Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop has been engineering award-winning recordings for more than 30 years and has received SEVEN Grammy® Awards (2007, 2006, 2004, 2002 and 1997) including FIVE for Best-Engineered Recording. He has received the Surround Music Award for Best Surround Mix – Orchestral and multiple nominations in that category over the past several years. A part of the engineering and production team at Telarc Records since 1988, Michael has recorded many major orchestral, jazz, blues, and pop recordings, plus notable independent projects.  Additionally, Michael’s production and sound effects recordings helped Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach) earn a record-setting four consecutive Best Comedy Grammy® Awards.  Michael has also earned a biographical listing in the Marquis Publications Who’s Who in Entertainment and Who’s Who in Music. January 2009 marks a new chapter in Michael’s career with the launch of Five/Four Productions Ltd., an independent World-Class audio production company.  As a part-owner of Five/Four Productions, Michael records and produces independent audio projects, maintaining the high audio production standards he successfully carried in his twenty-year career at Telarc Records.

Among the very first music recording engineers to embrace multi-channel Surround as a music release format on DTS-encoded CDs, Michael is currently recording in multi-channel Direct Stream Digital for release on CD, Super Audio CD and all consumer download formats.  Having worked on pop quadraphonic mixes in the early 1970s, Michael has applied that early experience, combined with his recent surround techniques, to produce some of Telarc Records most notable surround releases to the acclaim of audio reviewers and audiophile publications.

Michael’s recording credits include The James Gang, Wild Cherry, Pere Ubu, Dizzy Gillespie, Stanley Clarke Trio, Manhattan Transfer, Ray Brown, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Williams, Ray Charles, Chucho Valdez, Monty Alexander, the Count Basie Orchestra, Hiromi Uehara, Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, Al DiMeola, Bonnie Raitt, Isaac Hayes, the Memphis Horns, Bobby Womack, Liza Minnelli, Clark Terry, James Moody, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Short, Junior Wells, Carlos Santana, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, Dee-Dee Bridgewater, Dianna Krall, Shirley Horn, Maria Muldaur, Mel Torme, Ernest Ranglin,  Andre Watt, Sylvia McNair, Robert Shaw/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Erich Kunzel/Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Lang Lang, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Paavo Jarvi/Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Robert Spano/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Michael has published articles in Surround Professional, The Absolute Sound, and Audio Media magazines as well as being a contributor to several books on professional audio recording and surround microphone techniques.  Michael is often the subject of trade magazine articles covering subjects as diverse as orchestral recording to high-resolution surround and has been a consultant to pro-audio manufacturers.

Michael is a member of AES, NARAS (where he serves on the Producer & Engineer Wing Advisory Council), ASCAP, AQHA, and NRHA.  Michael and his wife enjoy participating in Team Penning & Sorting and Reining with their American Quarter Horses.