RSR272 - Stephen Shirk - How to Record a Great Band Performance in the Studio
Recording Studio Rockstars
Lij Shaw
4.8 • 543 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2020
⏱️ 130 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My guest today is Stephen Shirk an engineer, producer, and owner of Shirk Studio in Chicago. Originally from Bloomington, Illinois, he began playing in bands through junior high college at Miami University where he earned a degree in Business and Marketing.
In 1998 he moved to New York City to chase his dream of working in a recording studio where he worked at The Hit Factory, Pink Noise and Three Tree Productions as well as assisting on sessions at many legendary NYC facilities like Avatar (Power Station), Clinton, Right Track, and Sound on Sound. Recording in New York also exposed Stephen to a unique artistic community beyond that of music. His collaboration with Nadine Robinson would ultimately land one of his sound designs in the Museum of Modern Art's Tempo exhibit in 2002.
In 2004, Stephen relocated to Chicago to continue producing and recording bands, creating sound for art installations, as well as providing audio services for the advertising community. This was the beginning of SHIRK studios. Through a chance meeting at SXSW in 2006, Stephen partnered with the music blog, HearYa.com, and began recording and filming the HearYa live sessions.
The video series featured powerful live in-studio recordings of artists like Alabama Shakes, Delta Spirit, Other Lives, Patterson Hood, White Denim, Strand of Oaks, Rayland Baxter and many more. In 2013 he acquired the building that now houses SHIRK studios in Chicago's West Town neighbourhood. Firmly planted in Chicago, Stephen records, produces and hosts sessions with some of Chicago's most celebrated artists as well as those just getting their start.
I had the pleasure of spending a day at Shirk studio in 2019 when I hosted a mixing clinic there with Anthony Gravino. We spent the day listening to the beautiful Sphere console and I knew I found a new favourite studio in Chicago. Plus Stephen is the coolest.
Thanks to our sponsors!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of Recording Studio Rockstars is brought to you by OWC, Presonis, API Audio, Isotope, Sound Porter Mastering, JZ microphones, and Spectra-1964, |
| 0:14.2 | on the JZB-B-29 microphone through the Spectra-1964 STX-100 micpre,C-610 complimator and isotope RX and ozone. |
| 0:24.3 | So get ready to rock. |
| 0:27.8 | What I really found that I loved is I stopped thinking about how does this mic work with this pre-amp |
| 0:32.3 | and this, you know, thinking about my signal change so much as I'm setting up for a band. |
| 0:36.0 | Just like, take that out of the equation. |
| 0:37.5 | I know I have good preamps. |
| 0:39.3 | Preamps don't make great records. |
| 0:41.1 | They wake up a mic and make it sound good, |
| 0:43.8 | and maybe they all do it a little bit different, |
| 0:45.2 | but you can get a great result with a great preempt. |
| 0:48.2 | So I just like not having to think about it as much. |
| 0:50.2 | I just like not having to think about it as much. |
| 1:03.2 | Welcome to Recording Studio Rockstars. |
| 1:11.6 | I'm Lid Shaw, and this is the podcast created to help you become a rock star of the recording studio. |
| 1:21.6 | I've got two words for you that will help you make your best record ever and not lose it. Storage and backup. You want fast drives for composing and recording, and reliable drives for backup so you don't lose |
| 1:28.6 | all your hard work when something goes wrong. That's why I chose OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G internal |
| 1:35.4 | SSDs for my studio computer and Mercury Elite Pro external drives for archiving. Discover the best |
| 1:41.9 | OWC drive options for your studio at macsales.com slash rock stars. |
| 1:47.0 | The Spectre 1964 STX-100 micprie provides unequaled headroom and linear output regardless of transient audio peaks, |
| 1:59.0 | capturing critical details from your microphone. |
| 2:01.6 | The 100 series amplifiers were used by Tom Dowd, Muscle Shoals, and the record plant on records by Zizi Top, |
... |
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