The National’s Aaron Dessner Upgrades Studio With ATC Loudspeakers

Musician/producer Aaron Dessner’s serene upstate New York studio Long Pond had already been home to GRAMMY-winning records like The National’s "Sleep Well Beast" when it was thrust into the spotlight during the pandemic, thanks to "folklore" and "evermore,"—two history-making lockdown albums by Taylor Swift that were co-written and produced by Aaron amidst the highest levels of secrecy.

His vision for the studio was an open space designed to feed the creative spirit, as well as a pristine listening environment. With upgrades like the ATC SCM45A Pro studio monitors, he achieved just that. In fact, he has enjoyed working with the monitors so much, that he just bought another pair for a studio he’s designing in the south of France.

Aaron sat down with us recently, to talk about his new monitors, go-to microphones, his incredible vintage console, and what it’s been like working with Vintage King through his extraordinary career.

Tell us about your studio—what was your vision for it?

I've never been a big fan of traditional studios with a control room and the live rooms as these separate spaces where you feel like you're in a fishbowl and I think that's because I'm a musician, first and foremost. I come into all of this as someone who plays a lot of instruments and I never liked the feeling of being on the spot, like “Now it's your turn. Go!”; you really feel the pressure. So the idea, with Long Pond Studio, was to design a big open space with a large isolation booth that’s big enough to have drums in there, although mostly we use the iso booth for vocals and for acoustic instruments.

As far as the aesthetic goes, I have always felt like most recording studios don't have a lot of light or air in them because they're often in urban situations where you just can't have a lot of windows, or, for isolation purposes, it just doesn't make sense to have a lot of glass. Long Pond is out in the middle of the mountains and farmland and forests of upstate New York in the Hudson Valley, so it was possible just to build something that has a lot of light and air. So you look out of the windows and big glass doors and there’s a beautiful pond, lots of trees, beautiful scenery, and it gives you a lot of energy because you feel relaxed, but you also feel awake because of the oxygen, I think.

I love recording in churches, so it has a really high-peaked ceiling, around 26 feet, and has beautiful cedar treatment on the walls, which is like the acoustical treatment that I used to have in a smaller studio that I had in Brooklyn for many years; The National had a studio behind my house in an old garage, and that had the same pattern. My brother-in-law is an architect who designed this pattern of different lengths and widths of cedar, and it's just a beautiful thing to look at, it smells good, but it also helps the sound. We blew that up on a large scale in this studio, so it's like a church meets a garage, meets a recording studio, that's how it kind of feels and it's just a nice place to be. There are also three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and two bathrooms, so it's a residential studio. On that property, there's also my house and then another structure that's a garage that has sort of a Studio B and a sauna and a gym—it's becoming a little bit like a little village or something like that and I like that feeling.

What monitors are you using and how did you decide on them?

We wanted it to be the kind of space where you can take something from beginning to end—start a record, finish it, and mix it there. So we really invested in the way the room is set up, where the monitors are, and the back wall is treated to create a pretty great mixing environment that feels very true and it’s very pleasurable to listen to music in there.

The ATC 45s are just so honest and true but they’re also so pleasurable—you can get lost and turn them up really loud, so we have a good time in there, and can really push it when we want to. They're set in the perfect positions and it's really dialed in. I've actually just bought another pair for a studio that I recently set up in the south of France; we're going to use the same monitors there also because I love them.

What interface are you using?

I’ve worked, for many years, with the engineer Jon Low, and over time the Avid MTRX Studio audio interface was what we settled on and it feels great. We also use this Grace monitoring user interface where we can easily toggle between sound sources, and we have these BURL Audio A to D converters that are great. I go with the strong recommendations that people have but mostly, when I get really nerdy about something, it's usually something like the board or microphones and things like that.

What microphones do you find yourself using most often with the different artists you’ve worked with?

Long ago, we purchased a Telefunken U47 and that's still the main go-to vocal mic that Matt Berninger from The National would sing on, or Taylor Swift sang on, and usually, we use that through one of the Neve 1064s with this Lisson Grove compressor that's kind of modeled on an EMI compressor and it's really beautiful.

Justin Vernon, from Bon Iver, likes to sing on a Sony C-37, which I love also, so we bought a pair of those, and sometimes we'll swap them in for certain singers because there's a different quality to it. Occasionally, people just sound better on an SM7. On the Ed Sheeran album "Subtract," the first album I made with him, he sang mostly on a U 67, but then sometimes we would use an SM7 because that's historically what he sang on. But I would say the U47 is my main go-to microphone for vocals.

What’s it been like working with Ryan at Vintage King?

It’s been great. All of the high-end audio gear, for the most part, has been purchased from Vintage King and it's just amazing to be able to get such special pieces of gear in such perfect working order. Everything works and it just really makes you feel confident about what you're investing in. When we've made important purchases it feels good to go to Vintage King—it is very honest, reputable, and fair pricing, and you feel secure.

What are some of your favorite pieces of outboard gear?

We have an API 2500 stereo compressor that we often use that is really amazing, and there’s the Lisson Grove compressor.

We bought Neve 1064s from Vintage King and they’re just classic and really warm and when you need them to, they overdrive beautifully and they have so much character. We have two of them so if we have stereo mics on the piano or if we need stereo overheads, we use them in really critical ways; they are always involved.

Then there’s the WSW/Siemens board from 1965, which is loaded with 811510B channels, that I bought a few years ago. Some of its circuitry is, I believe, what the Neve stuff is based on, so they're at the same level of this beautiful, warm sound. Every knob on that board has a really artful, beautiful response. I play so many different instruments direct into it and I can really shape the sound with the EQ and with the gain staging. So like with the electric guitar, I almost never use amplifiers anymore, I just distort guitars through the board. It’s a really, really special board—that might be my favorite thing here.

You wear a lot of hats in the studio—which do you prefer?

Good question. I feel like all of my roles are interchangeable—I'm a producer, a musician, and an engineer. Maybe if I have some special quality as a collaborator, it's that I'm so versatile. I can have big ideas and sometimes make real magic in terms of the music that I'm writing but then I can also just be a worker bee and get lost in editing in Pro Tools or just work really hard to finish something. I think that is important—to have both.

When you're feeling inspired, what is the first piece of gear that you reach for?

I immediately record a voice memo on my iPhone of me playing whatever the core idea is so I don't forget it because you can easily lose track of things. Then I tend to set up a Pro Tools session and either on guitar or piano or sometimes a synth bass, find the tempo and record the basic progression. So, for example, if I'm using the piano, I have a stereo pair of AKG 414s on my Yamaha U1 going into two channels of the WSW board and it's just always on the same setting and I know exactly how it sounds. So I’ll track in the basic idea and then I'll start to think about what I want it to sound like, but at least I’ll have captured the core idea.

What is your philosophy on producing?

To be productive without criticism, because you never know when there'll be a breakthrough or what the magic of something is. Also, if a song works on one instrument, it's going to be compelling. I think where people get into trouble sometimes is when you're trying too hard to put something together when the core idea just isn't there.

So I think my main philosophy is to be productive without criticism until a certain point because sometimes the ideas you judge to be not special are actually the ones that really have a lot of potential. Forge ahead and keep moving.

Are you working on any exciting projects right now that you're able to talk about?

I've been working with this French artist called Pomme, who’s really amazing—she lives in Paris and that's been exciting. There’s the new record with Ed Sheeran, and we have a new National record coming out soon. Then there are other things I can’t tell you about that are also very exciting. [Laughs]

If you’re interested in purchasing a pair of SCM45A Pro studio monitors, or any other ATC products, contact a Vintage King Audio Consultant via email or by phone at 866.644.0160.