Piper Payne is a Mastering Engineer at Coast Mastering (formerly Michael Romanowski Mastering) in San Francisco. Piper is the Vice President of the SF Chapter of the Recording Academy and she Co-Chairs the SF Producers and Engineers Wing. She also serves on the Education Committee. In addition she is an active member of the AES and the Women’s Audio Mission, as well as being the CEO of Giving Stage. Piper is an audio educator and lectures often about mastering and recording. She is also a first-call for large venue concert and classical recordings.
Piper began her career with a BFA in Audio from the University of Michigan, continuing her Graduate education in Audio at the University of Stavanger in Norway. Piper has apprenticed under some of the best Mastering and audio mentors in the world, including Bob Katz in Orlando and Michael Romanowski in San Francisco. Piper moved to San Francisco after working at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada as the Senior Audio Associate in a work-study program that had her climbing glaciers for film sound design and recording jazz orchestras in the same day! Piper’s focus is Mastering and she lives for quality and equality in audio.
Piper and Matt talk with each other at her new location at Coast Mastering in Berkeley, CA. They two chat about moving to a new facility, room tuning, parking, coffee and audiophiles.
Eli Crews has been recording since the early-’90s, when he started making weirdo fractured music on 4-track machines, hugely inspired by The Residents and early Devo. At the time he was also a very active musician, playing guitar and bass in a zillion and a half San Francisco bands. Over the course of making a few albums at small studios owned by Myles Boisen and Kyle Statham, he became inspired to pursue recording himself. Already being part of a vibrant music community, it was easy to find musicians and bands to practice his skills on.
Things have luckily come a long way since then. Artists Eli has had the enormous fortune to work with, either in the studio or onstage, include tUnE-yArDs, ?uestlove, Yoko Ono, Kathleen Hanna/The Julie Ruin, Yuka Honda/Cibo Matto, Sean Ono Lennon/The GOASTT, Yo La Tengo, Laurie Anderson, Marc Ribot, Deerhoof, WHY?, Son Lux, Colin Stetson, Mike Watt, Erase Errata, Scott Amendola, Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Fred Frith, Ben Goldberg, Nels Cline (Wilco), Greg Cohen (Masada/Tom Waits), and Maria Muldaur. He has also assisted legendary engineers Roger Moutenout, Oz Fritz, and Ron St. Germain.
Eli spends most of his days working at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, NY, although he still co-owns New, Improved Recording in Oakland, CA, which he co-founded in 2003. He has also made albums at Tiny Telephone (SF), Fantasy Studios (Berkeley), Electric Lady Studios (NYC), Oscilloscope (NYC), the Bunker (Brooklyn), High Bias Recording (Detroit) and Broken Radio Studios (RIP!).
Eli and Matt talk about moving out of the Bay Area to New York, Family, interns and much more.
Eric chats with Matt about Undertone Audio, DIY acoustics, recording Dave Grohl & Dennis Chambers plus working his ass off and the importance of bringing your A-game. Moto the Bulldog makes an appearance by snoring during the interview.
“I grew up in southern San Diego. My parents were big fans of music and introduced me to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin early on. I used to collect cassettes & CD’s in the early ’90s and eventually I became interested enough to play an instrument, so I bought a guitar. I took lessons for a few years and had some bands but I realized that it wasn’t a natural thing for me. I eventually figured out that I was meant to produce and engineer music.”
Matt and Greg chat about working for Steve Vai and what he’s learned from working with Vai over the years, work/life balance, buying gear, and what Greg finds important in purchasing decisions.
Kim Rosen grew up in the western Massachusetts town of Northampton. Known for its amazing college music scene, the town and surrounding area is infamous for spawning such ground-breaking acts as Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr. and Buffalo Tom…just to name a few.
Kim realized early-on that music was a driving force in her life. She poured herself into the local music scene while searching out a way to carve a path for herself. It was in the summer of 2001 that a friend turned her on to a mastering studio in NJ that was looking for an intern. Kim jumped at the opportunity, moved to NJ and began her journey with West West Side Music.
After a couple of years in production, training and assisting in sessions, Kim was given the opportunity to take on her own mastering projects. While engineering at West West Side Kim racked up a few hundred mastering credits including notable projects from Jeremy Enigk, Franz Ferdinand, Dashboard ConfessionalandLa Dispute.
In 2009 Kim dove in head-first and made the decision to go out on her own. She started Knack Mastering out of her home in Ringwood, NJ; building a proper room with the help of world-renowned acoustician Chris Pelonis, choosing the gear that would live in her racks, and growing a client list from around the world that now includes producers and engineers such as Joe Henry, Paul Bryan, Ryan Freeland and Will Yip.
Over the last five years, Kim’s mastered albums fromBettye Lavette, Wynonna Judd, Jeff Bridges and the Abiders, The Barr Brothers, Sarah Jaffe, Title FightandAnthony Green.She was fortunate enough to master the remake of the Johnny Cash album “Bitter Tears” for Sony Masterworks which featured artists such asEmmylou Harris, Steve Earl, Kris Kristofferson, Gillian Welch and the Milk Carton Kids.Another recent project was the beautifulRhiannon GiddensandIron & Winerendition of “Forever Young” for the Series Finale of NBC’s blockbuster television series “Parenthood”.
Kim continues to build a client base of artists, producers, labels and engineers who trust her ears, her experience and, above all, her respect for their mixes.
Matt and Kim discuss parenting, clients, retirement and partnering up with Nashville based studio Welcome to 1979.
Bird and Egg studio owner Nino Moschella is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, and producer, who has been professionally engineering and producing for 15 years (though his interest in record-making started nearly 25 years ago). Born into a musical family, Nino began playing drums at the age of 6 when his father asked him to keep time on the snare drum at a band rehearsal after the band’s drummer failed to show. At that point, Nino was hooked and in time added vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboard to his repertoire.
Moschella opened Bird and Egg in2009. The studio has thrived and become a favorite of many of the Bay Area’s top musicians and singers. Moschella has had the opportunity to have supported the creation of a vastly diverse range of music for artists including, The late Skip Pitts (Issac Hayes Guitar player), Dennis Coffey, Chief Xcel of Blackalicious, Ledisi, Bernard Purdie, Laurie Lewis, Galactic, Ladybug Mecca (Digable Planets), Ashling Cole (of Larry Graham and Graham central station), Bilal, Maria Muldaur, Tiffany Austin, Strange Vine, !!!, and Shawn Lee among many others.
Nino has released 5 records of his own, all of which he recorded/produced and played most of the instruments, including three solo records out on the Ubiquity record label. His music has been featured on television and film including The Monuments men, Damages, Facing Ali, Eastbound and Down, Lincoln Heights among others. He lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and kids and loves to fish.
Matt turned a coffee meeting and gear sale into an interview with Nino. Matt and Nino discuss kids, studio ownership, mixing with clients or without as well as open communication with those you work with.
John Greenham has had a love affair with mastering for over 20 years, starting in San Francisco at Rocket Lab in the mid-90s, and currently in Los Angeles where he re-located to in 2012 to work at Infrasonic Sound in Echo Park alongside Pete Lyman and Jeffrey Ehrenberg. John has earned several awards over the course of his career including Los Tigres Del Norte: Historias Que Contar – Grammy Winner 2006 (Mastering), Detalles Y Emociones – Grammy Winner 2007 (Mastering), Tu Noche Con…Los Tigres Del Norte – Grammy Winner 2009 (Mastering) Omar Sosa: Ceremony – Echo Jazz Award Big Band Album of the Year 2011 (Mixing, Mastering)
John’s nominations include Sistema Bomb – Electro-Jarocho – Nominated for a Latin Grammy 2013 (Mastering), Los Cojolites – Sembrando Flores – Nominated for a Latin Grammy 2013 (Mixing, Mastering), Omar Sosa – Calma – Nominated for a Latin Grammy 2011 (Mixing, Mastering), Pamela Rodriguez – Peru Blue – Nominated for Best New Artist, Latin Grammys 2006 (Mixing, Mastering)
John and Matt have been friends for several years and turn one of their recent calls into an interview to discuss mastering, mixing, working in a facility vs. being a freelancer as well as the anticipation of waiting for a client’s approval of a master or mix. Enjoy.
Daniel Cantor is an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of music and Teaches music production in the Songwriting Department and Music Productions and Engineering Department. Dan in 2015 received Berklee’s prestigious Fly Grant for teaching innovation and with that grant brought 2 male and 2 female outspoken Muslim Hip-Hop artists from Iraq, Syria, Jamaica and London to the Berklee campus. The artists came to teach, collaborate and perform with students and do work shops in over 25 classes discussing gender and religion in Hip-Hop, protest music, the nuances of teaching hip-hop at a music school, navigating Artist identity, Hip-hop production, humor, protest and the complex roles and choices facing of Arab and Arab Americans performers.
Originally Dan was a self producing artist in his own right w the band Hummer(on Accurate records) Dan became seduced by the role of the producer. Dan and his Studio Notable Productions have now produced many 100’s of albums for Global and American artists with various productions jobs for as diverse a crown as Aerosmith, Peggy Seager, Mr. Lif and Thomas Mapfumo in a wide range of genres and and recently won the Domincan version of a Grammy in 2014 for best album of the year and was nominated yet again in 2015. He is internationally known for his Global Hip-hop work with the Label he helped launch with his cousin Ben Herson…. Nomadic Wax records, which began with the Senegalese compilations “African underground Volumes 1 and 2” that topped the charts in Africa and Europe.
He scored , mixed and helped produce the Documentary “Democracy In Dakar” that followed a Senegalese election through the eyes of its ever vigil and informed Hip-Hop stars, who ultimately played a crucial role in the election itself.
With Nomadic Wax Dan has produced and recorded the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival for 10 years running and through that has recorded and worked with Talib Kweli, Jean Grae , Poetic Pilgrimage, Brother Ali, Krs -One, Dead Prez to name a few out of over 100’s of both global and American hip-hop artists. He is proud to have helped produce and master the “World Hip Hip Women” compilations volume one and two. Much of the music he loves working on is political in nature. “The story behind a piece of music is its life force” . The anti bush song “ Asshole” he co-wrote and produced with the boston band Jim’s Big Ego got 4 millions downloads in 6 months way before YouTube was even around. Even before teaching at Berklee he donated his studio and talents to student winners of Berklee’s “Music for Social Change Competition” and was music and financial executive producer for albums by artists from Mali, Zimbabwe, Cape Verde, Jamaica, India, Senegal, Italy, and Iraq. Dan helped US Peace keepers create recordings to teach indigenous language to border conflict deployed troops. Dan produced tracks with and for popular Congolese artists working with USAID to bring unity back to a community ravaged by violence against families but especially women. Dan recently recorded the Sierra Leone Refugee all-stars at his home to spread positive radio messages about Ebola prevention through out Africa.
Dan links his heartfelt feminist leanings to his grandmother Lucille, who taught him to be vocal and stand against injustice. She was an early president of the League of Woman voters and was arm and arm with her friend Carrie Chapman Catt.
You can see Dan in the 2015 Aljazeera documentary about the brilliant female Muslim duo Poetic Pilgrimage called “Hip-hop Hijabs”. He is beardless but none the less vigilant.
Busy guy! Dan talks with Matt about selling gear, global Hip Hop, running a commercial studio in his house where his family lives as well as speaker placement.
Sean McLaughlin loves a lot of things, but his two favorite things are his wife and recording/mixing songs. After working in Los Angeles for the early part of the 2000s with some notable producers (Andy Johns, Jimbo Barton, Carmen Rizzo) and artists (Rush, Elliott Smith, Marilyn Manson, Death Row Records) Sean returned to Boston in 2004 to open his own studio, 37’ Productions. Since opening his studio Sean has been working on projects and with artists both regionally and nationally. Some of the artists with whom he has plied his trade are Matchbox Twenty, Queensryche, Dirty Vegas, Sarah Blacker, Kristen Merlin, Rafael Moreira, and Dark New Day, as well as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, MTV, and ESPN. In 2013, Sean had the honor of being named Producer of the Year by the New England Music Awards. Since the beginning of 2013, he has mixed over 500 songs. In 2014 he authored Mixing with iZotope, a comprehensive mixing guide for beginner to intermediate mixers. Sean also teaches Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music and Audio & Media Technology at the New England Institute of Art. Sean and Matt discuss studio ownership, insurance, retirement, alternative jobs for recording engineers as well as numerous other career-related topics.
Warren Huart is an English music producer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. He has played a fundamental part in the creation of many platinum-selling and billboard soaring albums, as well as the development of many of today’s most successful artists’ careers. He also has the Produce Like A Pro video series, which offers recording tutorials to beginners as well as Spitfire Music, a one-stop music house focusing on licensing music for film and tv.
Warren is known for his hard work ethic, positive attitude and respect for the artist’s vision. Many of his long term relationships have turned into close friendships. With over 20 years of experience in the ever-expanding music industry (record production, engineering, mixing, and songwriting), as well his extensive knowledge of both modern and vintage musical equipment and instruments, Warren manages to create the most diverse sound around.
Warren and Matt talk about vintage gear, work-life balance, commutes, kids and populous politics in the music industry.
CatherineVericolli lives in a recording studio, or rather her studio has taken over most of her residence since its beginnings in 2005. As an owner, engineer, and occasional tech at Fivethirteen Recording in Phoenix, AZ, she is dedicated to keeping the traditional analog recording process alive in the desert. Going on a decade of being in business, Fivethirteen has grown out of its local musician homestead roots into a stop-off for touring nationals and international bands, guest engineers, and home for the occasional film score. Added on in 2010, Fivethirteen’s mixing suite has become one of Arizona’s premier mixing destinations, and with the installation of an RND 5088 in it’s tracking control room during the summer of 2013, Catherine has since taken on the studio’s management position full time. She also coedits and writes for Pink Noise Mag (pinknoisemag.com), an online pro audio publication dedicated to increasing the diversity and intellectual tradition of the practice of record making.
Catherine joins Matt for a chat about the challenges in building and running a residential studio in a market not known for its music scene, her role in Pinknoise (pinknoisemag.com) with Allen Farmello (WCA # 031) as well her love for analog recording.
Mark Rubel is Co-Director of Education and Instructor at The Blackbird Academy, an intensive recording school at famed Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN. Since 1980, Mark has made about a zillion recordings at his Pogo Studio in Champaign, IL (currently reopening in Nashville), including such artists as Allison Krauss, Jay Bennett, Ludacris, Hum, Adrian Belew, Melanie, Fall Out Boy, Duke Special, and many others.! !
Mark has taught audio, music business and other subjects at the college level since 1985, and presents audio panels and workshops for various schools and professional organizations around North America. He writes occasionally for recording magazines, including his Tape Op interviews with Les Paul and Terry Manning, with more coming soon. Mark also works as an audio consultant and legal expert witness. His band Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets has been rocking East Central Illinois and beyond for 35 years and counting. Mark continues to cultivate students, cats, songs and friendships in The New Center of the Universe (Nashville), along with his saintly wife Nancy and their intrepid guinea pig, Huckleberry.
Mark talks with Matt about his role at The Blackbird Academy, (career planning, money management, mentoring), what he learned in 34 years of studio ownership, what makes Champaign, Illinois special and why Nashville, Tennessee is great place to call home.
Although widely respected for his abilities as an engineer (one writer wrote “If you don’t generally think of sound production as an art form, you don’t know Joe Barresi”), Joe is first and foremost a musician. He started playing guitar when he was 7 and played in local bands in New York and in Florida. He studied classical guitar, piano, and music theory at the University of South Florida and the University of Miami. Joe also studied engineering and spent hundreds of hours recording local bands, developing patience and understanding for what goes on in the studio.
A trip to the West Coast inspired Joe to move to Los Angeles where he began working his way up the ladder by assisting at numerous local studios. In time, he engineered for many well-respected producers including David Kahne, Michael Beinhorn, and GGGarth Richardson, and gained a reputation for getting great sounds, particularly with guitars and drums.
Soon Joe was producing and mixing records on his own. He produced, recorded, and mixed the debut album for the newly formed Queens Of The Stone Age, which was unsigned at the time. The self-titled album was eventually released by indie label Loose Groove and garnered lots of attention from the press (Rolling Stone named Queens Of The Stone Age one of the ten most important hard & heavy bands of the year) and alternative radio (including KROQ) — all of which landed the band a deal with Interscope Records.
Over the years, Joe has consistently worked with quality artists and made some of their more seminal records — Weezer “Pinkerton,” Melvins “Stoner Witch” and the Queens Of The Stone Age debut, to name a few. His discography reflects his impeccable ear for great rock music.
Joe chats with Matt about his start, studio ownership, how an SSL impacts the electric bill, insurance, covering your ass, and a few thoughts on phase. Enjoy!
Myles Boisen has enjoyed a 35-year career in recording, beginning as the head instructor at one of the country’s first accredited university-level recording studio programs. With his roots in the punk rock/ D.I.Y. recording scene of the late 1970’s, Myles has avoided the world of major labels and top-dollar studios, choosing instead to pursue affordable and top-quality recording from his Oakland CA. Guerrilla Recording/ Headless Buddha mastering complex for the past 20 years.
Boisen’s articles and reviews over a ten-year span at Electronic Musician magazine were known for fiercely high standards, and a no-nonsense attitude that made him many friends among recordists and readers, as well as a few enemies in the corporate pro audio world! Along the way there have been Grammy nominations, film soundtracks with David Lynch and composer Fred Frith, and sessions and gigs with a who’s who of the avant-garde, jazz, out-rock and blues worlds (Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, Nina Hagen, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Kronos String Quartet, The Tigerlillies, Klaus Flouride (Dead Kennedys) Kim Wilson, Camper Van Beethoven, Malcolm Mooney (Can), Seth Ford-Young (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros), Johnny Dyer, Rick Estrin, Francis Clay (Muddy Waters).
Myles joins Matt for an in depth discussion on studio ownership, retirement, gear lust on Working Class Audio session #032. Listen for a code to get a discount on Sonarworks speaker calibration software.
Allen Farmelo has begun to call himself a “recordmaker”.”We all do everything these days,” he says, “and the old terms like producer, engineer, mixer, carry so many assumptions that aren’t really accurate these days. They have their roots in a much more ordered hierarchy that’s rarely true today.” As a record maker, Allen has worked intimately with everyone from Ian Gillan of Deep Purple to The Cinematic Orchestra. Allen has also worked with a slew of rather huge pop artists that he doesn’t put on his discography because, as he puts it, “Fattening up one’s discography with incidental big-name sessions doesn’t tell the real story. I just put the stuff on there that’s really got my fingerprints all over it. That way people know what I’m truly inclined make.” Restlessly pushing for the return of high fidelity as a popular interest, fighting to raise the female participation in our field beyond 5% with his publication Pink Noise (co-edited with Catherine Vericolli), writing classic essays about recording like his “Sonic Varnish” piece (he coined the term), building one of the most beautiful recording consoles ever with François Chambard of UM Project, launching Elska, which is known as Bjork for Children, with his life-partner, and now running the decidedly artsy record label Butterscotch Records, Allen has eschewed the temptations of mainstream success (including a nicely salaried position at one of the Big Three) to pursue endeavors on the fringes where he seems to thrive. He recently bought a one room schoolhouse built-in 1873. About an hour from New York City, and has relocated home and studio to the schoolhouse where he’s become obsessed with gardening.
Photo by Evelin Cheugn (taken at The Bunker Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn NYC)
Bruce Kaphan is a producer/engineer/mixer and one hell of pedal steel player! Bruce has worked with so many names in the music world on both sides of the glass including John Lee Hooker, Sheryl Crowe, Jellyfish as well as American Music Club of which he is a former member of. Bruce sits down with Matt at his home studio in Fresno (Niles), California to discuss all aspects of the recording world including health, life, gear, retirement and even brain functionality! We go deep on this one. We also announce a change to the show!
Dan Jaspar is a sound mixer, boom operator, and sound designer from the Bay Area. As a Graduate of San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Cinema production and Sound Design he continues to work in the field of production audio for the film and video Industry. Dan and Matt have worked together in the past when Dan was fronting the Bay Area band Yellow 5 and not yet standing out on a film set with a boom pole recording. Dan sits down with Matt for a detailed discussion on the nuts and bolts of location sound recording.
John Siket is a producer, engineer, and mixer and is best known for his work with Sonic Youth, Phish, Yo La Tengo, Dave Matthews Band, Blonde Redhead, Fountains of Wayne, Moe, Peter Murphy, Freedy Johnston, and Ex Cops. Having spent 30 years in the recording world, John has amassed a world of experience. John has also has been fortunate to work alongside producer/engineers Steve Lily White and Butch Vig. John takes the time to talk with Matt about these experiences as well as his love for recording, starting out as the low man on the totem pole and his decision to take on a teaching position at SAE in New York.
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