10.24.2005 CHAOS AT THE BARN

This weekend past I recorded CHAOS at The Barn in Cold Spring, NY. CHAOS a brilliantly brutal four-piece metal band, tracked two original songs, “Betrayed” and “Lost” and also recorded their own version of the classic Black Sabbath tune “Sweet Leaf”. In the day and a half we had to work with at The Barn we completed all the basic tracking, overdubbed solos and we also squeezed in a quick photo shoot at The Stone House on Dennytown Road.

To do the job of multi-tracking I brought my “semi-portable” ProTools rig; Mac G3 “blue & white” Digidesign 001 interface, Behringer ADA8000 “Ultra-gain” 8-Channel Digital Mic Preamp (that I borrowed from Alto Music…thanks Alto!) and my RP-220 Tube Mic Preamp. This gave me a total of 12 channels of microphone inputs to ProTools at once. Made a make-shift control room in the hayloft upstairs, monitoring mostly through headphones, though I also brought my pair of Yamaha NS-10s and a small Crown amp.

The band set up everything in The Barn's main room and tracked all their rhythm parts live. I used just 5 mics on the drum kit: two Sennheiser 421s on the kick drums, a Shure SM57 on the snare, and a pair of Shure BG-4.1s as overheads. On the bass amp I used an AKG D-112 through the Tube Pre and also ran a DI. Each of the two guitar amps got a single SM57. Singer Chris Chaos also had an SM57 for scratch vocals. In addition I used two room mics: a pair of vintage AKG D-12s. A trimmed-down set-up for sure but it got the whole band’s live basic tracking down with just 12 channels.

10.08.05 MIX MAGAZINE REMEMBERS MEDIASOUND

In the October 2005 issue of MIX MAGAZINE photographer and writer Bobby Bank pays tribute to MEDIASOUND, the world class New York recording studio of the 70’s and 80’s and the training-ground where I learned from some of the top names in the recording industry. You can download a pdf file of the article HERE. Pictured left is the live room of studio A, and founders Joe Jorgensen and Harry Hirsch with chief engineer Fred Christie. Photo by Howard Sherman.

10.01.05 ORSUS FINAL MIX AT LEOPARD

Spent a couple of weekends in September doing the final mix tweaks for the upcoming ORSUS full-length debut release "The Pulse of Shadows and Machines". Our last night of mix tweakage ended with me burning last minute CDRs in the car on my laptop as I drove Orsus members Tommy and Gary from Stone Ridge to New Paltz to catch the last midnight bus back to NYC. With the final assembly completed we will soon be toasting a fantastic album. First it's off to mastering, which will no doubt add that critical finishing touch. I've contacted several of my top-choice mastering houses for rates and availability. No point in skimping now! As soon as pressing is under way we'll announce the final release date, and of course the CD release party!

08.15.2005 SWAMP MUD MASTERING AT LEOPARD

Jimmy Goodman of LEOPARD STUDIO called me in to tweak some mixes and then master a project he recorded there in ProTools. The band, SWAMP MUD is a New York City based blues-rock band, and the 13 songs I worked on will comprise their debut release. Singer-songwriter Eddie Lee Priest has penned some poignant and catchy songs, and his voice reminds me of a well-pitched Joe Strummer. Lead guitarist Seth Goldart has great tones and licks, and adds a jam-band like feeling to many of the middle-eight solo sections. The rhythym section (Eli Wagner on bass and Roy Luchesse on drums) holds down a really solid foundation of driving rock beats, funky grooves, Texas swing, and mournful ballads. All the basic tracking was recorded live by Jimmy Goodman, with only vocals and solos being overdubbed, all during a four day tracking and mixing session. I made a few small alterations to the bass and drum tones and some of the vocal levels, and added some over-all EQ and compressor-limiter plug-ins to the mixes to get them more crisp and punchy. As a final step we added the Vintage Warmer plug-in, which is really a fantastic tool. The band left with duplication masters, which will soon go out for pressing. Check their site www.swampmud.com for release and concert dates.

08.08.2005 SPLURGE 25th ANNIVERSARY RECORDING AT LEOPARD STUDIO

25 years ago my buddies and I began a tradition of live recorded jams, which we called "Splurge". Essentially these are unplanned, un-rehearsed spontaneous performances recorded live. Over the years we have taken liberties with the process, occasionally overdubbing a few tracks, but the spirit of spontaneity remains intact by limiting overdubs to "one per person" and "you only get one take".

So this past weekend we celebrated our 25th anniversary by booking 2 days at Leopard Studio.

Joining me in the studio were Bill, Bob, Emory and his brothers Fred and Sean, and Kane. We spent most of the first day laying down literally hours of percussion jams. Fred and Sean are both trained and experienced Jazz musicians and this was a powerful influence on the direction of these live performances.

We also did some completely live recordings of the "full band" with Fred on drums, Sean on sax and clarinet, Emory on bongos, Bob on violin, myself on guitar and bass, and Bill and Kane on vocals. Here are some images. Recordings to be made available soon!

Umour Ritual Splurge Recording at Leopard available here:

ritual splurge session at leopard

08.02.2005 SCRATCHING ASS?!?!?

OK. People have been asking me "what's up with the ass-scratching picture?!?!?" I guess the story deserves to be told. ORSUS has been doing some tracking at home on their own...some backing vocal parts, digital guitar effects, some keyboards and such. During a mix session they brought in a percussion track, this rhythmical scratching sound; not like DJ style record scratching, more like a cabasa part except it sounded like ass. I mean it literally sounded like fingernails on denim. I pointed this out, acted it out, and they caught it on camera. When I saw that they had posted the footage on their site I had to snatch it. So there it is.

7.15.2005 ORSUS MIX AT LEOPARD

Mixing with ORSUS has commenced and thus far we have completed four of the twelve songs in the project. Three of these mixes will be pre-released as a promotional disc. As always, Leopard Studio has proved to be a great place to work. We expect to complete the project there in August.

Mixing in ProTools is a bit slow without a control surface, but the mixes sound great once they're done. We are still considering the possibillity of running them through a large format console once they are all completed in ProTools, time and dollars permitting.