an artist or a record that inspired him in the direction of engineering?
“I absorbed a lot, mostly rock, pop and metal. There wasn’t any one record or band that inspired me. I might have wanted to be a rock star – didn’t we all? The engineering aspect kicked in later when I started recording my band’s rehearsals and buying gear to get better recordings.”
As regards making a full-time living from music, the turning point came after high school, when a friend running a local recording studio decided to upgrade his large frame mixing console and asked Urselli if he knew any likely buyers.
“I didn’t," he recalls, “but overnight the light went on! Me! I wanted to
buy it!”
So his move towards the technical side seems to have been an organic development.
“In bands I was the most suited for that job. I started doing more of it and became more interested in electronic music, midi, synthesisers and what not. I stopped taking piano lessons, which probably was a mistake,”
he concedes. 
Given that he has worked with a wide range of artists with varying temperaments, methods and styles, I ask him to choose two and contrast their approaches. He opts for alto sax player John Zorn and the irrepressible Lou Reed.
“John thinks about music on so many different levels: sound, arrangement, performance, key, tempo, tension/release, progression, expression and so on. He thinks like a composer, knows exactly what he wants and how to get it from his musicians. It’s incredible to watch him work in the studio, arranging entire pieces from two lines of music he wrote the night before. His attention to detail is impressive, and until the piece is perfect he keeps rehearsing it with his musicians.”
So how do they work together?
“When we mix one of his records, he sits in the back of the control room and lets me do my thing, occasionally offering his opinion or making a request. If you can hear everything and it sounds good, we go on to the next track. We mix very quickly, often an entire record in one day, the same amount of time it took to record it.”
And Lou?
“Lou has a much more rock performer approach. There's a lot of pre-production and preparation. Once in the studio things go down pretty quickly, and if it feels great we move on. Lou has amazing ears, but although he can distinguish the elements of a song he generally listens to it more as a whole. At the mixing stage Lou is a lot more hands-on than anyone I’ve worked with. He sits right next to me, by the mixing board. He likes to ride the faders. He is very, very interested in exploring all sonic possibilities, until we find the one that works best. It sometimes takes longer but always yields great results!”
Urselli is due to tour Europe with Reed, so I quiz him about the main differences between the studio and working with a live sound. He says he works as if there are no differences.
“I mix a live show like a record. I ride the faders continuously and listen to everything, making sure everything is heard. There are technical differences, and you can’t try things. But everything needs to be heard. It needs to feel good and move me, as well as moving the people that listen to it.”
How did he link up with Lou Reed?
“I met Lou through Laurie Anderson, whom I collaborated with. Lou is used to things getting done right and done quickly, as is the case with a lot of successful established artists. Lou has a kind soul that maybe not many people get to see. The mutual respect and the friendship that grew while we were on the road together makes us a great team.”
Finally, I ask Urselli what are his favourite pieces of recording equipment? “The 100 per cent analogue digitally-controlled and fully automated Harrison Series Ten mixing console that I use at EastSide Sound is probably at the top of my list. I love Neve and API pre-amps as well as the Harrison’s ones. I also love my Ampex and Trident pre’s, McDSP plugins and IK Multimedia plugins. For analog, I love the Master Room II spring reverb. I also use the Lexington 480 a lot. There are so many great microphones, and at the studio we have Neumann’s, Microtech Gefell, Beyer, RCA, Coles, AKG, Shure and Sennheiser, but I recently discovered JZ Microphones from Latvia, and they sound amazing. I’ve been using their Black Hole mic a lot. I also like Rode microphones, especially the NT2000 for its versatility. It’s an incredibly good sounding mic, especially for such a cheap price. So many toys, so little time!”