Interviews | No. 173
By Larry Crane and Matthew Coughlin
There are a few engineer/producers I've met along the way where I've meant to get an interview with them for ages, but for some reason it takes so much longer for us to find the time to do it. Trina Shoemaker has been one of these elusive folks ever since we first met in New...
When I got the offer to interview Ben Allen I was a little confused at first. I had enjoyed his work with Gnarls Barkley and Animal Collective, but Puff Daddy and the Bad Boy empire? Christina Aguilera? I was an analog purist, and that pop stuff just screamed, "Pro Tools!" I...
If you listen to modern hardcore or metal, you know Kurt Ballou's work. Kurt is a founding member of the band Converge and an accomplished, prolific recordist. "Extreme" music magazine, Decibel, placed five Ballou productions in their 2008 top 40 list, including...
In the disembodied world of today's computer-based multitrack mixing, one can spend a lot of time crafting a unifying sense of "space." Despite the dozens of reverb plug-ins and rack devices available, you might like to experiment with some physical signal processing that...
Mac McCaughan is well known for his 20 years as the front man for the Chapel Hill, NC, band Superchunk, co-owner (with Laura Ballance) of the influential independent record label Merge Records and the leader of his side-project-turned-group, Portastatic. Mac has worked with a number of...
Drummer Alan Evans and his bandmates (Eric Krasno on guitar and Alan's brother Neal Evans on keyboards) have led the funk/jazz trio Soulive through over 10 years of tours, albums and studio sessions. Their latest release, Up Here, is the first on their own Royal Family Records, and...
Gurf Morlix likes to produce, engineer, perform, write and even just plain talk about music. It might sound hackneyed to say, but music is his life's blood, the passion that drives his spirit. Born in 1951 in Buffalo, NY, Morlix decided to become a musician exactly one day after...
For years now I've been bumping into Brad Avenson, a real down-to-earth guy who's been building his Avenson Audio company up with small, ingenious little tools to help us all make better records without busting our wallets. He began building mics with Erik Wofford under the...
From the first moment another engineer raved about a Little Labs DI to me, I knew that this company was onto something special. It turns out Little Labs is Jonathan Little, a man who lives and works out of a funky mansion in the Hollywood Hills where he designs and QCs his unique audio...
On a beautiful day in early March, Oz Fritz showed up at the door of New, Improved Recording — a studio I co-own in Oakland, California. He had been hired by multi- instrumentalist/singer Mark Growden to co- produce and engineer Mark's new record Saint Judas. I was pretty nervous....
On a beautiful day in early March, Oz Fritz showed up at the door of New, Improved Recording — a studio I co-own in Oakland, California. He had been hired by multi- instrumentalist/singer Mark Growden to co- produce and engineer Mark's new record Saint Judas. I was pretty nervous....
On a beautiful day in early March, Oz Fritz showed up at the door of New, Improved Recording — a studio I co-own in Oakland, California. He had been hired by multi- instrumentalist/singer Mark Growden to co- produce and engineer Mark's new record Saint Judas. I was pretty nervous....
Though he's the first to tell you that he's still finding his voice, Mike Odmark's sonic signature had arguably begun to rear its head by the time he made his first attempt at recording an album. After following his brother Matt Odmark out to Nashville in 2004, the...