Interviews

WE TALK AT LENGTH WITH RECORD-MAKERS ABOUT HOW THEY MAKE RECORDS.

Kito

Interviews | No. 173

Kito: Music Anywhere

By Meredith Hobbs Coons and Samuel Ramirez

Kito, whose given name is Maaike Kito Lebbing, has a music production career spanning three continents, from Australia, to Europe (London), and to the United States by way of Los Angeles. In that time, she has produced music for many iconic artists, such as Mabel, Jorja Smith, and...

Larry Packer is "Uncle Punchy"
Mar 6, 2026 NO. 20 Interview

Larry Packer is "Uncle Punchy": Embracing Digital

Larry Packer owns and operates Uncle Punchy Studios in Silver Spring, Maryland. His current setup includes 20-bit ADATs (32 tracks) as well as Pro Tools Mix Plus and a Yamaha 02-R digital console. Larry has worked with artists such as with Clutch, Sixty-Watt Shaman, and Avail as well as...

Tobin Sprout
Dec 26, 2025 NO. 20 Interview

Tobin Sprout: Post Guided by Voices

Tobin Sprout has been looming large in the basement recording scene for quite some time now. Since his early days with Figure 4 he's been crafting rock songs and laying them down on pretty much everything from 4-track and 8-track cassettes to 24-track analog and many-track digital...

Scott Fritz of KRCW
Dec 26, 2025 NO. 20 Interview

Scott Fritz of KRCW: Live radio recording

Years ago a friend of mine sent me a cassete with a live broadcast of the Go-Betweens, Downey Mildew and Glass Eye that he recorded off the radio from KCRW (public radio 89.9FM) in Santa Monica, California. These weren't crummy recordings by any means, and when I saw that...

Walford Studio
Dec 26, 2025 NO. 20 Interview

Walford Studio: Special Ed?

Now I know a lot of people established in the industry today say, "A school can't teach you about recording, what could a class possibly teach you about the complexities of the recording industry?"

Adam Lasus
Mar 6, 2026 NO. 20 Interview

Adam Lasus

Deep in the industrial wasteland of Red Hook, Brooklyn, Adam Lasus has turned an old firehouse into a recording outpost called Fireproof Recording. With the pole still intact, the firehouse proves an interesting place to make records. After checking out other studios, my band North Sea...

Dave Bottrill
Apr 13, 2026 NO. 19 Interview

Dave Bottrill: Working with Peter Gabriel, Tool, Eno...

At any given instance in time, David Bottrill partakes in one of three activities. He is either submerged in the realm of slumber, routing signals on a recording console or is seated in an airplane high above the ground. In fact, he travels so often that the next time you gaze up at the...

Jim Dickinson
Feb 25, 2026 NO. 19 Interview

Jim Dickinson: Legendary Memphis Producer

Somewhere on the thorny road to legend, hotel recording genius (and Eric Clapton victim) Robert Johnson wrote, "This stuff I got'll bust your brains out." While he may have been referring to the poison that took his life, he may as well have been describing the...

Andy Partridge
Dec 26, 2025 NO. 19 Interview

Andy Partridge

I saw XTC live on November 23, 1980, at the Masonic Temple Auditorium, Detroit, MI, USA opening for The Police. The only problem with the show was that I had no idea who XTC was. I remember a visually jarring slide show (or was it a film?), Dave Gregory walking over to play keyboards...

The Ex
Feb 27, 2026 NO. 19 Interview

The Ex

It made sense that in the summer of 1999, the 10th anniversary show of the current line-up of The Ex took place in Amsterdam and included Shellac as well as a host of great experimental Dutch bands and performers. Shellac's Steve Albini [Tape Op#87] has been a loyal fan of The Ex...

Some 4-Track Cassette Tips
Apr 10, 2026 NO. 19 Interview

Some 4-Track Cassette Tips

Here's two routing tricks for cassette 4-tracks:

1) When recording, bypass the channel mic inputs and instead use line or aux inputs whenever possible. This can audibly increase the clarity of the recorded signal. For mics, obviously, this will only be possible if you have an...