Recording Studio Rockstars

My guest today is Jay Tooke an Award-winning, Canadian born producer, songwriter, and musician who moved to Nashville back in 2012. Having gotten his start as a working musician at the age of 17 some of his earliest memories are of plunking out melodies by ear on the family’s piano, but it was the intro to Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” that lit a fire in his soul for the drums. Not long after he started a love affair with the guitar and from then on, his sights were set on a career in music.  During his 26 year career, he has toured all over the world with a range of artists from Canada and the US, and has produced records that have garnered critical and commercial success in Australia, New Zealand, Germany as well as Canada and the US.  His philosophy behind making records has always been about helping the artist find their own voice in the studio. It’s never about forcing ideas or making the record he wants to make. It’s a collaboration between producer and artist to find the truest form of the song. All

My guest today is Jessica Thompson a GRAMMY-nominated mastering and restoration engineer, audio preservation specialist, and educator. She has digitized, restored, and revived historic recordings for artists ranging from jazz pianist Erroll Garner to blues and folk revolutionary Barbara Dane, from Ethiopian keyboardist Hailu Mergia to proto punk band Jack Ruby, from anarcho-punk band Crucifix to synthesizer legend Pauline Anna Strom.   She masters music both new and old and has worked on records for Michael Daves, Flipsyde, Matthew McNeal, International Dub Ambassadors, Teno Afrika, Occurrence, and many more.  She sometimes writes gear reviews for Tape Op Magazine and contributed a chapter on "Mastering the Sonics of Historic Recording Media" for the book Music Preservation and Archiving Today.   She currently serves as President of the San Francisco Chapter of the Recording Academy. In her spare time, she likes to ride steel bikes and walk her dog, Eddie. Thanks so much to Ian Brennan for making our introduc

My guest today is Wes Little one of Nashville’s most adaptable and multi-faceted drummers, as well as a top flight arranger, producer and songwriter.  Wes was trained in performance and composition at the Manhattan School of Music and shaped by years of studio and stage work with major acts. Currently a first call session drummer in Nashville, Wes has also performed or recorded with Chuck D, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith,  John Legend, Melissa Etheridge, Robben Ford, Michael and Randy Brecker, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. He works in Nashville, where he lives and records daily in the studio.   Some of his credits for recording or touring are with Robben Ford, Christopher Cross, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Trey Anastasio, Little River Band, Larry Carlton, Sting, Stevie Wonder,  Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler, John Legend, Jamie Fox, Melissa  Etheridge, Jermaine Jackson, Mariah Carey, Public Enemy, Shakira, Busta Rhymes, Emmylou Harris, Mary J. Blige Anita Baker, Paul Shaffer, Dierks

My guest today is J.J. Blair a native Chicagoan, who came up playing in blues and reggae clubs as a teenager in his home town, before eventually moving to Los Angeles to begin his recording career.  Known for taste, musicality and proficiency in a broad range of musical styles, J.J. has also amassed a great collection of vintage mics, outboard gear and instruments, which he draws on to make outstanding recordings and productions.   He produced and mixed the Grammy winning record "Press On," by June Carter Cash, engineered on the Grammy winning and #1 Billboard Hot 100 record "Great American Song Book vol. 3," by Rod Stewart, as well as engineering on P. Diddy's #1 hit "All About the Benjamins."  J.J. has been a producer and engineer since 1994.  His clients, credits and list of musicians he's recorded include Jeff Beck, George Benson, The Black Eyed Peas, Body Count, Joe Bonamassa, Jon Brion, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, David Cassidy, Kelly Clarkson, Vinnie Colauita, Double Trouble, Peter Erskine, Melissa

My guest today is Adam Krinsky a Mixer/Engineer in Minneapolis, MN. He owns and runs a studio in St. Paul, MN called Bellows. In his 15 years of music, he has been a Producer, Engineer, Mixer, FOH Mixer, Tour Manager, Manager, and Educator.  Adam’s career started after graduating from the Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis. He was hired by the owner and co-founder Tom Tucker as his assistant engineer at Master Mix Studios. In parallel to working in a big fancy studio, he was also moonlighting in a small punk rock basement studio called Vaudeville. A million dollar studio during the day, a Mackie and 57’s at night. Krinsky started working at a local guitar shop called Twin Town Guitars which is where he met many of the local musicians.  In 2006 he recorded and mixed an album called A Detail of Soldiers by The Alarmists which received local recognition. Since he has never been without a project to mix. Over the years Adam has worked on albums for artists like Bo Ramsey, Mason Jennings, The Pin

My guest today is William Bowser an audio engineer based out of La Plata Maryland.  “I've been engineering for almost 20 years since 2002 where I started in the chorus room of Leonardtown High School, just myself, a microphone, and a tape recorder. From there for years I ran a home studio as an artist, producer, singer, songwriter, rapper, and engineer trying to make it and perform all over the country.  I signed a developmental deal early on in my career with Universal Music and an indie label based out of Brooklyn New York which at the time was my most successful endeavour. When that fell through because of monetary mismanagement on the label's part I went back to being an independent artist but this time more informed and with a larger grasp of the business side of music.  I began slowly but surely becoming more and more enamoured with the engineering side of things while bringing my skills and experience as an artist to the table. This helped me not only cross over easier but get jobs engineering for stud

My guest today is Julian Dreyer who grew up in a small artist community in the mountains of western North Carolina and after a 3 year stint as a sound engineer at a large music venue in Asheville, NC he became the staff assistant engineer at the newly built Echo Mountain Recording.   He has worked there for the last 15 years and been the chief engineer for the last 8 years.  In 2017 he won a Grammy with Secret agent 23 Skidoo for engineering and mixing the "Best Children's Album."  He has worked on hundreds of albums in every capacity from assisting to engineering and mixing to producing or all of these things at once.   Since working at Echo Mountain he has worked on albums with The Avett Brothers, Steve Martin, Jerry Douglas, The Steep Canyon Rangers, Mandolin Orange, Band of Horses, Zac Brown, Jim Lauderdale and Rising Appalachia to name a few.  He also regularly engineers the PBS television show "Echo Sessions" which is shot in Echo Mountain Recording. Thanks so much to Jessica Tomasin for making our intr

My guest today is Raag Sethi an award-nominated producer, bassist and guitarist from Ahmedabad, and also the founder of Compass Box Studio. He has been instrumental in promoting indie talent in Gujarat and India through the Compass Box Live Sessions on YouTube.  Raag’s work has been featured in almost every major music publication in India. He has had the opportunity to work as an associate music producer with Clinton Cerejo, A.R Rahman and has also worked with Grammy-winning engineers for his projects.  His work has been nominated for the best pop production track at the Production Music Awards in London. By focusing on one take live recordings, Raag and his team at Compass Box Studio have created high-quality production within the limitations of live recordings. His production work ranges from singer-songwriter to jazz, to neo-soul, rock and more. Thanks to Ryan Earnhardt Creative Sound Labs for making our introduction! Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: http://MixMasterBundle.com THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

My guest today is Justin Perkins a mastering engineer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who has worked on remastering projects for The Replacements, En Vogue, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and mastering projects for Michael Franti &  Spearhead, Tommy Stinson, The Gaslight Anthem, Smoking Popes,  Anberlin, Screeching Weasel, The Mr. T Experience, and thousands of other independent bands and artists around the world.  Before transitioning to mastering full-time he also spent time at Butch Vig’s Smart Studios in Madison Wisconsin recording and mixing a  number of projects, and has been working full-time in the audio field for nearly 20 years. His studio Mystery Room Mastering has been in business since 2009.  Growing up and playing in bands in the midwest is what helped  Justin formulate a career in audio and ultimately led to playing bass for a time in the band Screeching Weasel, as well as playing bass for Tommy Stinson’s solo shows, and the relaunch of Tommy Stinson’s post-Replacements band called Bash & Pop who rel

My guest today is Cason Cooley a writer, musician and producer who started music at a young age in Wichita, KS, often travelling across the country with his parents who were a part of the Grammy award-winning Southern Gospel group, The Cathedral Quartet. In 1997 Cason moved to Nashville to pursue music becoming a member of the Normals followed by focusing his attention on songwriting and production.  Cason has written and produced artists such as Ingrid Michaelson, including her singles "Girls Chase Boys" and "Hell No," American Authors single "Deep Water," Katie Herzig, Ben Rector, David Archuletta and more. His work has been placed in dozens of popular television shows including Grey's Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars. Most recently he has produced NEEDTOBREATHE’s latest album “Out of Body” and American Author’s “Seasons”, Drew Holcomb’s “Dragons” and Ingrid Michaelson’s “Stranger Songs."  Cooley is now based out of Nashville, TN where he works out of his studio The Masonic Lodge. Thanks to Alena Moran at Tr

My guest today is Bob Horn a multi-platinum, Grammy award-winning mix engineer known for working with artists spanning many genres; R&B, Pop, Hip Hop, Rock, Adult Contemporary, and Jazz, as well as artists from countries around the globe including The U.S., Korea, Japan, Australia, Spain, Indonesia, Brazil, and China. Some of those artists include Usher, Timbaland, Michael Jackson, DVRKO, Neon Trees, Kelly Clarkson, Brandy, Ashanti, Everglow, Akon, Lupe Fiasco, Everclear, Brian McKnight, LeAnn Rimes, The Common Kings and many more. Bob attended Berklee College of Music before relocating to Nashville to start his career as a recording engineer. In 2001 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a mix engineer. Although Bob's career focus is mixing music, he is an accomplished musician playing drums, guitar, bass and piano, and is also involved in songwriting and production. In 2011 Bob and a long time friend and colleague designed and built The EchoBar Recording Studios in North Hollywood, CA where he m

My guest today is Michael Brauer a multiple Grammy-winning New York mix engineer. His many credits include "Best Pop Vocal Album" for John Mayer's Continuum, "Best Alternative Album" for Coldplay's Parachutes, and also "Best Rock Album" for Coldplay's "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends". Other credits include The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Jeff Buckley, David Byrne, Paul McCartney, Ben Folds, Willie Nelson, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, and more recent projects include Zac Brown Band, Hootie & the Blowfish, Michael Kiwanuka, Slash, and The Courteeners.   Beginning at MediaSound Studios in New York City in 1976, Michael worked his way up from the Shipping Department to staff engineer assisting the hottest guys in town including; Bob Clearmountain, Mike Barbiero, Ron St. Germain, Michael DeLugg, Ed Stasium, Godfrey Diamond, Tony Bongiovi and Harvey Goldberg. He became Luther Vandross’’s engineer recording all his music for four years including two Aretha Franklin albums and spent half of the eight

My guest today is Piper Payne a mastering engineer based out of Nashville, TN, where she works on albums for independent artists and major labels. In Spring of 2019 Piper joined the famed Infrasonic Mastering team, merging her successful Oakland studio, Neato Mastering, with the Nashville based company, owned by Pete Lyman. Piper is a Trustee of the Recording Academy and she is Co-Chair of the P&E Wing Steering Committee. She is a Governor of the Audio Engineering Society and she is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the AES’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee as well as an active member of Women's Audio Mission and she serves on the Board of SoundGirls.org. In addition, Piper is a keeper of Vinyl Quality Control and a consultant for vinyl record pressing plants and is opening her own vinyl manufacturing plant in Nashville in mid-2021. She has been an audio professor and guest lectures often about mastering and recording.

 Piper began her career with a BFA in Audio from The University of Michigan, continui

My guest today is Peter Deimel, recording engineer and owner of studio Black Box in the French countryside of the Anjou region, close to the Loire Valley. Peter is a native German living and working in France since 1993 having attended the Technische Universität to study acoustics, electronics and communication techniques.  After school, Peter began learning from Chicago based engineer Iain Burgess who was also Steve Albini’s mentor. As a UK native Iain Burgess had wanted to return to Europe and called to discuss the idea of building a residential studio in France with Peter. A few months later they bought an old farm in the french countryside and built their “dream studio”, studio Black Box.  Eleven years ago Iain sadly passed away but almost 28 years later Peter is still there happily recording music and running the studio with his wife Sylvie. Peter’s discography encompasses a variety of music in a variety of languages and consistently sounds great for each genre. Thanks to Steve Albini for making our intr

My guests today are Donald Mitchell and Peter Katis. Donald plays vocals, guitar, banjo with the band Darlingside who have just finished their newest record Fish Pond Fish and Peter is a producer and engineer at Tarquin Studios, a 7,000 square foot Victorian home in Bridgeport, Connecticut that has been transformed into a residence and recording studio for musicians. Fish Pond Fish is an album that brings together acoustic folk instruments with the cool band sounds of indie rock under a lush bed of vocal harmonies described as a story of geology, meteorology, ornithology, astronomy and botany. An album that catalogues the weird nooks of our world with the same curiosity of a botanist’s time-worn field journal. Peter’s many credits include: Death Cab For Cutie, Frightened Rabbit, Gang of Youths, Interpol, The National, The Head And The Heart, and Kurt Vile. And In 2017, Katis and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads launched a concert series for emerging artists at The Fairfield Theater Company Thanks to Martina at M

My guest today is F. Reid Shippen a multiple Grammy Award-winning mixer, engineer, and record producer, whose credits include 10 Grammy Award-winning albums and over 100 #1 singles and artists such as Ingrid Michaelson, Kenny Chesney, India. Arie, Cage the Elephant, Little Big Town, CeCe Winans, Steven Tyler, Colony House, Lucie Silvas, and Dierks Bentley.  In 2020 F Reid just hit is The New York Times #1 song for 2020 for Avenue Beat! F2020 feat Jessie Reyez. Reid has been on the podcast before on episodes 19 and 237 to talk about recording and mixing. And today we will dig into some more mixing tips and what’s new since the last time we spoke. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: http://MixMasterBundle.com THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! https://www.SoundPorter.com Get your free mastering demo. https://JZmic.com Use coupon ROCKSTARS to get 20% off The Pop Filter https://www.Spectra1964.com http://MacSales.com/Rockstars http://iZotope.com/Rockstars use code ROCK10 for 10% off https://www.Adam-Audio.com/Education h

My guest today is Jordan Valeriote an independent producer, mixer, and audio educator from Ontario, Canada, specializing in hardcore music. Recently Jordan joined us to talk about how to go from charging $100 to $1000/song as a full-stack producer. If you want to learn more about that go check out that bonus episode. Jordan has worked with many heavy bands like Silverstein, Antimacy, the Dead and Divine, Prophets for the Counterparts, Nick Johnston, Forevermore, Great Lakes, Mandroid Echostar, and Skynet to name a few. And today we are going to focus on mixing and what lessons Jordan has learned about mixing heavy music himself and through his teaching over at Hardcore Music Studio.  I'll see what we can learn about some of the most common struggles you might be having with getting rock music to sound powerful, tight, and in your face when you record and mix. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: http://MixMasterBundle.com THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! https://www.SoundPorter.com Get your free mastering demo. http

My guest today is Brian Lucey, widely considered one of the very best mastering engineers. He began in the late 80s in NYC East Village as a professional musician (guitar, voice, piano) then became a student of Robert Fripp and Guitar Craft through the early/mid 90s. Mastering began in the late 90s and his experience in all other phases has lead to a distinctly musical approach to mastering. Brian works out of Los Angeles at Magic Garden Mastering. Select Credits include: Chet Faker, Depeche Mode, Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello, Shania Twain, Marilyn Manson, Green Day, The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Cage The Elephant, Dr John, Ghost and thousands more… Thanks to Brian Murphree at Soundporter.com for making the introduction. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: http://MixMasterBundle.com THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! https://www.SoundPorter.com Get your free mastering demo. https://JZmic.com Use coupon ROCKSTARS to get 20% off The Pop Filter https://www.Spectra1964.com http://MacSales.com/Rockstars http://iZoto

I am totally psyched to welcome today’s guest. He is a Grammy award-winning mixer, and owner of the beautiful (and newly relocated) Sputnik Sound.  He has a long discography of accomplished records including artists like Keb Mo, Jars Of Clay, Jack White and 3rd Man Records, Buddy Guy, Kings Of Leon, Danger Mouse, Sturgill Simpson and some well known local artists: Moon Taxi, Bobby Bare Jr, and Jeff The Brotherhood (who lives right down the street from me in fact). Our guest originally hails from the town of Joplin MO which most people mistake as being named after the Ragtime Pianist Scott Joplin, but was in fact named after its founder the Reverend Joplin.  And other than being mentioned in Bobby Troup’s legendary song “Route 66”, the town of Joplin MO, which gained notoriety for mining Zinc, may owe its biggest musical credit to our guest on today’s show.  I met him back in 2002 when he became the head engineer for the incredible Blackbird Studios, right here in the city of Berry Hill a part of Nashville oft

My guest today is Scott Michael Smith a Grammy nominated Mixer, Producer, and musician based in Los Angeles working largely in music for the screen. Scott got his start at the legendary Village Recording studio in Los Angeles where he became a staff engineer, working with artists like John Mayer, Keith Emerson, Colbie Caillat, Carole King, Fink and many others. He spent countless hours in the studio learning from guys like Ed Cherney, John Alagia, and T-Bone Burnett while honing his own skills as an Engineer/Producer.  For over a decade Scott has been one of Hollywood's most in-demand film music mixers. Recording and Mixing scores for projects like The Revenant, The Handmaid's Tale, It Chapter 2, Minions, The Invisible Man, and many more. Recently Scott completed work on Mank, the new David Fincher period piece featuring the music of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, the entire score was done in isolation during the pandemic.  Scott is known for his ability to bridge the gap between modern fil