Recording Studio Rockstars

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

My guest today is Larry Droppa the owner and president of API since 1999, when he acquired the company at auction. He and two friends launched ATI, the live console company, in 1988, positioning that company’s Paragon console as the premier live sound mixing tool for many years. After adding Uptown Automation in 1995 and then API in ’99, Larry’s quest for audio manufacturing notability had been satisfied. He spent the first half of his professional career as a live mixing engineer, progressing from a local bar band, to a small regional sound company, to one of the larger live sound companies in the US. Larry has toured with folk groups, orchestras, pop and rock bands and spent an ear-splitting 6 weeks on the road with the band listed in the 1984 Guinness Book of World Records as the ‘Loudest Band In A Performance’. But the highlight of his live mixing days is unquestionably the 12 years he spent mixing in-ear monitors for Stevie Wonder. Stevie was an early adopter of in-ears and Larry developed both high-qual

My guest today is Bjorgvin Benediktsson an Icelandic-American author, audio educator, and entrepreneur. He is also a friend of mine and the founder of www.audio-issues.com where he has taught thousands of music producers how to make a bigger impact with their music since 2009.  His latest book, You Get What You Give is a business parable a la The Go-Giver that follows Casey, an aspiring music producer stuck in a dead-end job. He dreams of becoming successful in the music industry but has no idea how to find clients. After a disastrous start (sound familiar?), he meets a mentor who teaches him the success principles he needs to make an impact and find success with his music.   Björgvin is the author of seven other books in the music industry: Step By Step Mixing, Get More Gigs, and Better Mixes in Less Time. He has written over 1,000 articles on music production and his advice has been featured in publications such as MusicTech magazine, The Huffington Post, CD Baby's DIY Musician's Blog, Audiotuts, and the SA

My guest today is Adam Greenspan A Grammy-nominated engineer, mixer, and producer who had a pretty good start to his career engineering Faith No More’s “Album of the Year” at age 20. He later spent time at two world-class studios, Westlake Audio and The Village Recorder, working with artists such as Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, and Bono before going freelance in 2000. As a consultant for setting up home studios, he met Nick Launay and began collaborating on albums by Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Refused, while at the same time taking on more and more producing and mixing gigs of his own for the likes of The Veils, INVSN, and French Style Furs (featuring members of Cold War Kids.) More recently Adam has seen great success receiving a Mercury prize nomination for IDLES “Joy As An Act Of Resistance.” also nominated for Best Album at the UK Music Producers Guild Awards and won the Ivor Novello award for writing. In 2019 Adam was Grammy-nominated for Thomas Dybdahl “All These Things” and he just

My guest today is Rafa Sardina a recording and mixing engineer with 5 Grammy wins, 12 Latin Grammy awards, and a total of 60 Grammy nominations during his career including winning the South African SAMA award in 2018. A Basque native of Spain Rafa started out with four years in med school before deciding to pursue his passion for music which led him to Full Sail University.  After graduating as valedictorian he found himself at Oceanway in Los Angeles working with a wide variety of artists including the Black Crows, Celine Dion, Greenday, Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Frank Sinatra to name a few. Today he works from his own After Hours Studios where he regularly mixes artists from around the world. Though Rafa is best known for working on pop, rock and R&B projects, he has recorded and mixed just about any genre of music you can imagine: orchestral recordings, big band, R&B, dance, gospel, soul, rap, choral, film/TV soundtracks and huge movie scores like “Any given Sunday”, “

My guest today is S. Husky Hoskulds a Grammy winning engineer, and mixer who moved to LA in 1991 to study audio engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles.  He began his career working with Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake as a staff engineer at The Sound Factory in the early 1990s but would quickly move on to independent projects with Michael Penn, The Wallflowers, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits and steady collaboration with Mike Patton on his various projects.  In 2002 he won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical alongside Jay Newland for the multiple awarded debut album Come Away with Me by Norah Jones co-produced by Craig Street. Husky’s many credits also include Joe Henry, Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Mavis Staples, Ann Peebles, Bettye Lavette, My Brightest Diamond, Billy Preston, Aloan, Chocolate Genius, Fantomas, Sheryl Crow and many more... Thanks to Andris at JZ microphones for making our introduction. Thanks to our sponsors! Soundporter Mastering: Get your free mas

My guests today are Roger Alan Nichols and Tyler Bryant. Roger has been a guest on the show before to talk about producing great rock records with his band Dreaming In English and artists like Paramore, Seal, Larking Poe, and Steven Tyler and you can hear his story on episode RSR45. But today we are here to talk about the records he makes with the other Tyler of Nashville based rock band Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown. Tyler is a gifted singer and guitarist who has released four successful studio albums with his band. He has toured with such groups as Jeff Beck, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses and Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as playing several rock focused music festivals. The group's current lineup consists of Tyler Bryant (lead guitar & vocals), Graham Whitford (rhythm guitar), Ryan Fitzgerald (bass), and Caleb Crosby (drums). Recently Roger recorded Tyler and the band for their new record Pressure and powerful driving rock album that sounds like Audioslave, The Foo Fighters, and Tom Petty all wra

My guest today is Brent McCollough a Nashville-based producer, keyboardist, and artist.  He started playing the piano by ear at the age of five later accepting a full scholarship at the University of Alabama to pursue a degree in Music Production and Performance followed by a full-time graduate teaching fellowship for his master’s degree in Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas.  He records and mixes his own music as well as artists all over the country, and plays keyboards and sings for many bands like The Black Jacket Symphony, and Trace Atkins. More recently he became well known for his coronavirus parody video, “Stayin’ Inside,” which went viral and was shared by the Bee Gees, John Travolta, and countless news networks all over the world.  Brent’s studio work and content creation spans many various genres, and he is also regularly hired to mix and master live performances. He currently runs Brent McCollough Studios and prides himself in making his clients’ musical dreams become reality. Brent also

My guest today is Tony Black a Grammy-winning music producer, mixer/engineer & songwriter/musician. He has contributed to recordings totalling more than 50 million units sold or downloaded. He won a GRAMMY AWARD for his contribution to the album “THE DIARY OF ALICIA KEYS” for BEST R&B ALBUM. He also mixed and recorded  “RIDE OR DIE” on the Grammy-winning album  JAY-Z “HARD KNOCK LIFE VOL.2”.  Tony spent many years in NYC at legendary studios such as The Power Station, The Hit Factory, Quad, and Electric Lady. He became part of the 90’s hip-hop scene that would go on to make music history. Working with artists such as Notorious BIG, Jay Z, Q tip, Lil Kim, P. Diddy(Puffy), Cam’ron, Wu Tang Clan, Michael Jackson and too many others to list, he clocked in more than 4000 sessions in the 90’s alone.  These sessions led to a 6-year working relationship with Alicia Keys. He recorded and mixed all of The Diary of Alicia Keys. He continues mixing, recording, and producing new music today for label artists, indi