My Take on Music Recording with Doug Fearn

Send us Fan Mail Tad Rollow is a research engineer who has worked at companies like Eventide, Avid-DigiDesign, and Sennheiser. You probably own hardware or software whose design Tad has been part of. Tad has a wide range of interests and experiences, including hardware, software, and chip design. He’s been recording music since high school and continues to do that. He has a degree in electrical en...

Send us Fan Mail Dom Morley is a Grammy-award winning British engineer, producer, and mixer who has worked with artists such as Amy Winehouse, Adele, Sting, Nick Cave, and many others. He has worked as a staff engineer in several top studios in London and now has his own studio in Oxfordshire. Educating aspiring engineers and producers is important to Dom, and he is in demand as a teacher and lect...

Send us Fan Mail My first job, and really the only time I have ever worked for someone else, was in radio broadcasting. While in high school, I started working as an engineer, on weekends, at WPEN, an AM/FM station in Philadelphia. The station was founded in 1926 and the studios where I worked were built by RCA in 1947. Little had changed by the time I started there in 1966. The AM transmitter sit...

Send us Fan Mail Dale Becker is a mastering engineer in Los Angeles. He is known for his work with artists such as Khalid, Chloe X Halle, Lauv, Macklemore, Rufus Du Sol, JoJo, Kesha, Tiesto, Meghan Trainor, Jeremy Zucker, Beast Coast, Fletcher, Gallant, Louis the Child & Bryce Vine He works at Becker Mastering, along with his father, Bernie. We talked about the art of mastering in the digital...

Send us Fan Mail We all use microphones all the time, but how much do we know about how they work? Is that knowledge useful? In this episode, I discuss the three main types of studio microphones, dynamic, ribbon, and condenser, and the three main pickup patterns, omni-, bi-, and uni-directional, and why understanding some of the basic principles can help you get the most from your microphones. ema...

Send us Fan Mail Chris Tabron is a very successful Brooklyn-based producer, engineer, mixer who has worked with artists such as Beyonce, The Strokes, Robert Glasper, Battles, Lower Dens, The Voidz, and Charlotte Day Wilson. I spoke with Chris about how he got into music recording and production, and about his approach to working with artists – and the art of recording and the skills needed to be a...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes we have to record in less-than-ideal locations, such as at home, or perhaps on location. Understanding the challenges of adapting space for recording will help you get the best possible sound out of your improvised studio. In this episode, I give a quick overview of some of the acoustical principles that will affect how your recording sounds. Some are obvious, like sound...

Send us Fan Mail Jon Castelli is an up-and-coming mix engineer in LA who has had great success in recent years, working on projects like Khalid's Grammy-nominated for Record-of-the-Year, "Talk," Platinum record for Summer Walker and Drake's "Girls Need Love," and a Gold record for Harry Styles "Lights Up" Jon offers lots of good, practical information about...

Send us Fan Mail This topic may seem like a stretch in a podcast about music recording, but using Morse code on Amateur Radio taught me quite a bit about hearing acuity. And my experience building devices for my hobby taught me a lot about electronics, circuit design, and construction. From my first exposure to Morse code from interference from a RCA Coastal Marine station in New Jersey as a kid,...

Send us Fan Mail In this second part of my conversation with Wes Dooley of Audio Engineering Associates, I ask Wes about why ribbon microphones sound different from condenser (or dynamic) microphones. Wes also explains more about his recording background and how that led into ribbon mic design and manufacturing. (Technical info: Wes used an AEA KU5 mic into a D.W. Fearn VT-2 mic preamp and recorde...

Send us Fan Mail Jim Hamilton is an interesting guy. His career includes drums and percussion, often with well-known artists. But also Jim is a tap dancer who performs around the world. And he owns Rittenhouse Soundworks, an amazing recording studio in Philadelphia. He has also been a life-long student of music and recording. Our conversation covers the relationship of tap dancing to modern drummi...

Send us Fan Mail Introduction to Recording to Tape I spent about half of my career recording to magnetic tape, and although everything I record now is done digitally, I understand the allure of sound of tape, and the fascination with the machines that record it. This is the first of three episodes on tape recording, which I am publishing all on the same day for those who are interested in the topi...

Send us Fan Mail Tape Machine Alignment & Maintenance In this second of three parts on recording to magnetic tape, we look at why proper machine setup is critically important for good, consistent results. This episode is rather arcane because we are talking about an obsolete technology. It includes details on how and why adjustment is necessary, and a rough outline of how it is done. Tape mach...

Send us Fan Mail Tape Recording in the Studio: A practical Guide This is the final of the three parts in this series on recording to magnetic tape. I explain some of the differences in workflow between recording to digital and recording to tape. This is more “hands-on” than the first two installments. The limitations of the medium affect the way you will record. That’s part of the “tape sound.” I...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve had the privilege of knowing some amazing people in the world of pro audio, and one of them is Wes Dooley. I’ve known Wes for decades, and I am still learning new things from him every time we talk. Wes is best known as the founder of Audio Engineering Associates, which manufactures some of the best microphones in the world. I wanted to know more about how Wes got started in...

Send us Fan Mail 4 The Room Where Music is Recorded Music is recorded in an acoustic space, which could be a professional recording studio, a home studio, a concert hall, or even outside. The characteristics of the room not only affect how the recording is going to sound, but also how the musicians perform. In this episode, we look at the acoustical characteristics of the recording space: the room...

Send us Fan Mail This is a short introduction to the overall concepts of recording music. It starts with a story of my earliest attempts to record music, why I was not pleased with the results, and how I have spent the 50+ years since then trying to make it sound better. Some of the influences that formed my notion of how music should sound are also covered. It also gives you a preview of some of...

Send us Fan Mail I have always been fascinated with the history of recording, and I find it useful in understanding where we are today. In this show, I talk about this history, from the Edison phonograph to modern digital recording. But it's not just facts and dates. I'm more interested in how the advances in technology changed the concept of recorded music, and how the requirements of t...

Send us Fan Mail If we could not hear, there would be no music, and no music recording. This episode explores the characteristics of our hearing, it's limitations and idiosyncrasies, and how to preserve your hearing. We look at the range of frequencies we can hear, and look at the quietest thing we can hear -- and the loudest noise we can tolerate. We can damage our hearing while we are doing...