Live recording engineer Ian Charbonneau began to learn the craft from his father Guy Charbonneau when he was only 14. It wasn’t long until he started to cut class to run audio for live shows at other schools. Guy operated his mobile recording service Le Mobile for more than 50 years. In 2022, Ian formed his even more mobile service The Recording Project, which is predicated largely upon flypacks: high-quality portable recording systems. Over the span of his career, he’s recorded shows with artists including The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, and My Chemical Romance. Originally from greater Montreal, he now lives and works in Los Angeles and has read Music Connection since his early days.
The recession of 2008 prompted Charbonneau to assemble his first flypack, a recording setup that he flew to venues rather than drove. One of the first jobs for which he used it was a My Chemical Romance show in Mexico City. The recording formed most of the band’s The Black Parade Is Dead! He went on to mix the Coachella live broadcast, a gig that lasted 15 years, and now works largely with his flypack. But not exclusively. “I don’t want to marry myself to it,” he explains. “I choose what’s best for the client and the project. For example, last summer I got a call from My Chemical Romance. They had two stages at Dodger Stadium. But my flypack was only 64-channel analog with 200 input digital capability. I decided to call Music Mix Mobile, a recording truck company in New York, so I could see what I was up against. I did the first two shows with the truck, which showed me that I could handle it alone.”
A significant slice of Charbonneau’s job is done well before the first chord of a concert is struck. What comprises much of his preparation? “Test, test and test,” he asserts. “I run through Pro Tools and they’re fully redundant. Glitches do happen; connections to Pro Tools are so small and there are so many factors. It’s rare to have a failure—like Pro Tools stops during a show—but it can happen.”
The biggest challenge of his job is the unknown. “That’s why I have to prepare,” he explains. “This weekend I’ll record an EDM show. It’s two inputs plus crowd noise and things. But shows like that are harder to record than hundred-input shows because if something goes wrong with either of them then you’ll have nothing. With a hundred-input show, if you lose one you’ll still get by. I’m more nervous to do a small show than a big one.”
Over the course of his career, Charbonneau has captured countless concerts. One of which he’s especially proud is Melissa Etheridge’s I’m Not Broken, which was recorded over a week at Kansas’ Topeka Correctional Facility. “I couldn’t even bring in my wallet or wear a T-shirt with anything on it,” he recalls. “I had a special moment then because I realized that I was doing exactly what I wanted, I’d been doing it since I was a kid but now I was on my own.”
Charbonneau has a number of projects on the horizon. But something he’s learned is to never count on anything and to never presume. “I don’t talk about future gigs because it could jinx them,” he observes. “But I have amazing things coming up in 2026 and I hope they happen.”
Contact studioexpresso.com/profiles/iancharbonneau.htm, therecordingproject.com
