Steve Hall Establishes Future Disc in Rural Oregon
Dec 30, 2008 3:29 PM, By Matt Gallagher
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Mastering engineer Steve Hall at Future Disc Systems in McMinnville, Ore.
Photo: Rocketman
In 2006, top-flight mastering engineer Steve Hall (pictured)—whose long list of credits includes Madonna, Pat Benatar, Blondie, the Grateful Dead and Jackson Browne—closed his award-winning Future Disc Systems facilities in Hollywood after 25 years in business. “During those years we evolved from a single vinyl suite into a multi-room complex,” Hall recalls, “and we were into CD mastering, DVD authoring and surround sound very early on.” Hall and his wife Laura decided that it was time for a change of scenery and searched for a home in the Pacific Northwest, which Hall describes as “a gamble.”
They eventually found a 40-acre ranch in the town of McMinnville, Ore., where Hall has re-established Future Disc Systems. The property also includes an alpaca farm. “Laura and I have always loved this part of the country, and we’ve also grown partial to alpacas,” Hall says. “We were confident that we’d be able to attract clients here, and now as we wrap our second year, we’re enjoying a steady flow of business.” Hall’s clients in 2008 have included Jeff Lynne and engineer Ryan Ulyate, who asked Hall to re-master Traveling Wilburys’ Volume 1 and Volume 3 CDs for DVD, as well as Ziggy Marley, Hilary Duff, Blind Melon, and rising indie artists Nikkole and Anna Maria Flechero.
Mix caught up with Hall in a recent phone conversation, in which he discussed relocating Future Disc, what it’s like to work in his new setting, and his personal take on the loudness wars.
I understand that you decided early on in your career to focus on mastering.
Yeah. It was just a saner environment, and the hours were stable. In the early ’70s I was doing tracking sessions with groups [that] would book the studio at 6 o’clock and they’d show up about 9 or 10, and start hanging out and jamming around midnight or 1. At 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning they were starting to make the take, and I was supposed to be in bed by that time so I could start working at 10 o’clock the next morning.
I wanted to ask you about closing your Hollywood facility and making this transition to rural Oregon.
Actually, a lot of things came into play that all worked out at the right time. The real estate market was at its peak and I owned the building. When I found out what the building was worth, basically I said it was time to move out. I moved the studio temporarily into my house up in Santa Clarita [Calif.] for a few months until we moved up here to Oregon. I took a three- or four-month hiatus while I was putting this room together—and I was up and running by January of 2007.
So there wasn’t a lot of down time between studios.
No. It was not too bad. I was doing quite a bit of stuff out of the house in Santa Clarita after I sold the building. It worked out well and everybody [Hall’s former staff at Future Disc in Hollywood] transferred into other positions at other places.
And now you work alone.
Laura and I are up here by ourselves. We’ve got the studio, 40 acres of forest and pasture, and we’re raising alpacas on the side, I guess [laughs]. So now I have two jobs. There’s always tons of work.
So, how did you arrive at an alpaca farm in rural Oregon?
I had come up here a couple of times with Laura. She was interested in investing in alpacas. We attended a couple of seminars, and we really liked it—it was real pretty, and Portland was a neat little town. We liked the fact that it wasn’t hot all the time, and there was weather and seasons. So we started looking around within roughly an hour’s drive of Portland because I need to fly out to L.A., or Nashville, or New York, or San Francisco for business reasons, so I didn’t want to be too far from an airport. Plus, I want the ability to have some clients sit through the session with me.
So we started looking around all over, all the way up into Washington and as far out as Mount Hood, which was beautiful, but a little too far out of the city. We ended up in this little town of McMinnville, and it’s only got a population of about 30,000. I guess its largest claim to fame is [that] it’s the home of the Howard Hughes Spruce Goose now. Evergreen Aviation has a huge museum here. Actually, they just built a space museum and they’re supposed to get one of the Space Shuttles in the next couple of years. It’s quite a place to see. We also enjoy hanging out, going around all the wineries. There’s probably better than 300 vineyards and wineries up here.
It sounds like a good situation to be able to live and work in a rural environment, and still be able to travel.
Yeah, [but] there are challenges. It’s only roughly 35 miles to Portland, but by the time you deal with traffic and whatnot, it takes about an hour to get there. But it’s worth it, and we enjoy it. The scenery here is great—the fall colors and everything that we just went through is just really spectacular, real enjoyable.
You’re able to work in an isolated setting, but are still accessible to your clients.
Up here, I’ve found that I can work pretty much when I want, especially [because] probably fewer than 10 percent of my clients actually come up here. They’ll post their masters on my server, and I’ll download them and get them back a master, or a reference disk or whatever to listen to in the next couple of days. It leaves [my schedule] pretty flexible. If somebody has an emergency, it’s pretty easy for me to move things around and accommodate everybody that I need to.
The ability to exchange files digitally in various ways is largely what makes this arrangement possible; you don’t need to be in a big city.
Absolutely. It was a challenge when we got up here, but I knew that with FedEx or whatever, I could try to make a go of it, or make something work with the Internet. The Internet, unfortunately, has been a challenge when you’re out in the woods, but we keep getting better service, and it’s helped out a lot.
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