Working Class Audio

Graham Hick has been an audio professional for the past 17 years. He is an amateur musician who holds a BA in music recording from Columbia College. He has written for Tape Op magazine and been a featured speaker and panelist at their professional conferences, taught audio production at Columbia College for five years, worked in jingle studios, voice studios, post-production studios, and public ra...

Brad Brooks is that rare quadruple threat of writer, player, singer, and performer. His songs combine the melodic sensibility of Elvis Costello, the best instincts of Wilco and Brian Wilson, along with the orchestral sophistication of Queen. Brooks is rooted in a kind of Victorian California romanticism; and with the release of his record “Harmony Of Passing Light” Brooks joined his peer...

Johnny Sangster is known for his production and engineering work with Mudhoney, Posies, The Supersuckers, Smoosh, and The Makers, and also as guitarist for the Tripwires, Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, The Dear John Letters, and Steve Turner’s Bad Ideas. Johnny has also served as bassist for the legendary Roy Loney in the Longshots. Originally from Seattle, Johnny Sangster relocated to Europ...

Joey Sturgis is an educator, speaker, and fixture in the emergent modern rock music pantheon producing, engineering and mixing bands such as  Asking Alexandria ,  Of Mice & Men ,  We Came As Romans ,  Blessthefall , and  The Devil Wears Prada . He took his passion for drums and guitars and combined it with his love for understanding how things work and h...

Maor Appelbaum is a mastering engineer and musician. After working as staff engineer (mixing, recording and mastering) for famed record producer  Sylvia Massy Shivy  at  Radiostar Studios  in Weed, California, Maor moved to Los Angeles where he opened his private mastering suite. Maor has had the pleasure of mastering recordings for major international acts such as: Faith...

TW Walsh is a solo artist, musician, songwriter, and mastering engineer. As a mastering engineer, TW Walsh has over 700 projects under his belt, including work for Sufjan Stevens, Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie), The Shins, Cold War Kids, Pedro the Lion, David Bazan, Starflyer 59, Kristin Hersh, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Damien Jurado. As a so...

Brian McTear is a nationally respected record producer, musician, and the owner of one of Philadelphia’s most revered independent recording studios,  Miner Street Recordings  in  Fishtown . In the 18 years since he moved to the Philadelphia music community, Brian has worked with countless local artists like  Dr. Dog ,  Kurt Vile , and  The War on Drugs , as well as na...

Tardon Feathered runs an audio operation that keeps recordings alive. His  Mr. Toads  transfer business specializes in bringing back audio off of media made on machines that are no longer made or very few people have. Whether it’s a priceless family 3″ tape recording, that lost bandmaster on the 8 track, a live recording on a videocassette that doesn’t look anything like VHS, or even 78...

This interview with Jim Scott was recorded live at the Focal booth at NAMM 2016 was fantastic. Jim is best known for his large body of work as an engineer and his work as a producer with the American rock band  Wilco . Jim has worked as an engineer with a range of other rock music artists, including Dixie Chicks, Tom Petty, Sting, the Rolling Stones, Roger Daltrey, Crowded Hous...

The Pellicci brothers Jay and Ian, spent 13 years as staff engineers at  Tiny Telephone   working with bands like  Sleater-Kinney, Deerhoof, Birds and Batteries and Rogue Wave . Since then they have expanded their recording universe and have joined  Eli Crews  and  John Finkbeiner   in a partnership at  New Improved Recording . While...

I’ve known Josh Roberts for over 20 years now. He’s humble, fun, and one of the best human beings I know. He doesn’t waste time trying to impress people. To highlight that he doesn’t even have a web page, bio, Facebook page etc… He’s passionate about making records and is really good at letting people be themselves. I’ve been in a couple studio situations with him, I’ve toured with him and he was...

Producer/Engineer Ben Bernstein has worked extensively as a music producer and recording engineer. In recent years Ben has been working in game audio as a sound designer & project manager. He has also mixed several documentary films, online ads, and interactive in-app ads. Working with  Disney Mobile ,  Pyramind Sound ,  KFOG  , Microsoft as well as numerous Bay Area bands,...

After getting his audio education Sebastien Richard took a position as the head audio engineer at Coast Recorders in San Francisco and quickly became a mainstay in the crowded San Francisco audio world. Sebastien went on to spend a few years in NYC and Prague where he toured and helped produce some of the biggest pop acts in the world. He then returned to San Francisco to becom...

Darrell Thorp is a seven time Grammy Award winning ( OutKast ,  Radiohead ,  Switchfoot ,  Molotov ,  Beck ) producer, mixer, engineer with over 18 years experience under his belt and many multi platinum records to his discography. Darrell moved to Los Angles in 1997 after a 4 year service in the U.S. Navy and started interning at smaller studios and eventually worked his...

After 10 years working as a sales rep for a pro audio and recording equipment distributer, Robert Preston made the plunge into recording full-time by opening a recording studio ( GetReel ) and locating it inside a rehearsal facility ( Secret Studios ) surrounded by bands! As one would imagine Robert gets a lot of business directly from the many bands rehearsing in the buil...

Growing up in a house filled with music Peter studied the ʻclassicsʼ by day, but escaped to play – way underaged – at night in bars & clubs to gain the requisite “chops” – playing rock, blues, and jazz throughout high school. Although entering college in a pre-med program, he quickly re-found his musical bearings, and graduated with a degree in Electronic Music Composition!...

Larry Crane has been involved in music since the late seventies, when he self-released home recordings of his own music. Since then he’s been a musician, record producer/engineer/mixer,  Tape Op Magazine  founder and editor, book editor, studio owner, archivist, disc jockey, small label owner and even a record distributor employee. From 1994 to 1997, Crane ran Laundry...

You gotta love this guy. I asked him for a bio and I got this..... "I hate bios. Bios suck. For more information about me you can visit my website at  http://www.robotlemon.com/ " So in an effort to have a little bit more info here's this....  F. Reid Shippen is a New Jersey-born, Nashville-based, highly motivated, completely caffeinated multiple Grammy® award-winning producer/engin...

Bill Simpkins started in a music career by teaching guitar at the age of 16. In the early 1990s, he started recording his own projects and other bands mostly in the local hardcore punk or straight-edge metal scene with some ADATs and a Mackie mixer. He then worked for several years at Binary Recording Studio with regional bands, eclectic audio projects, orchestras and films.  In 2001, Bill gr...

John Vanderslice  (born in Gainesville, Florida) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and recording engineer. He is the owner and founder of  Tiny Telephone , and Tiny Telephone Oakland, Bay Area analog recording studios. In 10 full-length albums, and 5 remix records and EPs, Vanderslice’s songwriting is characterized by deeply personal and...

Matt Wallace  is an American  record producer . He is a graduate of the  University of California at Berkeley , and has been producing professionally since the early 1980s. He is best known for his work with  Faith No More ,  Maroon 5 ,  O.A.R. ,  The Replacements , and  Train . Wallace has produced some of Faith No More’s most iconic recordings, i...

Piper Payne is a Mastering Engineer at Coast Mastering (formerly Michael Romanowski Mastering) in San Francisco. Piper is the Vice President of the SF Chapter of the Recording Academy and she Co-Chairs the SF Producers and Engineers Wing. She also serves on the Education Committee. In addition she is an active member of the AES and the Women's Audio Mission, as well as being the CEO of Giving Stag...

Eli Crews has been recording since the early-'90s, when he started making weirdo fractured music on 4-track machines, hugely inspired by The Residents and early Devo. At the time he was also a very active musician, playing guitar and bass in a zillion and a half San Francisco bands. Over the course of making a few albums at small studios owned by Myles Boisen and Kyle Statham, he became inspired t...

Eric Valentine , is a record producer , who began his career as drummer and producer in the heavy metal band  T-Ride . He subsequently produced albums for artists such as  Good Charlotte ,  Taking Back Sunday ,  Nickel Creek ,  Queens of the Stone Age ,  Third Eye Blind ,  Smash Mouth ,  The All-American Rejects ,  Persephone’s Bees , and  Slash , among others. Eric chats with Matt about Undertone...

Greg Wurth is a Grammy Nominated, Gold & Platinum award-winning producer, working as Manager and Chief Engineer at L.A.’s Mothership Studio and Patagonia Studio. His credits range from Steve Vai and Tony MacAlpine to Tracii Guns to Jim Florentine & Don Jamieson ,  2Cellos and Mary J Blige . Greg has been Steve Vai’s Engineer for 10 years and spends much his time  in the “Harmony Hut” studi...