Don’t Pass Up Part One!
EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM
In the early 2020s, Curb Entertainment began a massive restoration of the former Masterfonics facility at 28 Music Circle South, with its much-beloved Glenn Meadows- and Tom Hidley-designed studios. Kalmusky happened to stop by in November 2023, and within 10 minutes, he says, after a walk-through of The Mix Room, he could picture the next iteration of Addiction Sound Studio: no live tracking space; the band in the control room on headphones; couches, comfy chairs and a drum kit; a station for 60 guitars and multiple pedal boards, another for a dozen keyboards; racks of vintage outboard gear, sitting alongside Pro Tools, Ableton and Logic—and it would all be patched in, ready to record at any time. No waiting.
“I didn’t intend to build this room out so that it would accommodate the most people; it was actually more selfish than that,” Kalmusky says with a laugh. “I had just signed a publishing deal with Jonas Entertainment Group, and when I’m developing new material, I am approaching it from the guitar-drums-bass musician chair.
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“Later, I had a conversation with a friend, Craig Alvin, who booked my mix room at the original facility, and he loved the approach that all this vintage gear is already patched in and it’s perfectly calibrated,” he continues. “If he wants a Sta-Level, it’s on channel 18. If you want a 176 for your vocal, send it out to channel 21. This room is the curated greatest hits of all my favorite stuff, all in one place for all of our collaborators and co-writers to use.
“Clients love the vibe in the room. They love sitting around as a band with total eyesight and contact. We just work on headphones, sitting around the console like a lot of musicians have for years. I doubled down and put 10 Wolff Audio headphone boxes, the MeMore cue stations, in there and in my iso room, and we’re making real, full-on records sitting around the console for the first time in my career. It feels like your first band practice when you’re a teenager and you put together a kick-ass band, right there in your neighborhood.”
