Picture a high-tech recording studio, with banks of impressive electronic gear, speakers and amplifiers of every shape and size, a singer’s isolation booth and a massive mixing board connected to four high-powered computers.

The technically sophisticated studio would fit in well in Los Angeles or Nashville. But Mark Hibbert is making music at Whiskey Ridge Recording on a quiet street in Marysville.

With an eclectic decor that documents Hibbert’s decades of experience in the music industry, the environment at Whiskey Ridge Recording is a far cry from the sterile recording studios seen in films and music videos. Warm wood covers the walls, carefully offset by objects of various sizes and materials to create a sound quality that’s rich and organic.

The main studio is dominated by a drum set that any percussionist would envy. High-end microphones stand poised to capture the notes of the next great rock ‘n roll album. Or maybe it will be R&B, jazz, country or hip-hop. Whether he’s recording a high school jazz choir or a legendary blues musician, the final product will be a testament to Hibbert’s engineering skills. 

Hibbert, a Baby Boomer with roots in rock ‘n roll, began his love affair with music in junior high.

“I wanted to play saxophone in band,” he said, “but we got to the registration late, and all that was left was the trombone. My dad was pleased--trombones are just a little brass tubing, much less expensive than a saxophone.”

So he practiced playing the slide trombone, and in the process learned to read bass clef music. That skill would serve him well when he picked up the bass guitar a few years later.

About the same time, the popularity of a quartet of Liverpool lads began to influence the young man’s attitude toward music and broaden his concept of audio engineering.

Sitting in front of the studio’s massive mixing board, its levers masterfully set to bring out just the right sound of a track he was playing, Hibbert said, “I wouldn’t be here if they [the Beatles] hadn’t done their thing.”

In high school, he was a member of Axis Drive, an Everett band that developed a loyal local following. In those days bands had few of the tools today’s independent artists enjoy. Without MySpace, YouTube and other self-promotion Web sites, bands built a fan base one performance at a time.

At 22 years old, Hibbert was the bass player in Fat Chance, another local band that was on the verge of discovery. “We were asked to go to LA, to audition at the Troubadour for some influential music talent scouts.” The band was offered a lucrative deal to perform in an upcoming national tour, but “our manager got greedy.” Rather than take part in the unethical renegotiation of a contract, Hibbert simply walked away from the band.

He didn’t walk away from music, however. A few years later, a song he had written was recorded by Merilee Rush, the 1970s singer famous for the popular “Angel in the Morning.” That began an association with Rush that continued for years. Hibbert played bass and performed backup vocals for Merilee Rush in performances from Seattle’s Pier 70 to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the mid-1970s.

He also continued to perform on his own. A self-proclaimed “gear-head,” Hibbert enjoyed experimenting with music technology, pushing his equipment to its limits. His solo act featured background recordings and overdubs mixed with live vocals.

“People in the audience thought I was lip-synching,” he said with a grin, “so I’d purposefully sing something like ‘and I’m not lip-synching’ into the lyrics, or insert a reference to somebody sitting there.”

Soon his technical skills started to generate as much interest as his performances. “People started coming up to me asking if I’d record them or their group.”

One of Hibbert’s goals has been to demystify the process of making music. “In a typical studio, the artists aren’t allowed beyond the glass window. That’s where the guys in the white coats do their magic,” he said.

Whiskey Ridge Recording is designed to allow a natural flow between the recording studio and the production area. The big glass window is still there, but there’s a door right next to it and a comfy couch that offers a front-row seat to the mixing process. Hibbert invites artists to learn more about the engineering process, believing it makes them better musicians.

He also mentors high school students who are interested in music or audio engineering. Working with “job shadow” students from Everett High School and Arlington High School, he educates them in the reality of his work. “Kids have inflated fantasies about the music industry,” he said.

Part of that openness is inspired by a personal and lifelong quest for knowledge. Without formal training, Hibbert learned how to finesse the sound board through practical application. He also received valuable advice from industry giants like Jim Gaines, who has worked with musicians including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Huey Lewis and Santana, and Al Schmitt, producer for artists like Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand and Ray Charles.

“Al Schmitt was scheduled to speak at a conference, so I ran out and bought a copy of the Diana Krall CD he had produced, hoping to get an autograph,” Hibbert recalled. Because of a technical glitch, Schmitt ended up borrowing Hibbert’s CD for his presentation, and the two men spent several hours afterward in a friendly but energizing conversation.

Hibbert does much more than sit behind the control board during a session. Production planning is an important part of his job, helping the artist refine the play list, lining up musicians and backup singers, working out the studio setup. He provides vocal coaching for singers, helping them give their best performance in the studio, and is often asked to contribute his bass guitar or vocal skills to a recording.

“My typical client… is not typical,” he laughed. “It may be a guy who wants to record one song to be played to his bride at their wedding, or an aspiring musican cutting a demo of original songs, or veteran jazz professionals working on their twentieth album.”

He also remixes vocals sung to canned karaoke tracks to make the recordings sound fuller and more professional.

Above his mixing board is a display of CDs Hibbert has produced over the past several years. He calls it his “wall of pain,” but it’s clear he’s proud of the music contained in those discs. While sampling tracks from Blues Union’s “Extra Blue,” Jake Bergevin’s “My Name is Jake” and the Dreyer Brothers’ “All or Nothing,” Hibbert talked about the techniques of mixing and mastering.

“Mastering wedges all the tracks into a cohesive whole,” he said, “compressing some of the tones while highlighting others. It’s an organic process.”

As the computer screens displayed colorful histograms and waveforms, Hibbert said, “Twenty or thirty years ago, it was impossible to produce viable music in home studios. Today, the recordings we do here can be compared to music released by national labels.”

Contact Mark Hibbert of Whiskey Ridge Recording at (360) 659-5462 or by e-mail at markhibbert@verizon.net. On the Web, check out www.whiskeyridgeonline.com.