03.23.2007 MADD DOG AT BSP LOUNGE IN KINGSTON

Recorded MADD DOG performing live at BSP Lounge in Kingston NY at just after 10:00 PM. I had just returned to Stewart Airport at 8:15, after a short trip to visit my parents in Florida. Cheryl picked me up and we had a quick bite and then headed straight to Kingston on the thruway. She brought along my Mbox/iBook rig and pair of SM-81's, and a stand and her son Chris Chaos, who assisted me with set-up. We set up a standard X-Y with the Shure mics, about 18 feet from the stage of the small gallery-sized venue. The house sound guy, Kip, had an excellent mix in the room and the stereo pair sounded great, as I monitored through Sennheiser cans. Madd Dog rocked eight classic rock songs, but during the recording I had a DAE Error and the iBook lost communication with the Mbox resulting in me missing two songs. As we were by and large there to record, when they finished the set I informed the singer Jimi Bass of the problem. They did an encore of the two missed numbers. The following day at my home studio I ran the tracks through some mcdsp compression and EQ plug-ins and the Fairchild 660 and mastered discs for the band's review. I forgot to snap a shot, even though I had my camera with me, so I lifted the band's logo from their site. Click it, it's a link to the MADD DOG website.

03.11.2007 GRAVITY KRUSH DRUMS & BASS AT LEOPARD

GRAVITY KRUSH basic tracking at Leopard Studio went really well. We got drums and bass for seven songs during the weekend-long session. Drummer Pete Roan brought in his vintage Gretsch kit, it sounded great in the room. Pete played really solid to the click and recorded really well. On the kit I used a pair of Rode NKT Tube mics as overheads, preamped with API 312s, Sennheiser 421s through Neve 1272s on all three toms, in the kick drum an Electrovoice ND868 throught an API 312 and compressed with a Summit TLA50, Snare was a good ol' Shure SM57 through an API 312 and compressed with DBX 160A. On the high-hat I used a Shure SM81 through the Eureka with some compression and EQ. Also in the room for ambience was Jimmy's Lawson L47 patched through the Avalon VT737 channel. That mic got a great rooms sound, and indeed is great on just about anything. It was set to Cardiod pattern and placed in the room about eight feet back from the kit, and 3 feet from the floor.

Midway through day 2 we were done with drums and we set up to record bass. Bassist Joey Flash played through the studio's bass amp the Ampeg B-15. I recoreded a DI and the Lawson L47 on two different tracks, the Lawson through the Avalon VT737 and the DI through API 312 with DBX160A compression. Joey spent the afternoon knockin' em out and by dinner time we were done. I spent the evening doing some editing, and mixing the drums down to a stereo mix for use in the overdub sessions to follow. We plan on beginning the guitar overdub sessions in a couple of weeks. We'll be doing the guitars at the band's rehearsal space on my mobile rig. Once the guitars are done the plan is to go back to Leopard for the vocal recording.