New Milford, CT (October 7, 2014)—Recording engineer Tony Maserati (Robin Thicke, Pink, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga) recently decided to move back to his personal studio in upstate New York after years spent in L.A.—which still remains the base of his operations for his company Mirrorball Entertainment.
Over the past few years, Maserati wanted to spend more time back east to be closer to family. His re-envisioned space in New York consists of only two pairs of speakers, amplifiers to drive them, a monitor controller, and an empty desk where Maserati puts his laptop. Gone are the racks of gear and a massive console. The room no longer has racks of gear and a big analog console—he works entirely “in the box” in this studio, mostly for recall ability and agility. One thing that had to remain constant in his mind, however, was the placement of RealTraps’ MiniTraps and MondoTraps, shaping the sound of the environment. Maserati replicated their placement just as they’d been when he had used the room daily, prior to his move to Los Angeles. This underlined his feeling that the most important feature of the room is not his gear inside; it’s the space.
“Mixes do often need to go through my analog setup there, but there are quite a number of projects where the timelines are so fast, and there are a tremendous amount of updates with new files coming in so quickly. I need to be able to bring these mixes up anywhere; I can’t be tied down to a piece of analog gear, so I make my choices based on how solid I know the project is,” Maserati said.
“I had a moment the other day,” Maserati added. “My assistant brought in the speakers and an amp and we fired it up for the first time since we rebuilt the room. I started working, and I just smiled from ear to ear because it sounded exactly the way it used to sound, when I mixed a lot of records in this room. I just started smiling, and thought ‘this is gonna work.'”
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