Bob Bullock Looks Back While Moving Forward

Nashville, Tenn. (April 25, 2025)—Engineer, producer and educator Bob Bullock has been reacquainting himself with the sound of Harrison’s classic 32C console with the addition of the brand’s 500 Series modules at his Nashville studio.

When Bullock began his career, working in Los Angeles alongside such artists as Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and Art Garfunkel during the 1970s, a good number of recording studios where he worked around the city started installing Harrison’s first mixing console, the 32C, introduced in 1975. Fast-forward 50 years, and Harrison Audio has introduced three 500 Series modules—the 32Cpre+, MR3eq and Comp—that share some of the DNA of the original 32C and other early Harrison console models. 

​“The preamp and the EQ modules are very much the same as the desk; I was quite impressed. They work just as expected, and I’m really pleased with them,” says Bullock, who has worked on more than 50 Gold and Platinum albums and nine Grammy Award-winning projects. “I’m so familiar with the preamps, which sound very clean to me, and the EQs. I like them now for the same reason that I’ve always liked them. I’ve always been a fan of that EQ, because I can zero in on things and they’re very smooth.”

Bullock’s credits include such country music legends as Shania Twain, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Tanya Tucker and Patty Loveless. These days, he focuses on helping independent artists worldwide refine their sound at his Cool Springs Mix studio. 

“My wheelhouse of music is what I would call more organic stuff,” he elaborates. “I track with live musicians, usually six to eight musicians on a tracking date. Kyle Hirschman, who does a lot of the engineering with me, and I have tried the Harrison modules across as many different instruments as we could, mostly acoustic stuff like acoustic guitars, mandolins and fiddles, and we’ve been very pleased with them.”

The third new 500 Series module, the Comp compressor, was new to him, Bullock says, since the 32C didn’t feature a built-in compressor. “It works really well. It has very few controls, so it’s quick to dial in. One of the things that my assistant and I both noticed, working on a few different projects with the compressor, is that it’s very musical, which just means that it’s not harsh sounding. You don’t really hear it working and I feel like I can’t over-compress with it. You can compress quite a lot and get that compression without feeling there’s any pumping. I can’t make it sound bad, and that’s a good quality to me.”