Five Grammys and a working museum of tape machines later, Osiris Studio's Michael Graves reflects on the ethics of restoration, the problem of artist intent, and why the work never stops surprising him.
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Today, we're putting The Tonearm's needle on Michael Graves, a five-time Grammy-winning mastering engineer and the founder of Osiris Studio in Los Angeles.
Michael's work is restoration as archaeology—pulling performances off deteriorating tapes, damaged acetates, and obsolete formats, then deciding how much intervention is too much. He's done this for recordings by Hank Williams, Aretha Franklin, Stax songwriters, and field recordings from Cambodia, Sudan, and Mississippi. His most recent Grammy came in 2024 for 'Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos'.
The deeper question his work raises is curatorial: where does restoration end and revisionism begin? What gets rescued, and what stays buried?
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0:00 Introduction
1:38 Growing Up in a Musical House
4:01 Eight Years at Delta Air Lines
4:53 The CD Recorder That Changed Everything
8:51 Finding Osiris Studio's First Clients
10:28 Why "Osiris"? The Resurrection Philosophy
11:39 Restoration Work That Moves: 78s and Stax Songwriting Demos
14:57 The Line Between Restoration and Revision
15:49 The Chris Bell "I Am the Cosmos" Dilemma
20:34 When the Best Source Isn't the Master Tape
22:09 What Makes a Great Source Tape
24:09 Preserving the Leonard Cohen Archive
25:51 Human Intelligence Over AI: The De-Clicking Technique
28:41 The Emotional Weight of the Work
29:10 WWII Servicemen and the Value of Personal Recordings
33:38 Music as Communal Practice: Sacred Harp and Home Recordings
34:55 Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos
39:38 When Nobody Wants the Gems You Found
41:21 The Economics Behind Reissue Labels
44:26 Mentoring Young Engineers and the Recording Academy
46:35 Why Los Angeles?
47:48 The Blondie Box Set and the Weight of Iconic Recordings
49:44 Trusting Your Instincts: Making Decisions Under Pressure
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Visit Michael Graves at Osiris Studio → https://www.osirisstudio.com
and follow Osiris Studio on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/osirisstudio
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