By Barbara Schultz

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 10/01/2014

Remember when engineers weren’t even credited on albums? Labels haven’t always acknowledged the essential role players on both sides of the glass. But at...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 09/01/2014

Lucinda Williams first visited David Bianco’s North Hollywood Studio, Dave’s Room, in December 2012. Bianco had agreed to donate studio time for a benefit...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 09/01/2014

Blues rocker Benjamin Booker is on the road spreading the word about his eponymous debut—sometimes playing his own club dates, other times serving as...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 09/01/2014

A founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dom Flemons plays guitar, banjo, jug, and an assortment of reed and percussion instruments, in old-time...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 08/01/2014

Engineer/producer Ben Greenberg says he enjoys working in “proper studios,” but he’s equally fond of the way he recorded alt-rock band Heaven’s Jail earlier...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 08/01/2014

When producer Joe Chiccarelli describes the Morrissey album he produced last winter as “musical theater,” he doesn’t mean it in the Showboat way. It’s...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 08/01/2014

Producer Milo Froideval spent a month in Detroit, working on pre-production with Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas before bringing the band to residential Sonic...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 07/01/2014

Out this month is Upside Out, a four-song OK Go EP that coincides with the use of one song, “The Writing’s on the Wall,”...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 07/01/2014

“The process was basically, ‘Just play,’” says Tracey Freeman, who produced and mixed the Rebirth Brass Band’s latest release, Move Your Body. Freeman and...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 07/01/2014

L.A. punk outfit The Muffs haven’t released a full-length in a decade, but Whoop Dee Doo is worth the wait.

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 06/01/2014

“When a performer forgets where they are and really puts it down the wires—that’s what we try to preserve at all costs,” says Joel...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 06/01/2014

A couple of months after Lou Reed passed away, A&R rep/music producer Bill Bentley suggested that Joseph Arthur record a tribute to their mutual...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 06/01/2014

“They’re both excellent wordsmiths, and when they harmonize, you can definitely tell there’s that genetic vibration that happens only when people who are related...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 06/01/2014

Guitar master Kenny Wayne Shepherd made his aptly named new release in his hometown of Shreveport, La., bringing his band—singer Noah Hunt, drummer Chris...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 05/01/2014

Katie Herzig’s Walk Through Walls—her third project with producer/engineer Cason Cooley—blends acoustic and electronic sounds that grew from a process the pair have developed...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 05/01/2014

I felt like we were making a record that lived someplace between Memphis and New Orleans,” says engineer Justin Niebank about Rodney Crowell’s new...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 05/01/2014

The Old 97’s new album, Most Messed Up, is a raucous, debauched rock-on-the-road concept album. Yet, the band recorded in a private, light-filled villa...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 04/01/2014

Nick Radovanovic mixed Eric Hutchinson’s infectious new pop album in Skies Fall Studios

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 03/01/2014

Lost in the Trees leader Ari Picker thought he had a well-thought-out map for his band’s latest ethereal prog-folk album, Past Life (Anti). For...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 03/01/2014

Jamie Wellwarth, production manager at Austin’s Continental Club, has been mixing shows, advancing dates and maintaining gear at the venerable roots-music house for more...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 03/01/2014

Linnea Olssen’s beautiful cello-and-voice album was recorded and mixed in Studio Gix (Halmstad, Sweden). The artist did all of her own recording in Logic,...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 03/01/2014

Distorted guitars and punchy drums create an almost harsh sonic environment for Nicole Yun’s ethereal voice, making Eternal Summers’ new release, The Drop Beneath,...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 02/01/2014

In an interview for Electronic Musician magazine last summer, Questlove of The Roots mentioned that he’d learned some eye-opening drum-miking techniques from Gabe Roth,...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 02/01/2014

British alt-rock group Peggy Sue wrote and demoed the songs for their latest album, Choir of Echoes, in their North London practice space before...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 02/01/2014

The latest from Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen is a collaborative record that took years, and a couple of different forms, to arrive. Jorgensen and...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 02/01/2014

The powerful title track from Bruce Springsteen’s new album was recorded with engineer Nick DiDia, mainly at Studios 301 in Sydney, Australia. Producer Ron...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 02/01/2014

Artist/songwriter A.J. Croce’s latest comprises a dozen songs, made in pairs with six different producers: Allen Toussaint, Mitchell Froom, Kevin Killen, Tony Berg, Greg...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 01/01/2014

Engineer Michael Rendall uses the word “ecstatic” to describe the playing on Lo-Fantasy, the latest rock-via-’70s-funk-and-punk album from the Sam Roberts Band. The dynamic...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 01/01/2014

Jazz guitarist Nir Felder touches on different “ages” on this solo release. The former sideman for contemporary artists Esperanza Spalding, Jack DeJohnette, Meshell Ndegeocello...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 01/01/2014

In 2009, Rosanne Cash and her husband, producer/musician/recordist John Leventhal, made The List, a selection of covers from a longer list of essentials that...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 01/01/2014

Jim Heath’s longtime psychobilly outfit releases its debut for Victory Records this month, and Rev does not disappoint. There’s plenty of freaky tongue-in-cheek thrash...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 12/01/2013

Paramount Records, above and beyond any label from the time period, had the very worst sound quality and the very worst pressing technology available,”...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 12/01/2013

This four-song EP from singer Lewis Watson features the guitar-and-vocals-focused opening track “Even If,” which was engineered by Jonathan Gilmore, and produced and mixed...

By By Barbara Schultz ⋅ Published: 12/01/2013

“Billie had been listening to this record and had grown attached to it,” explains Chris Dugan, the go-to engineer/mixer for Billie Joe Armstrong’s projects,...