Interviews | No. 175
By Danielle Goldsmith and Joao Gonzalez of Abrelume
Melina Duterte began recording her own music armed with little more than a laptop, a budget mic, and a fascination with how records are made. As Jay Som, she crafted a distinctive sound defined by textural, layered guitars, and soft, intimate vocals. Since then, Duterte has expanded...
Mac DeMarco's persona precedes him. He's a bedroom auteur in the great tradition of R. Stevie Moore and Ariel Pink, and he's managed to cut some of the most fan-beloved records of the 2010s. Budgets? Shoestring. Mic closet? Not enviable. Collaborators? Once a guy named...
"What you can control are knobs, faders, and being a nice person." For ten years Richard Swift's been luring the hippest of indie rock bands to Cottage Grove, in the middle of Oregon, to work with him at his National Freedom Studio in his backyard. In a career that...
Not only is Gebre Waddell the CEO of Soundways [Tape Op #118], he runs Stonebridge Mastering in his hometown of Memphis, created the Refinement plug-in, and is the author of the book, Complete Audio Mastering: Practical Techniques, published by McGraw-Hill.
Irene Trudel might just be one of the most private people in public radio. A self-professed introvert, Irene has worked in public and commercial radio for over 30 years, and is now a head engineer for WNYC 93.9 FM. Since 1986 she's also hosted her own weekly show on WFMU (Irene...
I read Thomas Dolby's recent autobiography, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology: A Memoir, and wanted to learn more about his recording life and thoughts. See also the sidebar to our interview with Mike Shipley [Tape Op #118], where Thomas talked...
I have been a big fan of spring and plate reverbs for decades, and over the past three years I have spent a significant amount of time diving into the wormhole of designing and building them, initially for my own use and now for others. There are many amazing vintage units in existence...
As a young man, Glenn Berger got the break of a lifetime working under Phil Ramone [Tape Op #50] as an engineer at A&R Recording in New York in the early '70s. After 20 years of studio work he quit and became a psychotherapist, and in 2016 he published a book about his time in...
A major star in her native land, via her successful acting and music careers, Argentina's Juana Molina should be a household name in the rest of the world. In 2000 a friend passed along a copy of Juana's second release, Segundo, and I have been hooked since. In April 2017 she...
This year, 2017, marks the 50th anniversary of the recording of The Zombies' Odessey and Oracle, a record virtually ignored when it was released, yet now considered a classic of the late '60s. The Zombies had seen hit songs in the years before this album, yet they were...
Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad are established artists and producers in their own right, and each have contributed to an enviable stack of recording projects including A Tribe Called Quest, J Dilla, Jay Z, Bilal, Ghostface Killah, Lucy Pearl, The Ummah, D'Angelo, and many...
Ending up in Nashville after growing up in Pennsylvania, Justin Cortelyou has carved out a solid career as an engineer working under studio legends like Bob Ezrin Tape Op #31], Mike Shipley [#118], Chuck Ainlay [#97], and Bil VornDick. In sessions, he's engineered, edited, and...
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Either/Or, the third album by my late friend and co-conspirator Elliott Smith. I was asked by his family and label, Kill Rock Stars, to oversee the remastering process for this record [Either/Or: Expanded Edition], source and mix bonus tracks, as...