My Take on Music Recording with Doug Fearn

Send us Fan Mail There is a story from the early days of television. A reporter asked a young boy if he preferred to watch a baseball game on TV, or listen to it on the radio. His answer was immediate. “On the radio. The pictures are so much better!” We work with sound, and except for music videos and live performances, the sound recording is all that people have to experience the work of a songwr...

Send us Fan Mail We tend to think that electronic signals travel instantaneously, but they do not. They are merely very fast. And the time delay can be perceived by humans under some circumstances.  In this episode, I tell the story of hearing my Morse code Amateur Radio signal coming back after circling the Earth, and how there was significant delay in the time it took for broadcast radio network...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second half of the conversation I had with engineer/producer/mixer/musician/songwriter Obie O’Brien. Obie is best known for his long-time work with Jon Bon Jovi, but as you will hear, he has done many things in his career. In this final part of our conversation, we talk about re-mixing Motown hits, digitizing a thousand reels of 2-inch tape from the Bon Jovi tours, and...

Send us Fan Mail Talk about a life in music! Obie O’Brien has done many things in his musical career, starting with playing drums when he was 12, to building a basement studio in the 1960s, to owning a sophisticated studio in Philadelphia. And for over 30 years, working with Jon Bon Jovi in many capacities. I first met Obie in the early 1970s, at my studio. We hit it off right away with our simila...

Send us Fan Mail As my podcast approaches its one-year anniversary, I look back on what new skills I have had to learn, and share the podcast creation process with you. It’s not a how-to on podcasting, but it might give you some insight. My approach is not for everyone, or maybe not for anyone else but me. My process evolved to satisfy myself and overcome my deficiencies in this area. Early in lif...

Send us Fan Mail Manufacturing pro audio equipment was never really part of my plan, but it has become one of the most gratifying aspects of my career in music recording. It wasn’t until around 2011 when a documentary video about me was made that I realized how all the pieces came together, resulting in my career in recording, and in designing products for the studio. In retrospect, it seems total...

Send us Fan Mail Using as few mics as possible on a recording session often leads to better sound for the project. In this episode, I describe how I went from one mic, to many mics, and back to one mic, over the course of my career. Some examples are truly one stereo mic for an entire song recording, while others use two or three mics, depending on the circumstances. There are high-res audio clips...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve had the privilege to work in some iconic studios, but the one that made the biggest impression on me was Abbey Road in London. I spent three days doing sessions there, but since I was working with very competent studio people, there was significant opportunity to explore the facility and ask questions of the EMI engineers. This was in 2008. Abbey Road’s three studios opened i...

Send us Fan Mail We all need cables and connectors to tie all our mics and other equipment together. There are many places where problems can be introduced into your recording, caused by improper wiring. Even when everything appears to be working properly, poor wiring and connector practices can cause subtle problems that make your recordings less than they could be. In this episode, I talk about...

Send us Fan Mail Even if you don’t recognize the name Colin Hay, I guarantee that you have heard him. Colin is best known for his band, “Men At Work,” the Australian group that had #1 hits such as “Down Under” and “Who Can It Be Now” in the 1980s. Men at Work sold over 30 million albums during their existence. Since then, the singer-songwriter has worked as a solo artist, touring the world, someti...

Send us Fan Mail Since the earliest days of sound recording, noise has been a major limitation in audio quality. In early part of my career, tape hiss was usually the biggest challenge. But today’s digital recorders are virtually noise-free in most situations. We still have to battle with noise, but the sources of the noise have changed. Today’s engineer has to deal with noise generated by the swi...

Send us Fan Mail Distortion is present in all electronic audio equipment and on all recordings. Sometimes it is part of the sound, such as in an electric guitar. But distortion is usually something we try to avoid. In this episode, I go through the most common types of distortion, their impact on the listener, where the distortion comes from, and what we can do to minimize it. This is somewhat tec...

Send us Fan Mail I never did any disc mastering, but I did cut thousands of lacquer discs. I explained how I learned this art, and describe the process of cutting a disc. The medium imposes a lot of restrictions, not only in the disc-cutting process, but also going back to the recording and mixing. In addition, I include some thoughts on the vinyl record medium. I definitely have a love-hate relat...

Send us Fan Mail This is a continuation of the story of my recording career, starting where Part 1 (Episode 30) ends in 1973 and covers the following years, up to 2020. During that time, my studio went from 8- to 16- to 24-track, more sophisticated equipment was added, and I moved to a much larger building. After my studio-ownership days, I continued recording, on location or in other studios. In...

Send us Fan Mail My Recording Career, Part 1: Early influences and first studio This two-part episode tells the story of my life in recording. It starts out with the musical and electronic experiences that shaped my career and then describes the process of learning about recording and the many disciplines required. I explain how my first studio was constructed and the challenges I faced and mostly...

Send us Fan Mail The VT-7 Compressor has an interesting backstory, including a Nashville dinner with my friend, Cranesong’s Dave Hill back in 2003. In this episode, I tell the story of how the VT-7 came about, and explain how a pulse-width modulator (PWM) compressor works and why it is an excellent way to create a versatile compressor/limiter. I also go through the history of the compressor and th...

Send us Fan Mail This conversation with mixing engineer Tony Maserati is a little different from most of the other interviews I have done on the podcast. It is mostly just Tony and me having a very informal chat about the things that are important to us, both in our professional lives, but also in life in general. If you want to see the impressive list of artists that Tony has worked with in his c...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I describe how the D.W. Fearn VT-4 and VT-5 Equalizers came about. I start with some history of equalization, and then my experiences with various eqs and how that influenced the design of the VT-5. I talk about the design process, including the reasoning behind the choices I made in the frequencies and the curves, and the design of the amplifiers in the VT-5. The...

Send us Fan Mail Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia was responsible for a huge number of hit records, starting in the 1960s and continuing into the 21st century. Eventually Sigma had two studios in Philadelphia and three in New York. Joe Tarsia founded Sigma in 1968 but his career as an engineer goes back to the 1950s at Cameo Parkway Records. He started in a mono studio, using very few microphon...

Send us Fan Mail During the Covid pandemic, most of us have had to shift to the virtual world for our conversations, presentations, classes, and committee meetings. One thing that I notice is that almost everyone has bad audio. Not just low fidelity (that’s intrinsic in the on-line medium), but audio with poor intelligibility due to bad mics, bad mic technique, poor-sounding rooms, and extraneous...

Send us Fan Mail At first glance, you would think that flying an airplane and recording music would have very little in common. And it’s true that there is not a whole lot that directly translates from one to the other. But there are many aspects of learning to fly, and constantly working to perfect and extend your flying skills, that have a parallel in recording. In this episode, I explain some o...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve known Jason Miles for over 20 years and I learn new things from him every time we talk. Jason is a keyboard player, synthesizer programmer from the earliest days of the Moog synthesizer, and a Grammy-winning producer. He has worked with artists such as Miles, Davis, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Sting, Chaka Chan, Suzy Boggess, David Sanborn, and many oth...

Send us Fan Mail Microphone preamplifiers are essential for almost all recording. In this episode, I look at the requirements for a quality preamp, and how preamps are designed and used. Although this focuses on the D.W. Fearn VT-1, VT-2, and VT-24 mic preamps, the principles are applicable to any preamp. We look at the extreme range of levels a preamp has to deal with, and the techniques used to...

Send us Fan Mail Mike Miller is a great example of the latest generation of recording mixers. Mike started as a musician, playing piano at age 4, later switched to guitar and as a teenager he began touring with bands whose members were much older. Recording with those bands introduced Mike to the studio and he was instantly captivated and knew that was what he wanted to do. His early success as a...

Send us Fan Mail My recording career started with vacuum tube gear, and it’s a sound I still prefer. In this episode, I tell the story of my early experience with a homemade mixer using tube mic preamps, and my reluctant transition to solid-state audio equipment and my eventual return to tubes. There may be many reasons why tubes sound different than transistors (solid-state), and I explore some o...