The end of an era in Huntsville music: ‘I get to be around my dad’

There are no computers inside Downing Sound Studios. That means there’s no AutoTune and no Pro Tools either.

Located in Huntsville, Alabama, Downing is the city’s last all-analog pro recording studio. And an anomaly throughout the state and industry wide.

Sure, there are other studios, excellent ones, that have a tape machine and analog gear. But they have some digital in their recording chain. They mix to digital, or record to digital and dump tracks to tape (or record to tape and dump to digital), to summon the warmth analog famously imparts.

But all-analog studio recording? The way most rock, pop, jazz, blues, R&B, rap, metal and country records were made up until the late ‘80s? It’s a rare species. Teetering on extinction.

Downing Sound founder, recording engineer and music produce