Gear Club Podcast John Agnello & Stewart Lerman

To celebrate Bob Dylan’s birthday, we’ve compiled a special Gear Club episode that offers a behind the scenes look into Dylan’s Life and music. Bob has been described as a shape-shifter, a song and dance man, and the Shakespeare of our time. Over his 60 plus year career, he’s written more than 500 songs that have been covered by over 2,000 artists. He’s played nearly 4,000 concerts. He’s won 38 Grammys, an Oscar, and a Nobel prize in literature. But who is this guy? What’s he like to work with? Listen in as Chris Shaw, David Mansfield, Toby Scott, and Steve Addabbo share their recollections of the man on stage and in the studio.

Producer and Engineer William Wittman was one of our early guests in 2017 with a two parter, Episodes #15 and #16, where he discussed making seminal records with Cindy Lauper, Joan Osborne, and The Outfield, his time coming up through NYC recording studios, and his work/prank relationship with our very own John Agnello. In this episode, I catch up with Bill about making records with his band Too Much Joy, drum mic techniques, the things we like about in the box mixing, and working at the famed Van Gelder studio in Englewood, NJ.

In this episode, John and Stewart sit down with producer, engineer, musician, song writer, studio owner, and the Godfather of Jangle Pop, the one and only, Mitch Easter. Mitch has always been and continues to be a staple of the Indie Rock scene in North Carolina and beyond. First operating out of Drive in Studio located in his parents' garage, and in 1994 moving to his current studio, the Fidelitorium. Mitch has worked with a laundry list of seminal artists, including R.E.M., Helium, Pavement, Wilco, Ben Folds Five, Pylon, and Polvo.
He’s also an active musician and writer, releasing music for almost a decade with his band "Let’s Active" and currently as a solo artist. In this episode Mitch discusses building, operating, and outfitting his recording studios, the joys and perils of tracking to analog tape, producing the first R.E.M. records, and why it’s not always a good idea to fix everything in a recording.

In 2018 the H9000 Harmonizer®, Eventide’s flagship multi effects processor, won a TEC award for best signal processing hardware. We had the team behind the H9000’s design and development on the podcast in Episodes #66.1, #66.2 and #66.3 to talk about the process of designing, building, and testing the latest in Eventide’s revered Harmonizer line. Now we’re back to talk about what’s new at Eventide and the 2023 TEC award for best signal processing software awarded to their revolutionary equalizer plugin, SplitEQ. Russell Wedelich is the VP of development and director of signal processing at Eventide and had a heavy hand in writing the DSP code that went into the H9000. He’s also the lead DSP engineer responsible for the SplitEQ plugin and its patented technology. Russ and I got to chat about what went into developing SplitEQ, the new Eventide H90 Harmonizer pedal, and the culture that makes Eventide so consistently innovative.
For more from Russell and the rest of the H9000 team check out Gear Club Episodes #66.1, #66.2 and #66.3.

In this episode, we’re delighted to talk with industry legend, Thom Panunzio. Getting his start as an assistant at NYC’s Record Plant, Thom went on to work in every facet of the music business. He’s produced, mixed, and engineered albums for Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Alice Cooper, and Aerosmith just to name a few. He helped design The Hit Factory in NYC, A&M Studios in LA, and the Thom Thom Club in Santa Monica, and was the Executive VP for Universal Music and head of A&R at Geffen Records for many years. Thom talks with John and Stewart about his time on staff at the Record Plant, his favorite mixing desks, his reluctant entrance into the world of A&R,  and how the industry and technology has changed over the course of his almost 50 year career. 

Mastering engineer extraordinaire Greg Calbi is a dear friend and was our guest on Gear Club Episode #2 way back in January of 2017. Over the last 50 years Greg has mastered a seemingly endless list of albums across every genera of music, and it’s almost a certainty he’s had a hand in the making of one of your favorite records. In this episode Greg and I got to chat about Sterling Sound moving from Manhattan to its new facility in Edgewater NJ, his workflow from converters to compressors to clients, and the unique changes, challenges, and expectations of modern mastering.