The Hay is the recording studio nestled in the hub of the backstage camp at the annual Bonnaroo festival of music and arts in Manchester, Tennessee.
Surrounded by a two-foot-thick wall hay-bale wall (hence the name), it offers an acoustically isolated environment for Lij Shaw and his team of engineers to make professional-quality recordings during the festival. Bands record exclusive backstage sessions so that on-site radio stations can broadcast one-off performances live from the adjacent suite of broadcast posts. This year, bands including Tori Amos, The Temper Trap, Black Keys, Mumford and Sons, and The XX — plus many, many more — all passed through The Hay.
Lij's studio setup is centered around a mixing console that feeds a DAW system. On the front end of the rig, eight Focusrite ISA220 channel strips, alongside an assorted handful of other outboard, allow him and his engineers to get a pro studio sound quickly.
Engineer Jesse Newport comments "The Focusrite preamp is great; it's quiet and clean, and it doesn't distort in a bad way, which is important because of the quick nature of our recordings. We have to have preamps, EQ and compression that are pleasant and forgiving to some degree."
Lij Shaw adds, "Our specialty items in the studio are the Focusrite ISA220 Producer Packs, and they have the mic pre, the EQ and the compression built in, which makes it really easy for us."
The Hay is the recording studio nestled in the hub of the backstage camp at the annual Bonnaroo festival of music and arts in Manchester, Tennessee. 