Robert Shimp: The Life of an Audio Engineer

Written by: Avery Welch

Photography by: Avery Welch

The knob of a closet door turns and creaks open to reveal the worn and weathered jackets that resurface when the air turns crisp. Robert Shimp reaches for his grandfather’s hunting jacket, a brown, boxy, garment made of waterproof material slightly waxy to the touch. He shrugs it on and checks his pockets in routine fashion, only to stumble upon a memory made of metal.

Curious fingers pull the metal circle, similar to that of an old washer, out of the pocket. Around the circle the words read ‘Technical Earth,’ a reminder of the world that molded him, and a beacon of hope for what lies ahead.

Today, Robert Shimp owns Technical Earth Recorders. Located in Montgomery, Alabama, the foundation of the recording studio lies in the upbringing of the audio engineer and the trek that shaped him and his craft.

Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Shimp sat and listened to records since his hand-eye coordination developed enough to drop the needle on the record. Shimp’s mother instilled his interested at a young age. Her friends worked in record stores and constantly brought new music over for ears old and young to feast upon.

While Shimp slept, his mother pulled the speakers out from the wall and put a pillow in between to listen to whatever record appeared that day.

“If she was really excited, she would come wake me up and say, “you have to come listen, this is so cool,” said Shimp.

Shimp read liner notes from albums and paid attention to the musicians that played on the records, the stories behind the records, and the personnel who worked on the record. It wasn’t until high school that Shimp had the epiphany that he could make a living doing what he loved.

Shimp graduated from Carver High School in 1994. He then attended Full Sail University to work towards an associate degree in audio engineering but did not stay to finish the degree. Instead, Shimp’s drive and ear for music led him back to Montgomery to intern at a local recording studio, Cherry Orchard.

Montgomery grew to become the center of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s. In the 90s, political turmoil raged on as citizens stood up against the mayor of Montgomery at the time, Emory Folmar. Shimp and his friend contributed to the retaliation and printed up 1,500 11-by-8-inch flyers that took a stance against Folmar, and the feedback turned negative.

“I had four cops tell me that they could no longer guarantee my safety in Montgomery, Alabama, and that I should move,” Shimp continued. “We weren’t trying to be sneaky about it. It was just activism.”

Montgomery pushed him away, but California greeted him with opportunities. Shimp worked two jobs at Blockbuster Video and a KB toy store in a mall all while on the hunt for the producer and engineer who had been on all the records Shimp listened to growing up, Kevin Army.

In a time where social media didn’t exist, the hunt for Kevin Army seemed impossible. The phonebook gave no number, so Shimp decided to stake out at the public record store linked to Lookout Studios, a studio that Army worked with often.

While hanging out at the record store, Shimp struck up a conversation with a woman who happened to be a close friend of Army.

“She handed me his number, and then I stalked that poor man,” said Shimp.

The voicemail box of Army lit up day after day for three months with messages from Shimp, until one day while the engineered sounds of Army echoed through the air of Shimp’s living space, the phone rang at last.

Shimp got his start in San Francisco working at a studio called Toast after Army rewarded his persistence. By the age of 21, Shimp took off on tour around the world, with Australia, Japan and a whole lot of Europe stamped in his passport.

Memories of tour engrave Shimp’s mind like sweltering script on iron. In Columbus, Ohio, a gig took place in the basement of Bernie’s Distillery. The 8-foot ceilings could be touched by a raised hand, and the stage consisted of folding tables stacked merely four inches high with plywood glued to the top.

In a space meant for 200 people, 400 stood packed like sardines to listen to the band they had bought tickets to see. An airtight space as such did not allow for sound to carry, and only the first three rows of people could hear.

“I remember this kid, at first I thought he was crowd surfing, but then I realized that he was holding onto the conduit in the ceiling and crawling along the tubes to get closer to the stage,” said Shimp.

As Shimp watched, he could see the weight of the boy pulling the conduit down from the ceiling. Sweaty bodies stood below connected like live wire waiting to be lit.

“I had to shut off the power. If the ceiling arced, everybody was touching each other, everybody was standing on a wet floor, everybody was going to die,” said Shimp.

The music industry takes no prisoners, and for Shimp, tour life wrapped his electric heart in conduit and weighed it down to the floor.

“I watched my wife fall in love with somebody else on tour right in front of my eyes,” said Shimp.

Shimp coped with unabading intoxication and held the belief that in doing so, he would become fired from tour and be able to return home. Two shows remained before they headed to Europe when the tour manager came up to Shimp.

“He said, ‘I can see what you’re trying to do here. The problem is that even when you’re piss drunk, you’re still really good at your job, so you should probably just stop trying to drink yourself to death,’” said Shimp.

Shimp stayed for the last show prior to the next leg of the tour, but the health of his mind, body and soul demanded to be heard. He packed up his things and hopped on the next bus back to Oakland.

“I felt bad for my friends in the band. I felt really bad, but at the same time, I also felt relieved,” Shimp continued. “I am eternally grateful for the way it all turned out. It taught me a lot about myself, my limits, humans and relationships.”

Shadows of the sun rose and fell across a front porch like the light of a passing subway train for eight months. On that porch sat Shimp and a 750 mL bottle of bourbon that vanished daily as he tried to wash away the emotions of divorce.

Friends of Shimp stood by and led him into brighter days. “They kept asking me what I was waiting for. They said, ‘You’re fine, You’re good at your job and you still have a lot to offer,’” said Shimp.

Shimp took these words and tossed them around in his head like playing cards. The cards delt landed him in Salt Lake City months later at the mercy of a needle in a tattoo parlor that stood next door to a music venue. On his right arm, black ink branded him with the words ‘don’t procrastinate’ in the syllabic writing of Katakana.

The tattoo serves as a reminder for Shimp, propelling him into goals yearning to be fulfilled.

Years down the road, Shimp packed up his things and headed back to where it all began, Montgomery, Alabama. Convinced he no longer wanted to pursue a life as an audio engineer, he happened upon a gig that reimmersed him into the world he thought he left behind.

Renewed and inspired to create a live room space for musicians to record their art, Shimp spent the next six years of his life in search for what is known today as Technical Earth Recorders.

The studio stands on the outskirts of five-points in downtown Montgomery next to The Sanctuary, an old cathedral style church building. Outside the studio on a sunny day, the calm and distant sounds of traffic float amongst the slight breeze through nearby low-hanging trees.

The design and building process for music studios as such requires acute attention to detail, for the acoustic value of a space holds no room for sound to hide. Shimp based the design for Technical Earth Recorders off his first true studio experience with Toast back in San Francisco.

A year filled with endless trials and tribulations to build a space that captured sound and energy raced by.

“There were enough curveballs to where we weren’t sure it was going to work, and we didn’t know until we put the last door on,” Shimp continued. “We shut it and I stood in the room, talked, and then I cried like a baby.”

The studio opened in 2016 with Shimp as the heart. In July of 2022, two young and eager interns, Rachel Michel and Brian Carr, joined his team.

Just as Army took a chance on Shimp, Shimp took a chance on Michel and Carr. With a love for songwriting and music overall, Michel and Carr stepped into the audio engineering world with next to no knowledge.

“I reached out to Robert, and I said, I may not know much, but I will work my ass off so I can learn everything about the studio,” said Michel.

The art of recording and engineering sound generates an endless mountain of knowledge to be learned. The two interns took on the climb with eager eyes, but even still, the journey demands time.

Hours in the studio extend late into the stillness of night, and the freshness of morning becomes lost in tired eyes. With this amount of time, relationships cultivate and strengthen, just as knowledge does.

“I don’t have a dad, and I consider Robert to be a sort of father figure,” Carr continued. “Every time I’m working with him, there’s a clear sense of respect toward both of us.”

The studio resembles that of a home, where ambient lighting and an aroma of old wood and incense fills the space. The comfort of the studio brings in bands who need a space to record together. Technical Earth Recorders enables bands to work together in a live room to make a record, which few recording studios in Montgomery offer.

An ex-skater boy of the 90s, Shimp stands 5 feet 7 inches tall with a hairline that recedes to the back of his head coupled with a thick peppered beard grown down to his chest. Whitish-grey hair stains only the right side of his mustache, as if the stressful young years of tour froze it over, leaving the left, less aged side to resemble his future goals with Technical Earth Recorders.

“I want [the studio] to be around in 20 years, and I want it to be making music that’s not compromising,” Shimp continued. “For me, I want to eventually be able to walk into this studio, have somebody else working on a session, and just sit in that chair and drink wine,” Shimp said, pointing to a chair in the corner that overlooked the control room. To his right, a metal ring similar to that of an old washer lay on the sound board. It read, ‘Technical Earth.’