IAR graduate Luis Lahav, who currently resides in Herzliya, Israel, went from engineering Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run to becoming one of Israel’s top producers, and was recently featured in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Tape Op Magazine.

“It was the late 60s and, like every other Israeli teenager at that time, I was drafted into the Israeli army. I started as a marine, but eventually joined a military band. Two years later, I was released and flew to New York to attend NYU, planning to study philosophy and cinema studies and even fashion design at some stage, but it didn’t take long before I made a turn and started studying at IAR.

While still in school, I was looking for a way to set foot in the New York studio scene, so I contacted the World Bank, telling them that I intended to set up a studio in Israel, which was my original plan. Back then, they had a policy of assisting third world countries, so they were willing to introduce me to some industry people. One thing led to another and, at some point, the people at Ampex introduced me to Neil Diamond’s producer, Brooks Arthur, who took me under his wing and made me a runner at his 914 Sound Studios in upstate New York.

It took me about six months to become a house engineer, and all of a sudden I was recording the likes of James Taylor, Janis Ian, Blood Sweat and Tears, and others, which were all Arthur’s clients at that time. One day in 1973, a producer named Mike Apple brought a young, practically unknown, artist to the studio, with whom I immediately fell in love. It was Bruce Springsteen, and we made two records almost right on the spot (Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, both released in 1973). After these two records were released, we started working on a new one, beginning with the title track, Born to Run.”

While at 914, Luis also toured with Lou Reed doing PA sound and became the studio’s resident maintenance engineer. For a short time prior to working at 914, he was an assistant at A&R Studios, working in sessions with Phil Spector.

Tape Op: You seem to take advantage of all the goodies offered by DAWs. Do you ever look back?

Luis Lahav: More than anything else, I miss analog tape. Recording to digital is utterly different. To me, it’s all in the way it deals with transients. With analog tape, peaks are largely ignored or compressed, depending on how you look at it, while digital accepts it all. So you get a lot more punch in digital, but then you have to limit the signal in order to bring up the rest. On analog tape, it’s done by its nature – you get a lot more texture which you don’t have to unhide.

TO: It seems that the small size of the Israeli market has an effect on the way records are done.

LL: Yes. Selling 100,000 copies from an album is considered a phenomenal success, with most artists hoping to sell 10,000, but not making more than a few thousand. Record budgets have to be determined based upon that ratio. $80,000 for a master is considered a huge budget, and it’s mostly between $20,000 and $30,000. So plug-ins and virtual instruments are a blessing. I can do things that would otherwise have been out of reach, considering the budget. Unlike working with a band, when you deal with singer/songwriter artists, the result is focused around the vocal performance – so you can achieve great results in a project studio environment. It turns out that most of my recent works are of that nature. Or maybe I choose to do such projects because it fits my setup better.

Looking back on projects that didn’t do well artistically or commercially, I realize they were all done while I wasn’t completely in tune with myself. Sometimes you don’t pay attention and you’re actually trying to fulfill an image you had in mind, or a preconception, or just trying to meet other people’s expectations. That’s when you’re losing the thread that’s giving you the truth. Considering the fact that, after all, you’re dealing with someone else’s art, that thread can be very hard to maintain. It’s all about listening to your inner voice.