Live album recording in Nashville.
The Nashville Collective records full albums live, in one room, with the band in full sight of each other. No headphones. No click. No way to recover. The way records used to get made — and the only way the records that matter still do.
What live tracking means
Live tracking is the band playing the song top to bottom, in one room, at one time, into one set of microphones. Every musician hears every other musician without headphones. There's no click track keeping time — the time comes from the bass and the drums, the way it always did. There's nowhere to hide and nowhere to recover. If a take doesn't have it, you do another take. When a take has it, the record is made.
Why we don't use a click
A click is a metronome — a machine pulse that locks every musician to a grid. It makes editing easier and feel disappear. The pocket of a band is a conversation; a click ends the conversation and replaces it with a pulse. We want the conversation.
We wrote a longer piece on this. Read the Field Note →
The room
Matt's tracking room was designed by Mark Howard — the engineer behind Daniel Lanois's records, Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball. Mark designs rooms that sound like the music is breathing. The walls aren't parallel. The ceiling has period pieces. The light is right. The room is as much an instrument as the players in it.
The house band
We have a roster of session players we trust the room to — bass, fiddle, mandolin, drums, voice — and a circle of engineers, image-makers, and writers who finish the record once the takes are in. The lineup shifts depending on the song. Bring your band, or use ours, or both.
How a session goes
Day one: arrive, set up, run a couple of songs to feel the room. Day two and on: track. We aim for two songs a day if the band is rehearsed. Most takes that make the record are second or third takes — first takes have nerves, fourth takes have stiffness. Lunch is part of the process. Dinner is part of the process. We don't keep a clock.
Re-amping and mixing
After tracking, we re-amp through Chris's outboard gear — Burl conversion, Neve master bus, Retro 176 tube, Purple MC77 FET, BAE 1073 preamps — and mix in a treated room. The goal is emotional preservation, not correction. Mixing happens together; co-production end to end.
What it costs
We work in three rough tiers — a single, an EP, a full album — with a flat day rate inside each tier. Pricing covers the room, the engineer, and a producer in the chair. Players, catering, and mixing-room time are line items. The booking form has budget ranges we can talk inside of.
How to book
Use the book a room form. Tell us what the project is, who's playing, when you'd like to come in, and what you're chasing sonically. We answer everything within 48 hours.