Waterworks Recording
Tucson, Arizona. Since 1994.Waterworks Recording
After winning New York (Sonic Youth, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Orange), Jim jumped from the East Coast to the Sand Coast, spending the past thirty-odd years making records in his Fortress of Rockitude™ on South Highland.
Tracking, mixing, producing, mastering.
Jim will make you a star. Really, it's the oath he swore when he was bequeathed the “Neumann U 87 of Power (Ballads).”
Who's been through the door
Here's a partial track sheet. Jim won't name the rest: if he shouts out one, somebody else gets their feelings hurt in the place that matters most. Their butt.
| Trk | Artist / record | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Sonic Youth Goo, engineered | 1989 |
| 02 | Moe Tucker I Spent a Week There the Other Night, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1991 |
| 03 | Richard Hell 3 New Songs, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1992 |
| 04 | Dim Stars Dim Stars, engineered & mixed | 1992 |
| 05 | Free Kitten Call Now, engineered & mixed | 1992 |
| 06 | Blonde Redhead First single, engineered & mixed | 1993 |
| 07 | Shonen Knife Rock Animals, engineer | 1993 |
| 08 | The Posies Frosting on the Beater, engineer | 1993 |
| 09 | Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Extra Width, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1993 |
| 10 | Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Orange, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1994 |
| 11 | Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Now I Got Worry, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1996 |
| 12 | R.L. Burnside A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, mixed | 1996 |
| 13 | Jonathan Fire*Eater Wolf Songs for Lambs, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 1997 |
| 14 | Chuck Prophet No Other Love, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 2002 |
| 15 | Mitch Hedberg Strategic Grill Locations, edited & mixed | 2003 |
| 16 | Calexico Convict Pool, recorded & mixed | 2004 |
| 17 | Jim Gaffigan Doing My Time, engineer | 2004 |
| 18 | Year Long Disaster Year Long Disaster, producer & engineer | 2007 |
| 19 | Brian Lopez Ultra, producer, engineer, mixer | 2011 |
| 20 | Naïm Amor Dansons, recorded & mixed | 2012 |
| 21 | Golden Boots Night Drives Vol. 1, recorded & mixed | 2019 |
| 22 | Gabrielle Pietrangelo On My Way Back Home, engineered, co-produced & mixed | 2020 |
| 23 | Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds That Delicious Vice, recorded & mixed | 2024 |
| 24 | The BellRays Heavy Steady Go!, engineer & mixer | 2024 |
Also on the reels: Lucinda Williams, Lenguas Largas, La Cerca, French Cowboy, Sergio Mendoza, Xixa, Hunx, Marianne Dissard and a few hundred more.
An old brick building on South Highland
It used to be the Sound Factory. Now it's a big live room, a control room with a very large console, a lobby full of other people's art, and a black velvet clown painting. Do not ask about the clown.
The stuff
"I am not much of a gear snob," says Jim. There's still plenty of it.
Console & monitoring
- Harrison 4032, 40 channels
- JBL 306P MkII monitors
- Apogee Rosetta 800 converters
- Logic Pro
Preamps & dynamics
- Universal Audio SOLO/610
- Universal Audio LA-610
- Universal Audio 4-710d 4-channel mic pre
- Neve Portico 5032 mic pre/EQ
- Neve Portico 5012 dual mic pre
- API A2D dual mic pre with A/D
- ADL 1500 stereo tube compressor (Jim Williams mod)
- UREI LA-4 compressor
- Joe Meek VC1 (The Brick)
- Orban 422 gated compressor/limiter
Microphones
- Neumann U 87, KM84
- Royer R-121, R-101 ribbons
- Coles 4038 ribbon
- RCA 77 ribbon
- AKG 414, C412, 451
- Sennheiser MD 421, e906
- Electro-Voice RE20
- Beyerdynamic M 500, M 201
- Shure SM81
Jim Waters
Engineer, producer, mixer. Over 100 years of combined experience (left plus right hand).
Jim grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where his older siblings' bands rehearsed in the basement. One of their bandmates brought over a Sony reel-to-reel and a little six-input mixer, and that was that. A teenage Tascam four-track later, he was mostly self-taught and completely hooked.
After college he moved to New York, worked in a pile of studios, recorded a lot of live bands (more than a few at CBGB's) and opened the first Waterworks on West 14th Street. That room turned out Sonic Youth's Goo, the Dim Stars record, Blonde Redhead's first single and a run of early Jon Spencer Blues Explosion records, including Orange, which he co-produced. "Bellbottoms," the opening track on Orange, is the song that opens Baby Driver, the last good Edgar Wright movie until Hot Fuzz 2.
In the summer of 1993 he got sick of New York, loaded his family into a Volkswagen with no air conditioning and drove to Tucson, fully intending never to own a studio again. That lasted a few months. He bought the old Sound Factory on South Highland and opened Waterworks West in January 1994.
Since then: Fat Possum blues records, Chuck Prophet, Calexico, comedy albums for Mitch Hedberg and Jim Gaffigan, sound for a stack of indie films and documentaries, and lately Kid Congo Powers and the BellRays. His method is to make a session feel like band rehearsal and make everybody comfortable. It works.
What do you want from me?
Call or email Jim.
- Phone
- 520-940-2566
