It was just 31 years ago when untertrubach was an important address for international pop music. Chris rea was there, ELO, soft cell, visage, yello or DAF. Nena traveled to untertrubach and also trio. All of them were drawn to the "hartmann digital" recording studio in 1982, to record their new records there.
In most cases, the people in untertrubach probably didn't even notice who was singing into their microphones. The stars had been assured by the owners of the recording studio that strict secrecy would prevail. In each case, however, the secrecy could not be maintained. "Once we had to get bodyguards to take away the fans who were hiding in the bushes", robert "bobby" remembers bachinger. Since 1999 he has been running the recording studio alone. Some of the rooms that once served as the stars' lounges have since been converted by bachinger and his wife marianna into a cafe and concert hall.
The art of mixing
Three cooks were employed here when the musicians played and sang for up to ten hours a day for several weeks.
Because the bands didn't just play their songs down. Instead, bachinger recorded each instrument individually. Not just once, but for as long as it took for the recordings to sound the way bachinger and the musicians had imagined them. "Overdubbing" this process is known as.
Recording was done in a multitrack process. Mixing was done at the mixing desk. The resulting stereo mix was subsequently mastered. That means, the sound was spiced up. "But that was always done in a different recording studio," explains bachinger, explains bachinger.
The fact that so many stars came to untertrubach in the 80s had two reasons: on the one hand, "hartmann digital" was a great success the first and for a long time the most modern digital studio in germany. On the other hand, the people from untertrubach also have orders from the "abbey road studio" again and again from london.
The same studios where the beatles once recorded their album. In this studio, there are also traces of how "hartmann digital" from london came to be started.
His own career suffered
With some music-interested buddies, bachinger founded the rock band "holiday" brought to life. When they hoarded that a friendly band from schweinfurt had bought an old pharmacy and set up as a studio, wanted the "holiday" also.
"A relative of one of the band members then gave us some money. He bought us the old evo building in untertrubach", says bachinger. There in untertrubach the musicians wanted to record their first album, with bachinger on drums.
The band traveled to london to the abbey road studio to meet with andy munro, one of the best studio designers. With model number 4 of the first digital tape machine, which the band bought at the montreaux fair, they became germany's first digital studio.
And thanks to the contact with the abbey road studio, they got so many orders that they were soon booked up. Their own music career also suffered from it. Because for the plan to record their own record, they soon simply did not have the time. "At the time, however, we learned that jonas porst, who owned a recording studio in hiltpoltstein and produced the band extrabreit there, for example, was putting his studio up for sale", tells bachinger. This is how his second recording studio came to be.
While he reminisces about these memories, he strolls through the recording room, which is of course soundproofed. Right in the room next door is the place where the singers stand and sing their songs into the microphone. The music is played through the headphones, because the bassists, drummers and the other members are on stage, in the concert hall on the second floor. Bachinger also cuts and produces videos of the gigs himself.
A year ago now bachinger has made the building available to the public. Regularly singers and bands perform there. The very rough names are nevertheless no longer among them.
Music for tarantino
But what is "rough" anyway?? "Many 20- or 30-year-olds don't even know bands like ELO anymore", laughs bachinger.
Recently del castillo, a band from florida gave a concert here. Under this name the music group is hardly known here. "Del castello made the music for quentin tarantino's kill bill movies here", explains bachinger.