August 21, 2002     Los Gatos, California Since 1881 Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Robert Berry of Los Gatos is the owner of Soundtek Studios in Campbell. Soundtek Studios has attracted musicians for 20 years By Moryt Milo Rock stars, Hollywood movie studios, voice-over artists and high-tech corporations have a common bond in Campbell—Soundtek Studios. In an unassuming building located at 85 S. Second Street, studio owner Robert Berry produces music for Miramax Films and CDs for a variety of musical groups, from Skankin' Pickle to the Bellarmine Choir. He produces for three to four Japanese bands yearly, provides music for high-tech trade show sponsor COMDEX, and does internal corporate productions for 3D chip maker Nividia. Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Recording for All: Artists from every type of musical genre have come to Robert Berry's Soundtek Studios in Campbell during the past 20 years. Since 1981, the clientele traveling through Berry's studio doors has been constant yet seemingly out of place for a small city like Campbell. It's a business one would expect to see located in Los Angeles, New York, London or San Francisco. "What's really cool is all these artists are coming to Campbell to record," Berry says. "We are the best-kept secret in town." Still, people often wonder how a recording studio ended up in Campbell. But it makes perfect sense when turning the clock back to the 1980s. During those years Campbell had a significant number of major nightclubs within blocks of the studio. Campbell was the place to go, Berry says. Clubs like the Bodega and Smokey Mountain featured Pat Benatar, Joe Cocker and Huey Lewis. "All these bands were coming through town," he says. "It was big stuff and probably why the city put a stop to it." When Berry established his studios he was already a respected musician touring with various well-known recording artists. "But I kept coming home because I felt this was a great area," he says. "I loved it here and didn't see why Campbell couldn't be my base." It was one of the primary reasons he built his business off the Orchard City Drive loop. The other was family roots. Berry's father led the Bob Berry Orchestra, which played Big Band music, and his mother, Ronnie, was the band's singer. The orchestra performed locally, at the Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz, as well as at ballroom venues in Texas and Chicago. Later the family settled in San Jose, where the senior Berry opened a music store, called Bob Berry Piano and Organ. As the business profited, the family bought a home in Saratoga and it became Robert's hometown. Today he lives in Los Gatos with his wife, Karen, and two children, ages 7 and 11. "Music was always there. It was my parents' world. They never forced me into it; I was just kind of sentenced to it," he says jokingly. But, as with his parents, music is in Berry's blood. Local artist and SAGE band member Frank Anzalone says, "Robert is a highly respected musician. He played in a band with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer." Both musicians are former members of the well-known British band Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Three: A poster of the former band 3, consisting of Robert Berry, Keith Emerson and Carl Lake, hangs on a wall in Berry's Soundtek Studio. Emerson and Lake were members of the band named Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Berry also spent time playing with musician Steve Howe—a former member of the group YES—Gary Pihl from the band Boston, and Sammy Hagar, who replaced high-profile David Lee Roth as the lead singer for Van Halen. Berry admits it's reputation and word-of-mouth that have built the studio business and says he hasn't had to advertise yet. But he doesn't rule out the possibility of times changing. He credits his knowledge of music to a variety of sources: his years of formal classical piano training, studying music theory and majoring in music at San Jose State University, as well as the hands-on experience he picked up by playing with various bands as early as seventh grade. "Balancing my formal education with what I've learned streetwise and blending them together allows me to produce a sound that requires theory knowledge—changing a sound ever so slightly but so that it's still recognizable—or producing a rap piece or heavy rock piece that can only be learned from being streetwise," he says. The day-to-day exposure he gained in his father's store by using the amplifiers and instruments and renting various pieces of equipment to musicians traveling through town also enhanced his understanding of the recording industry. "When I was little, my dad used to take me to the San Jose Civic Auditorium because the bands didn't use to carry their own equipment and we would loan them the amps," Berry says. "The Who, Cream, Dave Clark Five, the Animals—all came through San Jose, and I sat back there with the stage manager, watching them." Instruments were constantly being traded in. Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster guitars lined up in the store was a common sight. The variety of instruments and technology he was exposed to growing up gave Berry the musical knowledge he uses today to provide his clients with the various sounds they want to achieve. "Robert understands and can play so many different instruments that he knows how to recreate the sound his clients want," says Campbell resident and Soundtek Studios webmaster Pat Moore. Having grown up with a wealth of equipment at his fingertips, Berry says he is able to straddle the past and present technologies in the musical industry with ease. "In the studio we use two-inch analog tape," he says. "This is the way it's been done for years, and it has a sound to it that digital can't replace. It's like watching DVD. The quality is good but it's not 'fat.' The sound is thin and lacks depth." Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer The Right Sound: Robert Berry shows the two-inch analog tape used to produce a rich musical sound. According to Berry, many artists come to his studio because he can blend the old technology with digital. Having grown up in a recording industry that didn't place a primary emphasis on digital recording, Berry says, has made him a better producer. Walking through Berry's studio is also a step back in music history. In one section of the studio is a grouping of Vox amplifiers surrounding the drum set the Beatles used during a performance in Washington, D.C. He has 1,000 percussion instruments and an extensive guitar collection—not located in the studio but viewable on his website—that includes a Beatles bass and the latest Eddie Van Halen guitar. With such a collection, he can reproduce virtually any sound. "This collection is important to me because it's part of my heritage and the things I love," Berry says. A big part of his business is sound-alikes—songs with a familiar tune slightly changed and reproduced with different lyrics. For one of his clients he produced a set of CDs, "Mother Goose Rocks," which blended children's songs with top hits. One of the songs was a combination of "Wheels of the Bus" and the Madonna song "Ray of Light." As a joke, a London club segued into it after playing the original "Ray of Light" tune by Madonna, and it ended up rising to number 17 on the music charts in England. With the business continuing to grow, Berry is in the throngs of remodeling, adding double doors to his studio and other enhancements. "I am responsible for a couple of guys," he says, "and I want them to all get their little corner of the studio." His staff—webmaster Moore, engineer Thom Duell, who managed the studio while Berry lived in London, Campbell resident and production engineer Johnny Freedman and Gene Perrault, who handles the corporate end of the business—are all part of what makes Soundtek Studios a success, Berry says. Berry professes that even with their help, he is an workaholic. "Before, I always had to be playing live and working in the studio at the same time. I had to do it all. One doesn't fulfill it for me." But it's this combination that brings the business to his Campbell doors, and it's his love for what he does that makes him feel lucky to be living and working in a place that has always felt like home. "Every year I bring my daughter's and son's classes into the studios," he says, "and then I tell them, 'First of all, I love what I do, and if you can find a job like I have, you'll be really lucky.' " For more information about Soundtek studios, call 408.370.3313 or visit www. soundtekstudios.com.

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