"Whether it's speakers on a stick or flying a PA, the only difference is the size of your toolbox."
Rob "Cubby" Colby is known to most as a world-class engineer whose career spans nearly four decades. His résumé covers many genres and reads like a Who's Who of artists, from the early days of Prince and Phil Collins to the artist he's currently touring with, Juanes. But this article isn't about microphones or mixing techniques. It's about Cubby and how he's endured and adjusted throughout the years…in his own words.
How It All Began
"Our family was pretty musical. My dad, my grandfather and all my uncles all played trumpet. In elementary school I took up the trumpet, and that's where I received the majority of my formal music education. My sisters and I use to sing, mostly when traveling with my dad in the family car on vacations to northern Minnesota. My dad taught us how to harmonize – having us sing different parts of songs. That's pretty much how things got started for me. My dad was a big influence on my career.
"My first real encounter with audio was when I was in elementary school. Neighborhood buddies and I put together a band, The 4 of Hearts. We had cardboard cut-out guitars and cardboard boxes for drums. My friends would play the instruments and I would sing, and we did this to Beatles records. At the time, I had a reel-to-reel and a Shure high impedance mic that my dad gave me for Christmas, and I discovered if I pressed the ‘record' and ‘pause' buttons simultaneously, I could use the decks' internal amplifier to amplify my voice. This was also my first encounter with feedback, when the mic and speaker came face to face.
"Eventually, the band evolved into a real band – everybody learned how to play real instruments. We had a guitar player, a bass player, keyboard player, a drummer, and I was the singer. We upgraded our PA as well – we all chipped in and bought a Shure Vocalmaster Column PA system. We played school events and fraternity parties, and we were making money in those days. After a while. I found myself uncomfortable singing in front of an audience and told the band I didn't want to sing anymore, I wanted to be the sound man. I found myself more intrigued with how the sound system worked vs. being the sound source.
"During the summer months, I worked in a car lot, washing cars instead of hanging out with my buddies at the lakes. I eventually saved up enough money to buy four JBL #2220 15" speakers, two JBL 2482 2" phenolic drivers on 60° radial horns, and I built all my own speaker cabinets. A buddy and I would hitchhike to a music store in the Twin Cities, he would deter the salesperson in the pro audio department, I would jot down all the cabinet dimensions, and we went home and built our own boxes in my parent's garage. My dad's car sat outside, because I commandeered the garage for the table saw and lumber. With my earnings, I also bought a Phase Linear 400 amp, and a friend at a technical school built me an active crossover. I also bought three Shure M63 mixers, ganged them together, and a Shure M65 Tone Controller, and that was my mixer. In April of 1973, I ran up to a local college to see two bands play. I approached them and said, ‘I want to work for your band,' showing them black and white pictures of my PA. The first band, The Judd Group, replied immediately. They picked me up with their green bus, I auditioned for them and got the gig. I graduated high school on June 3 and was on the road with them June 4. That was it, I had the bug.
"The Judd Group had just landed a record deal, and we started off in Philadelphia. We worked our way up and down the East Coast, where we eventually got a communal band house in Florida. This all happened in about a year's time. It was at about this same time the lead singer decided to quit. The band knew I was a singer and asked me to be the singer. After a one-song demo, I excused myself, ran to the nearest phone, called my dad collect and told him I didn't want to be the singer. He sent me a bus ticket, and three days later, via a Greyhound bus, I was back in Minnesota. Once back home I enrolled in a two-year electronics course. It was the best move I ever made.
"I took the two-year electronics program in vocational school, and everything I was learning, from AC power to Ohms' Law, I was applying to live sound. For my final project, I built my own mixing console from scratch. I bought all my own components, most from an electronics supply house in Minneapolis – some components new, some used. I designed the circuitry, I etched and drilled my own circuit boards, had all the metalwork anodized. I used 301 op amps and 381 dual op amps for mic inputs. It had five band fixed EQ, two EFX sends, 100mm faders and multi-pin power supply. The console was 20 inputs in four groups, all framed in black walnut. And the damn thing worked! (Another one of Cubby's many talents – he's a master at woodworking -ed.) After graduating vocational school, I regrouped with The Judd Group, but this time, the entire PA, front to back, was my creation. I really didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, that was quite an accomplishment.
Evolution to the Revolution
"From the Judd Group, I moved on to mixing the Daisy Dillman Band, then the Jessy Brady band, two pretty popular Midwestern bands in those days.
"It was on Jessy Brady that I first met Harry Witz, who owned a sound company in Chicago then called WOW Sound (MOM upside-down). Harry attended one of our shows in Chicago and invited me to see his shop. Harry had ‘the gift.' Harry was/is a genius, and is one of those guys who is always striving to improve on all aspects of live sound. If it was good, Harry was determined to make it better. At that time, Harry had taken two Yamaha PM 1000s and put them together. It was amazing! This thing was HUGE! This 48-channel monster looked like the Titanic! It was after a couple meetings with Harry that I decided to go to work for him. About a week after I started, he moved his shop across the street to a new warehouse, which then became the infamous dB Sound.
"My first major tour with Harry was doing monitors for Kansas back in 1977 – this was the height of the Kansas era. If we weren't the headliner, we were opening for major acts like the Rolling Stones and concerts throughout North America. On one particular occasion, we were in Orlando, Fla., and the band was given the key to Disney World and had spent the day at the park. That night, at soundcheck, the drummer Phil Ehart came in wearing Mickey Mouse ears. In the middle of soundcheck, he stops and says, ‘That's it!' He comes over to monitor world, places the Mickey Mouse ears on me, and says, ‘From now on, we're calling you Cubby' (the name of the drummer for the original Mouseketeers). The nickname stuck.
"We did a couple more tours with Kansas, then Harry and I did Heart for a couple of years – that was back in 1978-1979. It was during a Heart load-out when Harry's partner called. Harry stopped the load-out and had us hold the monitor rig. Then Harry asked me, ‘How would you like to go to Minneapolis to work with an artist called Prince?' I said, ‘Prince who? Prince of what?' Personally, I didn't care – it was close to home, close to all my friends, and it was another opportunity. Who knew – right? We had gotten the gig because someone in the Prince camp caught the Heart show and liked the flying monitor rig. We had a monitor truss and flown sidefills – I can hardly believe it, but that's been almost 30 years ago.
Lessons Learned
"I learned many things over the years, and I don't believe there's a textbook printed to prepare you for this business. Only with experience and support from those around you do you develop your own habits and disciplines. I consider myself a fast learner, and you have to be in this business. Being a good listener and keeping the band's best interest is key. Knowing the music and how the artist wants it delivered are all crucial aspects to any performance. To put it in some kind of relevant order of importance – being a good listener, discipline, honesty, consistency, being prepared and being involved. Also, learn and know your tools – compression, harmonics and depth of arrangement and mixing techniques. It's those lessons, or disciplines, that have stayed with me and made me a better listener on both the professional and personal levels.
"There were a lot of people who were instrumental to my career. My parents – they never discouraged me. ‘Long hair and loud music, this kid's never going to go anywhere' – I never got that message from them. They supported me from day one. From the early days of Prince through the Phil Collins / Genesis days, there were many folks who supported and believed in what I did. I really owe a lot to Harry Witz and others out there, like M.L. Procise, Howard Page, Bryan Grant, Doug Hall, and many, many others. It was a great era to be part of – it was a communal effort, and I was surrounded by all these great guys. It wasn't just the artists I worked for, but the talented people I got to work with. I don't think many guys who mixed live sound ever thought of this as a career, it was more of a hobby that we were privileged to do. I don't think any of us had that much foresight to think 30 years from now we could look back and say I accomplished this or that.
"Knowing the gear helps, but you don't need every fancy bell and whistle out there. Over the years, the improvements and/or quality of the gear have been phenomenal. Back then, we didn't have training lessons per se. Most times, a manufacturer would drop off a console at the shop, and when the ‘oohing' and ‘aahhhs' subsided, I would take it upon myself to play and experiment on it – then ask questions. I'd read the manual, but I preferred hands-on education. Nowadays, it comes right out of the box with presets, but it still needs to be contoured to fit a particular style or venue. It's all about the music – whether it's speakers on a stick or flying a PA, the only difference is the size of your toolbox. There's a lot to say about the manufacturers and vendors who rely so heavily on so many people to present their products. Manufacturers depend on the techs and the engineers to assemble, present and use the gear to its full potential.
A Balancing Act
"As a single parent, the Internet has been a fantastic resource for me. Robbie (Cubby's son) and I are in constant contact. I can check Robbie's homework assignments, to his grades, from anywhere in the world. Want to know how to cripple a kid? Shut down his text messaging. Yep, if Robbie's grades start dropping, or I get a message from one of his teachers – OFF goes the text messaging. I usually get a call within hours with, ‘C'mon, Dad.' We're only a couple of keystrokes from each other with Skype, and we use it quite a bit. It sure beats the days of long distance and calling cards.
"When I'm not working, you can usually find me going everywhere with Robbie. Family is very important, and I try to make as much time for Robbie as I can. It's hard to fathom, but Robbie turns 18 this year and graduates from high school. I'd have to agree with the old adage, ‘Time Flies when you're Having Fun.'"
