Sage Sound

Matthew Gephart gets into it. Photo: Peggy Wendel

Outstanding equipment, exceptional engineers, fantastic woodland setting, no wonder the small but mighty Sage Arts studio is a recording destination for musicians around the world.

Our studio specializes in natural, pure acoustic sound in a range of genres including folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues and Celtic.

Sound engineers Daniel Protheroe and Matthew Gephart have a knack for bringing the best out of musicians who record here...

In the Winter 2004 newsletter, we explained  how Ed Littlefield, Jr. built a sound studio at Littlefield Farm in Arlington, Washington. Now we'll tell you a little about  our sound engineers, Daniel and Matthew. 

Sage Arts is not run like studios in L.A. where they rent studio time on an hourly basis. “We don’t have to fill in time with recording ads, television commercials or jingles. This is a mellower scene. It’s more conducive to creativity,” Daniel said. “Basically, it’s Ed’s studio, we do mostly in-house recordings. We can be selective about our clientele; we don’t need to promote the studio, we’re always busy working on great music for Sage records.”

Ed called on Daniel to mix Marley’s Ghost’s third recording, Ghost Country in 1991. Daniel was working in Santa Barbara in a studio that he’d built for Christopher Cross. When Ed became more serious about his studio and needed a sound engineer, Daniel was happy to move to Washington.

However, Matthew’s story is quite different. After being booted out of the Seattle Institute of the Arts, Matthew desperately needed a job. Being unaware of his delinquent tendencies, Daniel hired him for minimum wage in 1999 to sweep the studio and empty trash. Matthew was not very good at these jobs, so Daniel demoted him to assistant engineer and apprentice technician but had to pay him more money to take such grueling jobs. Luckily Matthew’s not too bright and continues to work the long hours around the studio doing stuff no one else will do (or is it can do?) We have to call him a real engineer now though, or he might quit and get a better job with Amtrak.

Sage studio’s sound equipment is special. Daniel brought in Fred Forssell who now lives in Idaho to build custom sound equipment for Sage Studio. Daniel and Fred have been friends since elementary school. Daniel has overseen several studio makeovers including the most recent renovation, repairing damage from a recent flood. While overseeing taking the studio apart and rebuilding it, he took the opportunity to fine tune the studio acoustics. And Fred paid a visit to update the audio system finish console modifications and install a protocol system.

“Forssell is an excellent circuit designer. He totally reconstructed the recording console; it’s now 100 percent Fred Forssell Electronics,” Daniel said.

The studio is better than ever since the flood. Daniel and Matthew are trying to keep pace in a marathon to catch up with a busy schedule that was delayed by reconstruction. Musicians come to record, all the while our Sage sound duo works steadily to mix Marley’s Ghost’s eighth album.