Morrisound Recording

Morrisound Recording (also Morrisound Studios) is an audio recording facility in Tampa, Florida, United States, owned and operated by brothers Jim and Tom Morris. Since its opening in 1981, Morrisound has been responsible for the popularization of death metal, but caters to other genres.^[1]

Co-owner Scott Burns remarked:

If you listen to a lot of the heavy thrash bands, even Dark Angel, Kreator or Celtic Frost – they were heavy as hell, but I always though the production sounded like shit [...] There was this general consensus that nobody who produced stuff like Sepultura gave a shit about it [...] no one ever tried to make them sound good. And at the time, Jim, and Tom really were pioneers as far as doing drum triggering. And they invested money in PC electronics and figured how to use that to make high really good recordings. And I jumped right in the fire and learned as I went along. ^[2]

Tom Morris, co-owner of Morrisound, recalled:

“My brother [Jim] and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to really record heavy drums [...] you gotta have a drum kit that can cut through a wall of blasting guitars. So it was extremely important to have a good acoustic space and solid engineering technique, and that was something we passed on to Scott and a few other guys we worked with. And eventually, Scott wound up doing a bunch of wall-to-wall death metal sessions.^[3]

Loudwire wrote,

With high-quality production that differentiated one band from another, artists in Tampa could carve and cultivate their own identities. Sure, there were similarities [...] to the untrained ear, it was a mess, but that just made it a more exclusive form of music for those who could separate one cacophonic tone from another. ^[4]

Suffocation guitarist Terrance Hobbs referred to Morrisound as the "Mecca for death metal and heavy metal" during the 1990s.^[5] Former Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes praised Morrisound, saying,

"Scott knew what to do with fast and brutal bands, and not a lot of guys did at the time [...] It really drew people from the death metal scene down here. That was a big factor in Tampa becoming a haven here. They wanted to be close to the studio".^[6]

Notable albums recorded at Morrisound include works by bands such as Steve Morse, Sepultura, Savatage, Morbid Angel, Death, Control Denied, Napalm Death, Obituary, Incubus, Cannibal Corpse, Demolition Hammer, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Iced Earth, Six Feet Under, End-Time Illusion, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Atheist, Kamelot, Seven Mary Three, Transmetal and Demons and Wizards.^{[citation needed]}

• Official website

28°03′28″N 82°23′36″W / 28.05778°N 82.39333°W / 28.05778; -82.39333