Dave Tilley - head motherfucker in charge

Welcome to Magnetic Sound Studios

Our ABOUT US page is currently under construction. Scroll below for a peek at what’s coming.

Dave Tilley is the recording engineer and owner of Magnetic Sound Studios. He shares his love of music by capturing the unique characteristics of each musician he records, curating exquisite performances for the studio’s concert series, and spinning records for the last three decades on his radio show, The Bull City Cosmic Hoedown, on WXDU 88.7 FM in Durham.

Here’s a few dozen reasons to hire Dave to produce & engineer your next record…

I Wanna Riff
Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers
Moonglow
Sidecar Social Club
Down in the Water
Mipso
Living from the Heart
Kamara Thomas
Just a Closer Walk
Th' Bullfrog Willard McGhee
His Eye is on the Sparrow
Maceo Parker, Stephen Riley, Dave Wright, Peter Lamb & The Wolves
Pay the Band
Curtis Eller's American Circus
Number Five
Triangle Improvisors Collective
Subtle Stroll
Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers
Miss Celie's Blues
Sidecar Social Club
It's All Who You Know
Marks / Eller / Crumley
Ring Of Fire
Boneslinger
Sheik Of Araby
Peter Lamb & the Wolves
Maryville
The Brown Mountain Lights
A Poison Melody
Curtis Eller's American Circus
Number One
Triangle Improvisors Collective
Temptation
Peter Lamb & the Wolves
Business In F
Atomic Rhythm All-Stars
Bad Penny
Mipso
Anti-Rain Dance
Lynda Cullen
Real Time
Lynda Cullen
Misty Hills of Carolina
Scott Young
Dead And Lovely
Juliana Finch
I'm Evil
Mint Juliep + Wolves
Rock Me
John Dee Holeman + Mel Melton & the Wicked Mojos
At The Foot Of Sinai
Craver, Newberry, Shain
Little Sips
Boneslinger
Ten Days
Jon Shain Trio
The Long Road Home To You
Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers
Echoes Of Colombia
Ecco La Musica
Dash for Khartoum
The Huffers
Getaway Car
Jon Shain Trio
Stevedore Stomp
Atomic Rhythm All-Stars
Mona Lisa
Peter Lamb & the Wolves
Reminiscent
Joe Newberry & Jon Shain
After the Riot
Curtis Eller's American Circus
Stranded in San Antone
Kamara Thomas
Trash Cat Shuffle
Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers
Puttin on the Ritz
Peter Lamb Trio
All Your Neon Dollars
Joe Newberry & Jon Shain
Blues In The Right Lane
Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers
To a Soth photo, 7
Kamara Thomas
Weightless
Samantha Williams & friends
Glory, Glory
Mighty Gospel Inspirations
Le Cafe du Zombie
ELM Collective

Gear

Console

We are fortunate to host a 1977 Sphere Eclipse A discrete inline console with 32 channels of mic pre’s (32ch out, 16busses, 8ch of Auxes) complete with 32 Sphere 920 graphic EQ’s, built with the famous Reichenbach input and output transformers, known for their punch and clarity. This console was custom designed and built for Nashville country music legend Ray Stevens and was only recently taken out of service before moving from Nashville to Durham. Since its arrival here, we’ve worked extensively with famed audio electronics designer and Sphere guru, Gary Barnett. With Gary’s help, we continue to give this console new capabilities and features that were not even dreamed of at the time. Sphere built only about 60 consoles in total while in business - the company being a descendant of QuadEight Electronics and Electrodyne consoles. You can read more about the exciting history of these consoles in these articles here and here.

Monitoring

Our control room monitors are Altec Voice of the Theater (VOTT) A7’s - a stellar 1940’s design with sectional horns providing fantastic imaging and depth - powered by SpectraSonics modular power amps — an incredibly efficient pair of speakers and amps that make you forget you’re listening to speakers at all…

Recorders

We have mono, stereo and multi-track analog tape decks from Studer, Scully, Ampex, ATR and Nagra — as well as the amazing sounding RADAR 24-track digital recording system and a full ProTools system using DANTE-driven RADAR Converter boxes connected to a MacStudio machine with UAD DSP Satellite processors.

Microphones

Amplifiers

Instruments

Descriptions and photos coming soon!

The Echo Chamber

We’ll have a link with pictures of our echo chamber soon, but here’s an article on Reverb Nation that features some famous echo chambers.