Tom Camuso

A Grammy Award-winning audio engineer and producer with more than 25 years of experience recording, mixing, and producing music across virtually every genre, he also owns Studio E, a full-service recording studio in Brooklyn’s historic Leviton Building, which he has operated since 2002. Earlier in his career, he served as a staff engineer at The Magic Shop, one of New York City’s most respected recording studios.

Beginning in 2022, Camuso worked with Les Paul Foundation archivist Steve Rosenthal to restore Les Paul’s original recording equipment: the custom console Paul built with engineer Rein Narma, known as The Monster, and his Ampex Sel-Sync tape machine, The Octopus, widely credited as the first eight-track recorder ever built. Over roughly 10 months, Camuso and a team from Thump Recording Studios in Brooklyn sourced period-correct 1950s components and used 3D printing to recreate parts that were no longer available, bringing the equipment back from a New Jersey museum to Hollywood, where it now supports both archival preservation and new commercial recordings.

Camuso’s credits include platinum-selling rock albums, major commercial campaigns for Samsung, JetBlue, MTV, and ESPN, and film and television projects including Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and HBO’s The Wire. His recording, mixing, engineering, and production work spans artists including Blondie, Steve Earle, Los Lobos, Lenny Kravitz, Perry Farrell, Medeski Martin & Wood, John Scofield, Cindy Blackman, and UFO.

He received the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for his engineering work on Steve Earle’s Washington Square Serenade (2007) and was Grammynominated for Best Historical Album as restoration engineer on Blondie’s Against the Odds: 1974–1982 (2022).

A dedicated educator and archivist, Camuso leads hands-on studio classes, demonstrations, and training for students and faculty from Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Musicians Institute, Emerson College, UCLA, and USC, connecting the legacy of recorded sound with contemporary production practice. In addition, he has also lectured for recording artists, producers, engineers, and industry executives on Les Paul’s distinctive approach to problem-solving and innovation. He is also active in audio-preservation initiatives alongside the Les Paul Foundation and the Library of Congress, advancing the preservation of Les Paul’s legacy and the history of recorded sound.