I can’t believe she didn’t give the guitar to Prince. Maybe he brings it back to her like the guy who returned the Stones electric amp. I bet that guitar story would’ve been more interesting if she let him have and got it back.
Well shes more of a Record Producer that wears the Engineers hat. I'm a Producer as well that wears the Engineers hat in my own studio but outside of my studio I mainly serve as a Producer working alongside an Engineer in another studio.
I can’t even remember how many sessions I recorded and mixed with that board at Sound City. As she said, it was their Studio B console. The board from Studio A is now in Dave Grohl’s Studio 606. We recorded and mixed Qotsa’s ‘Rated R’ on Sylvia’s board and mixed my ‘Sunrise on the Sufferbus’ album on it as well as dozens more that I’ll likely never be able to remember. Sylvia is a genius and a rare commodity in these days of lazy ‘in the box’ pro-tooles producers and engineers. What she does is necessary to counteract the lazy convenience of inferior sounding digital plug ins. And you don’t need to be rich to do it. EXPERIMENT with whatever oddball old pieces of junk that make an interesting sounding growl or buzz; an old radio, a $10 keyboard from a thrift store. If your born with the will to be a free thinker you can do what she does with 100th of what she has. Don’t be afraid. As I’ve said when music began transitioning to digital; Treat Protooles like a filthy pig. Mistreat it. Throw noise into it. Don’t be gentle with it. Use as few built ins as possible. Did you see the cassette recorder she uses as a compressor for drum tracking? There you go. No fear. Don’t be sterile. Be feral. CG
Right on man. She's awesome. What made that board special in your opinion? Or Have we just gotten too "clean" and expect a good sounding noise to come out of pro tools and not the musicians. ..
As a woman in the audio industry, Sylvia Massey is one of my heroes. I obsessively collect old phones and mod them into mics, so it's amazing to learn that she does the same thing! Thank y'all for interviewing her!
Anyone that is fascinated with Sylvia (as you should be) ought to pick up her "Recording Unhinged" book, it's really good, and a must have for anyone that is into this stuff
I knew she was a big name in the engineering/production scene but wow I never knew she was this much of a weirdass. I love it. Will definitely listen to her work in a new light.
The only producer/mixer/engineer that I know of that goes to her refrigerator for recording equipment. Mad-culinary-recording-scientist! *Cashier making small talk at the checkout counter Having a bbq today?...How fun! *Sylvia Massey Bbq? No, I'm recording an album in my studio. *Cashier (Look of confusion shaking her head)….whatever.
Well, this video made my day. great to see the old SVT again. EarthQuaker guys, thanks so much for the care-package you sent Sylvia last year, it showed up right before recording our new Dishwalla album, so we pretty much used exclusively EQD stuff on the record. It was like Christmas in there, we just went crazy trying everything out. I remember The Park got used A LOT
Holy crap she's like the Bill Nye meets Macguiver meets Indiana Jones of audio recording! So rad! "Cheese gives you a great blues tone" XD Can't wait to try that! lmao
Sylvia is sublime. Oozing femininity, beautiful calming demeanor. And likes the 1073 because "you really can't fuck it up too bad". The woman is perfection.
14:24 This is ridiculously clever and creative. This woman is so next level. EDIT: Okay, no, she’s a straight-up genius of recording engineering. I was not at all expecting food to get involved in this.
She is such a beautifully weird, interesting passionate human. Humble, bold and genius. Something about her mesmerizes me. When I was younger and way more full of bs and testosterone I used to think I could have done a better job recording undertow then her. How pretentious and arrogant was I. I have sense came to my senses and realized the gargantuan achievement that was and the many many that followed that she managed to put her touch on. What I would have personally underestimated was how important her ability to pull creativity and performances out of some of the best talent.
Sylvia is a legend! I really wish that she would write a book about all of the unconventional tools she uses. Producers like her have acquired so much MacGyver-type knowledge that has become a lost art in the age of software/plug-ins.
Sir Geotge Martin looks from heaven at his old console and is wondering about a signal chain that contains both a Telefunken and a salted pickle. Being and old fashioned Brit he would have preferred chutney
That was totally freaking cool. What an amazing vibe and total obvious delight in recording from Neve and Neumann to total DIY craziness. Loved this episode. Who wouldn't want to record with her?
She is great and very funny and must be fun to work with. The light bulb in series with an audio signal idea, I got from an old Guitar Player mag interview with Joe Walsh, probably about 20 years ago. I forget the actual context but from that info, I put two standard car stop lights (filament, not LED) in series with the tweeter HF + line inside a 145 Leslie. What happens there is that the light bulbs act like a limiter to protect the phenolic-cone tweeter voice coil when you drive a Leslie with say, a 100 watt Marshall!- The original tweeter diaphragms are hard to come by and expensive, so you don't want to be blowing them up. Works like a hot damn. Because of the slow build-up of heat and slow release in the light bulb filaments, the effect is not abrupt but like a well-set attack and release setting on a good limiter/ compressor. The Leslie woofer is unaffected. I have been using this setup for years and it sounds really good and the tweeter voice coil is still in good condition after all these years of abuse. The phenolic diaphragm is responsible for that peculiar Leslie growl, that is so cool sounding. And you do get a limiter-type effect that is subtle enough that it sounds great and fattens up, even when you're nailing it. The original Leslie tube amp (2 x 6550's) is maybe 30 watts on a good day and doesn't push as hard, obviously..
As an audio guy, I have nothing but the highest respect for Sylvia Massy. I worked as an engineer/mixer/producer with a band that ended up working with Sylvia. They were worried I'd be upset that they wanted to work with her, like they were ditching me. I told them to go and have the great experience of working with one of the best ever. I had 10 percent of her talent at best.
Wow I'm very impressed with this Lady... definitely One of the best real life audio engineering studio tour i have seen... Love her insight of the craft.
I love how she literally went out of their way to buy an antique chair for Prince to sit at a session but straight out refused to sell him a 200$ guitar because he tried to steal it lmao I love Prince to bits but he could be a seriously weird asshole!
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Sylvia's new series, STUDIO GO BOOM!, premiering very soon - Spring 2021!
hell yes
Plz thx u
I can’t believe she didn’t give the guitar to Prince. Maybe he brings it back to her like the guy who returned the Stones electric amp. I bet that guitar story would’ve been more interesting if she let him have and got it back.
EQD I am a serious collector and I vote with Sylvia, PICKLE FUZZ.
Is she still alive after touching the top of the transformer?
I don't think that I have ever been more impressed by a recording engineer.
Well shes more of a Record Producer that wears the Engineers hat. I'm a Producer as well that wears the Engineers hat in my own studio but outside of my studio I mainly serve as a Producer working alongside an Engineer in another studio.
She’s got a impressive list of credits too :)
Right? I just discovered her recently and I find her fascinating. Super talented and creative, and has some incredible stories
@@Clinterus she has an amazing book she illustrated on recordi ng techniques. It's very, very, VERY good.
Agreed..check out Steve albini... amazing
I can’t even remember how many sessions I recorded and mixed with that board at Sound City. As she said, it was their Studio B console. The board from Studio A is now in Dave Grohl’s Studio 606.
We recorded and mixed Qotsa’s ‘Rated R’ on Sylvia’s board and mixed my ‘Sunrise on the Sufferbus’ album on it as well as dozens more that I’ll likely never be able to remember.
Sylvia is a genius and a rare commodity in these days of lazy ‘in the box’ pro-tooles producers and engineers. What she does is necessary to counteract the lazy convenience of inferior sounding digital plug ins. And you don’t need to be rich to do it.
EXPERIMENT with whatever oddball old pieces of junk that make an interesting sounding growl or buzz; an old radio, a $10 keyboard from a thrift store. If your born with the will to be a free thinker you can do what she does with 100th of what she has. Don’t be afraid.
As I’ve said when music began transitioning to digital; Treat Protooles like a filthy pig. Mistreat it. Throw noise into it. Don’t be gentle with it. Use as few built ins as possible.
Did you see the cassette recorder she uses as a compressor for drum tracking? There you go.
No fear. Don’t be sterile. Be feral. CG
Right on man. She's awesome. What made that board special in your opinion? Or Have we just gotten too "clean" and expect a good sounding noise to come out of pro tools and not the musicians. ..
Love you Chris!!! Thanks for keeping that flag waving.
You keep mentioning Protools. Fuck that. Use Cubase instead, my very sire.
Your a legend Chris. Love the Kyuss records!
@@bille77 I think he's talkin shit about it m8
"cheese has an amazing blues tone. for real." Sylvia Massy is a national treasure and deserves her own TV show.
Sylvia Massy: The only person badass enough to tell Prince "No, you can't have this guitar."
As a woman in the audio industry, Sylvia Massey is one of my heroes. I obsessively collect old phones and mod them into mics, so it's amazing to learn that she does the same thing! Thank y'all for interviewing her!
Thanks for watching, Abby!
As a dude in the industry Sylvia Massy is an inspiration, she's got such a great attitude & such knowledge. I'd love to work with her.
this is easily one of the coolest things you're ever going to find in the whole of the interwebs. period
Anyone that is fascinated with Sylvia (as you should be) ought to pick up her "Recording Unhinged" book, it's really good, and a must have for anyone that is into this stuff
Thanks I'll check it out 👍👍
I used to clean spilled beer and cigarette smoke residue off that Neve console when it was at Sound City.
thank you for your service dude. 🤘
"i have ton of junk, soooo much junk.... this is my Neve 8038.."
i think i kinda fell in love a little bit.
by far the most educational and informative youtube video i have ever seen. fantastic!
thats great! thanks for watching! we will keep making vids
Prince - I want that guitar!
Sylvia - No, that's my guitar.
This woman is a mad scientist and I absolutely love it!!
What's not to love? Thanks so much for watching!
My new favourite person on the planet ever!! :-)
She's amazing... Sylvia is a Boss! I love her RUclips Channel and her work. Audio production for the soul.
Sylvia has a RUclips channel?
I knew she was a big name in the engineering/production scene but wow I never knew she was this much of a weirdass. I love it. Will definitely listen to her work in a new light.
Thank you EQD and Sylvia for being so generous with your tour and overview of your fabulous equipment.
thanks for watching, Robert!
If she's able tell Prince no, you probably shouldn't fuck with her
Why?
Why wasn't she in the Sound City movie. It seems like she resided there for quite a while
Silvia Massy is a National Treasure.
The only producer/mixer/engineer that I know of that goes to her refrigerator for recording equipment. Mad-culinary-recording-scientist!
*Cashier making small talk at the checkout counter
Having a bbq today?...How fun!
*Sylvia Massey
Bbq? No, I'm recording an album in my studio.
*Cashier
(Look of confusion shaking her head)….whatever.
"Cheese has an amazing blues tone." - Sylvia Massy
blue cheese.
Hands down, she's fuck'en awesome!
"This guitar is mine now, not yours" -Prince
I burst out laughing when she impersonate Maynard's pose lol
Cant say thanxxx enough for this one! EQD-&-SylviaMassy- what a wallup of info,lessons,and tones\m/
I love the slow transition from "analogue compressors are cool" to "let's splice in an extension cord and run sound through cheese"
She darn knows her stuff. It would be wonderful to work with such a kind soul. 🥰
Well, this video made my day. great to see the old SVT again. EarthQuaker guys, thanks so much for the care-package you sent Sylvia last year, it showed up right before recording our new Dishwalla album, so we pretty much used exclusively EQD stuff on the record. It was like Christmas in there, we just went crazy trying everything out. I remember The Park got used A LOT
Holy crap she's like the Bill Nye meets Macguiver meets Indiana Jones of audio recording!
So rad!
"Cheese gives you a great blues tone"
XD Can't wait to try that! lmao
Sylvia is sublime. Oozing femininity, beautiful calming demeanor. And likes the 1073 because "you really can't fuck it up too bad". The woman is perfection.
I love the oddball gear she uses, and the "whatever sounds cool" ethos. The world needs more mad scientists like Sylvia.
"Don't even look at it."
*extreme close-up*
so glad this episode is longer, wish you could go back and make some of the previous longer.
14:24
This is ridiculously clever and creative. This woman is so next level.
EDIT: Okay, no, she’s a straight-up genius of recording engineering. I was not at all expecting food to get involved in this.
Now, there will be decades of debate about which pickles have the best tone.
Tone-pickles.
She is such a beautifully weird, interesting passionate human. Humble, bold and genius. Something about her mesmerizes me. When I was younger and way more full of bs and testosterone I used to think I could have done a better job recording undertow then her. How pretentious and arrogant was I. I have sense came to my senses and realized the gargantuan achievement that was and the many many that followed that she managed to put her touch on. What I would have personally underestimated was how important her ability to pull creativity and performances out of some of the best talent.
Sylvia is a legend! I really wish that she would write a book about all of the unconventional tools she uses. Producers like her have acquired so much MacGyver-type knowledge that has become a lost art in the age of software/plug-ins.
She did write a book! It's called Recording Unhinged. It's on my short list.
she has! www.amazon.com/Recording-Unhinged-Creative-Unconventional-Techniques/dp/1495011275 super worth it
Dude, I cannot imagine having a pair of balls big enough to tell Prince that he can't have my 200 dollar guitar.
"Because It's broken just the right way"
The story about refusing to let Prince take the Gemini acoustic is absolutely amazing. What a legend.
who says no to prince?! would love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation!
This is one of the coolest women I have ever seen in my life.
Omg she has so many genius analog recording tricks she's like the MacGyver of audio!
She literally used a pickle as a guitar effect in a Melvins record lmao
What a great episode!!!! An amazing lady. Wow, gonna share this for sure!!
Thanks for watching!
Sylvia Massy is super inspiring. Thanks for making this EQD.
thanks for watching!
I've seen her name on loads of great records,but I've never seen her in person.
She seems like a classy lady!
She won this series. How can you one-up a pickle?
Just make more ‘Show us your Junk’ vids, so good 🤘🏼
WE WILL! Subscribe for more! Tell a friend
Yo Sylvia Massy threw down for this episode! Easily the best Junk so far.
Pickle Pedal 2020
She's a mad scientist, lol. The use of lightbulbs, wow!
I had very little awareness of Sylvia before this. I think I found my new crush...
Sir Geotge Martin looks from heaven at his old console and is wondering about a signal chain that contains both a Telefunken and a salted pickle.
Being and old fashioned Brit he would have preferred chutney
I want to be Sylvia Massy when I grow up.
That was totally freaking cool. What an amazing vibe and total obvious delight in recording from Neve and Neumann to total DIY craziness. Loved this episode. Who wouldn't want to record with her?
This was amazing
C'mon baby light my pickle.... Best studio tour ever!!
She is great and very funny and must be fun to work with. The light bulb in series with an audio signal idea, I got from an old Guitar Player mag interview with Joe Walsh, probably about 20 years ago. I forget the actual context but from that info, I put two standard car stop lights (filament, not LED) in series with the tweeter HF + line inside a 145 Leslie. What happens there is that the light bulbs act like a limiter to protect the phenolic-cone tweeter voice coil when you drive a Leslie with say, a 100 watt Marshall!- The original tweeter diaphragms are hard to come by and expensive, so you don't want to be blowing them up. Works like a hot damn. Because of the slow build-up of heat and slow release in the light bulb filaments, the effect is not abrupt but like a well-set attack and release setting on a good limiter/ compressor. The Leslie woofer is unaffected. I have been using this setup for years and it sounds really good and the tweeter voice coil is still in good condition after all these years of abuse. The phenolic diaphragm is responsible for that peculiar Leslie growl, that is so cool sounding. And you do get a limiter-type effect that is subtle enough that it sounds great and fattens up, even when you're nailing it. The original Leslie tube amp (2 x 6550's) is maybe 30 watts on a good day and doesn't push as hard, obviously..
I'd rather spend a month making music with Sylvia than win in the lottory!
If you win the lottery you could pay her to produce your music for a month!!!
After you watch, subscribe to our channel for more content like this!
Subscribe. Great channel. Keep going,cheers !
this is great - I just subscibed :) ...anything planned on Chris Goss by any chance?
I did it before watching... hope that's ok...
I wanna hear the cheese tone
What are you doing about this pickle pedal?
Vlasic Rock
there it is!
Such an amazing woman with so much talent! This is such a cool video. I wish I could work for her!!!!
I’ve always loved her work. Very relaxing voice I could listen to her talk all day. Gear-talk related AMSR.
As an audio guy, I have nothing but the highest respect for Sylvia Massy. I worked as an engineer/mixer/producer with a band that ended up working with Sylvia. They were worried I'd be upset that they wanted to work with her, like they were ditching me. I told them to go and have the great experience of working with one of the best ever. I had 10 percent of her talent at best.
18:15 That Maynard impersonation was on point, lol
@Sylvia Massy you had me when you said “no plug-ins are used to get great amp tone...” ❤️
Who the fuck hit thumbs down?!?!?
probably the goober that called her weird
Just the sound of the "bag of tricks" hitting the table is a great sound. Damn, every video I watch of hers.. She gets it!
Pretty much the most creative producer/engineer I saw in my life! It would be a dream to record with her !
She has probably forgotten more than most will ever know
“Cheese has a great blues tone”. Best episode yet! So inventive! Total genius!
Wow I'm very impressed with this Lady... definitely One of the best real life audio engineering studio tour i have seen...
Love her insight of the craft.
love the moxy of this woman to tell prince he cant have the guitar haha... shes the best
its about junk and the first thing she shows us is a fucking NEVE console?!
oh dats ryte
She should be teaching this in a school or university somewhere, I am now intrigued by the idea of old telephones as mice and tubes filters.
She has written some books. Check 'em ouuutttt!!!
“Cheese has a blues tone.” Gold! What a creative genius ❤️
Earthquaker + Gamechanger Audio (yes, Plasma!) + Pickle!! With a Rick and Morty theme of course.
Sylvia Massy could quite easily have had a different career as a hypnotist or therapist. I feel very relaxed.
What an amazing lady. What a legacy.
My mind is blown with her recording techniques and her personally!! so incredibly smart, creative and cool!
Sylvia massy friggen rules
jeeze the price of pickles just skyrocketed on Reverb.com
Lololololololol
32 people didn’t like this....I weep for humanity
Sylvia, you are an inspiration to all of us. Keep on doing what you do!
Well done to all concerned - engaging, interesting, funny, well shot, recorded and edited.
Thanks for watching! We appreciate it!
Always had respect and love for Silvia. Now I realize she’s a mad scientist too!!
Sylvia is so dope! Her n evil joe have the most wonderful childish wonder/boundary-less approach to sound. It's infectious.
Re-watching this again almost 2 years later - Hey, Earthquaker, how's that pickle pedal coming along? *throws wallet at the screen*
"Cheese has a very blues-y tone." I could have guessed that. So cool!
I wasn't aware of Sylvia before this, but she's the fucking COOLEST.
I love how she literally went out of their way to buy an antique chair for Prince to sit at a session but straight out refused to sell him a 200$ guitar because he tried to steal it lmao I love Prince to bits but he could be a seriously weird asshole!
She seems like she'd be an awesome/fun person to work with. :)
God bless this woman. The joy she puts into recording is incredible
This is a drop the mic moment in terms of studio videos. I don't think anyone else can top it.
Best video on RUclips - This is pure studio porn!
How can you not fall in love with this woman?
Sylvia needs to hookup with Merzbow and produce a album.
SECONDED.
Wow, best one yet. I had no idea she was such a mad genius.
This is the sexiest woman I've ever seen. She says the sweetest things too... just wow, thank you, Sylvia.
You saying that cuz she recorded undertow?
Buy her recording book!
Worth every penny.
Broken in just the right way.