Electronic Musician magazine has recently interviewed Derek Trucks about his newly built home studio, which is where Trucks and company recorded the Derek Trucks Band’s new album Already Free. In the interview, Trucks discussed how having a home studio changed the approach he and the band took for the new album.
We tracked everything there. We got into the routine of recording: I would drive the kids to school in the morning, and just come up with some seed of a song. And whoever was around — me and Mike Mattison, who’s our vocalist, it was Doyle Bramhall for a while, Warren Haynes for a while — I would get with them, and we would finish the tune off. [Then we’d] bring the band in and track it. And as we were tracking it, if there was anything anyone heard, any extra vocals, any studio magic you wanted to throw on it, we would do it all while we were in the moment. And then that evening, if we felt that we had it, we would do a pretty good rough mix, just in case. And we found, with that track that ended up on Susan’s record [“Butterfly”], that the rough mix was better than what we ended up with months later when we spent a full day mixing [laughs].
He also discusses some of his equipment that has been purchased for the home studio, including a console once owned by Ray Davies and the Kinks. Also included in the interview is a sidebar with Bobby Tis Jr., who engineered much of Already Free, Bobby Tis Sr., who helped design the studio, and Marty Wall, Trucks’ front of house engineer. Check it out!