Top Shelf Music Group

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Nashville, TN
Top Shelf Music Group

Nashville based studio offering recording, mixing, mastering, and production services, as well as branding assets and content for local and remote clients

Michael has been participating in audio engineering and production since the age of 14, due to necessity to record the crappy junior high bands we were all a part of at one time (admit it). He quickly replaced his passion for performance and songwriting with a near obsession for microphones, signal processors, and recording techniques. Michael is accompanied by a wide array of talented studio musi

cians, who have played for everyone from Alison Krause to Dolly, which makes up his session band. Also, a recording session at the Grammy award winning Slack Key Studio is included for applicable full band projects. During his time in Nashville, Michael has recorded every instrument from your basic band set ups, to strings, harp, and horns. Projects he has been a part of have been featured on WMC 88.1 in College Park Maryland and World Christian Radio, as well as the Writer's Bloc, NewNextNow (a division of MTV), an interview with Jacob Elyachar (a columnist for The Examiner), Grab Magazine, Brightest Young Things, amongst other outlets, and the list continues to grow. He is adept in tracking, mixing, mastering, and production. Michael is often called on by other producers to develop and engineer their projects vocals and/or guitar tracks, as well as mastering his peers finished mixes to add that last bit of polish to their songs. He lives and breathes audio and is happy to share his passion with artists in a wide variety of genres.

11/01/2021

There are very few EQs I’d rather break my absence with than the Ingram Engineering EQ52 tilt equalizer. EQ50s are already a staple of my studio that I have posted about many times before, and these EQ52s take what’s great about them and adds a ton of additional versatility. It truly has a feature set and range of frequencies that I have not seen outside of tilt EQ plugins, with a sonic signature that can easily be described as “mastering grade”. To the point where they are sonically prestige enough, with high enough headroom to use on even the loudest mastering applications - a rare feat for 500 series gear! Instead of just a couple (already versatile) options to use as your center frequency point as with the EQ50 to the left, the EQ52s have fully sweepable options all the way from 120Hz to 26kHz, which is wild to see on a single k**b. I often use my EQ50s (and now the new model) to quickly tone shape a vocal, bass, or drum bus before hitting it with a parametric EQ if needed, especially in instances where I wasn’t the recording engineer. It’s definitely a “broad strokes” kind of tool, allowing you with the turn of one k**b to simultaneously boost the low end to giant, earth rattling proportions while attenuating the high end. Or vice versa, with extremely transparent and “shimmery” highs. The EQ52 allows you to get much more granular in comparison though. Not only with extra pivot frequencies, but both the high pass and low pass filters have extended frequency options plus a bypass to remove them from the circuit. The high pass filter now goes all the way to 3kHz instead of 5kHz, while the low pass filter is no longer 20Hz to 1kHz, but 50Hz to 5kHz… so fill in the blink as far as what you want to filter! I appreciate this especially for filtering sub basses and recording filter sweeps. If you are looking for a powerful, yet affordable tool to quickly tone shape or filter tracks ranging from vocals to a mix bus, I cannot recommend both the EQ50 and EQ52 highly enough. If you could use a little more control and precision during this process, then the newer EQ52 can easily become the only processor of this type you’ll ever need. - Michael Frasinelli

02/16/2020

still has one of my all time favorite studios, since every single piece of gear is selected cause it’s excellent at something. From my all time favorite tilt EQs, the EQ50s, to the Dione, every unit he has racked up sounds great. Wes Audio is one of the companies trailblazing digital integration with hardware, and their Dione is one of the coolest sounding VCA compressors on the market. Not only does it rock on drums, mix buses, and guitar buses like your standard SSL types, but Randy also uses it on acoustic instruments to add clarity and dimension that really cranks the tone to 11 without altering the natural tone of the instrument. The Ingram Engineering MPA575s were (to my knowledge) the first 500 series channel strips on the market, with an ultra clean, high quality preamp, high pass filter, transparent-sounding but powerful auto compressor, and a side chain tilt EQ to shape the response of that compressor to fit the application. Sibilant vocals? Crank the response so it reacts more readily to upper mids to tame them, or do the opposite to tame a muddy sounding bass guitar. You can pick one of these up either with a transformer coupled output for some extra color, or transformer-less to keep things hifi + modern sounding. Like most Ingram gear, you can mess with the impedance to further tone shape while recording (or better match the gear you are running into), which makes a bigger difference than you’d think. I’m excited to try out their new BZ10, which is based on this concept with some beefy iron transformers to thicken up the low end + smooth everything out. The first thing I’m going to give it a go on is bass guitar, since iron transformers and bass is normally a good time. - Michael Frasinelli
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02/11/2020

More gear from ’s Pittsburgh studio! It’s been a while since I’ve heard the EM-EQ2, which is their take on a passive, inductor based EQ like the Pultec EQP-1A. Unlike the EQP-1 though, you get a dual mono setup (for far less than even a single original), with stepped controls that make recall, bus EQing, and mastering way simpler. Using really high end modern components like a cleaner, high nickel output transformer and Wima capacitors (my go to when working on most DIY/soldering projects), you get modern noise specs and headroom with all the vibe and low end “warmth” of a good Pultec. If anything it’s airier than most vintage Pultec’s I’ve heard, and just like those EQPs and my MEQ-5, just sending signal through it to get that inherent harmonic distortion seemingly makes everything sound better. Sean was bypassing and re-engaging it on bus duty for me to hear, and the “polish” and fullness added has me seriously considering this as the stereo EQP-type EQ I pull the trigger on. Previously I’ve heard it on bass, kick, and vocals, which it also nails just like a great passive EQ should. I want to quickly mention the original Neve console preamps he has racked at the bottom as well... I want to say they came from a 8088 but I’m blanking on the exact desk. Definitely not your run of the mill modern 1073. - Michael Frasinelli

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02/07/2020

Finally just about caught up after the new year, so I can get back to writing once again! I wanted to start by going into some of ’s gear, since he was kind enough to have me in a mixing session while I was visiting family in Pittsburgh over the holidays. It’s always great to see gear out in the wild, since it blends huge vintage tone with modern versatility. The transformers are socketed, so you can drastically alter your sound from a massive iron, 1950s sounding RCA tube circuit, to a high nickel Peerless style that is extremely hifi + pristine sounding in comparison. Great on vocals, guitars, keys/synths, drum rooms, and just about anything else. Little needs to be said about the 2500 that Sean was running his drum bus through, besides that it is my favorite piece of gear that API currently produces, and is fantastic when you want punch + energy in drums, guitars/bass, or even rock vocals. Rounding all of that out with the conversion, you can add even more depth/texture, with the possibility to turn down the input gain to keep the transformers from adding any more saturation than what’s called for (or to keep your conversion fully transparent). If you hear one, and see the list of Grammy’s that have been earned while using Burl Audio gear, it is no wonder why many great engineers like Sean use a Mothership or B2 as a center point in their studios nowadays. I’ll go into some of the other gear in future posts! - Michael Frasinelli

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12/08/2019

I’ve seen a ton of posts about the stereo saturation unit recently, which is as fantastic as everyone says it is, and it reminded me how much I love their Satur-8/24. It uses the same saturation circuitry as the Sat2rate unit, with 24 channels instead of 2, the first 8 of which including the drive k**b to add or reduce color as you see fit. A lot of the time I’ll use it exactly like the stereo unit, running 2 channels through it for some quick punch and dimension. The solid state, op amp based coloration is crisp and energetic sounding, with the magic switch adding weighty, airy sounding transformers that are only ever too colorful if you want them to be. This translates to a summing unit and saturation box that can be as clean or overdriven as the situation calls for, on a channel by channel basis. It achieves something very special when paired with a drum kit or guitar bus, if not the whole mix or master. What I will often do when summing a drum kit is adding some saturation to the snare and often a little less to the kick and toms, with the overheads either having very little drive, or the drive circuit bypassed entirely (which is a welcomed feature). If you are looking for a large format console solution, not only does Looptrotter sell a full sized desk using much of the same technology, but you can link multiple Satur-8/24 units together to continually expand your set up. This Satur-8/24 has become one of my staple pieces of gear along with Looptrotter’s Monster compressor/tube saturator, thanks to both of which not only sounding incredible and adding extra cohesion to the audio, but being far more versatile than I could have originally anticipated. - Michael Frasinelli

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10/02/2019

I love the sound of a Pultec EQP-1A or MEQ-5 on kick, vocals, bass, and anything else that could use some tube, transformer, and inductor based saturation for added depth and low end weight. Thing is, I have limited channels of each, and sometimes can’t cover every Pultec base I want at once with hardware alone, making a great plugin option indispensable to my workflow at times. One that recently shocked me with not only its quality, but also its uniqueness, feature set, and extremely low CPU hit was .audio’s SonTec Pro offering. The SonEQ Pro fills the EQP role nicely, but with a tighter, punchier low end response, vastly improved frequency selection, and the potential for subtler or even no saturation if need be. It almost reminds me of an EQP, MEQ, and solid state mastering EQ combined. Every band but the high shelf is fully sweepable, allowing for more surgical or precise equalization in addition to standard tone shaping. You can still equally boost + cut the low end at 60Hz or 100Hz for a simultaneously fattening and tightening effect like a Pultec, but since the low bands also include every nearby frequency, you can pin point this classic sounding enhancement to perfectly match the track. Variable drive let’s you quickly go from crisp and airy to extremely colorful, and everything in between. I tend to keep the drive around 4 on an individual track if I want a tube EQ type sound, and a little lower on buses, including the mix bus. To top things off, it has an extra 6-10dB of headroom vs similar plugins I auditioned it against. What I originally expected to be a fairly standard emulation ended up being one of the more versatile EQ plugins I’ve tried recently, with the benefits of both a vintage passive and modern active EQ. - Michael Frasinelli

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09/17/2019

I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while, because seemingly out of nowhere they came out with what I consider one of the, if not the most innovative product of the past 10 years. The PATCH system is nothing short of amazing, fully automating a patch bay so that once you plug your gear in once, you never have to touch another cable to get your equipment hooked up. You get 64 I/O + phantom power, as well as the PATCH software for switching around your signal chain, saving presets, and tons of other time saving features. Audition tons of different preamps while recording with just a few clicks, see if you like an opto or vari mu compressor more on vocals, or chain them both and see what order you prefer. Loved that guitar chain you used last week? Well you can recall it instantly. This takes a normally mundane yet expensive/important purchase and makes it exciting, since not only does it enable faster work, but more creative work. Apparently both an integrated wet/dry feature and a larger I/O offering in the works, and it’d also be super cool to see a mid/side matrix added at some point. I unfortunately bought a 2nd 96 channel Switchcraft bay a couple days before PATCH was announced, so I am planning on upgrading to it when the larger configuration is released. Great job guys, talk about a first release! - Michael Frasinelli

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09/16/2019

When Advanced Audio Microphones was in town for Summer NAMM a couple months back, I got to spend some more time with their fantastic Malcom Toft collaboration, the MT8016. I did a full review complete with audio examples over at if you search it, and it sounds just as cool as I remember. Definitely taking influence from the Trident 80 Series that Malcom helped design, it has shimmer for days up top from the custom op amps in the circuit. It goes beyond the original design though, with a full Class A design, and custom, British transformers on the input and output to add extra weigh and dimension. I assume the transformers are nickel based since there is no dulling of the top end or punch like some transformer options, which helps with versatility. I was floored when I heard the MT8016 on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, even when using a mic splitter to compare the takes through my favorite preamp ( 9762 Dual Combo). The sound in general is ultra crisp and airy, with just the subtlest amount of non-intrusive color. Electric guitars and drums benefited massively from this combo, gaining all the benefits they would from a Trident 80 series and then some, while never getting harsh or too aggressive thanks to the transformer saturation. Truly a multipurpose preamp that shines on all types of applications. - Michael Frasinelli

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09/08/2019

While already well established and by no means obscure, .se is a company I think deserves to be talked about more than it is. They make some really top tier stuff, with transparency, versatility, and musicality being a reoccurring theme throughout their line. The BC-1THD was almost my very first VCA compressor, covering a seemingly typical SSL bus compressor base. What’s cool about the BC-1THD though is that is was more specifically designed for mastering than many similar models, with stepped controls throughout for easy recall-ability, as well as some extra tone shaping options such as THD mode for some extra color, and grab mode, for well, a grabbier, more aggressive/in your face response. It works just as well on a mix bus as on a master, adding that familiar bus compressor “glue” and cohesion, with a bit of punch that also shines on drums, synths, and electric guitars. The SP501/DP1 preamps are incredibly cool as well, featuring both a “vintage” and a modern circuit in the same unit that allows you to mix and match while recording just about anything. Add the germanium transistors to the signal for some 1960s bite with a fatter bass response (like early Neve/early solid state Abbey Road/EMI gear), or leave things clean just letting the input running through the always beautiful sounding transformer for vocals or acoustic instruments. Then, decide if you want an electronically balanced, super clean output to keep things pristine, or add a beefy Carnhill transformer to the output for a smoother top end and that low mid bump on electric guitars, drums/drum machines, and tons more. Each unit easily handles multiple roles, and adjusts based on what you need them to do. - Michael Frasinelli

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09/06/2019

While the D-Comp is next on my list, shortly after I would love to grab a pair of V-Comps; Audioscape’s take on a Sta Level style variable mu compressor. Since 1956, the Sta Level has proved to be one of the most timeless, beautiful sounding compressors on vocals, bass, and sometimes even electric guitars. While not as famous of a vocal compressor as a LA-2A, the added release, mode, and output gain controls add tons of extra versatility vs the straight forward, foolproof controls of most opto compressors. The only real down side of a Sta up to this point has been the price, but now that Audioscape has released their own “no corners cut” interpretation with some added features, that is no longer the case. Like an original Sta, your single control is going to give you the slowest response, perfect for really gluing down some vocals or a bass guitar, for example. Double is a little quicker, which is also great on vocals and bass, but starts getting into guitar and even drum category with the right settings. Throwing a pair of these on your drum rooms and slamming them with compression is one of my all time favorite tones, since it adds a ton of dimension and weight but also brings things forward in the mix so your drums sound more energetic. You can also set up it to really pull the mids out of a guitar for a giant solo or rhythm sound. Audioscape then added a triple mode which is even more responsive sounding, adding one extra tone to everything stated above, while also introducing the possibility for more frequent use on close drum mics, and even acoustic instruments. I know for me personally, it suddenly just got a lot easier to justify a new pair of vari-mus. - Michael Frasinelli

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09/05/2019

This SR-3 is officially mine after pulling the trigger a couple weeks ago! At this point, I can confidently say it’s one of the coolest ribbon microphones I’ve tried. You’ll often get 2 camps of ribbon mics released anymore. People recreating legendary RCA microphones from the 40s and 50s, and people making very modern sounding ribbon microphones with way more air up top, way faster transient response, and a more controlled, tighter bass response such as the fantastic AEA N22. The SR-3 is very much in a 3rd camp, taking some of the best elements of each while ending up with a very unique tonality. The transients are crisp and defined, especially for a ribbon, which makes them stellar in a drum room or even drum OH role. You get the fullness/body of a vintage ribbon, but with some natural increase in drum attack. This also makes the SR-3 more suited for modern lead vocals than the majority of similar microphones, with it’s extended high end and balanced response saving me the first couple EQ moves I would normally make. I LOVE setting it up as a 2nd microphone with a condenser as well, blending it in either throughout the song as a vibey double track, or during certain phrases to add extra body to the track to accentuate and add excitement to different words. Guitars sound rich but never muddy, with extra articulation and depth, again from that faster and more accurate transient response. That accuracy is also a godsend when using the SR-3 as a stereo pair on acoustic instruments/strings, or as the room mic for a grand piano. They are currently on sale for $250 off, and if that is still pushing your studio budget, the also great SR-2N is less than $600 for a world class mic. All made in Nashville, to top things off. - Michael Frasinelli

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08/09/2019

Out out the gear pictured here it is hard to choose just one brand to talk about, since , , and really everything under the umbrella is top notch, but these units are some of my all time favorites. The Trident A-Range is one of the most revered consoles in the history of music, with only 13 ever being created. They were used to record/mix artists such as Queen, David Bowie, Metallica (guitars mainly I believe), Rod Stewart, and even Frank Sinatra. A single channel can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars if you can find one, with even a modern one going for $2k a channel (only available as a $4k stereo units). But man do they sound good... as similar in design to a Neve 1073 or 1081 as they are to most Trident models, with a dual stage, transformer coupled design. They have a similar rich tonality, but with significantly more air, a bit more clarity, and overall with a faster transient respond for snappier drums and more detailed guitars (while having a slightly less massive low end than something like a Neve, which is sometimes a good thing). Luckily for us, Daking’s preamps and EQs are amazing recreations of these legendary units, utilizing top of the line transformers for a price just about any studio can afford. The Mic Pre EQ combo is my favorite of their offerings, since it really is like getting a full A-Range channel, including one of the nicest sounding console EQs ever designed. Vocals, guitars, drums, synths, or even acoustics instruments, you name it. This thing is going to give you fantastic recordings session after session, with a sound that is both incredibly familiar but totally unique in comparison to other modern offerings. - Michael Frasinelli

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Nashville, TN
37201-37250

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http://topshelfmg.com/

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