Shortly after Manifold Recording opened its doors in 2011, the Community Chorus Project recorded a video of REM’s “Everybody Hurts”:
The day after that session, REM announced that they were breaking up as a band, and they promoted this song on their fan website, giving these young artists their first viral video. It was truly a bittersweet moment.
Since then Manifold Recording has hosted hundreds of sessions, ranging from full orchestras to solo singer-songwriters, from classical to jazz to bluegrass to hip-hop to cowpunk. We’ve recorded film scores, audiobooks, conservatory auditions, and opera, and when the pandemic shut down live music for over a year, we hosted John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats three times to bring their unique stage vibe to the masses with three “double-album” video sets (Jordan Lake Sessions Volumes 1 and 2, Volumes 3 and 4, Volumes 5 and 6). The song “This Year” (chorus: “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me”) is more appropriate now than ever:
This year the owners (Michael and Amy Tiemann) have made the difficult decision to find new owners who can love and maintain and potentially grow the facility into whatever best services our rapidly growing community. While we search, Manifold Recording remains staffed by an excellent and extended staff of top-notch audio engineers who each have years of history working in the facility. We are booking sessions and operating with as much “business as usual” as one can. And we acknowledge that everybody hurts right now: artists, engineers, technicians, even vendors. We remain committed to doing our best and doing what we can to help the community do its best to make it through this year.
Despite the plans to sell the facility, we have simultaneously been investing it is as well. We bought a brand new Steinway B piano that is truly a unicorn in terms of sound and playability. We have upgraded our digital IO system and our headphone monitoring systems. We spent over $100,000 to upgrade our API Vision console center section and the 32 faders we use most often to API’s latest and greatest design; in doing this, we removed most of the fans the older design required, dramatically reduced power consumption, and improved signal to noise as well. We even have a new version of ProTools.
We’re currently booking sessions as far out as winter 2026, and we hope to book more. We want to work with you and to bring your inspiration to a world that greatly needs it. It is our hope that if there is a change of ownership, it will ultimately be for the good, and it is our commitment that we will do our level best to take care of all the clients (who are both artists and engineers) who make plans with us before any sale plans are firm.
If you want to book a session, let’s talk! If you have specific concerns, let’s talk about those, too. Let’s not let internet chatter and gossip prevent any of us from doing our best, which is really all we can do. And if you haven’t checked in for a while, come meet the team, see the new gear, and don’t be a stranger.
Michael Tiemann
Manifold Recording