A Brief History:
We begin with the usual story of playing in various bands and recording everything possible with cassette decks and Radio Shack mics. Occasionally a cassette or reel to reel 4 track could be borrowed. Brief visual art, photography and film school stints ran in parallel and contributed to my outlook about the "canvas" of sound recording.
EMRR officially began as a location recording studio in 1993 with a portable 8 track system, a handful of mics and a few pairs of headphones. Projects were produced in houses, rehearsal spaces and borrowed rooms. Live recordings were made at many area music clubs.
1994 mushroomed into 16 and then 24 track recording capabilities.
1995 brought a move into a fixed studio space in a house basement; posthumously named the "Hodge-Mahal" in honor of the landlord. On-location recording continued to play an important role parallel to the new fixed location.
1998 marks the move to the current space, the former Creative Audio Services / Turtle Tapes location. This significantly enhanced the capabilities of EMRR with increased space, increased performer visibility and isolation, and less work hour restrictions thanks to "light industrial" business zoning. I try not to actually produce "light industrial music" in case you're worried by this designation. 1998 also marks the entry of the first ancient tube gear and the start of the 'vintage' specialization. All equipment has been subjected to a sound quality review process to see if circuit (and sound, obviously) improvements could be made from 1998 until the present time. This is an ongoing and never-ending process. On related fronts, many custom units have been designed and existing pieces modified and improved for other national and international studios.
2004-2005 saw an increase in remote location projects, with a solo project from Seth Avett recorded at his home, The Avett Brothers 'Four Thieves Gone' recorded in a purpose-rented house in the mountains, and a week of concerts recorded in New England for Jason LeVasseur.
2006 added a MOTU Digital Performer based workstation using MOTU 2408mk3 and 24I/O interfaces, and a Mac G5 Dual computer
system running Digital Performer. The Spectrafoo metering software package is a powerful analysis tool, giving an extra edge in any recording,
mixing, restoration, or mastering process.
2014 migrated to a much faster computer, and changed the audio interfaces for MOTU AVB type 16A and Monitor 8, a significant step up in basic sound quality. As always, countless newer microphones, instruments, and processing equipment.
2018 marks 20 years in the current location (and 25 years total), which now must rank as the longest running continuously operated recording studio space in the area, at least 31 years in total. At this point I'm officially well past the point where I can remember all the great music made here over the years. Thanks to everyone that's allowed me to help with their projects.