Translation of the German interview:

A visit to the LowSwing recording studio

An interview with the owner Guy Sternberg

Guy Sternberg takes care of the arrangement, recording, mixing, mastering and production of music. He came to Germany from Israel in 1998 and set up his LowSwing Studio in 2002. He attracted attention with outstanding vinyl releases and soon began to issue master tape copies. In November 2023 and April 2024, I visited Guy Sternberg in his new studio in Berlin. It is located under the roof of the legendary Tritonus Studios. I was able to get a taste of very positively charged studio air and sit in the sound engineer's chair during the final mix of a production.

Claus: What was your path to producing music and setting up your own studio?

Guy: I studied bass as a teenager and my teacher sent me to a recording studio. It was a simple analog studio in Haifa, Israel, in the 1990s. I was immediately enthusiastic and wanted to do that. But they didn't want to record an unknown band. This was before the internet age, so I couldn't find out much about studios. So I left it alone. Later, when I was studying classical music at the academy, a cellist who played in a pop band asked me if I would play the bass guitar. And there I was again in a studio, this time with a big analog Neve mixing console. We started recording the record with a 2-inch tape recorder. There were several dates. At some point, the producer got into an argument with the label's financier. We had a very good engineer who came into the studio and asked what we should do now, who should say what should be done. Time was running out and the studio rent was expensive, so I said I could do it. That's how it all started. When we had made the record, people came and asked me if I could produce for them too. I didn't know much about the technology at the time. It was more of a musical task. I had worked with this very good engineer and learned a lot. In 1998 I was invited to Babelsberg Studios in Germany to work there. In 2002, I founded and set up the first LowSwing Studio in Brunnenstraße in Berlin. The LowSwing Studio has been running since then, albeit with a two-year break. [In June 2021, the LowSwing Studio fell victim to a fire. In the meantime, Guy Sternberg produced at Emil Berliner Studios].

Claus: I reviewed the master tape copy of the album “Reema - The LowSwing Sessions”. This raised the question: How did you come across Reema? How did the agreement for this recording come about?

Guy: I knew Reema a few years before the recording. She had a major label deal under the name Mimi [see for example her band “Mimi and the Mad Noise Factory”]. Her music was heavily edited on that label. I discovered that she is a very good singer. With an analog recording, you must play perfectly if you want to record live in the studio. When I was asked about the next project, Mimi/Reema came to mind because she also has her own songs, just with vocals and guitar. These are different to what I had heard from her before. I asked her to send me demos, based on which I wrote arrangements for an orchestration. I immediately realized that the project was going to be good. She was a bit surprised in the studio because there were so many musicians. During the recording, the musicians did such a good job that we often only had to record one take. Two songs on the album “Reema - The LowSwing Sessions” were recorded “direct to tape”, i.e. with two microphones (one for vocals and one for the guitar) and via an analog reverb plate in the Neve console. This record is often played at hi-fi trade fairs. You can hear how direct, close, and beautiful she sings, the perfect phrasing of her clear voice. I plan to make more recordings with her. Now she's back in the UK after living in Berlin (Germany) for a while. So, it's not so easy to meet up anymore. But we are in good contact.

Claus: Reema's music is intimate and sophisticated. How did you manage to create this atmosphere in the studio with the band and the orchestra?

Guy: It was a very special session with a large line-up, about 15 people. It wasn't easy to find these musicians: A trombone, two trumpets, two flutes, cello, drums, keyboard, electric guitar. Through my studio activities, I know a lot of the musicians I contacted. They didn't necessarily know each other. Before the recording, the places were already roughly microphoned, they read the notes. Nobody knew exactly what was going to happen and so it was a special atmosphere, a positive excitement, something like stage fright. Then there was this magic moment during the recording when everything fell into place and no further takes were necessary.

Claus: You make analog multitrack recordings. What equipment was or is used for such recordings? Many people ask: Is it really analog?

Guy: First to your last question “is it really analog”: We go to great lengths to produce everything really analog. A partner drove from Berlin to Copenhagen with a master tape machine because we wanted to mix there, and no suitable equipment was available. You could have faked it digitally, but no, analog is the principle of my label. We also don't cut records with a digital delay, because that would destroy a large part of the sound. For another production, we had to fly to London because they had a half-inch tape machine with so-called preview heads to cut the vinyl master directly from the tape. If you want that, you must make a trip. But back to the beginning: All records from Lian Hall to Alon Lothringer were recorded in the original LowSwing Studio. With the legendary Neve console, with old Neumann tube microphones and a very special tape machine, a Telefunken 15, 2-inch, 16-track with custom-made electronics and transformer in-out. After the disaster in the studio, I recorded a second Port Almond and a second Yael Nachshon Levin at Emil Berliner Studios with a Hungarian Mechlabor 16-track tape machine. The two new productions were recorded in the new studio with a Studer A820, 24-track and mixed on the Studer A80 1/2-inch. One exception is the avant-garde singer Cansu Tanrıkulu, which was recorded completely live and directly to 1/4-inch master tape. It's a very good record if you have the courage to listen to something like this. It's not easy listening. Whenever possible, I always do some tracks “direct to tape” for the productions. There's a track by Yael Nachshon Levin that we recorded directly on a Studer C37, together with a tube mixer and tube microphones. It's not only analog, but there's also no transistor in the recording chain, so it's really old-school.

Claus: What makes the analog or the tape in a production special for you? What makes tape so special?

Guy: I think that when you really work in analog, there is no buffer, no safety net, then so-called “happy mistakes” happen. Sometimes even small mistakes happen, and I think, wow, what a sound that is and then I just stick with it. Or things that are almost out of time and suddenly come back, then that's a “magic moment”. That happens in analog and there's no way to correct or edit it, you just must love it, or not. With digital productions, it happens very often that you have recorded so many takes or tracks that at some point you no longer know exactly what is worse or better. Then you only take what's definitely good, but that's often nothing special. It's just ok, it's right. With analog, you know immediately: this is THE take, you don't have to do a second take. You can listen to it without knowing the story. You just know it's the magic take. I believe in that and that's why I do it that way.

Claus: What is important to you, what would you like to tell the readers of this article?

Guy: I would like people to take their time and try to listen to music that might not be their first choice. Especially when I take Cansu Tanrıkulu's record, which is not easy listening, you realize that the sounds are incredibly beautiful and everything that good music has is there. It's like that with many artists. It's these live recordings and it's this tension in the studio. Then I want to hear those things again with that perspective. You can hear that very well on Fink's new recording [released in early 2024]. Even though he has so much experience, he still had stage fright being in the studio with David Bowie's bass player and the other musicians. There was a skepticism as to whether it would work. And then he was very enthusiastic because it goes back to a basic: where the music comes from when you're recording. They make this music together and suddenly there is something that is something bigger for the five musicians. I want people to try to hear that. I think you can hear it well.

Claus: What projects are currently in the works, or what can we expect soon?

Guy: First, the two records from Fink - The LowSwing Sessions and then Veronika Morscher, we don't have a title or an exact date yet, probably towards the end of May. The mix was finished today. We hope to be able to do it on tape as well. There are also a few more recordings from LowSwing that I definitely want to release on tape. This is the second Port Almond, which is just brilliant and fun and sounds very nice from the master tape. And also, the second album by Yael Nachshon Levin, Tigers and Hummingbirds. It was released on vinyl in May 2023 and sounds very nice from the master tape.

Claus: Thank you very much for the deep insight into your way of working.

Text, interview & photos: Claus Müller

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)