11.28.2004 PROVAN GUITARS IN THE BASEMENT

iBook and Mbox on the go again...this time to Joe's Mom's basement for some crankin guitars and rattling jars. A few well placed blankets kept the jars from being a problem, but after a few loud rythm parts the amp started sounding a bit thin, even when mic'd with the Blue Dragonfly and Oktava ML-52 Ribbon through Joe's Vintech 1272 mic pre's. Joe did track some solid rythm guitar parts and feedback before the amp started to go.

11.22.2004 ORSUS GUITARS AT LEOPARD STUDIO

Brought ORSUS guitarists Gary and Tommy to Leopard Studio in Stone Ridge NY for a weekend of heavy guitar tracking. We spent Friday afternoon getting tones, and decided that a combination of their solid-state amps and my vintage Marshall tube amp worked best for "crunch" tones. I mic'd 2 cabs, each with a Sennheiser 421 and an AKG 414, all using API mic pre's, and I also used an Oktava ribbon through the Avalon 737 for room ambience. We spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday on the "crunch" tracks. We also used this setup for some feedback overdubs. Sunday evening we switched gears and set up for some "clean" guitar tones, using some of studio owner Jimmy Lonesome's groovy combo amps. We tracked clean guitar through an Ampeg B-15 bass amp, and also did some slightly "dirty" tones through a Fender Bronco, both mic'd with the wonderful Octava ribbon. It proved to be a very successful session. Many thanks Jimmy...we'll be back!

11.08.2004 PROVAN BASS & GUITAR OVERDUBS

"The Trials & Tribulations of Home Recording"

Brought my ProTools Digi001 rig to the apartment of singer/songwriter and guitarist Joe Kelly of Provan to track some of the guitar and bass parts for the second phase of their project. We decided to use his bedroom as the control room and his living room as the tracking area. I brought some fun outboard gear as well, and we borrowed a Joe Meek QCS from a good friend. Got all the gear set up pretty quickly, plugged in the amps and, woh! Buzz city! As is often the case in older buildings, the power and outlets were highly suspect. After trying everything from ground-lift adaptors to attaching jumper cables between amp chassis and pipes we decided to seek some help. We called the music store and asked what power conditioners they had in stock. A helpful salesperson suggested a model called the Monster Power Pro-1000. We took the drive out there and purchased this $150 power strip, brought it back, plugged it in and, guess what? No difference! Still buzz city! By now we'd had used up half our day so we made the difficult but necessary choice of living with the buzz on some of the tracks. Guitarist Bill Lutz did some of his clean guitar tracks through his Roland tube amp. We mic'd this with and Octava and a Sennheiser 421, running through Vintech 72 preamps. That worked out well. Mark Bendian's bass amp had too much buzz to use, so we went direct through the borrowed Joe Meek, which sounded great. Mark didn't want to cut his tracks in the makeshift control room though, so we ran his cords out the window and he tracked on the porch. We got bass takes for all six songs. Between the two day's of tracking, the guys had a gig backing up singer/songwriter John Hovorka, so it was quite a busy weekend, and in the end, both productive and enjoyable.

10.25.04 PROVAN BEGINS PHASE 2 AT LEOPARD

Returned to Lonsome Jimmy Goodman's Leopard Studio in Stone Ridge NY to record drums for 5 new PROVAN songs. The studio now features a ProTools HD rig running on a Mac G5. Very fast to work on.

Colin did excellent takes, and as always was an absolute pleasure to work with. The sounds we got were comparable in many ways to the recordings from March, and maybe even better in some respects. I used a Oktava ribbon mic outside the kick drum and it sounded huge. Also did an x/y placement on the room mics (2 AKG 414's set in figure 8 polar pattern) which was a different approach from the last time, and that seemed better too. One of the new songs "Wreck Of The Kevin Fitzgerald" really stands out as a timeless classic, and I'm sure will make me cry when it's done.

Visit http://www.2000steps.com for more about PROVAN

10.01.2004 ORSUS RECORDING AT MUZIC STUDIO

Tracked Mike's bass guitar takes for all twelve ORSUS songs yesterday at Muzic Studio in Dobbs Ferry NY. Muzic Studio used to be The Pickwick Theater when I was growing up in Dobbs ferry, so it was kind of a trip seeing it converted into a studio! Mike did a fantastic job of hammering out excellent takes, and the whole band was there to root him on. Special thanks to Vito Liuzzi and Gary for setting us up with a great tone and vibe during the session.

09.06.2004 ORSUS RECORDING AT APPLEHEAD

Brought ORSUS to Applehead Recording Studio in Woodstock NY for a very successful drum tracking session. Engineer Chris Bittner did a fantastic job of getting the sounds we were after; big, live and ambient. Chris proved to be a master on Pro Tools as well which left me free to focus on performances.

Adam's drum performances were stellar! He was well rehearsed and nailed down all 12 songs, as well as some great "effect" parts that we'll use for loops and secondary rhythms.

Now we are preparing to track Mike's bass guitar parts, then on to guitars and vocals.  I am really happy with the professionalism and dedication of this band. Please visit their site: http://www.orsusband.com

Also special thanks to studio owner Micheal Burnbaulm for the fantastic quality and vibe at Applehead. Great place!

Vintage Neve and API consoles and an excellent assortment in the mic closet and a large live room make it an ideal place to track! Photo (left) is their main tracking room, which sounds superb! The new photo on my index page was taken in Applehead's control room during the session.

08.20.2004 ORSUS PRE PRODUCTION

Having seen them perform live a couple of times I have begun to work on pre production with a great and as yet unsigned local nu-metal band called ORSUS.  Currently we are working on click and scratch tracks and we hope to begin recording basic tracks in September.