Woodshed Studios Malibu: Behind the Scenes with Mix Engineer Lance Powell

Grammy-nominated mix engineer Lance Powell (Nick Cave, Mary J. Blige, Rita Ora, Akon, and Wu-Tang Clan) walks Headliner USA’s Will Hawkins around Woodshed Recording Studios in Malibu, California. Lance worked with Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds at Woodshed to produce the 2019 album Ghosteen, which initially started with just a couple of demos by translated into a complete album within the two weeks spent working at Woodshed. The studio is well-appointed with a range of house instruments, including a Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes, and a Yamaha C6 Piano complete with a Disklavier system for recording or feeding midi data, which is particularly handy if you need to correct small mistakes or feed midi data programmed from the DAW. At the heart of the studio is an SSL Matrix console fed by a plethora of outboard gear to suit all tastes, including units from the likes of Thermionic Culture, API, and Neve. Lance also does a significant amount of work on the road, which is where his mobile recording rig that includes a Merging Technologies Anubis at the core comes into its own. The Anubis is vital when mixing his work on the road as the first-class headphone pre-amps and Sonarworks SoundID headphone correction compensates for much of the usual pitfalls of mixing entirely on headphones. The portability of the Anubis also means Lance has the same system with him no matter what where he works, either from one studio to the next or on the road. The AD/DA converters stand up to any other studio converter he's heard, but it gives him the advantage of being self-contained and able to plug-and-play from one location to the next. #woodshedstudios #anubis #mergingtechnologies #nickcave #recordingstudio #studiotour #headlinerhub #headlinermagazine #headlinerusa #headlinerpro