The Mobile Sessions Studio: Audio Production Anywhere the Inspiration Strikes

When Los Angeles-based music manager Christine Hufenbecher and audio engineer Kenny Moran first conceived of their Mobile Sessions recording studio, they knew they wanted to bring the kinds of collaborative experiences they were observing in their work to a mobile setting.

Hufenbecher, whose clients include writers and producers who have written for Justin Bieber, Dr. Dre, Nicki Minaj, and Selena Gomez, wanted to provide an inspiring space that would take creatives out of their everyday routines. Moran, who has mixed the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Kahn, Jennifer Lopez, The Great Gatsby, and Carly Rae Jepson in his career as both a recording and live engineer, envisioned a fully-loaded studio on wheels with capabilities rivaling the big studios in town.

But for Hufenbecher and Moran, being mobile meant being nimble—so rather than build a studio into a large broadcast truck or tour bus, they spent nine months outfitting a 30-foot Class C RV with a complete, compact production studio. The core rig is based around an SSL AWS 900+ SE console, Antelope Audio Orion 32HD interfaces, Dynaudio LYD 48 monitors, and a full complement of outboard gear, DAWs, and musical instruments, with laptop-friendly connectivity and a clean, modern aesthetic that gives the space the look and feel of a traditional high-end studio.

While they always aimed to offer a mix of live-recording and music-production services in “any drivable destination,” they’ve expanded into a full range of services including festival partnerships and brand experiences.

I sat down with Hufenbecher and Moran to learn about the inspiration behind Mobile Sessions and what makes their business thrive.

IMG_4195 canvas.jpg

How did this project come together?

Hufenbecher: Kenny and I have known each other for almost four years; we met in a studio through a mutual producer and just hit it off from there. We talked on and off for a year and decided we should do a studio project together. We started looking around L.A. to rent a space and realized, damn, it’s really expensive here, and there are a lot of studios around here doing the same thing. How do we differentiate ourselves while also keeping operation costs low? And then we had this idea of taking a studio mobile.

I understand you got the inspiration from watching your clients work.

Hufenbecher: I’ve been in management and marketing for about ten years, and was running into the same thing with every writer or producer I’ve worked with who have home studios or who are renting studios in New York or L.A. They are all trying to write that hit, pitching to A&Rs, getting pushback and kind of losing inspiration because they were doing the same thing in the same space every day. I thought it would be cool if they could take that inspiration elsewhere and get re-inspired.

What sets you apart from the traditional, large truck model?

Moran: Our vehicle isn't small; it’s actually quite large. But the old-school recording trucks, they're broadcast vehicles. They're meant to record video; audio is a secondary aspect of what they do. Whereas we are an actual recording studio: We have an SSL console in there, we have what you would find in an actual recording studio. We also have the instruments; we have the aesthetics; we have the connections, where we can do full-in studio production or go to a theater and take 128 lines.

Even the major broadcast trucks don’t have an analog circuit path. They’ve got everything coming in digitally from FOH or Monitors, where we are able to take all of our key elements direct to console, microphones to SSL like you would on a studio recording. So it’s an audio-first approach that’s pretty unique and delivers a superior sonic result.

interior 1 770.jpg

Where can your vehicle go that a larger truck cannot?

Moran: Traditional remote trucks are isolated as far as what they can do. As soon as you move into a vehicle that's one foot larger than ours, so 32 feet, you need permits to park, permits to drive on certain streets, and a special driver with license. They can't just run generators anywhere except at a designated spot. Our vehicle can be parked on a regular residential street—you cannot do that with any recording truck without permits—and we can run our generators from sun-up to sundown anywhere. That was all part of our business plan. We wanted a true mobile facility, not one that had to be tied to a building.

We've done sessions 3,000 feet up in the mountains. We've done sessions on Malibu beach, Santa Monica beach. We've been right in downtown Hollywood. Wherever a budget can take us, we can go.

What informed decisions about workflow and gear?

Moran: From day one, we planned to be able to do both full music production in the studio and full live recording. As far as the equipment goes, it's literally half of what I used to own inside a full recording studio, because we can't fit it all. But we've talked to all the top producers in L.A. We did questionnaires asking them what they couldn't live without, and we just put all of that in here. Everything from the latest synthesizers, guitars, basses, and amps up to the console itself, the interfaces, the outboard gear.

Hufenbecher: Initially I thought, ‘Can't we just have an interface and a computer and the smaller console in there?’ I was concerned for weight purposes, also. But Kenny convinced me that with this size SSL, we can do everything that a major studio can do and take it mobile.

interior 2 770.jpg

Did the end result evolve from how you envisioned the rig going in?

Moran: You think you know how a studio is going to run; but as you're getting all kinds of different clients coming in—everything from writers and singers working with Lady Gaga to doing audiobooks for Amazon—you start to see that there's a whole range of workflows that people want. We spent the last year looking at literally every kind of concept that allows you to be comfortable while you're working. There weren’t any big equipment changes; it was all modifications about how you could reach things, where you're sitting, and what the lighting's doing.

What has your project mix been like?

Moran: It's been all over the map. Last summer, we were working toward a huge, large-format recording at the Hollywood Bowl with Earth, Wind & Fire and orchestra: 108 channels, a full-on live recording with strings, audience, and band backing tracks. We're also doing writing sessions with ASCAP, where we have top writers and top producers work with young writers in the studio.

Hufenbecher: We're really bringing the world of content creation and experience together—not just being able to record and produce remotely, but offering experiences at events. We did some festival projects last year, and we'll be doing more of that this year.

We’ve done indie album recordings, TV sync productions, audiobooks, etcetera; the event space is definitely getting bigger for us, as well as the education side of things. Some exciting things we have in the pipeline for this year are remote mentorship sessions with organizations such as She Is The Music, The Recording Academy, and Musicians Institute, music-centric schools or brands that want the creative music community or simply music enthusiasts as a target audience; we can pull up at a school and do an event or do a mentorship session and be like an added curriculum or bring the brand right in.

lounge 770.jpg

Your setup seems ideal for those kinds of experiential studio opportunities.

Hufenbecher: I have some background in branding; one of the first brands I went to when we built this was Fender Guitars. They had just launched the Fender Play digital learning platform; they pulled us into a festival activation at the 2019 Real Street festival in Anaheim, turning us into their VIP lounge where festivalgoers could come in and try out the Fender Play platform right there on the truck. Meanwhile, we had hit songwriters doing whole sessions in the back of the truck.

It's a testament to the capabilities of what can be done, how you can still be creative and be in the middle of a festival. As far as experiential content, people can dream up anything that involves music, and as long as there's a footprint that fits the 30-foot truck, we can make it happen.

Sarah Jones is a writer, editor, and content producer with more than 20 years' experience in pro audio, including as editor-in-chief of three leading audio magazines: MixEQ, and Electronic Musician. She is a lifelong musician and committed to arts advocacy and learning, including acting as education chair of the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy, where she helps develop event programming that cultivates the careers of Bay Area music makers.