Nestled in the outskirts of Tacoma on a private, wooded lot, sits Lange Studios. The spacious recording studio has serviced musicians from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond, for four decades.
Founded by David Lange, a Tacoma native and accomplished musician who plays accordion with hot club jazz group Pearl Django, Lange Studios has become a mainstay studio for local jazz and Latin musicians. Lange has worked with more than one hundred local jazz musicians including singers Greta Matassa and Johnaye Kendrick, pianist Jovino Santos Neto, as well as an array of singer-songwriter, Americana, and classical acts.
“David’s my favorite engineer in town. He’s incredibly fast at editing and he does it with the ears of the musician, which makes a big difference,” said Seattle-based jazz pianist Bill Anschell, who’s recorded at the studio approximately thirty times since 2004. “And he's got a good piano. If you want to do a serious project with an acoustic piano player, there's got to be a good piano and that eliminates probably 90% of the studios in town.”
As of 2021, the studio, which is in the basement of the Lange’s family home, has entered a new era. Lange has retired and passed the torch to his 27-year-old son, Ben Lange, who is now doing heavy lifting as lead engineer and studio co-owner. It’s an exciting time for the family, particularly for Ben, who grew up watching his dad work with many of the musicians he’s now recording himself.
“It’s been very cool to see people that have been coming in and out of the house while I was growing up here, and getting to build a working relationship with them,” Ben said. “It's surreal, and neat.”
David started Lange Studios (formerly David Lange Studios) in his converted garage in South Tacoma in 1980. Before then, he studied music at University of Puget Sound and University of Washington. His interest in record engineering was piqued after hearing “Switched On Bach,” an iconic 1968 record by composer Wendy Carlos that used a Moog synthesizer, a new instrument at the time.
“It was really exciting hearing different sounds and being able to get a whole enormous palette out of a single instrument,” David said. He began to acquire more and more gear to pursue his passion for analog synthesis.
All the new gear necessitated more space, so David built out a recording studio in his South Tacoma home. While he explored synths, he also engineering records for musicians who inquired with him. One of those projects, 1985’s Run This Way Forever by singer-songwriter Michael Tomlinson, ended up selling over 100,000 copies worldwide, transforming David’s passion project into a notable Tacoma-based business.
In 1990, having outgrown the garage studio space, Lange Studios moved to their current home in Edgewood, between Tacoma and Federal Way. This space, which is large enough to accommodate two recording booths, a control room, and an 8-foot Kawai concert grand piano, is much more conducive to recording jazz music — David’s first love.
In the years since their relocation, Lange Studios has thrived, recording hundreds of artists, including Grammy-winning jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer. Likewise, Ben has grown up and gotten more involved.
Ben picked up mandolin at 13, first learned the recording software Pro Tools at 16, and at 21, after earning his bachelor’s in applied physics from the University of Washington, caught his dad’s bug for engineering.
“I found that it was a really good blend between the analytical problem solving of sciences and the craft and musicianship of music,” Ben said.
As Ben picks up the reins, he’s streamlined the studio’s backup processes using cloud computing and lends his skills in production, performance, composition, and arrangement to clients in the studio. The most recent project that utilized nearly all of facets of Ben’s skills was a unique “filk,” or sci-fi folk, single that he helped put together for an artist named Vic Tyler.
Ben’s also spreading awareness about Lange Studios with his peer group. Recently, he recorded two up-and-comers in local jazz: Pianist/composer/arranger and current Jim Knapp Orchestra leader, Dylan Hayes, and local guitarist-composer Martin Budde.
Seasoned talent is impressed with Ben, too. Anschell, who worked with Ben on a Dimitri Matheny project in 2022, said he was “honestly astonished” at how quickly Ben learned engineering and how much his approach is like his dad’s.
Ben said the consistency is no coincidence: “It's hard to tell if it’s genetics or if it’s how growing up [I was] listening to similar music, or that I studied and learned the art of it from my dad, but we have pretty similar tastes.”
Either way, as Anschell noted, the continuation of this Lange sensibility bodes well for the future of the studio.
“I just feel like the experience isn't very different with Ben. And, you know, David's always been really booked,” Anschell said. “I don’t worry about the studio’s future at all.”
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