Blackbird Studios

I recently got to use a product create by one of my most favourite producers George Massenburg. I got to sweep the master mix of a couple new Last Relapse tunes and to fill out mix before we sent it out to a mastering house. I always try to do a bit of a pre-master before I sent any records out to a mastering house: so they know the over all sound that we are trying to achieve for the final product.

I was working with the GML 8200 on the stereo mix bus to treat the final left and right mix. I was amazed at the surgical precision and incredible transparency of this mastering EQ. I found the design to be very ergonomic with the pots having a certain weight to them so you could turn them within a fraction of a Db to target the specific frequency.

I remember a photo of George Massenburg's EPIC studio intrigued me at a young age just starting my career in sound with Sound Art Calgary. The photo was half way through an issue of Mix Magazine and it just jumped out at me as one of the most amazing studios I have ever seen. The design is acoustically brilliant and doubles as a modern art installation. Check out Blackbird Studios below:

Fully functional surround sound mixing space.

I was surprised to learn the George Massenburg coined the term "Parametric EQ," this term is consider part of the essential studio vocabulary in any modern studio. His products were at the fore front of their day and many of the EQs George uses in the studio have earned a world class reputation for delivering the most true high fidelity audio.

Even more shocking than the reputation of the studios renowned gear is the client list that has put in blood sweat and beers to create great albums at his studio. I wonder how many ground breaking artists visited each other in this multi studio facility: there are 10 separate sections of this studio for high quality recording... I think he's just trying to rub it in haha

I was happy to get my hands on an innovative piece of gear that sings true just like the legendary studio that has been a long standing fixation of my pipe dreams.