The Department of Sound

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Richard Furch

Richard and I met for the first time when I was working as head engineer for Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in their newly built Santa Monica CA recording studio complex, Flyte Tyme West. Richard was introduced to me by a former colleague of mine at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles who mentioned that he was looking for a connection to Jimmy and Terry for the opportunity to do some work together. At the time, we weren’t really in need of any additional help, but we did have a nice conversation, and I told Richard that I would reach out if an album came up where we needed to expand our resources. Well, that opportunity did come up not long after we spoke - we started a new Chaka Khan album that would turn out to take us the entire next year to finish. When it came time to mix the album, we were in a scramble as time had run out for final delivery. I called Richard and asked him if he would like to join us in the mixing process. We had 5 rooms at Flyte Tyme West which gave us a lot of flexibility to mix multiple records at the same time. And so that is how it went, Richard mixed part of the album, I mixed part of the album, along with contributions from some other very talented engineers. Chaka Khan’s “Funk This” earned us a Grammy for best R&B album of the year.

Richard has continued expanding his superstar discography, has been featured in numerous Pro Audio media channels, won many more awards, and continues to lend his audio engineering expertise to the best in the music business.

We sent Richard our Ecoplate plugin and here is what he said:

“When I had first opened it and it comes in at  0.75 s I was like wait - I don’t think I would personally use a plate this way, but this sounds like an awesome short reflection room to me. It’s awesome, and I’m normally in the 2-second range” Richard Furch

Here is Richard’s bio:

Richard Furch is at a sweet spot in his career as a mix engineer.

He has amassed credits on 6 Grammy-winning albums out of 23 nominated albums, with one current nomination.

With 25+ million records sold including two diamond selling projects, 1 billion+ youtube views, and over 260 album credits to his name he continues to craft profoundly emotional mixes with exceptional sonics and ecstatic clients for the likes of Prince, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z, Tyrese, BJ The Chicago Kid, Tobi Lou, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg, The Game, Leela James, India.Arie, TGT, Boyz II Men, The Weeknd, Ledisi, K Michelle, Chaka Khan, JJ Lin, GEM, Tanya Chua, and many many more.

Starting out in New York, he was part of some of the seminal albums of the 2000’s such as Outkast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” and Usher’s “Confessions” and critical darlings such as Fountains Of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom”.

Moving coasts to Los Angeles saw him working with all-time giants of the music industry such as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. He was then tapped by the legendary Prince as mixer and engineer for his latest Gold-selling, chart-topping “Lotusflower/MPLSound” album.

Growing up on SSL consoles and having learned from legendary mixers such as Michael Brauer, Chris Lord-Alge, and Tchad Blake, Richard obtained an in-depth knowledge and appreciation of analog and digital mixing techniques, a stunning arsenal of vintage and modern gear, and finally, his own no holds barred mixHaus studios in LA, a world class stereo and Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 room.

Richard has given back to the next generation of musicians with online masterclasses and seminars at Berklee Boston and Abu Dhabi, as well as SAE Cologne and Berlin and the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy, where he is a visiting professor.

IG/twitter etc: richardfurchmix