The experience behind ArtistPro.music

Thirty years of publishing that helped train millions of musicians, producers, and audio engineers.

ArtistPro.music is built on decades of experience helping people record, mix, master, and release music. Its roots reach into the books, videos, courses, and professional communities that taught generations of musicians how to produce audio—and helped make professional recording knowledge accessible to people working in their own studios.

At the center of that history is musician, publisher, and technology builder Mike Lawson. In 1996, Lawson left Gibson and moved to San Francisco to launch MIXBooks and EMBooks as national publishing imprints for MIX and Electronic Musician magazines. In 2000, he acquired the publishing business and formed ArtistPro. His publishing work brought together accomplished engineers, producers, authors, and educators to explain the craft in language musicians could understand and use.

Across Mix Books, EM Books, Pro Audio Press, Pro Music Press, and ArtistPro Publishing, that catalog included:

• Bobby Owsinski: The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook, and The Recording Engineer’s Handbook.
• Bill Gibson: the AudioPro Home Recording Course and Sound Advice series.
• David Gibson: The Art of Mixing and, with Maestro Curtis, The Art of Producing.
• David Miles Huber and Philip Williams: Professional Microphone Techniques.
• Scott Hunter Stark: Live Sound Reinforcement.

These were practical learning tools: illustrated explanations, listening examples, video demonstrations, and lessons that musicians could apply to their own recordings. The wider catalog covered microphones, acoustics, signal processing, recording software, live sound, music publishing, promotion, and the business of sustaining a music career.

Lawson’s publishing work encompasses more than 200 books and videos, including projects for Hal Leonard, Alfred Music, and Thomas Nelson. He signed Quincy Jones’s Q on Producing, with Bill Gibson, for Hal Leonard, and Ken Scott’s Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, with Bobby Owsinski, for Alfred Music. He also compiled and edited The Roger Nichols Recording Method for Alfred, helping bring Nichols’s teaching and recording knowledge to another generation.

Experience building technology and teaching people to use it

The technology history began even earlier. Lawson created the Music Industry Forums on CompuServe in 1992, published The Entertainment Source Library software—which he sold to MIX in 1993—and led the team that created Gibson’s entire online marketing presence in 1994.

In 1996, he moved to San Francisco to launch MIXBooks and EMBooks for MIX and Electronic Musician magazines, bringing his experience in music technology into a national book and video publishing program. In 2000, he acquired that business and formed ArtistPro. That same year, artistpro.com brought professional audio education online, employing engineers including Alan Parsons, Al Schmitt, Joe Chiccarelli, and Glenn Meadows. ArtistPro’s instructional videos and DVDs also taught musicians how to work with production applications including Pro Tools, Cubase, SONAR, Reason, and WaveLab.

That commitment to teaching extends through Lawson’s more than 30 years of involvement in Technology in Music Education (TI:ME), including service as executive director. His industry service also includes terms as a NARAS governor and national trustee and seven years on its Awards and Nominations Committee. He also served for seven years as one of the four board members of the TEC Foundation, which created the TEC Awards and subsequently handed them over to NAMM to continue producing.

A working musician, in the studio and onstage

His recording and performing career brings that experience into the studio and onto the stage. Lawson has recorded and/or performed with Merl Saunders, the Grateful Dead’s Vince Welnick, Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna musicians Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, former Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch, and collaborators including Phil Keaggy, John McEuen, Pete Sears, and Brian Hardgroove. His catalog includes eight Mike Lawson & Friends albums. On Lay It All Down, he is credited as producer, engineer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, with contributions from McEuen, Keaggy, Sears, and Casady. This is firsthand experience of coordinating musicians, recording performances, and completing releases.

A continuing mission

Following the July 2004 sale of the publishing business to Thomson, later part of Cengage Learning, Cengage dropped the ArtistPro trade name and imprints while retaining the publications. Lawson reformed ArtistPro Media more than a decade ago to carry the established brand and mission forward. Today, ArtistPro publishes MMR—Musical Merchandise Review and SBO+—School Band & Orchestra Plus, continuing its daily connection with the music products and music education industries.

ArtistPro.music brings that accumulated experience into the suite we are building for mastering, organizing music products, and preparing releases for distribution. The same subjects we spent decades helping musicians understand now inform the tools and workflows we are creating for them.

Our responsibility remains the same: make professional processes understandable, respect the musician’s creative decisions, and help people bring their music to completion.