The Magic of Recording with Cassidy Turbin (Beck, Keyon Harrold) | Sphere Stories

For the 5x-Grammy-winning producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist Cassidy Turbin, the magic of recording lies in capturing real musicians playing together in one room. We met up with him at his personal studio, Willowcrest Recorders, in Los Angeles to talk about microphones, the magic of recording, and what it was like working with the artist Beck.
Find out more about the Sphere L22 Microphone Modeling System: www.uaudio.com/microphones/sp...
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:42 How Cassidy got into recording
01:33 Engineering for the artist Beck
02:39 The magic of recording a full band
03:39 Recording a band in a small space
04:14 How does the Sphere L22 help reduce bleed
04:50 What convinced Cassidy to chose the Sphere L22?
06:29 What are the benefits of recording with Sphere?
07:04 Working fast to build a percussion arrangement
08:01 Why has the L22 become Cassidy's workhorse mic
08:42 Why should I check out the Sphere L22?
Cassidy found his way into recording at a young age, trying to play drums along with the radio. Once he got "hooked on audio", things naturally progressed from there. The LA-native played drums in bands throughout high school and started to pick up other instruments and record other people. Today, Cassidy wears many hats in the record-making process: Sometimes, he's just engineering or mixing, sometimes he plays drums or keys and takes care of engineering on top. It's his love for music and making records that ties it all together. As a result, he is an in-demand session musician, engineer, producer, and mixer. He has collaborated with artists such as Keyon Harrold, Childish Gambino, Dwight Yoakum, and Frith. Cassidy got the chance to work regularly for Beck in his early 20’s, which led to engineering and mixing on the albums "Morning Phase" and "Colors." That process exposed him to a whole gamut of studios, musicians, and musical styles. As a consequence, Cassidy had his eyes and ears opened up to different, eclectic sonics.
With vintage Neumann U47s and other prized classics being at Cassidy's daily disposal in his early 20’s, he certainly is no stranger to high-end condenser microphones. Over the years, he has built a reliable "mental library" of these iconic microphones and their sonic character. So it comes to no surprise that he was initially skeptical of microphone modeling when he first heard about it. But he nonetheless gave the Sphere L22 a shot and realized that there was so much more to it than just static EQ. Cassidy then went on to compare Sphere's LD-12 model with his vintage AKG C12 microphone. While it didn't sound exactly like his C12 (no vintage C12s sound the same), it sounded genuinely fantastic. In some cases, such as an acoustic guitar, he even preferred the model to the vintage counterpart.
As a drummer and percussionist who often records himself, Cassidy is mindful of creating a recording environment that fosters creativity. The Sphere L22 is his go-to microphone that just stays on a mic stand at all times. With the mic set up to recording in stereo, his approach allows him to build entire percussion arrangements in no time. Without worrying about the specific mic model at the time of recording, he performs different percussion parts around the mic to build up a track. As a second step, he may change the mic model or play with other parameters such as panning and stereo width after recording.
Music by:
Cassidy & Jason Turbin - "Spell of Love"
Joel Schnaper - "Gold"
#spherel22 #cassidyturbin #beck #drums #magicofrecording
All trademarks are property of their respective owners and used only to represent the microphones modeled as part of the Sphere software.

[@Townsendlabs]

Just announced: Join us for the Live Q&A with Cassidy Turbin + SPECIAL NEWS on Sunday, September 20, at 12 pm PDT: th-cam.com/video/oXahRL43IHE/w-d-xo.html

[@joshgrondin3675]

Cassidy rules! He just mixed an album I produced and killed it.

[@Townsendlabs]

Yep, he's the man!

[@trihangku]

Been a fan of you Cassidy

[@Townsendlabs]

Make sure to also catch Cassidy's in-depth session walkthrough of the song 'Spell of Love': th-cam.com/video/aJxJ-vJYQLc/w-d-xo.html