Newswire
The Panama Sound Newswire is a living archive of field notes from the studio—observations, experiments, frustrations, small victories, and hard-earned clarity from inside the recording process. This is where I document what actually works (and what absolutely doesn’t). Expect essays on vibe, sessions, technology-as-tool-not-religion, and the quiet moments that don’t show up on spec sheets. New posts land weekly. Read slowly. Take what you need. Leave the rest.
Stop Dreaming of That Song and Start Making It
There’s something weirdly magical about New Year’s Day, isn’t there? The world feels like a freshly wiped whiteboard—no scribbles, no crossed‑out ideas, just clean space begging for your wildest plans. You open a new folder for the year, your voice memos and scratch tracks feel less like clutter and more like clues.
A Talk with Todd Rundgren
Picture this: It’s 1991. I’m 14 years old, standing in the Exploratorium in San Francisco with my dad, about to watch Todd Rundgren—the Todd Rundgren—give a lecture on digital recording formats. If you weren’t alive in 1991, let me set the scene: Digital recording was revolutionary and borderline mystical. Most people were still dubbing cassettes
When Everything Goes Wrong
Some days you fail. This was one of those days. I’m writing this from a place of complete exhaustion and disappointment. Saturday, December 14th, 10am—the day I was supposed to capture something magical in a disused Point Richmond train tunnel. The day that was supposed to validate everything Panama Sound stands for: capturing authentic performances
Why Vibe Is King
We need to talk about the secret ingredient in great music. If you scroll through Instagram or peek into any audio forum, you’d think great records are assembled entirely from metal, glass, and circuit boards…
A Huge Thank You to Wayne Tsai
Sometimes the universe sends you exactly what you need through the most unexpected channels. I met Wayne at Schmidt’s Pub, and recently he reached out on Facebook asking if I could use some microphones that had been given to him. Even though Wayne isn’t a musician himself, he immediately thought of Panama Sound and what
