Chris Muth of Dangerous Music knows his stuff. Formerly a mastering gear designer at Sterling Sound in New York City, Muth now co-owns Dangerous Music with partner Bob Muller, a unique combination...
Amidst the flash and glitz of the expensive, superficial hype that sells today's hits to the mainstream, it might seem as if the art of songcraft is at an all time low. Larry Levine remembers a...
Carol Kaye is one of the most recorded bass players of all time, with 10,000 sessions and 40,000 songs under her belt, including a staggering list of hits for Ray Charles, The Righteous Brothers,...
When I first walked into Barefoot Studios, a shark and a beautiful mutt greeted me. Elsie, at times affectionately called "the Pooper", runs off to announce my arrival. Welcome to the world of Eric...
John Parish is a well-respected musician and producer. He has made records for and with PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse [Tape Op #12], the eels, Giant Sand, Dominique A and Tracy Chapman, to mention a few....
When I first met Jacquire, he was working at Toast, a studio in San Francisco. He had already developed a reputation for being the man to call when you needed to make something sound unique and...
For over thirty years, the legendary, prolific and influential art group known as The Residents has been making interesting rock 'n' roll, pop and symphonic music and films that are never old....
One afternoon, late last summer, I found myself walking down a dead end street, two blocks off the famous Waikiki beach in Hawaii, looking for the address where I was to meet the owner of a local...
Want to pump some air and life into your recordings? Try mic'ing some instruments in stereo with two microphones. To create a stereo effect, the mics can be angled apart, spaced apart, or both. In...
The Alesis 3630 is a very popular, full-featured compressor. It offers up RMS and peak compression, variable knee, adjustable attack and release times, and great metering for under a hundred bucks....
There is an epidemic sweeping the music industry. No, it's not an STD or computer virus, but something just as bad: Studios are falling prey to equipment theft. Audio gear is being stolen from...
In 2000, Eric Valentine invited us to come down to his now-former studio just south of San Francisco to listen to some music and talk about maybe making a record together. We arrived at the studio not...
