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Robert “Cubby” Colby extensively worked with Prince during what could be considered the height of his Purple reign: 1980 through 1988 as monitor mixer and front-of-house engineer on tour and audio tech/music mixer in the studio, at the artist’s own Paisley Park Studios outside of Minneapolis.
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Chanhassen, MN (April 28, 2016)—While the world still reels from last Thursday’s passing of enigmatic superstar Prince, mainstream press outlets and social media platforms have become rich with memories and recollections of his work, personality and unique imprint on the music industry. Among those is audio engineer Robert “Cubby” Colby, who extensively worked with Prince during what could be considered the height of his Purple reign: 1980 through 1988 as monitor mixer and front-of-house engineer on tour and audio tech/music mixer in the studio, at the artist’s own Paisley Park Studios outside of Minneapolis. Having served his technical needs in a wide range of faculties, there are very few professional engineers having had as many interesting moments with Prince as Cubby.
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Here, Pro Sound News Editor-At-Large Steve Harvey shares a Monday afternoon conversation with Colby solely on the subject of Prince Rogers Nelson. This followed a reunion for many of Prince’s former band mates and musical collaborators, among others, who gathered in Minnesota on Sunday evening.
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“I did many after-hours shows, but mainly I’m very proud of the six tours I did with him,” Colby begins. “I started and completed them all, and all of the rehearsals. I was originally from Minnesota and then I moved to Chicago when I took the gig with dB Sound. (Colby worked at dB Sound as audio tech and monitor mixer on tour with Heart and Kansas from 1977 until 1980, where he began his stint with Prince for the Controversy Tour 1980/81—Ed.) Then Prince moved me back to Minnesota—but he never believed I was originally from there. He also joked with me about that. ‘You’re from Chicago, right?’ ‘For the tenth time, I’m from Mankato, Minnesota.’”
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“He was a very, very playful, passionate person. That’s how I got to know him. I’ve done a couple of Minnesota phone-in interviews since Prince’s passing. So many questions get asked in terms of what it was like mixing for him. It was the playing field where I really feel like I grew up. I learned more from him than I could have learned from any textbook. That goes beyond musical experiences. He was a very good engineer in the studio. He knew his equipment, and what he didn’t know he would learn.”
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“Last night Wendy and Lisa talked about our 12-hour rehearsal days. They always got a chance to take maybe two half-hour or one-hour breaks during that time. I never was able to leave the room—because, when they left, he stayed to work on mainly guitar stuff, pedal board stuff. He’d take the pedal board and plug it into the Linn drum machine. It was always evolving, so you did whatever you could to stay ahead of the curve. It was a great experience in every way.”
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“For Controversy in 1980, there was no money. I was kind of the go-to guy back then. It was all his equipment, which came out of the basement of the house that went into the auto body shop that we rented out, and then eventually we turned it into a rehearsal studio. Little by little, we added curtains and carpet, then after Controversy we put that set in to be our little stage. He had his pedal board and mic stand five feet in front of the Soundcraft 400 console where I sat. He looked at me and I looked at him, six days a week. It was awesome.”
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“I look back and think, my god—what he had to tolerate. Even though much of his time was conducting the band and doing things, once we got into rehearsal it was always one-on-one, it was great, just phenomenal.”
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“Six tours in nine years with Prince was a long run. I was there as long as the Revolution was there, and that was his longest-lived band. I saw everybody last night; it was absolutely phenomenal: Wendy and Lisa, Brown Mark, Matt Fink, Bobby Z, Susan Rogers flew in from Boston, Sheila E., a couple of the backline guys, and security and old management. Everybody spoke; I’m sure it was very emotional for the Revolution, as they met prior to coming into the room. Dez couldn’t be there, nor could LeRoy Bennett, who did all of the incredible lighting work during that period. It was great to see everybody and reminisce. The stories were endless. The room was full of tears and laughter, all at the same time. His sister, Tyka Nelson, showed up near the end and thanked us all. He has a half-brother, Omar Baker, who spoke to us as well.”
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PSN: Paisley Park was built in 1985?
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“It was right after Purple Rain. What is in Studio B now was in his home. I was there for all of that install. He put in a custom-built API, completely discrete and built for his height, his reach. It took over a year. I did all the internal work; I used to have a key to the house and would drive down to the back and let myself in, getting there before the techs showed up. I worked through the holidays to get it done. While that was being done, he was in Los Angeles, and by the time we got the studio done in the home, Paisley Park Studios was almost complete. They had built A, which has the big SSL in it, and C, which had a Soundcraft console and was mainly the band rehearsal room. Then after we rehearsed and learned everything, we moved into the big production stage, which was big enough to drive a semi into and turn it around. It’s a phenomenal facility.”
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“Back then, 10 o’clock in the morning the doors would open and the FedEx guy would roll in a cart, and the band would gather around the coffee pot and the purple dove was in the corner. The guy would show up every Thursday to clean the cage. It was unbelievable.”
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“Then, upstairs, across from the offices, was the wardrobe department. There were eight girls in there, four professional sewing tables; everything was made there. Except the shoes. And that means for all the band. Every tour, the band was taken up there for fittings. The only person who was ever (dressed) the same was Doctor Fink. He told the greatest stories last night. He’s such a character.”
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“It never felt like I was going to work. It was as if I was going to Paisley Park. I just had to be there an hour ahead of schedule, get everything turned on, everything ready and make sure everything was ready for the rest of the band. As long as you did what you were asked to do, you were focused and you had your notebook and a pen … because there was no way I could remember everything that he would ask me to do and remind him to do later. Or make notes on changes, to remind other band members, etc.”
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“Prior to Paisley Park it was such an intimate group. We were in an industrial park so we had to set hours. It wasn’t until he got his own playground—and I always refer to it as ‘his playground’ because he could walk out of rehearsal, four feet across the carpet into Studio B or eight feet to Studio A. I can tell you exactly how many paces it took to go from here to there. The saving grace for us was that we couldn’t make noise after 7 o’clock at night. But until the playground was built, it was small; then he had to have three different studio engineers staffed every day to keep up with him."
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PSN: Was it a help or a hindrance that he knew engineering?
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“It helped me. I learned more that way. His technique was that everything had to be in the red. There was no gain structure. There was something special about his ear; he liked to saturate either discrete electronics or op amps to get that harmonic distortion. That’s disappeared; now everything is so clean. You would work ways to get a pure path and it always seemed like he had ways of having a little bit of dirtiness. That was more of a recording approach that he had learned over the years. If he did that out front I would explain, ‘this isn’t good, look at the faders at -30 and it’s spitting blood out of the VU meters.’ ‘So?’ He learned over the course of time.”
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“I said to somebody today, there were months that would go by, all that was said was ‘Hello, how are you?’ He wouldn’t bring up the mix at all. Sometimes they’d send a security guy out: ‘Prince wants me to give you this $100; he thought the show tapes sounded great.’ Months would go by that you wouldn’t talk to him. No news was good news. But he was always very polite, very cordial. We had a very good trust, with each other. If he asked me if I was ready and I wasn’t I would say, ‘No, I’m not ready. We’re not ready.’ And he respected that. So many people got burned along the way for saying, ‘We’re ready to go,’ and they weren’t ready. Five minutes could make a big difference.”
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“When I got the phone call on Thursday morning following Prince’s passing, I didn’t believe it at first. I had just sent an email to Kirk Johnson the Friday before, when I heard about the plane landing in Moline. I told him, I hope he’s feeling better, I’m going to be back in 10 days; let’s get together. I don’t live far from Paisley Park; I live in Chanhassen. I moved to this home about four years ago. Prior to that I was about eight miles away. It was radio silence, which didn’t surprise me. It happened. There was no need for an explanation; it was just the way things were.”
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Read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.prosoundnetwor...olby/46040
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