Category: Inside Track in Music Row

Combines with history of Muscle Shoals Sound

Noel Webster knows what it takes to upkick a recording from just sounding good to sounding great. He did it for thirteen years as owner and producer of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Today, he continues to do that with the reincarnation of another iconic musical brand that today’s artists can be a part of.

Chess Records – along with Motown and Stax – has a special place in the history of popular music. These were studios where dedicated people found a way to bring the sound of R&B to the ears of America and the world. Noel has saved the iconic Chess name from oblivion and is set to create recordings again under the Chess logo.

Noel found that all the copyrights relating to Chess Records, its name and its logos had been abandoned and allowed to lapse. He formed a corporation under the name Chess Records LLC and copyrighted the name and the original logo.

Noel now provides artists with an all-in-one studio recording experience that combines tracking, mixing and mastering in one place. (More about that later.)

‘Music history’ in every piece

Noel Webster and I have been friends for many years and we got together to catch up and talk about his latest ventures.  We met at his studio in Huntsville, Alabama, that is unlike any studio I have ever seen. Set in a craggy hillside and surrounded by trees and vegetation, it is private without being remote.  As Noel told me, artists can sit out on the wraparound porch to work out a few licks without worrying about annoying the neighbors. However, some curious deer sometimes stop by to listen as they drink from the water trickling over the rocks out back.

Inside, it has an ultra-modern vibe with an open plan and hardwood floors. But then you see all the gear and realize this is ‘old school.’  As we walked through the studio, it seemed that every piece of equipment had its own story.

“All the music stands and all the speakers in the main room and the control room came from Capitol Records, said Noel. “The console’s parts came from Capitol Records. Capitol had ‘mirrored’ consoles, identical consoles, in both Los Angeles and New York.”

The Capitol console dates from the early 1960s and Noel devoted a lot of time to refurbishing and rewiring it. We also looked at some of the musical instruments in the studio.

Hammond organ signed with a screwdriver

“Bobby Whitlock from Derek and the Dominoes donated his Hammond organ,” said Noel.  Whitlock had signed it and dedicated it to Noel, not with a pen but by scratching the scrawl into to the organ’s cover with a screwdriver!

“The drum set came from Mark Herndon [who played with the band Alabama].  I think that was his ’85 tour kit.  The Ampeg Fliptop amp over there came from Bob Babbitt of Motown. Different speakers and microphones have a lot of historical significance. The mastering room came from the Hit Factory in New York City. A lot of the processing pieces are from Bill Putnam of Universal Audio. There’s Les Paul’s test equipment. Everything here had done famous things prior to us getting them.”

Back then, the labels gave [artists] the ability to make two, three, four, five albums. They let them develop on their own, to come into themselves, basically, instead of ‘we’re gonna chase what’s on the radio now and try to do the Nashville thing.’ Artists now need the same ability to develop.  If we can get them on the right path and get them their sound and get them some cool stuff to make them original audio-wise, that’s what I see. – Noel Webster 

But these aren’t simply museum pieces. Noel has no interest in just putting them behind silk ropes for people to look at.  Every piece is fully working and is used as part of his recording process.  Artists who come to Noel’s studio discover a sound that is impossible to replicate using only modern, all-digital, equipment. Even when played back over digital devices, the difference in audio quality is noticeable.

Six semi-trailers of music history

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