Each year, thousands of music fans descend on Nashville for the AmericanaFest music festival and conference. It's an annual celebration of Americana and showcases rising musical talent while honoring the genre's roots and future. It's a celebration of tradition, which can include much of the recording technology.
Last Fall, during AmericanaFest 2025, AEA RibbonMics partnered with The Bluegrass Situation to record some live sessions with more than 20 artists, including Donovan Woods, The Droptines, Natalie Del Carmen and Franklin Jonas, at Welcome to 1979 Studios.
The recordings were all engineered and mixed by Grammy Award-winning recording engineer Brandon Bell, who used AEA ribbon microphones, AEA preamps and the company's 1029 compressor to capture each of the performances.
Founded in 1964, AEA started as a record label and mobile recording studio before expanding into microphone repairs and then full-scale manufacturing of remakes of classic microphones. In 1998, the company introduced the R44C -- an evolution of the iconic RCA 44BX microphone -- and has since developed a full range of microphones and preamps inspired by some of the music industry's finest classic designs, built using modern technology. All the products are handcrafted at the AEA HQ in Pasadena, California.
No Room For Errors
Recording more than twenty artists in three short days required a fast and efficient workflow. Bell was often tracking six or more acts each day, with every act requiring different instrumentation and tonal profile. With that workflow, there's very little room for technical glitches or second-guessing the choice of gear you're using.
"I need gear I can trust completely. If I start worrying about whether or not something is going to behave the way I expect, I'm no longer focused on the music. The moment you shift into problem-solving mode, the creative flow is interrupted, and that can change the entire energy of a session," Bell said. Having been familiar with AEA mics, Bell relied on them to keep the sessions running smoothly so he could remain focused on making the creative decisions that really mattered.
For the AmericanaFest sessions, Bell paired AEA ribbon microphones with the AEA TRP3 preamp and the 1029 compressor as his primary vocal chain. The TRP3 provided the clean gain that was necessary for getting a transparent front end and letting the microphones define the overall tone. Bell emphasized the importance of using low-noise equipment in such fast-paced or remote recording situations.
Less Is More
"The TRP3 is the quietest thing I have. I want clean gain so the microphone sets the tone and I prefer not to use extra gear to fix noise or color. For me, less is more and the TRP3 lets me work that way," he said.
Bell also relied on a range of AEA ribbon microphones throughout the sessions, choosing models according to the artist, arrangement and even room dynamics. “The R84, being a favorite of mine, is the perfect balance of big ribbon sound with great tone. The vocals on these AEA ribbon mics just sounded right. I’d solo them and get lost in how smooth and pure they sounded,” he added.
In many of his recording sessions, Bell paired AEA ribbons with condensers for the acoustic instruments or guitar-vocal setups, creating a sound that had body and smoothness while controlling sharp transients. For AmericanaFest, he relied completely on AEA ribbons, using the figure-eight rejection of models like the KU5 and KU4 to manage spill in the live-in-the-room environment.
Listen And Learn
The recordings used AEA gear from tracking through to the final mix. During mixing, Bell ran the tracks back through the RPQ503 to access its EQ section and applied the 1029 compressor across the mix bus. “The EQ on the RPQ503 is unique. It doesn’t feel like anything else,” Bell said. “You can be more aggressive with it than you would with other EQs. You can push it, yet it still sounds pure.”
New AEA Sessions will be released weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, until March. If, like me, you're fascinated with recording technology used to capture music and how it can make musicians and songwriters shine, you're probably going to want to take a look and hear the results those AEA ribbon mics can produce.