“Go back and hit the second chorus again, Jeff. That felt rushed to me,” David Nichols said into the talkback mic atop his Focusrite/Digidesign Control 24 console. Behind the glass at Livinghead Audio Recording (Phoenix), the renovated industrial warehouse tracking room is plastered with posters, strung with Christmas lights and full of vintage instruments. Out in the middle of a Persian rug, Jeff Taylor (singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist) plays his Strat through a Marshall half-stack, into a Schoeps tube mic, through an API 312 mic pre, a Manley Vari-MU and one of two brand-new HD 192 I/Os into Pro Tools 6.2.2.
Nothing but good times. Pictured in back row (L-R): Rex Anderson (producer), Grace Royce (staff engineer) and Bridget Gardiner (director of operations). Pictured front row, from left: Andy Beisner (senior engineer), Mike Hissong (senior engineer), Jeffrey Taylor (artist) and David Nichols (studio owner, producer and senior engineer)
At this session, Taylor and Nichols are tracking guitars on Taylor’s upcoming release, a collection of songs that marks Livinghead’s venture into independent record labels. Fifteen years in the studio biz, Nichols has built his world-class recording environment from home studio beginnings, focusing on local Arizona and independent artists while also catering to national acts.
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