Torin Geller Is Making Space for Sound

Music’s roots always run deep. Not just those of the industry itself, but those inside of ourselves. When asked about our most cherished musical memories or profoundest influences, we’ll almost always snap back to childhood. 

So it is for Torin Geller, One Thousand Birds (OTB) LA’s technical and creative director. Torin’s grasp, mastery, and creativity in audio are as mature and intricate as they come - but it was in childhood that music and sound really took hold of his imagination. The youngest of four siblings, he leapt at any opportunity to grab hold of CDs passed down to him, notably including Green Day’s iconic Nimrod.

Above: The soundtrack to Torin’s formative years. 

“That album inspired me to pick up a guitar and form a band”, he remembers. “It made me want to write my own songs, and learn more about how music works”. 

Whilst, by his own admission, that band’s music hasn’t stayed with him so much (“a lot of pop punk and Arctic Monkeys covers, essentially”, as he puts it), the lessons Torin learned from that process were vital. They meant that, when he was presented with the opportunity to attend music production class at high school, for example, he wasn’t walking in completely green. 

“That class introduced me to mixing and that kind of stuff”, he says. “From there, it all just grew”. 

Today Torin can be found spearheading OTB’s presence in Los Angeles, having moved across from the studio’s New York branch. In fact, his relationship with the studio in NYC can be traced right back to college - and a stint as an intern which set the tone for the next five years and counting. 

“I actually met Alex (Berner-Coe, OTB NY’s EP) in my freshman year of college”, he says. “So I’ve been lucky enough to have spent the last few years working with people who I can genuinely call my friends”. 

Since arriving in LA, the technical and creative director has wasted no time in setting the tone for the kind of company OTB wants to be known as on the West Coast. “Right now I’m really excited to be shaping our studio, because it’s such a great opportunity to have a physical place which can be public-facing”, he says. “We want people to experience great sound here in a community space”. 

In following that goal, Torin is taking inspiration from multiple sources. “In New York you have a number of listening bars popping up which are venues in their own right”, he says. “They’re incredibly sound-focused and that’s something I want to incorporate here, creating a space which is intentionally designed around sound”. 

Those spots in NYC - the likes of Public Records and Nowadays - are themselves influenced by Japan’s listening bars, which stem back to the 1950s and are described by the New York Times as “a subset of the kissaten, the small and idiosyncratic coffeehouses dotting the side streets in Tokyo”. 

“The listening bars in Japan are utterly focused on sound”, explains Torin. “You really will sit down, order a tea, and listen to music. They aren’t ‘bars’ where you would have loud conversations with friends or really talk much at all. It’s just all about the sound and the music you’re listening to”. 

Whilst Torin is taking his cues from these spots, however, he’s keen to make OTB’s LA presence something all of its own. “My dream is to have a kind of middle-ground between those intensely-focused audio experiences and a standard coffee bar where you might go to catch up with friends”, he says. “It’s going to be a super-casual experience which has space where people are encouraged to bring a record or even a link to streaming”. 

Beyond his desire to build up OTB’s physical presence on the West Coast, however, Torin has also been busy throwing himself into characteristically idiosyncratic and ambitious projects. Take his recent work with Soundly, the hearing aid vendor. 

In order to help Soundly’s customers try out hearing aids online in the most authentic way possible, Torin and the OTB team were tasked with finding a way to record sounds as they would be heard by people wearing hearing aids. 

“The requirements involved setting up this kind of fake human head - we called him Carl - with microphones in his ears alongside hearing aids”, says Torin. “By playing sounds into the microphones behind the hearing aids, we were able to record those sounds as they would be perceived by someone using the aids”. 

Above: A model human head - named Carl - was integral to getting the most authentic-sounding recordings for the project. 

“That’s why this job can be so fun”, explains Torin as a smile swiftly flashes across his face. “It’s unpredictable and you get to simply dive into things that are different every day”. 

Which is just as well, because diving into new ideas is akin to second nature for Torin. For example, he’s passionate about designing and creating his own speaker systems. By way of proof, the speakers present at OTB LA’s listening events were made - woodworking and all - by Torin. 

Happily, Torin’s day job provides him with plenty of opportunities to put that hobby to work. Another example would be the listening party for the release of This Is Why, the latest album from Paramore. 

“What we had to keep in mind for this project was that, by the time the event started, the album was already going to have been released on Spotify. So we needed to give the attendees something they wouldn’t be able to get just by streaming the album at home”, he explains. “The idea we ended up going with was something that was informed by the aesthetic of the album - which is very 70s. That was great, because speakers from that era are just some of the best ever made, both visually and in terms of their quality”. 

In collaboration with Rewind Audio, Torin and the OTB team pulled off an event that catered to the unique passion of Paramore’s fanbase. “I knew they had an incredible following before going into this project”, says Torin. “But I didn’t know just how passionate they were until we started work. Knowing how deep that passion runs, you definitely want to make sure you do a good job”. 

Above: Custom speakers made specifically for Paramore's listening event. 

But if there’s one thing Torin understands utterly instinctively, it’s precisely that deep passion for sound. From coast to coast, it’s been a constant throughout his career - and it’s now LA’s creative community that’s set to benefit. 

For Torin and OTB, that’s an exciting opportunity. And for the rest of us, it’s a timely reminder of how we all once had our own version of his sibling’s Green Day CD - and why we fell in love with music in the first place.