SOUND ON SOUND
Energy drinks makers Red Bull and sportswear company Converse have both recently opened their own recording studios. But what does this mean for artists and smaller recording facilities?
Two grassroots organisations show how their focus on the local music scene is helping studios survive in the new economic climate.
With country guitars, what you hear on the record is what was played in the studio. We asked Nashville's leading engineers how they capture those tones.
The 'vintage' sound of artists like Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Amy Winehouse has little to do with super-expensive valve gear. Instead, it's the minimalist approach of house engineer Gabriel Roth that sets the tone.
Latin music is popular all over the world, but it has its own unique assortment of quirks and exotic instruments. Four of the genre's leading engineers explain what it takes to make a conga sing and timbales talk.
After 17 years mixing almost everything that came out of Jam & Lewis's Flyte Tyme Studios, there's very little Steve Hodge doesn't know about making R&B records work.
Miami is now a hip-hop centre to rival New York and LA, and Cool & Dre are two of its most active beatmakers, songwriters and producers.
Craig Bauer has been part of Kanye West's career from the beginning, and as a mix engineer on the smash hit Late Registration album, he had to marry West's artistic perfectionism with his own technical standards.
He took an unusual and unhurried career path, but Toby Wright has helped to create some of the most influential hard rock records of the last 20 years, including Metallica's definitive ...And Justice For All, and is now one of America's most sought-after engineers and producers.
It's not a bad gig being chief engineer to the world's hottest production duo, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. But it takes a lot of hard work to keep up with The Neptunes...