Open Source Advocate, Musician, Audio Engineer, Woodsman, Trail Runner, Community Builder and Practitioner of Regenerative Ecology.

TATE ESKEW

About Tate

ABOUT TATE

Tate's Recording Engineering History

    • Recording in some shape or form since I got one of these . Professionally doing it for the last 25+ years.
    • I've worked on lots of record albums, television shows and films. While working on these albums, television shows and films I've worked with great musicians, horrible musicians, well-known musicians/actors, non-well-known musicians/actors, amazingly wonderful people and amazingly terrible people.
    • I worked nearly a decade as a recordist for The Simpsons, Futurama, and King of the Hill.
    • I've committed a lot of things to tape and disk. If you are interested in hearing any of the work I've done, just email me. I'm available to record your album if you see me as the person to do it.
  • Tate Eskew has more than 25 years experience as a recording engineer, musician, and software systems engineer. He uses this experience and his fervent interests in ecology, regenerative design, and reconnecting with his own Cherokee ancestry to create a linkage between technology and nature through music.

    - Chris Davis
  • Tate Eskew carefully orchestrates layers of swirling guitar and haunting melody with bursts of noise and disorder, forming his own distinct character. A self-proclaimed studio rat, Eskew labors endlessly in his own studio creating music that evokes such descriptions as "liquid flowing through a chaotic mess of lines" and "raw, with otherworldly sounds and atmospherics." Complex declarations for complex music.

    - Tate's German Shepherd, Layla
  • Songs from Eskew's collection often start in a traditional directive but soon turn unexpected corners, later blooming into a wash of melody and noise. Throughout every track, Eskew's obsession with refined composition and studio experimentation shows.

    - Tate's structural engineer
Functional Equivalent Recordings

Other Projects

  • I created Zero Art Radio in 1997. With the help of friends and our community we managed to keep it alive for nearly 14 years. It was a large part of the independent music community in the early days of online communities and helped shape online self-distribution during the time the project was alive. We've since moved on to building other communities.
  • My wife and I are building community through regenerative ecological design on our Tsula Adohi Farm & Nature School. We have developed an academic-based nature immersion and ancestral knowledge school here in Tennessee. You can read more at Tsula Adohi Farm and Nature School.
  • Along with Chris Davis, I started FMRL. FMRL is an arts collective created to help foster the arts through organizing events in the Middle Tennessee area. Nashville Scene - Best of Nashville 2014
  • Part of the collective that has put Functional Equivalent Recordings out into the world. Visit the site for more information and to purchase records.
  • Contributor (both testing and monetarily) to Ardour. Ardour is a free (as in beer and speech) open source digital audio workstation (DAW) software application. Visit the site for more information and to contribute
  • Contributor to Arch Linux and various other open source projects Tate's GitHub
About Tate
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FOLLOW ME

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AUDIO

A DAY IN BON AQUA

 

OLDOWAN

 

SEMIOTICS

 

MODALITY

 

From upcoming album “Holocene”

 

Live at the Emma Bistro with Sir Richard Bishop & Tashi Dorji

 

More music at Soundcloud & Bandcamp

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events

EVENTS

COME TO A LIVE SHOW

UPCOMING

No shows booked at the moment.

PAST SHOWS

Date City Venue
08/31/14 Nashville, TN Emma Bistro
Time: 8:00pm. Admission: $10. Age restrictions: All Ages. Address: 11 Lea Avenue. w/ Sir Richard Bishop and Tashi Dorji
07/25/14 Nashville, TN Emma Bistro
Time: 9:00pm. Admission: $7. Age restrictions: All Ages. Address: 11 Lea Avenue.
Jeremy Bible, Derek Schartung, and Coupler
05/17/14 Nashville, TN Betty’s
Time: 9:00pm. Admission: Free. Age restrictions: No Minors. Address: 407 49th Ave. N..
Black Static Line, Tim Carey, and Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power
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zero art studio

TATE'S ZERO ART STUDIO

I’m in the process of building a new studio building on my farm Tsula Adohi, which is located in the hills of Middle Tennessee. This section still holds information regarding my studio that continues to transform throughout the years. New information regarding the new studio will be up here when it becomes available. For now, check out the stuff below.

Zero Art Studio is a creative, one-room recording studio built to suit the needs of Zero Art Radio, myself, and friends. Odds are that you will never step foot in the Zero Art Studio because, at this point, the studio remains a private entity and is not open to the public. Although, I have spent a lot of time creating a workspace that means a lot to me, and would like to share some information. I use the studio very much as a tool in the writing process of my music, so I believe it ties right into my music. The studio also hosts live sessions and interviews for FMRL, an artist collective started by myself and Chris Davis. If you are touring through Nashville, contact me about coming by to do a session.

After spending many years as a recording engineer in different studios in different areas of the country, I came to the conclusion that the only thing I hated about recording studios was the fact that it wasn’t my own space. The remedy to this, of course, is to build your own and that’s what I did. You have to be a bit mental to want to build your own studio, but I figured I already had that part covered. The studio construction was started in August of 2005 in the Tennessee summer heat. I had recently moved from Chicago to Nashville and bought a house with a 2 1/2 car garage attached. It was this space that I built out into a comfortable workspace for me to work on my music.

The studio is not like many of your typical recording studios. First of all, the studio is one big room. There is no “control room” as the console sits to one side of the room while the “live room” or proper sits to the other side. I really like this way of working as it puts me in the same space as the other players and also makes it easier for me to work alone by engineering and playing at the same time. Also, the studio is not properly soundproofed, and outside sounds and noises will on occasion find their way into the studio. Although important to many, this doesn’t bother me at all. I like the fact that I can still hear the world outside of my studio coming in at times. Especially the sounds of wind, rain, and songs of birds.

As you continue through this section of the site, you will find more information and photos pertaining to the studio I have dubbed, Zero Art Studio. If you would like more information about the studio or you want to possibly work in the space with me, please don’t hesitate to use the contact form to send me a missive. Also, note that I can be hired as an engineer/producer of your project/album outside of Zero Art Studio.

The console I chose for my studio is a 1973 MCI JH416B. This console is quadraphonic, transformer-balanced, and contains the MCI 2001 op-amp and it sounds really incredible, especially for rock, experimental, noise albums. I’ve also had extremely good success with acoustic music. The console was bought from Randy Blevins here in Nashville and has been cleaned up really well. Factors in me choosing this desk were wide and varied, but the main reasons, beyond the fact that it sounds amazing, is that it doesn’t have a bunch of unnecessary circuitry between the mic pres and the tape machine sends and it’s also really easy to mechanically work on. I plan on recapping the console with time, I have recently recapped the complete console with Nichicon capacitors, and I’m planning on replacing all bulbs with LEDs very soon. I plan on installing Sage Electronics’ red and blue dot op-amps on two channels of the quad buss and on a few channels on the console. These are fully discrete op-amps and will give me the option to mix with the original 2001 op-amps or the fully discrete red and blue dot op-amps.

zero art studio

CONTACT TATE

Let's Talk