Sylvia’s Oddio Shop does award-winning work while putting the ‘odd’ in ‘audio’
By Jim Flint for Ashland.news
In the heart of Ashland, Sylvia’s Oddio Shop struck gold this year, winning a Grammy for its production work on Jason Isbell’s “Weathervanes,” named best Americana album at the 66th annual Grammy Awards.
Nestled within a museum-like setting, the artfully chaotic recording studio is a place where cutting-edge digital meets the world’s largest collection of vintage and modern microphones, blending old-school analog charm with the latest in high tech.
Sylvia Massy has been recording professionally for more than 45 years.
“I have worked on many Grammy-winning projects,” she said, “but this is my first Grammy statue.” In the past, production artists received plaques instead of the iconic gold-plated replicas of a gramophone for their work on award-winning albums.
In 2022, Massy and her recording engineer, Ian Rickard, mixed the “Weathervanes” record, which was submitted for Grammy consideration in 2023.
The awards ceremony was held last February, but Massy and Rickard just recently received their statues as primary mixers on the project.
For the love of mic
Chris Johnson, Massy’s husband, is the manager of the Ashland studio. It was his interest in vintage microphones that led to amassing the huge collection of mics in what he calls a microphone museum.
“The museum is really our studio,” he said. “It’s packed with vintage audio equipment and too many microphones.”
Years ago, he began buying stray old mics on Craigslist and eBay.
“I never really used them. I just liked the cool, vintage designs,” he said. “When I met Sylvia, she had something like 800-plus microphones for her studio, including a lot of vintage chrome mics. I got a display case and set up a little exhibit in her storefront office, meant to be seen from the street. It just kind of took off from there.”
Purchased a museum
In subsequent years, he bought weird, low-value foreign mics to give as gifts. Along the way, he and Sylvia discovered the world’s largest collection of vintage mics in Milwaukee in a private museum.
“When the owner passed away, we found a way to buy the entire museum from his estate,” Johnson said.
They have all those mics in their studio now, representing more than 50 years of exhaustive collecting.
It’s not a museum open to the public.
“We work in the studio most every day, so we can’t really have people just popping in to look around,” he said.
“I’d love to do an exhibition in a museum or venue where we can get them out for public display. It will happen.”
It started with punk
Massy got her start in the business in the 1980s in the San Francisco punk scene.
“I got comfortable using the recording equipment and microphones in the studios there,” she said. “I recorded many genres of music, not just punk, and moved to Los Angeles to develop my career as a music producer.”
There she worked with several big artists, including Tool, Johnny Cash, Prince, Tom Petty, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Patti Labelle, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. and Slayer. Forty years in the business, she has worked in pop, R&B, country, Zydeco, electronic, funk, singer-songwriter, rock and metal.
Oddio Shop Studio is in a former auto repair shop and garage. Massy and Johnson were doing odd things and liked the “oddio” connection to “audio,” so adopted the name for the business.
Full-service studio
Oddio is a full-service professional recording studio. The services it provides include original recording, production, post-production, and mixing.
“We can do the whole project from soup to nuts,” Massy said. “Or we can concentrate on the one service you need.”
Most of their time is spent on mixing, which is assembling all the recorded tracks into a listenable song that can shine on the radio or a streaming service.
In addition to their professional clients, they also do work for artists who do their own recordings at home.
“We finish the songs here by mixing them into a format for Spotify or Apple, or to be used to manufacture into CDs or vinyl,” Massy said.
She says the studio’s mixes are designed to be “transparent,” to allow the emotional intent of the artists’ music to shine through.
On the “Weathervanes” project, they were careful to keep the focus on Isbell’s words, “because his songs are often tragic human stories with important resolutions,” she said.
“I believe we achieved that goal with Jason’s ‘Weathervanes.’” The Grammy judges obviously agreed.
Innovative, unconventional
Massy is known for her unconventional recording techniques. Some examples: using a garden hose to record drums, recording a guitar through a pickle and using a motorcycle as a musical instrument.
“I’ve recorded in a cave, a cathedral, a salt mine, a nuclear cooling tower, a submarine and an ice cream truck,” she said.
She has recorded organ through a light bulb and a power drill. And she’s recorded a trombone playing under water.
“I’ve recorded some pretty weird stuff in some very unique places, but only for special clients who are up for the adventure.”
Johnson came to Ashland in 2004, after stopping in town for coffee on a West Coast road trip.
“Everybody at Evo’s, an old coffee shop on Main Street, was so friendly,” he said. “I spent the night, and then the week. I quickly fell into a furnished rental and then a house on the hill.”
He tried moving away a few times, but found himself always returning to Ashland.
“Now, over 20 years later, I’ve surrendered to the reality that this is where I live. Follow your bliss.”
To say his life before Ashland was colorful would be an understatement. It was always about adventure.
He worked in a dog food factory in Helsinki, Finland. He was a butler and steward for the Forbes, DuPont and Englehart families. As part of those gigs, he arranged presidential dinners and lived aboard some prominent yachts.
“I’ve done every thing from digging ditches to running a serious company,” he said.
How did they meet?
At first it was just business. Then it got personal.
In 2009, Johnson was making recordings at home with a few friends.
“One day we bumped into some woman at a local restaurant who said she was a music producer. That’s how I learned about Sylvia and her studio in Weed.”
He joined her as an intern in order to improve his recording skills.
“I ended up not liking the studio sessions so much,” he said, “but I loved the business side and working in the office. I got along well with Sylvia and later ended up running the business.”
She ultimately moved her studio to Ashland.
Massy says Johnson’s business acumen makes him an indispensable part of the operation.
She has fond memories of how they met and then became a couple.
“He started as an intern and wound up running the place,” she said. “He taught me so many things about running a business; he is a smart manager. Plus, he is hot.”
They have a lot of irons in the fire these days. They’re working with Abbey Road Institute in setting up campuses in the U.S. They just finished mixing the immersive version of Isbell’s “Southeastern” album, and just completed an album by a Chicago band named Daisychain, “a fantastic record, all done at the Oddio Shop,” Massy said.
Visual art too
An accomplished illustrator, Massy has created numerous works of art, posters and other promotional pieces.
She and Johnson published a book together called “Recording Unhinged.” Massy drew the illustrations and diagrams, some of which they printed for distribution as handouts to fans.
Those created enough buzz that they started designing small posters for a trade show they regularly attended, the National Association of Music Merchants.
“This year, we were invited to sell the posters as official NAMM merchandise in the show store. We were more surprised than anyone when they sold out the first day.
On the latest poster project for NAMM, they created a “Where’s Waldo”-esque design featuring the faces of hundreds of celebrities and music business friends, putting them in visually funny situations.
“Sylvia is gifted in capturing someone’s appearance in caricature,” he said. “So, I’ll write up lists of people, stereotypes of music people and visual gags. Then Sylvia lays out a theme and starts illustrating like a demon. It’s a joy to watch.”
They created a 10-foot version of that poster.
Now they are working on a book about microphones. They certainly won’t be wanting for examples to photograph.
For more information about Sylvia’s Oddio Shop, go to shop.sylviamassy.com.
Freelance writer Jim Flint is a retired newspaper publisher and editor. Email him at [email protected].
