A chat with Elliot Scheiner about studios, speakers, headphones, formats and AURO-3D

When I started to consider many of the tracks that are used to test speakers and tune rooms, a significant number of them were mixed by Elliot Scheiner—Steely Dan, Toto, The Eagles, Bruce Hornsby, Billy Joel, Foo Fighters, Van Morrison and the list goes on. Elliot has 25 GRAMMY nominations, 8 GRAMMY Awards, an Emmy, and 3 TEC Awards, not to mention 91 Platinum and 14 Gold album certifications.

Despite all the accolades, Elliot is a genuinely humble person who is more than willing to share his knowledge and stories. When I mentioned that his mix of Donald Fagen’s "Morph the Cat" is perhaps my ultimate speaker test song of all time, he still gets a tad embarrassed by the praise.

For this interview, I wanted to talk with Elliot about the history of speakers, monitoring, headphones, and the evolution of surround to immersive mixing, a field at which Elliot has been at the forefront.