About GS Studio
Mixing & Mastering
"It's all about the music project and making it a quality production. "
Rick Edwards, Owner/Engineer
Neumann U87 microphone
GraceHeart Sound owner, Rick Edwards, has been in studio music production since 1983 -
Our studio is our passion – In 2002 my wife Patti and I opened GraceHeart Sound in the Fort Worth, Texas area. In 2012 we relocated the studio to its present location in the mountains of north Alabama. We are just outside of the little country town of Hayden, AL. Our location is forty-five minutes north of Birmingham, AL, and just over two hours south of the Country Music Capital of the world, Nashville, TN. You just gotta drop the name “Nashville” if you are in the music business and are anywhere near Country Music City USA 🙂
The good old days – Long before the first location of GraceHeart Sound studio was opened, I had been a life long musician and had spent many years in the music recording industry. Our first tape machine was a 1/4″ two channel and we really moved up in the world when we bought a Yamaha MT44-D four track machine. In 1983 I founded our first studio, Prairie Edge Recording, located in Pecos, Texas. That was back in the days of analog tape machines and I was still rockin’ it with the MT44-D. We actually did some pretty cool projects like radio jingles for car dealerships, and some pre-recorded radio shows. Later we moved back to my hometown of Ft. Worth, Texas and was blessed to have access to a nice 24 track studio machine that utilized a 2″ tape. While I will always recall that era as the good old days I feel blessed to be making music in this present digital audio age. These are awesome times in our world of music recording.
GraceHeart Sound remains to be a small project studio with a down home feel. But, although we are a small studio I take giant size pride in the mixing and mastering projects we produce here at our family owned studio.
We’re here to help – Often musicians begin their recording project in their home studios and just need some help taking them to the finish line. Our studio acoustics have been professionally tuned providing the perfect room for accurate mixing and mastering. It’s also a great room to record excellent main vocal tracks, background vocals, and voice overs.
GHS Mic Locker – We have some great mics in our locker including the legendary Neumann U87. There are many great professional studio mics that were born several decades ago. Technology has been unable to bury them and they are still used on major label recordings today. It is my opinion that the Neumann U87 is one of the greatest mics ever designed and manufactured. We are definitely proud to have one in the GHS mic locker. We also have one of Dave Pearlman’s handmade mics that is truly amazing. We have the Pearlman TM-1 Tube Condenser mic. It is a great vocal mic and does a really nice job on instruments as well. Other mics in our locker include an Audio-Technica AT4050, a Universal Audio Sphere DLX, a pair of Sure SM7B mics, several Lewitt mics, Rode, some EV’s and others.
Analog to Digital Conversion – We also welcome analog to digital conversions of vinyl and cassette tape recordings. If a client opts to have their conversions digitally remastered we use the iZotope Post Production Suite (RX9 included) to remove pops/crackles/hiss and other unwanted artifacts as part of the remastering process.
Custom Computer by CPU Solutions – All projects are completed on our custom computer utilizing an Intel i9 processor, 128 gb ram, and a Raid Drive system. We use Pro Tools, Cubase, and Studio One DAW software, depending on the project. Our mastering software is Steinberg’s Wavelab Pro. Our Processing Plugin Library is second to none and includes the same plugins used in legendary recording studios in Nashville, New York and LA. We utilize a Motu Thunderbolt audio interface with Focusrite ISA and Audient mic preamps. GraceHeart Sound is all about audio production and doing it right.
– Rick Edwards