We had a desk custom-made to house some quick-access gear, plus the 24ch control surface mixer.

One of the room setups we've had over the years, things change every few months based on usage, but this was one of the coziest.

Drums in the big room, this was a setup for rehearsal.

What the control room looked like for most of the 2010's

Matt being pensive while doing a vocal session. Three singers at once, though the harmonies were pretty crazy.

Dana prepping the harp for one of her songs.

To toss around while bands make their takes.

Guitar station. Toss the amps in separate rooms, keep the players together and quiet.

Nice to have some sight lines, though it's never easy with big rooms and complex setups.

Lots of space.

Most of the listening is done on consumer tools, if you can find the right ones to trust.

A handy tool in mastering that hasn't been digitally replicated yet. Made by Airfield Audio, which seems to have ceased business recently.

Mini programming setup.

Messy room with rehearsals and trying to restore a clavinet some years ago.

B&W 802N speakers, they were my first full(er) range speakers that I purchased. They've been replaced.

Now that is a dirty keyboard. From the second Mac I purchased, 2008.

I keep pulling the piano apart every once in a while to try and get it feeling and sounding better. It's a work in progress.

This is what every indie session looks like, basically.

Back when we'd be producing multiple full albums at once (as opposed to singles), I'd keep amp heads ready to go, and stacks of outboard to try out. The glory days.

I sent Don Voth from iTronix some schematics and original transformers and he made a custom PCB for these pultecs. Outputs are slightly cleaner and I can use them on full mixes, though they'll always be to add a certain character.

When I first started out at the studio as an assistant, it was my job to change the light bulbs. What a joy it was to finally pass it on to the next assistant. That ladder was scary.

Some arrangement thoughts during an early session. I'm kicking myself for not pulling out the camera until the last few years.

The view from my keyboard rig during a multitrack recording and video shoot at the Lyric Theatre.

The long view of the big room. In 2020 there are some video sets that take up about half the space in there.

A rare relaxed moment in the studio.

A bit of filming for a session. If you want a real challenge, try to recording keeper video and keeper audio at the same time.

Where so much of the tracking happens. The photo is misleading, it looks like a small room of bedroom size, but the ceiling is 18ft and the room expands to the other side with angled walls, meaning it's in a whole other league from home setups. The tube mic from the 60's helps too.

This was the control room when I first walked through the door. You can see the first signs of digital recording taking over, as everyone starts putting things on the console that you'd never have done the previous 30 years... The console lasted 2 years then we sold it.

Try this out: borrow 5 or 6 pairs of speakers/consumer speakers, and do a 5 min mix on each of them. Then listen in the car to the various mixes. You'll quickly find which ones work for you.

Daniel's drums, nicely isolated. You get a smaller/tighter sound with a smaller space. Not a box.

Can you spot what's missing in this photo? For Carine's promo only, something's not plugged in...

While it looks like everyone's digging the arrangement, we're actually ordering takeout.

The great Shorr.

Probably the most-used outboard around here, it's a nice touch on the way into the daw.

Tried out a few summing busses. The verdict? Lol..

To give some acoustic feedback for the engineer, I had some panels in the middle of the speaker setup. Then I had to decorate them...

This is what acoustic interference looks like. Those are some pretty big nulls in an untreated environment.

The current speakers, took about 2 years to plan and 4 months to build them. Simple and complex in the right spots, designed to be used with a specific type of subwoofer, they do what I need them to do better than any other options.

I took 3 different small speakers and put them on a plank of wood, and can switch between them for an extra bunch of bandwidth-limited references. Very handy, and fun to diy.

Hands down the best gui in a plugin ever.

For this particular session, we had so many players needing sightlines, we put the 2nd bassist (!) in the video studio with a camera feed for cues. Wild.

Helen is a fantastic performer and an inspired teacher. We've done a zillion albums together and I finally pulled the camera out for the last one.

Live recording on the road.