Photo: Jonnie Miles

A Speck Xtramix CX 40-input console handles the synth routing in Bova’s facility. “It’s been a great piece for my setup. I pass the stereo bus analog out to an old Neumann mastering EQ. I wish I could tell you the model, but there’s none on it! I also use a Drawmer 1960 tube compressor on the stereo bus. This combination is very effective, both for solo tracks and groupings.”

While he doesn’t consider himself an engineer, per se, Bova says that he feels comfortable “creating a keyboard environment on tape, or hard drive, whatever the recording medium is. I like to bring in another set of ears when I record vocals and guitars in my studio, but I’ve also tracked live stuff that has made it to final mixes, partly because of the mics I use. My two favorites are the Brauner VM1 and a Sony G-800G. The Brauner has a lot of detail, but it doesn’t lose the warmth and depth of a vocalist. The G-800G is known to some as the Mariah/Celine vocal mic. It also has bright characteristics, but it feels very true to the source.”

Speaking of Celine Dion, Bova won a Grammy for his work on her Falling Into You CD. “I’ve worked with Jim Steinman for almost 15 years,” he explains. “He produced three tracks on that album, one of which I co-produced with him. That song, ‘Call the Man,’ had vocals tracked at the Hit Factory. I did the entire backing track here in my room. We used a Sony 3348 to transfer parts on that project, as well. Steve Rinkoff, who’s been Jim’s engineer for years, helped with the dump.”

As Bova looks to the future, he sees himself eventually moving away from his huge collection of electronic keyboards: “I’m one of those guys who likes to get his hands on knobs to tweak things, but soft synths are really intriguing me—like the BitHeadz stuff. I really see their software being part of my future. The main reason why I see myself making the switch one day is that you can organize all of your sampled sounds so effectively with these tools. Forty-gig drives are inexpensive now; you can have all of your sounds at the touch of a fingertip. No more digging around for CD-ROMs or tape drives you’ve off-loaded banks to. Then there’s the sheer convenience of having all of your synths living as software on one dedicated computer. It’s definitely the wave of the future.”

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