Who writes this
My name is Jean, and I run a small project studio, which means I record other people’s bands in a room that used to be something else. I am not a large facility. I am one person with a treated room, a modest pile of gear, and a lot of takes behind me. Most of what I know came from sitting with a band at eleven at night, trying to get a vocalist to relax, or from listening back to a mix in my car the next morning and hearing everything that was wrong with it.
Why I write it
I got tired of reviews that judge a plugin by how it sounds on a soloed demo loop. That tells you almost nothing. What I care about is what a tool does to a take that is already half-good: whether it rescues a flat vocal without making it sound like a machine, whether a mix still holds together when it is played through a car stereo with the windows down. That is the test I apply here. If something only sounds impressive in a demo, I will say so.
What you get
Recording, mixing, vocals, instruments and workflow, written from the chair I actually sit in. Some of it is practical; some of it is me working through a problem I hit on a session and writing down what fixed it. I am sceptical of gear by default, so you will find fewer recommendations than you might expect, and more about why a thing works or does not. I do not claim certifications or a staff; there is just me and the room. If you want to reach me, the contact page on this site is the way.