Read all about it in the April 2022 issue of the Joshua Tree Voice:
   https://joshuatreevoice.com/red-barn-recorders-morongo-valley/





The high desert in Southern California, at altitudes ranging from 2,500 feet to a mile and more, is a place like no other. It’s beautiful intense, and unpredictable. Joshua trees stand as silent sentinels. A magnesium sun cautions you. At midnight under a billion stars and
the Milky Way, if the coyotes aren’t singing out in the infinite darkness it’s quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat. Hot summers, winter snows, wildlife everywhere.

Drive East on the 10 freeway out of Los Angeles for two hours. The housing developments gradually fall away replaced by enormous 3-bladed wind turbines 300 feet high. They decorate the hillsides and plains, gracefully turning in the wind silently and cleanly producing electricity. Take the Joshua Tree exit off the 10 on to Highway 62. A dozen miles from there, through a mountain pass and a 1/2 mile down a dirt road is RED BARN RECORDERS. An aural oasis. A place to turn visions into reality via recording equipment and techniques that were born in the late '50s and fell out of favor sometime in the mid '80s. That long neglected, beautiful, red-headed stepchild is back with a vengence, enhanced and integrated with 21st century technology. Here, a red barn has been transformed into a recording studio. In it, a loft overlooks a living room full of eclectic musical instruments and tools of the trade.

Stand behind the same microphones that Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra used to tattoo the sound of their souls into history. Sit at the white Steinway grand piano and channel some John Lennon. Exercise your Muscle Shoals on an old Hammond B3 organ. Plug a Telecaster into a beat-up tweed Fender Deluxe amplifier, turn it up to 12 and get in touch with your twang. With the 20 foot long theatre curtains pulled back to make full use of the barn's high ceiling acoustics, bring out your inner Bonham slamming some drums. Put a mic   up in the loft and hit record. Back in the control room behind the MCI console, push up the faders and listen to what those drums sound like recorded onto 2" 16 track tape at 15 inches per second. It'll spoil you. Put some wood in the stove and mic up your acoustic guitar.
Turn down the lights and dig deep. Let it bring out the best in you. If you show up, you won't be let down.