Husky Hoskulds
Husky is a recording engineer based in Los Angeles. His career began working as staff engineer at Hollywood's legendary Sound Factory studios. In 2003 Husky received two Grammys for his work on the Solomon Burke record 'Don’t Give Up On Me' and Norah Jones’ 'Come Away With Me'. He's also worked with
Turin Breaks, Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow and the Gypsy Kings, among others.
Hello.
Thanks very much for taking the time out to have a chat to Camel Audio. Could
you introduce yourself.
S. Husky Hoskulds - Los Angeles based (Icelandic
born) recording engineer.
What are the highlights of your career so
far?
Getting to work with Tom Waits, and Ornette Coleman (with Joe
Henry).
Who have you enjoyed working with most?
I've been
pretty lucky so far.. For example, working with Joe Henry is always great - as
is working with Mike Patton (Fantomas). With those two, the music is wildly
different, but the respect for what I do, and what I bring to the project
(besides smoked trout from Iceland...) is the same. That's a big deal to me, as
it would be for any session player. What you work towards in your career is
getting called in to do what you do best. Not to try to copy something someone
else did. Those are the worst sessions.
How have your working methods
changed over the years?
Well, since I've become a dad, I've realized
that working more than 10-11 hours a day in the studio is nonsense, and 7 days a
week is just silly..
Of course things have changed a _lot_ on the
gear-front as well. And since the integration of plugins / VSTi's etc into my
workflow, things are evolving incredibly fast. (As it stands now, I'm not
throwing away _any_ packing materials when i buy a piece of hardware..! ) The
pace of computer development has made it so that real-time integration of
plugins into the analog world (e.g. when mixing or for sound-design during
overdubs) is a reality. I use the computer on almost every session, even though
all the stuff I do is always on analog tape. I just run stuff through the plugs,
with Logic on input.
Husky in his
studio. If you look closely you can see Cameleon on the monitor!
What
projects have you used Camel Audio software on?
I used the CamelPhat
free plug quite a bit on Joe Henry's 'Tiny Voices' and on the last couple of
Fantomas records, as well as the Cameleon, for the latter. I did some layering
/ resynthesizing for some of the low rumbly ambient stuff.
What do you
like most about Cameleon 5000?
In short: it's like no other device out
there. It's like a bridge between a sampler and a synth, which makes it a great
sound design tool. Perfect for me, as I can't play to save my life - but I'll
add some excitement to the track, if you leave me alone for a minute!
What do you like most about CamelPhat?
To be honest (sorry
Ben) I use the Phat 'free version more. Maybe that's because my favourite
hardware compressor is the dbx 163 from the 70's (80's?) with the one slider
that says 'More'. It's all you need, really. Well, except for the CamelPhat
Free, which has two 'More' sliders! Love it!
What are your plans for
the next year?
Next year I'm thinking about taking my family, along with
my parents and sisters on vacation to the south of France, where I did the Gipsy
Kings record. It's a huge house called Gourgoubes. Everyone should go to
the south of France at least once in their life... Other than that, nothing's
planned yet. That's the beauty of what I do. For all I know, the Beatles could
call tomorrow. Well, um, at least a couple of them...
Thanks very
much. Would you like a Camel Audio T-Shirt as a little thank-you?
No, but
some stickers would be way cool!! (My wife usually dresses me...)
Selected Disgography
Tom Waits - Blood Money - Mix
Joe
Henry - Tiny Voices - Record / Mix
Gipsy Kings - Roots - Record /
Mix
Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up On Me - Record / Mix
Fantomas - Delirium
Cordia - Record / Mix
