Sonal D'Silva

After spending years as a singer, songwriter, touring artist, and recording engineer, Billy Crockett settled down in Wimberley, Texas, with his wife Dodee, and together they set up Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio, a facility designed to help artists turn off the world and fully immerse themselves in the creative process.  Over the past 18 years, Blue Rock has hosted artists such as Lyle Lovett, Christopher Cross, Jesse Winchester, Ruthie Foster, and even the popular podcast Song Exploder. Billy sat down with us recently to tell us how Vintage King helped outfit the space with classic analog gear and calibrated sonic tools, how he ended up becoming good friends with legendary audio pioneer Rupert Neve, and what he thinks stands the test of time even as the music industry keeps changing.  Continue reading →

If you’re the type of artist who struggles with starting songs, finishing songs, or just generally being creative on tap, we suggest you sit down and have a good listen to Jamie Lidell.  Whether you listen to his body of work as a singer/songwriter/producer or choose from the 100-plus episodes of his podcast Hanging Out With Audiophiles, you will come away feeling inspired by the British-born, Nashville-based artist’s love for sonic experimentation and his deep-dive approach to interacting with sound like the living, breathing thing that it is.  Continue reading →

Los Angeles-based Mad Muse Studios is expanding the idea of what a recording studio can offer to artists in this new era of music making. The team, comprised of Matt Salazar, Lucas Flood, and Zulma Tercero, run a tight ship at their state-of-the-art, open-plan studio offering traditional studio services like recording, mixing and mastering, along with video production and video live-streaming, for the complete artist package. Mad Muse also collaborates with a popular artist discovery and showcase platform called Writer’s Block Songwriters, which connects the singer/songwriter community to the larger industry. Continue reading →

Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, producer/engineer Chris Coady is known for bringing his world-class, big-studio chops to the world of indie music where he quickly raised the bar for what was sonically possible, working with iconic artists like Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio and Slowdive, to name a few. Continue reading →

  Original music, sound design, and music supervision–the good folks at Hyperballad Music do it all, for clients like Volkswagen, Kate Spade, Google, Ford, Coors Light, Maybelline, and the Super Bowl, to name a few. In addition, they are also always busy making records and co-writing, working with a variety of artists from across the NYC scene. As Co-Founder and Creative Director Jonathan Benedict tells us, the goal is to make great music and to have a great time while doing it–you will not find grumpy engineers or uninspiring spaces at the Brooklyn-based studio.  Continue reading →

Producer/musician/engineer Bill Jabr describes himself as a “studio nerd” and looking back on his career thus far, it’s clear to see why. He founded the original Blue Room in his home city of Atlanta, Georgia, in 2009 and the studio quickly became the creative space of choice for some of music’s hottest names, like André 3000, James Blake, Juice WRLD, Travis Scott, Foster The People, Summer Walker and Ari Lennox, to name a few. Continue reading →

Producer/engineer Anthony “Rocky” Gallo came up in the fast-paced New York music scene, working on multi-platinum selling albums with award-winning artists like John Legend, Common, Norah Jones, Gavin DeGraw, Cat Power, Mos Def, Carly Simon, Jon Bon Jovi, Perry Farrell, and Travis Barker, to name a few. After a long stint as Chief Engineer at The Cutting Room studios, he went freelance and has since set up his own successful facility–the Brooklyn-based Virtue and Vice Studios.  We sat down with Anthony recently to talk about his career, his relationship with Vintage King, what he looks for when he buys new gear, and his plans for the future of his studio.  Continue reading →

Al Sutton, the GRAMMY award-winning producer, engineer, and founder of Rustbelt Studios, is a great person to talk to for our 30th Anniversary celebrations–after all, he had a ringside view of the early days of Vintage King. Along with Vintage King founders Mike and Andrew Nehra, Al set up Detroit’s legendary White Room Studios, and to hear him tell it, that was a time of creative freedom, learning the craft, and setting up the foundation upon which long careers in the music industry were built.  Continue reading →

  The last time we caught up with Belmont University’s Michael Janas (Chair, Audio Engineering Program and Instructor of Audio Engineering Technology), was soon after Vintage King had outfitted the prestigious Nashville institution with two SSL Origin consoles–one for the Robert E. Mulloy Student Studios, and the other for Belmont-owned studio Ocean Way Nashville.  For our 30th Anniversary celebrations, we sat down with Michael again–he gave us an update on the SSL, told us what he appreciates most about Vintage King, and shared the core goals that drive the world-class audio program at Belmont.  Continue reading →

It’s not every day that you get to sit down for a chat with someone who has worked with some of the most iconic recording artists of all time. The person we’re talking about is GRAMMY award-winning engineer/producer Ken Caillat and the artists we’re talking about are Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, and Herbie Hancock, just to name a few.  Continue reading →