Blue Coast Records

Il me semble important de revenir de temps en temps aux fondamentaux, c’est à dire la musique.
À ce titre, permettez-moi de vous présenter Cookie Marenco – Founder and Producer Blue Coast Records and Music.

J’ai plongé avec délice dans la playlist 2026 que Cookie Marenco nous a concocté, une sorte de florilège qui est le reflet de 40 ans de carrière.

Pour mémoire, Cookie Marenco est la propriétaire du label Blue Coast Records, installée an Californie (USA).
Les styles musicaux que ce label privilégie, vont du American Folk, Pop, Jazz, Classique.

J’ai rencontré Cookie pour la première fois lors du salon du New York Hi-Fi show en 2007.
À cette occasion, elle m’a remis son tout premier sampler en version CD.
Quelle petite merveille! Pour info, cet album est toujours disponible au catalogue.

Depuis lors, je suis avec grand intérêt son parcours et sommes restés en contact.

Cette récente playlist, est disponible sur plusieurs plateformes de streaming, voir le lien plus bas dans l’entrevue que Cookie m’a accordé.

Blue Coast Records

Si comme moi, vous ne streamez pas la musique et préférez une lecture plus locale, le catalogue Blue Coast Records vous ouvre ses portes.
Là vous avez le choix de la résolution de sortie, pour chaque album sélectionné. Cela va du PCM 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192 au DSD, pour ce qui est de la version démat.
Le choix flac ou WAV est également dispo pour le flux PCM.
De plus, comme sur la plateforme Bandcamp, chaque achat reste dans votre espace personnel, à disposition, même plusieurs années après, ce qui a été mon cas, j’ai testé pour le savoir.

Pour les plus férus d’entres-vous qui possédez un lecteur de salon digne de ce nom, chaque album est disponible en version CD gold de haute qualité.

Sans plus attendre, voici ma sélection d’albums qui m’ont semblé représenter au mieux le talent de Cookie pour les prises de sons et le travail de mastering.

En préambule, je me dois préciser qu’il y a un « son » typique Blue Coast Records, une sorte d’empreinte particulière, la touche personnelle qui ne ressemble à rien d’autre dans l’industrie.

Le silence est Roi, ceci est la principale caractéristique.

L’équilibre tonal est associé à une plage dynamique large, très large, sans que rien ne vienne contrarier le plaisir d’écoute, aucun coloration ni artéfact à l’horizon, c’est d’un naturel renversant.

Bref, revenons au sujet.

Blue Coast Records

Mon choix s’est porté sur 6 albums, un sampler et 5 albums d’artistes.

J’en connaissais certain, comme Doug Robinson, mais la découverte a été Jenna Mammina… alors là mes amis, en fermant les yeux, je n’ai pu m’empêcher de me dire, Eva Cassidy est ré-incarnée avec une touche de Kate Bush dans ce joli minois.

Voici l’entrevue que Cookie a eu la gentillesse de m’accorder / Here is the interview that Cookie was kind enough to grant me.

J’espère que cela vous permettra de mieux vous immerger dans l’univers musical de BCR et comprendre la philosophie de Cookie. / I hope this will allow you to better immerse yourself in BCR’s musical universe and understand Cookie’s philosophy.

Question – what musical styles have made Blue Coast Records famous?

At Blue Coast Records we feature a variety of musical styles performed by great musicians in an intimate acoustic environment. We feature jazz, folk, new age, bluegrass, singer-songwriters, contemporary pop, provided it can be performed live in the same room without headphones. Sometimes this is called « coffeehouse » but I would call it Acoustic Chamber music.

For instance, on one collection, you might hear artists performing a song from Tom Petty, Van Morrison, a new roots bluegrass song, an original composition and Round Midnight.

Our artists are usually discovered after working in our studio as session players. Some were discovered at small intimate clubs and we invited them to the studio.

In my 40 years as an audio engineer, the first 20 years was spent producing projects with multiple overdubs, fixing mistakes, and seeking the perfection artists look for.
While I was hired to do that, what I often loved were the rehearsals of musicians practicing in the same room, listening to each other, reacting to the lyrics and dynamics.

The music had meaning. As a record label, I wanted to capture that live passionate sound recorded with good sonic gear and protected in our studio. So, I started Blue Coast Records to capture the passion combined with great sonic quality. Blue Coast Records puts passion above perfection.

Question – Can you tell us about your recording and mastering environment?

My studio was built as an extension of my house, which sits on a beautiful hill surrounded by trees, birds and deer. It’s quiet and peaceful, which the musicians love. The studio occupies about 2200 sq ft below my house with a very large control room, a large room for the 1885 Steinway piano, a tape room for the analog tape machines, an iso room and a gathering room (where we often put the drums).

I own a variety of vintage and high quality microphones, pre-amps, reverbs, delays, compressors, a 48 channel mixing console, and 6 sets of speakers for listening. Our 2″ and1/2″ Otari tape machines are still active.

For digital recording we have the Sonoma DSD, Pyramix, Pro Tools, Samplitude, and several other DAWs each on its own computer system to protect them from the internet. We also store hundreds of terabytes of backup files.

We avoid using plugins and prefer to use the analog gear for effects when possible.

We mix through our analog console and capture the stereo mixes to both DSD and PCM using different Analog to Digital converters to achieve different results.
When we receive a multitrack file recorded elsewhere, we run it through our analog systems and capture the 2-track mix like this as well. For our Blue Coast Records recordings, we only record to DSD (although we used to use tape in the past) and mix through the analog console the same way. Bottom line, we don’t mix digital in the computer.

Mastering is done in Samplitude or Pyramix, utilizing our 6 sets of speakers and several other rooms for testing and playback. We have a set of Sony AR-1’s with a Nelson Pass amp that is outside of the control room where the musicians get to listen to their masters as an audiophile would.

Question – BCR has a very distinctive, recognizable sound. What’s your secret?

Thank you for recognizing our distinctive sound!
Because Blue Coast Records records live without overdubs, We want the listener to feel as if the musicians are playing in front of them. We often leave countoffs and comments in the mixes to help create the live in the studio feeling. We call this style of recording E.S.E. (Extended Sound Environment).

Instruments and voices bleed into each other’s microphones. This creates its own challenges. By « bleed » I mean the amount of sound from one instrument going into another’s microphone. As difficult as it is, the result is better dynamics, intimacy and togetherness in the performance.

Some of the recordings (like Mutineer with Jenna Mammina and Matt Rollings) have an audiophile group sitting in the recording room with them. It was an experience the audiophiles will never forget…. and they never made a peep of sound during the recordings.

Loud drums are one of the harder aspects to record without headphones so we often don’t make those records for Blue Coast Records. In fact, the only drummer we use for Blue Coast Records is one of the loudest drummers in the world – Brain, who has played with Guns n Roses, Primus and others. He’s also one of the few drummers willing and able to play extremely soft. He knows when not to play, too.

To compensate for the close microphone placement and room limitations, I use several reverbs and delays to create a realistic environment. I purposely use minimal compression during mixing and mastering so that the full frequencies are heard and the instruments sound more real. Often you’ll hear our music on a streaming platform and think it is softer than other music. Actually, we are hitting peaks and haven’t lost the top and bottom frequencies.
https://bluecoastmusic.com/labels/blue-coast-records

As an audio engineer, I’m sometimes hired to produce big music. Lots of overdubs, big drums, multiple effects. I love recording great drummers – it’s just not what we do for Blue Coast Records.

In fact, Brain and I have a side project called « Qua Continuum » – an ambient group that records with lots of overdubs and crazy effects. We’ve created 12 one hour pieces on Tone Science Music. It’s not Blue Coast Records but we love these ambient pieces and mix to DSD and PCM.
https://bluecoastmusic.com/artists/qua-continuum

Most recently, we have been doing deep dives into our archives and plan to remix older recordings recorded with the traditional big drum sound and overdubs. It’s fun to arrange for multiple instruments. It’s fun to produce dance and other music with a groove. Groove has become a lost art form – but that’s a story for another article.

Question, – Audiophile Edition vs regular ones, what are the differences?

While we prefer the full dynamics and sacrifice being « loud » on streaming platforms, many of our artists have mainstream listeners who prefer louder tracks. We came up with the concept of the Audiophile Edition for our mastering when we use full dynamic range.

These albums might sound « softer » to the non-audiophile listener but in reality, they have a wider dynamic range. Louds are louder, softs are softer and the full frequency range is present. Peaks hit hard and fast which is especially important for the sound of percussive instruments like pianos, guitars and drums.

In 2025, we developed the Optimized Remaster for releases going to the streaming platforms. These are albums we made louder for the general public who don’t know how to use a volume control.
We still avoid overcompression, but you can hear a difference between the Audiophile Editions and the Optimized Remaster. Many mainstream listeners prefer these louder masters.

That said, most of our albums on streaming that say « Audiophile Edition » are the original masters that might be softer.

For Qobuz, we send the Audiophile Edition but for the other streaming services, they get the Optimized Masters now. You can compare and decide for yourself.
Here’s a recent album by Tony Furtado that was released as an Audiophile Edition and an Optimized Remaster.
https://open.qobuz.com/album/ms9ryvn9f2kyb

https://tidal.com/album/460090575

The cover art tells you which one you are listening to.

Question – What do you say to our readers to encourage them to explore the BCR music catalog?

Blue Coast Music is our high resolution download store where you can buy DSD, WAV and FLAC audio. We even offer handmade Gold CDs, which are popular. Here’s a link to our available albums as high resolution downloads.
https://bluecoastmusic.com/labels/blue-coast-records

Blue Coast Music also offers other independent record labels that feature acoustic music. I recorded some of the albums and not others. You’ll find classical and well known jazz artists whose albums we’ve remastered for DSD256 along with nine other formats. We provide the provence of all the albums on their album page.

You can find most of our Blue Coast Records releases on Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, and all the usual streaming platforms. Here’s a few links to our complete playlist with more than 24 hours of music.
https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/27245691
https://tidal.com/playlist/089ec3a9-f9c9-4cff-8add-47cb4aaa18e2
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiWDrjNeis2WAmebn74RDBKMUjKc8Hkn2

Question – Can you introduce your team?

Patrick O’Connor has been with us more than 20 years now and is responsible for all the computer systems. He’s done an amazing job cataloging and maintaining the many computers we have at the studio.

Ariana MacDavid represents the next generation of audio engineers. She brought her skills in Pro Tools and has learned the language of high-resolution audio like few are willing to do.
David Weuste, Alber Llaguno, Jack Allen, Bonnie Cole and Kasey West help us with assisting at sessions, website work, video editing, social media, audio testing and much, much more. It truly takes a village to make a label work.

Question – you’ve been focusing on DSD for the past few years. Why is that?

Our use of DSD was purely for sonic purposes. It makes us happy.
DSD gives us more dynamic sound than PCM with a lower noise floor and more sonic clarity. In 2002, Gus Skinas brought the Sonoma system to our first Blue Coast Records session. Since then we have been devoted to using DSD.

David Robinson (from Positive Feedback) introduced us to the Pyramix system for recording to DSD256.

I still believe in analog tape for its sound. Our 40-year-old machines still work well. Unfortunately, using tape is not feasible due to its inconsistent quality and the price per reel. Making the decision was difficult, but moving forward for Blue Coast Records, we will record to DSD.

We will keep an open mind for the future of audio and hope to always bring great musicianship to listeners, recorded at the best quality we can manage.

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records and Music
bluecoastmusic.com
bluecoastrecords.com

OTR Studios
Recording, Mixing and Mastering in DSD/HD audio.

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La pensée du moment

Lorsque tu fais quelque chose, saches que tu auras contre toi, ceux qui voudraient faire la même chose, ceux qui voulaient le contraire, et l’immense majorité de ceux qui ne voulaient rien faire. [Confucius].

Cet article a été rédigé par Marc PHILIP rédacteurs indépendants, tous droits réservés, copyright 2026, les textes et photos sont la propriété de l’auteur et du magazine.