I’M MOVING STUDIOS. Next month Antisleep relocates to the west room of Jack Shirley’s @_the_atomic_garden_ in east Oakland. Fuck yes!
AG is a Wes Lachot-designed studio with two nearly identical control rooms & isos, and a shared 1000’ live room. The live room sounds great and is super flexible, and the control rooms are fucking amazing. I’ll be able to work faster and better, tracking and mixing will be seamless, and bands will be a lot more comfortable.
Jack and I will operate separate private studios, but we’ll share mic closets as well as amps, guitars, drums, vegan ice cream, etc. Jack’s a good friend and one of the best engineers working so I am thrilled to set up shop with him. Genuinely a dream come true.
There’s a lot to do but I’ll be up and running quickly. I’m already booking sessions. Let’s go.
(Yes, that SSL is for sale if anyone’s looking, along with a lot of very good outboard. The previous tenant is closing up shop.)
And this means I’m moving out of my studio home of 10+ years. I’ll miss it dearly. Huge love to my friends at @sharkbitestudios - 15 years ago Ryan Massey took a cold call from me and said “hell yeah, come by and I’ll show you how the console works.” Changed my life. I love Sharkbite and I know I’ll work there over the coming years.
📷 Zach Minjack. Thanks Zach for helping make this happen.
We made a desk for my console. Or a console for my desk?
Last summer I upgraded my API 1608 to a 2448. Jack and I talked furniture ideas for weeks, then enlisted our machinist friend Trevor to scheme. If Trevor could machine plates that matched the API sides, we could seamlessly attach producers desks and build around it. A few weeks later my wife Bradee sketched slide 7 on her iPad while I tried to describe what I wanted.
In slide 1, the stock API mixer is in the center. Everything else we fabricated - producers desks, racks, keyboard shelf, wood, and steel stand. The aluminum rails that hold the wood are API parts that Trevor cut down and tapped; those really let us match the stock look. Thanks @thisisapiaudio for the great support.
Trevor’s work is beautiful and precise. His aluminum side plates matched the API plates dead on. The solid aluminum crossbars that hold the sides together and support the keyboard shelf are all perfect. The steel base is burly as hell and a work of art.
The “magazine rack” under the stand holds snakes and other cabling so they’re hidden. The “towel bar” in back holds the screen; the idea was that I could slide the monitor to the side on tracking days. In practice this is too much trouble, so I rotate the screen down and run a portable monitor off to the side.
We remade the console’s wood top and armrest with cherry, and made smaller versions for the side desks. We also replaced the black API sides with cherry sides, extended to fit the larger outer plates. The keyboard and side surfaces are hardwood with melamine. Wood was CNC cut and finished by my friends Rob + Luis. Beautiful and precise.
I’m so proud of our work. I’ve never made anything this custom or this nice. I didn’t know it was possible. Thank you Jack for fearlessness and inspiration, and Trevor, Rob, Luis, and Bradee for your patience and skills. I expect to work on this desk for literally the rest of my career. And every day I appreciate what went into it.
Metalwork: Keller Industries in San Carlos
Wood: MN builders in West Oakland
I’m flattered and grateful to be in the latest issue of @earthetc .
I met Andrew 15+ years ago when I recorded Ventid’s fantastic “Remember Your Audience” LP (I still love this record) with Andrew shredding on bass. A few years later he got very sick. As he was recovering from brain surgery and other wonders of modern medicine, he rediscovered film photography and dove way in, including publishing a beautifully curated + designed 150+ page photo book, Earth Etc. Incredible.
When KWC + Ex-Everything were in Portland last summer we met up with Andrew to shoot some photos. He had just gotten very good MRI results (note his shirt), and it was so damn great to watch him shoot.
Lots of good stuff in this issue, and also a short interview with me. Get yourself a copy on the @earthetc website.
Thanks so much Andrew.
NEUROSIS “An Undying Love For A Burning World” is out. A band that has rewired my brain more than once did it again.
After months of careful planning, we recorded at Litho in Seattle over three separate short sessions. We wanted to do complete songs start to finish each session, as opposed to drums for all of the songs one session, guitars the next etc - a great idea though logistically complicated. So one of my jobs was taking detailed recall notes and ensuring that each session sounded consistent. This worked out much better than I expected, even with the huge (for me) number of inputs.
The band tracked live, with everyone playing together. No click. Most of the songs are first or second takes. Of course there are punch-ins and overdubs, but for such a vast record the tracks are straightforward. The depth and impact comes from the songs and playing.
In February we mixed at my place in Oakland, three days of everyone listening and discussing and pacing around and asking me to turn everything up. A day or two later I sent files to Matt Barnhart in Chicago. We did one round of mastering revisions and that was it.
You can’t think about the Neurosis discography without thinking about Steve Albini. For 20 years and 6 albums, Neurosis recorded and mixed at Electrical with Steve. If he were alive today there’s no doubt they would have made this record with him too; I would have done the same. Since those are impossible shoes to fill, I did my own thing and the band more or less graciously adapted. I appreciate it. I also appreciated all the Albini stories during our sessions.
If I’ve made it sound like this was an easy record to make, it was not. But it was an easy record to work on because the people and music are so good. I loved seeing old friends work together and loved seeing a decades-old band welcome a new contributor as though he had been in the band for years.
Proud to be a part of this incredible record.
@neurosisoakland@neurosisoakland@neurosisoakland
Assisted by @jonrobaudio
Mastered by @matthewbarnhart
Short version: follow @ampsintheroom
A year ago I had the clever idea to do a live in-studio video series with my old pal @atomhihat . We wanted simple and honest—two songs, one camera, one take per song, no headphones, just a band in a recording studio. Of course I can make anything complicated, which I did. But that was mostly learning how to build a “series”. Repeatable video & audio workflows, templates, branding, etc.
We asked colorist Rachel Valdivia and photo/video nerd Don Doblados to help with video work, and the homie Amar Lal to master my mixes. This ended up being the best part. I love our little team.
Pat Piccolo nailed the logo (hand drafted!) and made it feel like we were doing A Real Thing.
We’ll try for a new episode once a month. I’ll record & mix most of em but this is about friends so I can’t wait to have guest engineers in.
Follow along: @ampsintheroom on IG and YT
Enough words! FIRST VIDEO IS UP TODAY! @pilemusic “Born At Night”. Goddamn they were dialed. What a band.
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TEAM
Camera: @atomhihat
Record & Mix: This guy
Color: @_rach25
Master: @ummm_r
Production: @dondoblados
Logo: @sign_syndicalist
Studio husband: @_the_atomic_garden_
2025 YEAR IN GEAR.
Hello fellow spacebar warriors. The horrors persist and so do we. Here are some tools I liked this year.
OHR LABS OHR-1. Tiny SPL meter. A tachometer for your ears. Best studio purchase this year
SAMPLY. For years I shared mixes using my own handrolled thing but Samply is just better. They’re also super responsive on their discord. Love a small company. Please don’t get acquired
ACORN. Light/simple desktop Mac image editor. $29 and perfect for the old studio compy
NEYRINCK V-90 SYMPHONIC. $49 plug that does the Yamaha Chorus Thing, get your 90s on
KEYCHRON C2. Simple, compact full size mechanical keyboard. $45. Totally decent, fits in a suitcase
USB OVER CAT5 + HDMI OVER FIBER. The computer is now way over there
WIFI QR CODE. Game changer. On iPhone look in the Passwords app
KEYBOARD MAESTRO STILL GOOD. My favorite script this year: enter a marker + time offset and it jumps you there. Great for mix notes
PRO TOOLS SHIT I LEARNED: Ctrl-click a clip = move it to the cursor. Opt-M = merge-paste MIDI. Cmd-H = heal split clips. Cmd-opt-V. cmd-opt-T = paste automation to fill the selection + clean it up. Decided I like medium fast log fades in/out.
TESA BOARD TAPE. Enjoyable euro gaff. Tears straight, nice to write on, not too sticky, disco colors. Thanks Kevin
BRADY LABEL MAKER. Expensive and the app isn’t perfect but definitely a better label maker
DRINKMATE OMNIFIZZ. Sodastream displacer. Electricity-free, not politically sus
SOLID MOLDED EARPLUGS. As opposed to the “musician” flavor with filters. Fuck sound, man
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What’d you like?
