Day 1 Brought Chuck Ainlay and Elliot Scheiner Studio D

I had the very unique and privileged experience of attending my first METAlliance event held January 28 and 29th, 2023 at John McBride's Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN.

The METAlliance or Music Engineering & Technology Alliance is a select group of noted recording engineers/producers with unparalleled track records that are dedicated to the art and craft of recording and mixing music. Well-respected by the audio industry, their members advise and consult on all things audio from emerging trends to formats/standards to best practices and guidance in education.

The event was organized into a two-day weekend program with four, four-hour long time slots. Each day had one slot in the morning and, after a catered lunch, the other four-hour session was held in the afternoon. This allowed for all of the attendees, in groups of no more than about ten people each, to get an up close and personal look at the way these famous engineers work using the current state of the art in recording and mixing music in four of the finest recording studios in the world.

Sylvia Massy and Niko Bolas Tracking A Band In Studio A

Sylvia Massy with Mark Rubel

Niko Bolas (standing) Checks An Edit!

For my group, Day 1's morning session started in Studio A for a tracking session with Sylvia Massy and Niko Bolas recording Saturday's recording artist, Sonia Leigh. Sunday's session had the Zmed Brothers with the Bird Dogs Band. Studio A's perfectly restored Neve 8078 console easily handled the two completely different approaches these two engineer/producers use with lots of alternate mic choices all setup and ready to record.

After brief introductions between all the attendees and our instructors, Sylvia and Niko got us busy with describing their microphone choices--the "why" a particular mic was selected and its exact positioning. Out in the studio, Niko was meticulous with going around to each musician's instrument setup to "dial-in" the mic with complete explanations including some history, about using the right mic, and how a mic exactly captures sound.

Sylvia is a constant experimenter with both her quirky mic choices and their non-standard placement and processing. She has a good ear and knows straightaway whether the sound is there or not. Niko explained his monitoring style so that his rough mixes always come right up away.

Frank Filipetti and George Massenburg In Studio C

Day 1's afternoon four-hour session was in Blackbird's Studio C, a completely unique mixing room with fully diffusive ceiling and wall surfaces. Just being in this space for the four hours is an experience in itself and listening to Frank Filipetti and George Massenburg discuss the advantages and differences between ATMOS, Sony 360, and Aura was brilliant. Studio C has calibrated monitoring for all three immersive formats. In spite of the highly technical and complicated subject matter, Frank and George were always very patient and detailed with answering any question to educate about both the craft and the differences between these emerging technologies.

Frank Filipetti Makes A Point In Studio C

George played some of his recent work with Alicia Keys (Best Immersive Album Grammy) and Earth, Wind & Fire projects while Frank played immersive album work by both Korn and George Michael. This was an unbelievable experience.

Chuck Ainlay and Elliot Scheiner In Studio D

Day 2 started in Studio D with Chuck Ainlay and Elliot Scheiner and tracking with producer Jon Randall. That studio had a gigantic, 80-channel API console and a recording room full of Nashville's finest musicians and singers. Using the Nashville number system, we saw the birth of a new song from demo to refining its structure/arrangement to vocal production to an excellent rough mix. There was plenty of Pro Tools editing/tweaking and more than once was able to observe Chuck casually "tweaking" a monitor mix on the console--he has a very good ear and impressed me as a standout amongst the weekend's rock star engineer/producers!

Chuck and Elliot used parallel setups for this tracking session and each had setup their own mic choices and positioning dialed in so it was possible to compare two different drum kit sounds, piano mic differences (it had six mics on it), acoustic guitar, and electric guitar sonic differences. There was a lot to learn quickly that Sunday morning at the Blackbird Studio church!

Jimmy Douglas in Studio F

George Massenburg Himself In His Studio C

Jimmy Douglass--ATMOS Immersive Mixing In Studio F

Jimmy Douglas showed us his complete ATMOS mixing process of the Justin Timberlake album The 20/20 Experience. This was an unprecedented inside look at his workflow and his discovery of certain limitations of ATMOS and his struggles with it at first. His constant comparison to his stereo mix to his early ATMOS mixes led him to discover that he could not get the same feeling and groove in ATMOS as he had in the original stereo version. He fully-explained his solution; it was non-intuitive and very laborious. I just love his approach to immersive mixing and the proof is in the final mixes--spectacular!

Jimmy's ATMOS mix was so entertaining and a fitting finale for this awesome two-day METAlliance event and I hope to attend another soon! In general for all four sessions during the weekend, I found the all instructors very helpful by taking the time to answer (even the most mundane) questions respectfully and accurately.

Barry Rudolph is an L.A.-based recording engineer. Visit his Web site at: WWW.BARRYRUDOLPH.COM

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