Sonal D'Silva

For over a decade, Sparrow Sound has provided state-of-the-art recording, production, and engineering services for artists from LA’s thriving rock and metal scene. Founded by Grammy-nominated musician, songwriter and producer Josh Gilbert (Spiritbox/Bullet for My Valentine/As I Lay Dying), and Platinum award-winning mixing engineer Joseph McQueen (Kehlani/Howard Jones/Bad Wolves), the Pasadena studio is known for their attention to vocals, somewhat unusual for a genre that has a tendency to drown them out under dense layers of distortion guitar, bass, and drums. Continue reading →

When producer/musician Jay.Greens’ founded Perception Records in Denver, Colorado, the goal was simple: collaboration and community. Fast forward a few years later and he’s bringing that philosophy to Los Angeles with Green Room Studios, a boutique studio in Highland Park that Jay tells us is all about “making records with people you like to do it with”. We sat down with Jay recently to talk about the studio’s latest upgrades. Read on to find out why he chose the API 2448 console, how it impacts his workflow, why he still loves making records in a singles-driven market, and the one small detail that Vintage King provided to the patchbay that he considers important for a professional studio.    Continue reading →

Los Angeles-based Dan Horne wears multiple hats – he’s a bassist and bandleader of the instrumental quartet Circles Around the Sun, and a Grateful Dead tribute band called Grateful Shred. He’s also a producer and engineer, working with artists such as Cass McCombs, Mapache, The Chapin Sisters and Allah-Las, to name a few. Continue reading →

California-based multi-hyphenate Sean Motley is a man on a mission – to make music and have fun doing so. Over the years he’s been doing just that by composing scores for film and TV projects on NBC, ABC, CBS, The CW, HBO, Showtime, Telemundo, Netflix, and Hulu; playing drums with a band; and releasing experimental music as a solo artist. His hybrid analog-digital Anterograde Studio is geared towards having a streamlined workflow so that he can quickly and efficiently bring his ideas to life and meet the urgent deadlines that are par for the course in the post-production world. Continue reading →

It has become crucial for studios and artists to adopt a forward-thinking approach towards preserving their life’s work by archiving their sessions so that they are safe in the event of a natural disaster, technological glitch, or an unknown variable further down the line.   To understand the importance and intricacies of session archiving, we turned to someone with decades of expertise: Kelly Pribble, Director of Media Preservation Technology at Iron Mountain Media & Archival Services. Kelly is a veteran studio engineer who has spent a lifetime dedicated to music and audio restoration.  Continue reading →

When it was time to build a new control room at Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi’s Swamp Raga Studio in Jacksonville, Florida, their long-time engineer Bobby Tis set out on a mission – to find the speakers that would become the centerpiece around which the room was built. After an almost year-long journey, he found what he was looking for in the ATC SCM300ASL Pro studio monitors.  Read on to learn about what drew Bobby to the ATC 300s, how they’ve been performing in the new space, what comprises the GRAMMY-winning musicians’ vocal and guitar signal chains, what’s in their mic locker, and more.    Continue reading →

When Chip Freeman set up SuSuSound Studio at his lakeside property in Northern Michigan, he intended for it to be a space where he could pursue his longtime passion for mixing. Things didn’t go quite as planned, and SuSuSound soon became a full-fledged recording studio with top-of-the-line gear including a 32-channel API 1608 console, ATC SCM45A monitors, an AVID HDX system with HD I/O, and a UAD-2 Satellite DSP accelerator.  Continue reading →

When Alaska-based Frostline Studios owner Richard A. Cooper, and Senior Recording and Mixing Engineer, Derek Haukaas completed the extensive upgrade on their recording studio, they had no idea that the console sitting at the heart of the space was special in more ways than one.  The console they opted for was the Neve Genesys Black, a 16-channel digitally-controlled analog console that, with the G3D upgrade, allows mixing in the Dolby Atmos format directly from the console.  Continue reading →

Imagine being a youth who can, at no cost, access world-class recording equipment, musical instruments, and supportive mentors, in a space right in the heart of your hometown. Sounds like a fairytale? Well, it’s not, thanks to Notes for Notes. Since 2006, the non-profit organization has been turning that dream into reality, one space at a time, across the country.  Continue reading →

LA-based producer/mixer/songwriter Keith “Ten4” Sorrells has been hard at work in the studio, fueled by the pursuit of great sound and an endless supply of coffee. As part of GRAMMY-winning producer Oak Felder’s protégé production group The Orphanage, Keith has worked on hit singles for leading artists such as Demi Lovato, John Legend, Anne-Marie, Kehlani, and more. We sat down with Keith recently to get a closer look at his studio setup, where two Dangerous Music products now have pride of place. Read on to learn about his journey in music, why he loves the Dangerous Music 2-BUS+ summing mixer and Monitor ST, his favorite microphones, and what he would love to hear in pop music in the new year. Continue reading →