Songwriter/vocal producer Kuk Harrell (right) with singer Kristinia DeBarge in the Boom Boom Room, Harrell’s home base
on the West Coast
Atlanta-based songwriter and vocal producer Thaddis “Kuk” Harrell—who shared in two 2010 Grammy Awards with his partners Christopher “Tricky” Stewart and Terius “The Dream” Nash for their work on Beyoncé Knowles’ hit single “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”—has recently felt at home in Los Angeles working in the Boom Boom Room. “Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez are the three most recent projects I’ve worked on over the course of 60 days,” Harrell says. “The Boom Boom Room gives me the ability to just lock down and be in my own environment rather than move from room to room in Los Angeles. The vocal booth has a nice, tight, closed-in sound. It’s small and comfortable for the artist, but not too small.”
Harrell says that he makes extensive use of the studio’s Telefunken Ela M 251 microphone and Tube-Tech compressor, adding, “I bring my own rack and my own gear: my Power Mac, which has Pro Tools HD3, and Apogee interfaces with [an Apogee] Big Ben clock.”
Above all, Harrell appreciates the studio’s artist-friendly atmosphere. “The facility as a whole has a very comfortable at-home feeling—not a corporate vibe. The public rooms are really beautiful and calm, very Zen, and it’s very private. Once we are inside, there is a fence around the whole place and you are in your own world. It’s a very creative space.”
