RSR065 – Meghan Gohil – From Live Sound to Studio, Recording with Lij Shaw

My guest today is Meghan Gohil, a producer, engineer, musician, studio and record label owner in Hollywood CA. He has been recording for longer than I have and the reason I know is that Meghan was who recorded my first college band in St Louis called Dr Seuss. When I first got started recording with my four track Meghan was the expert that I turned to for advice and microphones. He recorded many projects with me over the next couple of decades. Our first big release was for my band Enormous Richard, “Enormous Richard’s Almanac” a twangy alt country band from St Louis. We recorded 30 songs live to cassette in a basement in Granite City IL and went on to sell and distribute several thousand copies, nearly landing a record deal in the process.

That was followed by Enormous Richard “Answers All Your Questions” our first CD release. Then later we renamed ourselves Eleanor Roosevelt and made “Walker With His Head Down”  with Meghan for his college audio program at Webster University where he studied under Barry Hufker, and Bill Porter who recorded Elvis, Roy Orbison, and The Everly Brothers.

After that was another basement record. “Warm Milk On The Porch.” on 8 track cassette. And finally our band break up record aptly named “Crumbling In The Rain” which was live to two track digital tape, known as DAT tape, without headphones from the livingroom of his big old wooden house. (Like many band break ups we got back together later to make more records) I’m sure I am forgetting to mention many other sessions, but we can get to that during the interview.

Meghan moved from St Louis to Hollywood in the 2000’s to further his recording and music career, and has gone on to record with many greats including: Cure co-founder Lol Tolhurst’s band, Levinhurst, Trey Anastasio of Phish, Jack Johnson with the Animal Liberation Orchestra, Phil Lesh & Joan Osbourne, Digable Planets, and Michael Frante to name a few.

For 20 years Meghan has maintained a dual career in radio promotions, and career development & management working with many independant artists. He worked as the Project Manager at Contemporary Productions in St. Louis, SFX Entertainment, and Clear Channel Concerts.  And He’s also consulted for AEG Live and Emery Entertainment.  

Currently, he records from his home studio which you can check out at HollywoodRecordingStudio.com,  and works as a Strategy and Analytics Manager at Live Nation Entertainment’s Amphitheater division..

Cool stuff we talked about on the show:

• The benefits of starting out in live sound.
• Why you should keep a two track running during the whole session!
• How not to setup a PA…

• How to use scene changes to make your mix more interesting.
• The single most important thing to learn starting out in a studio?
• Why you should always copyright your songs!

• The importance of release forms.
• How to use speakers instead of headphones for overdubbing.
• My first band house was a mortuary! Hear the stories.

• How a recording session can be more important than a stolen car!
• How to break into touring with your band.
• Which plugin is like having a Dalek mix your song?

• What are the sweet spots for mixing levels: kick drums & speaker volume.

Leave a comment at the bottom of the post and let us know what you think, and thanks for being a Rockstar!

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