Glenn Tabor Captures Accuracy and Soul with Schoeps Microphones
Grammy-winning producer/engineer on the art of authenticity and tracking strings in ‘that’ room at Abbey Road
Please find both English and German versions of this press release attached. Im Anhang finden Sie eine englische und eine deutsche Version dieser Pressemitteilung.
CHARLOTTE, NC, SEPTEMBER 22, 2025 – Veteran producer/recording engineer and Gat3 studio owner Glenn A. Tabor III has built his career through sheer sonic versatility. Tabor’s talent at crafting captivating recordings that authentically represent the performer within an absorbing sonic environment have made him the favorite of a diverse range of artists, from the dearly departed James Brown, to Mary J. Blige, Post Malone, Third Eye Blind, and Bon Jovi among others. Tabor’s sonic worldbuilding is at the forefront in his latest project – a breakthrough full-length collection from hit Nashville session songwriter Drew Ryder Smith [Merle Haggard, Don Schlitz, Luke Combs]. Tasked with bringing Smith’s vision to life of an immersive listening experience that did justice to his rootsy style and highly personal brand of songwriting, Tabor utilized his favored collection of Schoeps microphones during the recording process to elevate the authenticity of his long-time friend's defining artistic work.
Americana in Atmos
As a longtime session songwriter in Nashville, Smith’s songs are primarily known to the masses through other artists. With this new record, he sought to make a sonic statement piece that would finally put himself and his artistry in the front seat. “Drew has written big songs for major artists his whole career, but at the expense of being able to be the artist he wanted to be for himself,” Tabor explains. “When we started brainstorming this project, I told him – ‘Let’s dream big and make the best album we can make, and create something that is authentic and true to your artistic voice.’”
“We kept coming back to that word, 'authenticity'," he continues. “There’s an art to doing that – the concept of humans sitting and playing together in a live room, capturing those chain reactions that make music great. That’s what we wanted, and I know to make that experience truly palpable, we had to do this in Dolby Atmos.”
Thoroughly aware of how immersive audio mixing is often thought of as a way to create a heightened reality in recordings, Tabor saw an opportunity to use it more organically. Instead, he saw immersive recording techniques as a way of bringing listeners closer to Smith’s music in a very personal way “It wasn’t about tricks or making it sound synthetic,” he explains. “It was really about creating that feeling of being in the middle of the band and creating an earthy, realistic experience. When you listen to it, you’re supposed to feel like you’re in the room and these songs are being played directly to you.”
“We knew that to do that, we needed to utilize microphones that would give us that depth and 3-dimensionality from both a tracking and mixing standpoint. Schoeps microphones were an obvious choice for this purpose.”
Depth and realism
Tabor embraces a meticulous methodology when it comes to the recording process – especially for immersive audio –, carefully planning his microphone choices, layouts, sounds, and instruments, well in advance of the live tracking session. For Smith’s voice on the recordings, Tabor utilized the Schoeps V4 U Studio Vocal Microphone. “Drew has an incredible voice with a lot of dynamics,” Tabor says. “He can also be very powerful at times, so you need a microphone that doesn’t collapse when high SPL is involved.”
“That’s incredible about the V4 U is it has a depth and realism that a lot of microphones simply don’t have. I’ve got every great vocal mic ever made, and they all serve a purpose, but what puts the V4 U above them all is its transparency and dimensionality. It’s a stunning vocal mic that adds no coloration, and gives you the sense of space you really want in a recording like this.”
The majority of the band material was tracked live in the room with a crew of ace session musicians, recording for full takes. The V4 U was also used here for acoustic guitar, dobro, mandolin, and other acoustic stringed instruments. “Once again, the transparency that all Schoeps microphones seem to have lent itself so well to this process,” he explains. “In addition to capturing the sounds, you can hear all that humanity happening in the room at once and it translates so well in the mixes as a result. You get all the nuances of the band and that clarity and depth of a group of musicians playing together.”
“Naturally when we found ourselves at Abbey Road some time later recording a full string section for the record, we knew we’d want that even moreso!”
Subtle nuances in a world famous room
Although the majority of the record was tracked at Tabor’s Gat3 Studios in North Carolina, there were a few elements that required something even more ambitious. String arrangements were tracked in the legendary Studio 2 at Abbey Road. “Perhaps it’s the audiophile in me, but I always find myself drawn to the real thing – the real instrument, the real room, feeling the time and place where something was made,” Tabor enthuses. “We knew when writing the arrangements that we wanted that sound, that room, so if you want it, you have to go there to get it.”
“It’s such a classic room and you’ve heard it on so many amazing recordings, so you want to do it justice. We had some dark arrangements we wanted to record in there and also feel the chamber itself. Schoeps packages several of their microphones in immersive configurations, so we utilized an ORTF-3- like 8-mic system to get what we were looking for.”
In addition to capturing the string players from all angles, Tabor set a sub mix of the strings live into the chamber while tracking and recording for added chamber ambiance. He later blended it in the mix with other instruments to add a sense of warmth and familiarity to the material. “Ultimately it’s adding a bit of that ‘classic’ sound to the whole thing and you really feel like you’re sitting there – especially in an Atmos mix,” he says. “The Schoeps mics really make that sense of distance feel realistic, and capture those subtle nuances in a way nothing else does. That carried through the whole project, really. All of that adds to the overall authenticity of what we were looking to capture and makes the end experience so much more authentic to the listener.”
“You can tell the people who make them love making music – it comes through in what they design and how they can be used in recording,” he adds. “ ‘Accuracy with soul’ is a good way to describe what they do’ – and it was perfect for making this record.”
For more information about Glenn Tabor, please visit: https://www.gat3.com/
SCHOEPS Microphones
Founded in 1948, Schoeps Microphones are pioneers in the world of pro-audio with a reputation as one of the world's finest manufacturers of microphones. The family-owned business, based in Durlach, Karlsruhe, Germany, designs and manufactures all of its products in-house with a team of 50 employees. The company is driven by a passion for innovation, technical excellence, and strong relationships with the creative and technical professionals who have made Schoeps a part of their daily workflows.
For more information about Schoeps Microphones, please visit: https://schoeps.de/en/
Steve Bailey
