Chris Huston – Recording Engineer
Chris began his professional musician life as the lead guitarist in a group called “The Undertakers”, back in 1962, during the Merseybeat era in the UK. From his experiences, though successful, this brought him ambitions of becoming a record producer. To do this properly, he decided that he first had to learn about the process of recording music. So, he started as a recording engineer, and recalls what it was like to make records in the 60s and 70s as compared to recording process today. "I was so fortunate to able to learn to make records the ‘old way’. Perhaps the most important thing I learned," he says, " something which served me so well over many years, is that in those early days, we were documenting a performance, whereas today, we are creating a performance. What this meant back then, music was usually recorded 'live' because of the limitations of the recording process, and you had to capture the sound and the performance of all the musicians playing at together - rhythm section, strings, horns and vocals, and singers - to the tracks of, in my case in the mid Sixties, a 4 track Ampex tape recorder. Conversely, much of today’s music is put together instrument by instrument and voice by voice. Vocals can be pitch-corrected and editing is not done with a razor blade and grease pencil as I had to do it it, but in the fraction of the time it took me with a computer, in programs such as ProTools."
Chris has been fortunate enough to have been a part of many Gold and Platinum albums in his career - engineering and/or producing - working with such great artists as: The Who, Eric Burdon and WAR, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, The Rascals, James Brown, Ben E. King, The Drifters, Patti La Belle & the Bluebelles, Mary Wells, Solomon Burke, Big Maybelle, Irma Franklin, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Bar Kays, Tim Buckley, Robben Ford, Blood, Sweat & tears.
Chris Huston – Studio Designer & Acoustical Engineer
As a recording engineer Chris learned about sound and how it interacted acoustically with a room, whether it was a recording studio, a control room or just an empty room. The studio he was with, Talentmasters, on 42nd Street in Manhattan, was accquired by Atlantic Records, in 1967. They asked Chris to remodel the studio, update the tape machines to 8 track recorders and to improve the acoustics. This became his first exposure to studio design. That blossomed, as other people asked him to design their studios, and Chris rapidly became known as one of the finest Recording Studio Designers around, including the design of the prestigious Sound Kitchen, a 26,000 square foot recording studio facility in Franklin, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, in 1994 and again in 1998 when, due to the success of the original two studios, four additional studios were added to the complex.
Chris continued to study Acoustics, Design and Architecture, taking what he knew about sound and recording studio design and applied it to the design of Audiophile 2 Channel Listening Rooms, Home Theaters and other sound-sensitive environments.
2004 – 2014: Vice President, Acoustical Engineering, Rives Audio, Inc.
Oversaw and managed all acoustical engineering staff including training.
Insured quality of work of all designs. Oversaw basic philosophy of
design and design elements for all Rives Audio projects. Personally did
all Level 3 & Level 4 (Professional & Commercial) designs.
1981 – 2004: Studio Designer & Acoustical Engineer
Projects have included; Recording Studios and Control Rooms, Radio
Stations, Dubbing & Foley/ADR Stages, Rehearsal Studios, Night Clubs,
Video Stages, Video Editing Suites, Home Theaters, Home Studios,
Restaurants, Churches as well as residential & commercial design & noise-control.
1965 – 1981
Record Producer and Recording Engineer responsible for recordings
earning Gold and Platinum awards plus a GRAMMY nomination (WAR – “The
World Is A Ghetto” which was the Top selling album 1973).
A partial list of artists worked with follows:
Led Zeppelin, The Who, War, The Rascals, Todd Rundgren (The Nazz), Van
Morrison, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mytch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Ben E. King,
The Drifters, Patti La Belle & the Bluebelles, Solomon Burke, Mary Wells, Wilson
Pickett, Ben E. King, John Hammond Jr., Jimmy Witherspoon, The Capitols, The
Manhattans, James Brown, ? & The Mysterians, Eric Burden and Tim Buckley.
In excess of 2,000 hours of live / remote recording in the USA, Europe and Japan.
Work on numerous movie sound tracks, Radio and TV commercials.
1962 – 1965
Professional musician with well-known Liverpool Rock’n'Roll group – The
Undertakers – played lead guitar. Group recorded for PYE Records and
toured continuously throughout Great Britain and Germany.
1958 – 1962
Studied Design, Commercial Art and Technical Engineering Drawing at
Wallasey Technical College and Liverpool College of Art. Worked as
Commercial Artist for Arthur Maiden Limited, Advertising Agency,
Liverpool, England, turning professional as a musician.
Lectures extensively on recording Record Production & Recording Engineering
and Acoustics.