Audio Production

An Evening with Matt McClure

March 13, 2009 February 13, 2009 On Tuesday, January 13th, I attended a presentation by renowned Nashville producer/engineer Matt McClure with a few colleagues from the CDIA Audio program, both past and present. Matt was speaking at the monthly Boston Audio Engineering Society (AES) gathering, and those who braved the labyrinth of the Boston College campus to find the meeting hall were treated to a wonderful evening. Matt's story, like many in this business, is unique and inspiring on several levels. Matt got his start doing live sound for Disney, of all places, before seizing an opportunity to mix for a small country act. He spent more than 10 years on the road doing sound for a number of Nashville's biggest acts before leaving that grind to launch his career as an engineer and producer in the Music City. Despite a series of ups and downs, Matt persevered to become one of the premier engineers on the Nashville scene specializing in the production of demos, used by songwriters to showcase their work. Over the course of a several-hour discussion, Matt enlightened us about the Nashville music process – everything from scheduling to the Nashville charting method to the inner workings of the demo. All of us in the music business are familiar with demos, but in Nashville, demos are a key component in the entire creative process, from songwriting to final production and release. Songwriters and music publishers produce demos as a way to create top-quality versions of songs for shopping to established stars and record labels. If selected for a major label release, the demos provide the direction and structure for that release – often the release even includes the same backing musicians! Matt was also kind enough to show us pictures of recent production sessions and the home studio where he does the majority of his mixes. He also played us clips of some of recent work. The "icing on the cake" moment was when Matt took us through screen shots of a recent ProTools session, discussing in detail a few of his techniques for achieving sounds as well as some preferences for gear. What struck me most about Matt was his passion for music and audio coupled with a genuine honesty and integrity that runs through his approach to the business. Overall, a great evening was had by all.