Tweed Recording has landed in Downtown Athens. Tweed is setting up its home base for studio-driven education in the historic Lamar Lewis building and is making plans on a fall 2019 opening for the schools’ inaugural session. Blending Athens’ two most pronounced traditions: Music and Education, Tweed looks to bring together the art and science of music recording for students from around the globe. Tweed will bring the industry its next generation of engineers, front-of-house techs, and entrepreneurs looking to bring artists’ visions to the ears of all who will listen.

Tweed’s creator is Andrew Ratcliffe, a native of Georgia with a twenty-two-year history in the audio recording industry. Andrew has recorded artists of all levels and is excited about the prospect of passing on the skills and experience he has. “I’ve been fortunate to learn about recording through a combination of mentors as well as practical, hands-on experience in my studio. I feel like it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and, on a heart level, give back. The generation that’s coming up, through no fault of their own, doesn’t always understand how to make records. I want to teach about microphone bleed and getting people in a room together to make music. Something that - if it isn’t preserved - is going to go away.” Andrew is not alone in this quest. Some of the recording industry’s biggest names will be in residence as faculty, bringing over 300 years of engineering experience. For example, the program is being written in conjunction with Grammy Award winning producer John Snyder, Department Chair of Film and Music studies at Loyola University (New Orleans, LA), and Tim Hall, current instructor at the Art Institute of Nashville.

The school will consist of classrooms and two intimate educational recording studios outfitted with a full complement of vintage and state-of-the-art recording gear. Resembling the hourly accreditation of an Associate’s degree with a total of six hundred contact hours over a 20-week period, Tweed’s curriculum will run twice a year and include the history, art, and application of analog and digital recording as well as mixing skills in both recording applications. The curriculum will also feature a heart of entrepreneurship that will challenge the graduating student to go out into their own communities and start their own content-based engineering and producing opportunities as well as recording studios, bands, and record labels.

The school will be primarily housed on the Washington Street side of the buildings (including the former Copper Creek Brewing Company). Offices and administration will be on the 2nd floor. But in addition to the school space, Tweed will have a dedicated space right on Clayton St as a revolving place for showcasing local musicians and artists, the history of music and recording in the south east, radio shows, and private event space rental. This space housed one of Athens’ oldest continuous businesses where generations of kids and adults got their shoes. Now that former home of Lamar Lewis Shoes, a mere drumstick-throw from the Georgia Theater, will be the space that connects the formal education of the Tweed students with the music-loving people and visitors of Athens.

Ratcliffe’s passion is evident: “We’re confident this educational venture is an evolution of the music legacy of Athens, as well as a complement to the University of Georgia’s music focus. The history of recording here has set a high bar, and our program will ensure that kids from all over the world will have a valuable experience assisting Athens’ music-making community while here. Then after graduation we see them taking their skills and experience across the globe to further the vital process of preserving and sustaining musicians everywhere. It’s another way to help Athens impact the world through music.”

Tweed Recording will also feature an adjunct front of house mixing school that will occur four to six times a year in ten to fourteen day seminars with legendary engineer Buford Jones (Prince, ZZ Top, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Counting Crows, Faith Hill, etc.). These mixing skills can be utilized in live music venues, houses of worship, outdoor festivals, etc. The front of house mixing school will have a home base at the historic Winterville Auditorium in Winterville, Georgia just a few miles from our downtown Athens location.