Chopping It Up With Legendary Engineer Bruce Swedien at Westviking

Sit back and imagine a young aspiring baseball player getting the chance to play a game with Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio. You know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about a once in a lifetime experience. In my story Bruce Swedien was my Joe DiMaggio. A while back when I began to get serious about studio engineering I started looking for influential people to follow. After reading about the recording industry and studying older recordings I found one engineer who really caught my attention. Here is the story on how I was able to meet my recording studio hero.

There was a moment in my life when I realized it was time to get serious about both my education and love for studio engineering. Soon after I perused a degree in Recording Arts from Full Sail University. Due to my professionalism and outstanding academic performance I quickly became known by the staff. Before I knew it I was being invited to some very special private meetings called “Green Rooms” where I had the opportunity to speak one on one with some of the best in the audio world. Lo and behold my second Green room event was with Bruce Swedien! During the meeting Bruce talked about his start in the recording business, working with Bill Putnam, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.  He instilled a sort of pride and understanding for our roll as recording engineers.

I ended up graduating top of my class with various awards for my outstanding performance in both the classroom and professional studio environments. After receiving my degree I decided this would be a good time to hang around Orlando and do a little site seeing.  This would turn out to be a very wise decision indeed.  A month later I get a call from an associate at Full Sail asking me if I would like to take a trip and visit Bruce in his newly built custom recording studio in Ocalla Florida.  I didn’t even let the nice lady finish her sentence before blurting out YES!

We arrive at his Westviking Estate early around 9am and are greeted warmly at the door by Bruce and Bea Swedien. We make our way to the studio behind their house and proceed into the live room. Bruce walked us around and showed us the custom details of the live room and machine room. He went into great detail about the importance of proper studio acoustics and design. Yes, I was soaking it all in like a sponge… no wait… a Shamwow. We then proceded into the control room where we are greeted by a beautiful vintage Harrison 32c console nestled into his custom designed ASC Attack Wall.

Bruce sits down at the console and we all sit around him and he starts telling us stories about his recording adventures. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Bruce breaks out a bunch of  DAT tapes and we critically listen to various historical recordings. I can’t even begin to explain the kind of wonderful feeling these recordings have.

After listening to a few DAT’s we than focused on his console and outboard goodies. If I had to use one word to describe Bruce in the studio it would be…  precise.  He has only what he needs and he knows how to use it.  A few quotes I remember are…

“Pro Tools is a glorified tape machine”.

“The eq on the 32c will make you cry”.

Critical Listening Studio Engineering Workshop with Bruce Swedien

Does Michael Jackson (the 104 million selling ‘Thriller’ LP), Quincy Jones, James Ingram, Michael McDonald, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Jennifer Lopez, Muddy Waters, Duke Ellington sound familiar?  Well the man behind their sonic achievements has opened the doors of his West Viking Studio to host a series of critical listening workshops and guess what?….    You’re invited!

www.criticallistening.net is currently accepting 10 students to attend Bruce’s Critical Listening Workshop to be held at Bruce’s private home studio in Central Florida. This is the first time Bruce has ever opened his studio to such an intimate group of students, this should be something to cherish and remember forever. This master class is designed for those professionally involved in the technical aspects, the performing, and the production of high-quality recorded music. Critical listening is a form of listening that involves analysis, serious thinking and thoughtful judgment.  When it comes to recording and mixing music, critical listening is used every day. We will explore all phases of world-class, state-of-the-art music recording right up to and including the final mix…

Engineer Bruce Swedien’s resumé lists such names as Michael Jackson (the 104 million selling ‘Thriller’ LP), Quincy Jones, James Ingram, Michael McDonald, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Jennifer Lopez, Muddy Waters, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Jackie Wilson, Herb Alpert, Barbra Streisand, the Chi-Lites, Donna Summer, Count Basie, B.B. King, George Benson, Sergio Mendes, Patti Austin, John Lee Hooker, Dinah Washington, Missing Persons, Natalie Cole, Buddy Miles, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne and Woody Herman, among others.

Bruce has recorded just about every type of music and has worked on numerous movie scores including ‘The Wiz’, ‘Running Scared’, ‘The Color Purple’ and more. He has won 5 Grammy® Awards from 13 Grammy® Nominations including those for his engineering of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, ‘Bad’, and ‘Dangerous’ albums and for two Quincy Jones albums — ‘Back on the Block’ and ‘Q’s Jook Joint’.