I was surprised to so CT Heaven Or Las Vegas on the list. Definitely unattended, as I was a huge fan and working there at the time, I would've stalked the session and sneaked in after hours to peek at Wally's notes, as I often did.
He was not a big one for training engineers, but you could always ask him one question at a time, which he'd answer sometimes at length. I occasionally stopped him in the hallway to do so.
He always had his gear set the same way, Neve Mastering EQ's, and Sontecs.
Spike the vocal at 2.2k on the Neve, HP if necessary, Narrow Q on the Sontec for bass and broad on the Highs. Neve 33609, occasionally, and a custom Limiter, built in house, was always in the loop.
He used the crossfader on the Neve Transfer Console, (still there), to put extra EQ on chorus' etc. and never really got into computers. I don't think he could really use a computer at all. He cut everything to a 1630 work tape, which then went upstairs to someone like me for editing in Sonic Solutions. So I'd often end up doing edit sessions afterwards with people like Robbie Robertson, Dave Edmunds, and Mike D. (Beastie Boys).
I honestly never learned much about his lacquer cutting skills, he wasn't cutting alot by then, and they actually mothballed his VMS-70 after he left, leaving Ron McMaster's the only one still operating there. Wally's Zuma is now on Rons lathe, but he tells me he rarely uses it.
He pretty much always scribed "Wally" in the dead wax, or "Wly". Reason being that in the '60's and '70's there was another guy there named William Tennent, who scibed WT on his lacquers.
Julio Iglesias bought him a custom Rolex after his album "Crazy" (I think) went platinum in about 10 countries. Someone did a little research and discovered it probably cost him about $12,000!
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