Had a great time at Pot Luck Audio Con in New Orleans, where I moderated the open-studio panel, which included Tim Hatfield, Pete Weiss, Dusty Wakeman and Craig Schumacher. All of us work in studios without separate control rooms, and discussed the pros and cons — mostly pros, though. The panel is always a good time, I think partly because we get to show pictures of our work situations, which people seem to really dig. The pics give a very tangible entryway into discussion: “why is that mic hanging from the ceiling?”

Just finished mixing the new, and third, album from Chicago-area band, Antenna’s Up (formerly Distance to Empty). Bob Power will be mastering it soon at Chez Bob in NYC. This record was recorded at home by their drummer, Ryan, and it’s been an interesting process to be overseeing things a bit from long-distance, via email and phone, sharing some tracking ideas, mic techniques and other suggestions based on what I’m hearing as the tracks roll in for mixing. I’m often itching to be there in the space listening with them, but Ryan is doing a great job.

Also just finished mixing the new album from NYC-based band Jesus H. Christ. Mastering will be by Jeff Lipton at Peerless. This was tracked from scratch by me at Mavericks, and turned out to be a really amazing record. The material is so strong, and the production quality is really top-notch, so the mixes came together quite easily.