In early 1993, Johnny Cash went into LSI Studio on Nashville’s Music Row with his band to record demos of nearly a dozen songs that he had written over his 40-year career. Recorded through LSI’s Harrison 4032C analog inline mixing console, installed at the facility in 1979, the tapes then sat on a shelf for just over 30 years until an 11-song album, Songwriter, was released on June 28th via Mercury Nashville/UMe.
Over the past 50 years, Harrison mixing consoles have helped world-renowned artists create some of the most celebrated and best-selling albums in history. These include Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, ABBA’s Voulez-Vous, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, Steely Dan’s Aja and Gaucho, and Donald Fagen’s Nightfly. Harrison continues to build on this legacy by reimagining the original ’32 series’ American icon with the 32Classic, a brand-new analog console that combines the best of Harrison’s heritage with the latest studio production technology. The new 32Classic features the super-smooth 32 Series four-band parametric EQ and filters, high-performance transformer-balanced Harrison mic preamps, and the tried-and-tested workflows that made the original console so special. Additionally, the 32Classic console offers onboard 64x64 AD/DA Dante conversion, a range of hybrid workflow features, and 12-wide (7.1.4) immersive music monitoring.
Harrison consoles: warm and natural
LSI Studio installed its 32-bus inline console, a 40-input frame loaded with 32 channel modules back in 1979. “What I really loved about that console was the warmth,” recalls producer, engineer and musician Pat Holt, co-owner of the studio. Holt worked on the Johnny Cash sessions at LSI in 1992 alongside fellow engineers Ken Little, Denny Knight, Chad Daniel and Mike Daniel, who was married to Cash’s daughter, Rosey. “The EQs and the preamps just sounded so natural,” he says of the 32 Series console.
“I think Dave Harrison was a genius,” says Holt of the brand’s founder. Harrison had previously introduced the inline mixing console concept, featuring both an input and a monitor return path through each channel module, after founding Nashville pro audio retailer Studio Supply. He licensed the design to console and tape machine manufacturer MCI, for whom Studio Supply was a dealer, who released it in 1972 as the MCI JH-400, before establishing his own console company. The new company’s first product, launched in 1975, was the Harrison 32 Series — the world’s first 32-bus inline console.
Songwriter: a reawakening
The LSI sessions were shelved after Cash entered into a
prolific creative relationship with producer Rick Rubin later in 1993 that
lasted through the final 10 years of Cash’s life. The collaboration spawned
seven albums on the American Recordings label, four released posthumously. For
the new Songwriter album from Mercury Nashville/UMe, Cash’s son, producer John
Carter Cash, and David “Fergie” Ferguson, Johnny Cash’s longtime engineer and a
co-producer on the new release, reworked those original LSI tracks, stripping
them back to vocal and acoustic guitar and overdubbing new instrumentation.
Featured musicians include guitarist Marty Stuart and the late bassist Dave
Roe, who both previously played in Cash’s band, alongside drummer Pete Abbott
and special guests Vince Gill and Dan Auerbach.
Holt still has LSI’s 32 Series console though which Cash and his band recorded in 1993, he says. Over the decades, the studio and its Harrison console were also used on projects by the Kendalls, the Allman Brothers Band, Boxcar Willie, Harry Nilsson, Alabama, Charlie Daniels, Dr. Hook, Lou Rawls, Helen Reddy, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Holt also has another 32 Series desk, designated serial number 3 by the Harrison factory, which he hopes to refurbish. “Until recently I also had a Harrison 10B; I had it for years. It is a great sounding console. I kept the power supplies and the preamps out of it,” he says.
Ken Little acquired the studio’s 17th Street South building in 1983 and still owns LSI, along with his wife, Julie, and Holt, his business partner. The business is in the process of moving back into the original building, a former 1920s-era house that was exclusively occupied for many years until recently by a video company, and will be integrating a Dolby Atmos mix room there. A 3,000-square-foot facility featuring two vintage analog mixing consoles is also under construction in Nashville’s Berry Hill neighborhood, Holt reports, and will incorporate his Harrison Series 10 mic preamps.