Though Sansano is no longer a staffer at Greene Street, he still does the majority of his work there while also nurturing what has become quite an international career. He produced The Bats from New Zealand, Hunters and Collectors from Australia, Ghosts of American Airmen from Northern Ireland, “and then I have a whole French thing going, and I also work a bit in Italy,” he says, citing stints in such studios as Capri Digital near Naples, Studio Le Manoir in southern France and Plus XXX in Paris.

“What happened was the hip hop stuff I was doing attracted some of the French hip hop people, so I went over and mixed some French hip hop, and I realized there was this whole other world to discover outside of New York,” he says. Evidently, French and Italian A&R people were excited about the prospect of landing an American with such impressive hip hop credentials, and this has led to considerable overseas opportunities for Sansano and his occasional partners-in-crime, Franck Rivaleau and Dan Wood. One group, I Am, “went on to become the biggest French rap act ever; we did two albums together and won all kinds of awards,” he says. Sansano also had a major hit in France producing a rock/world music band called Zebda.

Of differences between working with French and American artists, Sansano says, “The vocal is more important in France than in the U.S. The vocal is everything, and everything has to revolve around the vocal. Their whole musical heritage is based on lyrics more than anything. So a lot of attention to detail is paid toward the choice of vocal microphones, the takes, the comping of the vocal. Everything is the vocal, where in America they’re looking for that huge low-end thing to be happening. In France, they’re not looking for maximum impact. They’re looking for a vehicle to carry the vocal.”

Stateside, the coolest disc Sansano has been involved with recently is the incendiary, ultrafunky Galactic album, Late for the Future. Regarded as one of the finest of the current wave of jam bands, Galactic has had some trouble capturing both the power and the nuances of their live shows in a recording studio. And initially, the band’s label, Capricorn Records, invited several different producers to go down to New Orleans to meet with the band and try cutting a couple of songs. Sansano and the band hit it off in their two days together, and that led to him being offered the production gig.

“I tried to get across the idea that they should try to establish a recording identity,” Sansano says. “I got them to think of the studio as another tool for them to use and to approach it song by song, instead of just going in and playing live, which is the way they’d done it. So we rehearsed and worked out arrangements and tempos, which is a pretty standard way for me to work. Then we went to the Egyptian Room [American Sector] and Magazine Street Sound, and I set up my Pro Tools, and we began to make all the loops and samples that we wanted. We knew that we were going to try to incorporate more loops and samples into the record, but none of us was ready to use found loops and samples. So we set up some drum kits and keyboards and guitar amps and started making loops. Then we proceeded to construct the skeletons of the songs with the loops we’d made. We had a few days doing this busy work, and then, once we had those laid out, we went to Kingsway [also in New Orleans], which I loved; it’s one of the best studios I’ve ever worked at.”

Kingsway is located in an old house and for these sessions, Sansano and the studio’s Ethan Allen had the group set up in different parts of the building. With a collection of loops and samples for a foundation on some tracks, Galactic then recorded fairly live. Sansano cut the band straight to tape (Studer 24-track, Ampex 499), using the studio’s vintage API console mostly for monitoring and two Neve sidecars for its mic pre’s. Guitar and keyboards went through API mic pre’s; drums used Neves.

“I also brought my rack with some MIDI stuff and Pro Tools, my computer, etc. I had a Pro Tools engineer, Danny Madorsky, helping me out, particularly at the beginning and end of the sessions. The good thing about that is he can actually be editing while a session is happening. I have a Mackie mixer built into the rack, and there are ties on the back of the rack so I can flick a switch and he puts headphones on and he’s totally self-contained. It’s almost like having two sessions going at once.”

Sansano says that his approach to this recording was influenced by the fact that Galactic has a “very strong, straight-up, jazz influence” combined with a drummer (Stanton Moore) and bass player (Robert Mercurio) who are great groove players. Their material ranges from free-wheeling, funk instrumentals to R&B rave-ups featuring singer Theryl de’Clouet. Keyboardist Richard Vogel, guitarist Jeff Baines and reeds player Ben Ellman are all top-notch soloists and ensemble players, conversant in blues and more “outside” styles.

“The band was looking to make a more produced record, but still have it be intimate and true,” Sansano says. “Kingsway is an incredibly comfortable place that allows you to do anything you want and feel like you’re in your own living room. And New Orleans definitely has its own feeling and pace, and you have to find it yourself. If you’re going down there thinking you’re going to run the show like you do at home, forget it; it’s not going to work. You’re going to piss people off, and you’re not going to get anything done. You gotta get inside what they’re thinking and bend to their schedule.”

Still, for the mix, Sansano went back to his proverbial living room: Greene Street. Working in France and Italy and New Orleans is all well and good, but New York City is still home.

For more info check out nicholassansano.com.

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Reprinted with permission from Magazine, November, 2000
© 2000, Intertec Publishing, A Primedia Company All Rights Reserved