08/11/2026
Red Amp’s first Behind-The-Scenes Share features Steve Earle & Los Lobos and their first-ever studio recording together of the song “Volver a Celaya,” written by Steve Earle and produced by Steve Berlin, at Red Amp.
Berlin was wrapping up Alacranes RVA’s album project at Red Amp and was so impressed with the studio and engineer Jody Boyd that he asked Jody to record Steve Earle & Los Lobos at Red Amp.
Great recordings happen when a great room, gear, instruments, musicians, producer, and engineer align. This combination makes musical magic—and that’s what happened.
The artists had limited time, so the challenge was to track all members of Los Lobos, plus Earle’s vocals and acoustic guitar, simultaneously. Luckily, Red Amp's multiple isolated rooms made this possible. In the Tracking room, drums and bass were recorded using the studio’s 5-piece Craviotto custom shop kit, a Tama Starclassic snare, and Lakland 4-string bass. In Room #2, the studio’s pre-war Gibson J35 acoustic guitar was tracked with a vintage RCA ribbon mic from Doyle Lawson’s collection. (This legendary guitar was used by the Allman Brothers, and Duane Allman wrote “Little Martha” on it!) In Room #3, Earle’s vocals were captured on a Neumann U47 and his acoustic guitar used another vintage Lawson RCA ribbon mic. One more acoustic was tracked in the back of the mix room.
After a short rehearsal, recording began. Jody engineered on Red Amp’s 32-channel API Legacy Plus analog console with Berlin producing. They recorded two live passes, followed by overdubs for background vocals, congas, and acoustic guitar. Neve 1073s drove the drum kit, while all vocals were processed with Universal Audio LA2A compressors and a Purple Audio 1176.
Jody sent a rough mix to Earle, who was extremely pleased. The session was a master class in doing everything right, resulting in a recording that sounded great right out of the gate.
New West Records, Steve Berlin, Steve Earle, and Los Lobos were amazing to work with. Red Amp is so grateful to have been part of this project. Special thanks to Earle for buying everyone lunch from Perly's!
Listen to the beautiful “Volver a Celaya,” out everywhere now!
