George Massenburg on working with Earth Wind And Fire and four decades with Genelec studio monitors

Famed audio engineer George Massenburg is one of the most decorated names in the world of audio, whether it’s the Grammy awards he has scooped, or the names such as Earth Wind and Fire, Toto, Herbie Hancock, Philip Glass, or the four hundred plus records he has worked on over the decades. Massenburg chats to Headliner about his fascinating and storied career, some of the highlights of his time as an audio engineer, and about his interlinked relationship with Genelec studio monitors.

To give an idea of the enormous breadth of artists Massenburg has worked with, his clients have included Linda Ronstadt, Little Feat, Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Natasha Bedingfield, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Joel, the Dixie Chicks, and many, many more. He has four Grammy awards to his name, including his Grammy for Technical Achievement in 1998, which made him only the 17th person to scoop the coveted distinction.

“I was brought up immersed in music,” Massenburg says. “My earliest memories growing up in both the north and the south of the US were musical experiences. I was brought up in part in Macon, Georgia, where Otis Redding came from, and my earliest memories of music were classical music from my mother taking us to the symphony orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Macon, turning on the radio and just hearing the most amazing sounds coming out of early 1950s R&B. I was drawn to the clarity and detail of the music, trying to deconstruct what I was listening to. Were those timpani or trombones?”

Before studying audio engineering more formally, Massenburg was already gaining experience working in music studios and electronics labs at 15 years of age. He remembers: 

“I was a tinkerer, and just loved sticking my finger in electric sockets. I was never very good at formal education, dropping out of Johns Hopkins after a year and a half. I correctly figured at the time that I knew more than the professor, and went to work in a recording studio at 16.”

With Massenburg growing up loving classical music and early R&B, and the fact he is known to work with huge (in size as well as success) groups like Earth Wind And Fire and Toto, it seems a fair assumption that Massenburg is particularly drawn to working with larger ensembles.

“I’m drawn to musicians playing together – good musicians who listen and have an ensemble sound,” he nods. “When overdubbing came surging into our lives after the ‘60s, and fixing things in more of a technical way rather than leaving it to natural, musical expression, it got away from what I really loved — which was musicians in a room bouncing ideas off of each other.”

This would also explain why the likes of contemporary composer Philip Glass and legendary jazz icon Herbie Hancock have become such frequent collaborators for Massenburg. He explains: 

“What’s really important to me is investigating what music is and putting it into words. Philip Glass and Herbie Hancock are both incredibly idiosyncratic musicians. I worked on one of the worst records of my life with Herbie, but he was patient and kind, even as we experimented with his vocals. He was trying to emulate the great pop singers of the time when we worked together.

“I’ve learned a lot from working with great lyricists and understanding the poetry of music. Linda Ronstadt, who I worked with for 35 years, taught me how to judge a great song and bring it to life in many different forms. She excelled in various genres, from Mariachi to foreign languages, and always knew how to get to the heart of the music.”

Massenburg has a uniquely reciprocal relationship with Genelec studio monitors, and switching to the company’s speakers has been very impactful in his own work, and in turn, he has also become a big part of the Genelec story. He was offered to test a pair of 1031As in the early ‘90s, which he mixed a few records on. He was sufficiently pleased to appear on a Genelec poster with the quote, "This is the first time I changed my monitors in 10 years," which gave the monitors a solid boost in sales.

“Mick Guzauski and I had discovered the Tannoy SRM 10B 10-inch coaxial speakers,” he says. “I made many records on Tannoys, but the midrange was often mystical at best, vague and indecipherable. I started hearing a broader range with the first Genelec 1031As, followed by the 1032s. I made a fuck tonne of records on Genelec and realised they accurately defined the boundaries of the sound I was going for."

“I’ve been friends with the Genelec team for over 40 years, even doing favours for Ilpo Martikainen [founder of Genelec]. I learned a lot about running a company from Ilpo. He measured Genelec’s success by the success of his community in his hometown. Every place you went, you’d see a Genelec speaker. He was a serious man and experimenter. I learned a lot from him and love the whole team.”

As you can imagine, trends and technology shifted a lot in this timeframe, but Massenburg continued to opt for Genelec as his main pair of studio monitors.

“As the industry shifted away from high-resolution listening, a certain segment of people continued to require the Genelec level of quality in their products. And so over the years, things that were once considered arcane, like the design of filters and the idea that analogue crossovers were necessary for good loudspeakers, have evolved. Genelec embraced digital filters, recognising their advantages over analogue in terms of design and stability. Their products have significantly improved over time.”

Massenburg has used Genelec’s 8361s when working at the legendary Blackbird Studio in Nashville, a hallowed space that has had Stevie Nicks, Taylor Swift, Jack White, Bon Jovi, and countless other famous names using its recording facilities.

“At Blackbird Studio in Nashville, we have the 8361s, and I think some others. When we started there with this idea of diffusion, my first choice was Genelec. I love Billy and the guys at ATC, and it’s still a fine loudspeaker, but you would really hear the strength of the Genelec proposition in Blackbird Studio C with a 16-channel system. It’s otherworldly.”

Finally, no one will be surprised to hear Massenburg is adding yet another varied string to his bow, as his credits grow ever stronger. “I'm working with a video game company to mix their orchestral version of all their video game tracks. It's a great orchestral tour, with fantastic arrangements, originally recorded in Tokyo with talented Japanese musicians,” he smiles.