If These Halls Could Talk

Excerpted from Heather Johnson's exquisite new book on SF Bay Area recording studios

Way up in Cotati, in the lush Sonoma County area, lies Prairie Sun, a three-room studio that has brought residential recording to the independent and budget-conscious artist for more than 30 years.

Prairie Sun rose in 1978, when owner/producer/musician Mark "Mooka" Rennick, looking to create a control room window, bashed a hole in his living room wall. Rennick, a former student of East Indian music, bassist in the local Kay Irvine Band, and performer in a spoken-word ensemble called The Abolitionists, ran the facility out of his own home for three years. Eventually, the neighbors strongly encouraged him to seek a more remote setting.

He did just that. Teaming with art collector and Accordion Festival co-founder Clifton Buck-Kaufman, Rennick moved to a 12-acre chicken ranch that had been in the Buck-Kaufman family for more than 75 years. There he built a musicians' retreat: a well-equipped turnkey facility with three studios, a mastering house, and two two-bedroom guesthoused. What The Record Plant in Sausalito created for top-tier major-lable artists, Rennick created for the independent musician, although several major acts have passed through. Through the years, he's kept the rates low, the quality high, and the atmosphere relaxed at Prairie Sun, named after the Prairie Grass Restoration Project in his native Illinois.

While the facility invites artists to escape city distractions and take in the fresh air and scenic views of Sonoma County, it keeps its clients satisfied with good equipment. Studio A opened with a Trident 80 console in its 600 square-foot control room, which was designed by Manny LaCarruba of Sausalito Audio Works and comissioned by Bruce Millet, a.k.a. "The Desk Doctor." The studio works best for mixing, but its spacious iso booth, with high ceilings, made it suitable for guitar and vocal overdubs. The room also ties (as does each studio) to Prairie Sun's massive 1,000 square-foot live echo chamber, an old hatchery room converted in 1983. This room became one of the studio's prime selling points. Now dubbed The Corn Room, the space produces a cavernous sound that works well for "big" drum sounds or just about any instrument that requires a large ambient room sound.

Most tracking sessions take place in Studio B on its Neve Custom 80 Series desk, now equipped with Flying Faders Automation. The recording area has a Yamaha piano [ed. note: actually a vintage Baldwin 9ft Concert Grand] in the corner and measures 23 x26 with a 9 1/2 x 10 1/2-foot iso booth. Both studio and control room were constructed with rich wood for the walls and floors and warm-colored acoustical panels.

Studios A and B share ample outboard gear, heavy on the vintage, as well as a Prophet synthesizer, a drum kit, old Fender Strats and Gibson Les Paul guitars, vintage amps, a Dobro from the 1930's, and other instruments. The assemblage falls in line with Rennick's vision of establishing Prairie Sun as an artist's colony that he is sometimes "forced" to approach as a business, according to a 1999 interview with Sounoma County Independent.

In a separate building from Studios A and B and located just off of the live chamber, Studio C provides musicians a cost-effective place to record demos, finish overdubs, or work on an entire project if so desired. Ther's a Neve 802 with 24 1073 preamp/EQ modules, a Studer A80 tape machine (with 16- and 24-track heads), and ample outboard gear. The live echo chambers expanded from one to two following the arrival of Tom Waits. Waits developed an affinity for recording in an old storage room during the making of Bone Machine, the Grammy-winning effort that he and his wife, Kathleeen Brenan, produced entirely at Prairie Sun in 1992. Now christened The Waiting Room, the echo chamber has a stone floor, wood panels, and a high ceiling, which gives it an unusual sound that's nearly impossible to re-create digitally.

Prairie Sun has continually expanded both its equipment repertoire and client roster through the years. A snapshot of acts that visited in its early years include Meri Saunders, Van Morrison, Norton Buffalo, Mickey Hart, Kate Wolf, and a slew of under-the-radar locals including One Love, Smoke, Vince Ashton, and Bobby Vitteritti. That mix of new and established acts has continued to include Waits, Primus, Faith No More, The Melvins, surf music phenom Dick Dale, producer/engineer Steve Albini, and Eric Gales. Rennick engineers many sessions at his studio; he shares his audiophile knowledge with his staff and keeps his inventory well maintained.

On the equipment side, they added a mastering facility and later replaced the Trident with an automated SSL 4080 G/E console, acquired Pro Tools HD3 rigs, and added an extensive amount of old and unusual mics, compressors, and other gear.

As the name implies, the studio's most distinctive quality doesn't come from black and silver boxes. It comes from its acres of farmland and cypress trees, meandering trails, sheep, cows, and horses in the pasture outside, all creating an almost magical setting for the remote Bay Area treasure.