Skip to content
The Nashville Collective The Nashville Collective
← All rooms
The Tracking Room

The room makes records that sound like the music is breathing.

Designed by

Mark Howard

The engineer behind Daniel Lanois's records, Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, and Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball.

The tracking room during a Fifty Years of Clown School session

What happens here

The band sits in a circle.

This is the room where the band sits in a circle, in full sight of each other, and plays the whole song top to bottom. No headphones. No click. No separation. Mics get full bleed. Takes have feel because feel can't survive a click.

The walls aren't parallel. The ceiling has period pieces. The light is right. The room sounds like rooms used to sound, because Mark designs rooms that way and because we don't treat the bleed as a problem to fix.

Wide shot of the tracking room
Two fiddlers tracking

What's in here, briefly

Mic list PDF — coming

Microphones

  • Peluso P-67 — main condenser
  • Peluso P-84 (pair) — small-diaphragm condensers
  • Peluso P-87 — large-diaphragm condenser
  • Shure SM7B — dynamic for vocals
  • Shure SM57 (×5) — workhorse dynamics
  • CAD M179 — multi-pattern condenser

Preamps

  • BAE 1073 DMP
  • Apogee Element 88
  • Grace 8-channel
  • Yamaha MLA-8

Treatment

  • Mark Howard room design
  • Period furniture, warm lighting, non-parallel surfaces
  • Wall and side traps — broadband absorption + bass control

Working with us

Inquire about the tracking room.

Book a session