David Kalmusky: Addicted to Music Making, Part 4

Don’t Pass Up Part Three!

PAYING IT FORWARD

Kalmusky has toured the world as a guitarist, booked top studios from San Francisco to London, and worked with a long list of top artists, including Shawn Mendes, Carrie Underwood, John Legend, Joss Stone, Mötley Crüe, Justin Bieber, Mickey Guyton, Journey, Keb Mo, Taj Mahal, Keith Urban, John Oates, The Fray and many others. Today, he exhibits the same enthusiasm over recent releases by Amy Peters, the Protomen, Meghan Patrick, Anders Osborne and Dan Marshall.

Down the hall from the main studio is the 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos mix room. Note the presence of the often-used turntable and ¼-inch tape machine. Photo: David Kalmusky.

“I signed to Jonas Entertainment Group, and they’ve been sending me lots of amazing artists across many different genres, different eras,” Kalmusky says. “Some days, we make an iPhone work tape and a voice memo. Other days, we jump on the drums and we jump on keys. There’s a single out right now by Dan Marshall, ‘This Is Heaven,’ and that whole track was done in this room with me literally running around—I played drums and steel guitar and electric guitar and piano and synth, all in one afternoon.”

• Discover more pro audio news—get a free Mix SmartBrief subscription!

The only people that Kalmusky speaks higher of than the artists are the interns, assistants and techs on his staff. Over the years, he has made a commitment to them, teaching them about the real world and then sending them out to the industry for successful careers. Most came to him from Blackbird Academy, where the late, great Mark Rubel tended to steer the top graduates Kalmusky’s way.

To the right of the Trident console is a “producer’s desk,” featuring TubeTech CL1b, Retro 2A3 Precision Stereo Tube EQ (on Mix Bus), Maag Air Band, SSL G Comp, Wolff Audio Tutti preamp, and Wolff Pre’s and FREQs. Photo: David Kalmusky.

“They don’t stay Blackbird grads for long,” Kalmusky notes. “They quickly become my engineers and assistant engineers and mix assistants. David Shyver, Cam Solen, Ari Phillips, Roland Gnadt and JD Halstead—they’re my team over here and they made this whole relocation easy. They made a plan, and then my former house engineer, Alberto Seawald, who works from Gnome Studios now, and Bobby Louden, who works for Jay Joyce, all came back—it was sort of a reunion of alumni—and there are so many others.

David Kalmusky, left and artist/songwriter John Oates at the Trident TSM console, working on restoring and mixing a rediscovered tape vault multitrack, which will be Oates’ next single, “Goodnight Or Goodbye,” more than 30 years after it was recorded. Photo: Jason Lee Denton.

“Music is supposed to be collaborative, not everyone’s ideas being piled on top of everyone else’s ideas in isolation,” he concludes. “I’ve been making music for a really long time, and over all that time, I think I became a better mix engineer, certainly a better guitar player, a better listener. I learned a lot about technology. But in the last two years, I have felt more energized and inspired than I’ve ever been, just by constantly having collaborators in the room with me at every stop along the way, through the entire process. My game has gone up tenfold. It feels like I’ve been living inside a master class just for me.”