04.30.2005 LIVE RECORDING AT "THE BARN"

I've been doing some live stereo recording at The Barn in Cold Spring NY for IGF ENTERTAINMENT. So far I've recorded sets by MELODROME, a rock trio from the Boston area, and KATHLEEN PEMBLE, a folk-pop singer-songwriter from the Mid Hudson Valley. Both performed excellent sets. For both recordings I used my iBook/Mbox rig and a stereo pair of Oktava MK-012 (s) in an "X-Y" pattern from the "hay loft" above the audience. I set ProTools to record in AIFF format at 16 bit, 44.1khz so that the resulting audio files could be burned strait to CDs for the artists to take home. Kathleen Pemble later asked me to edit and master her recording.

 The Barn is a fabulous acoustic enviroment, and I'm planning on bringing the mobile rig for more live stereo recordings of the acts IGF brings in. The space is very comfortable and there is an office area in the "hay loft" that can serve as a makeshift control room. When appropriate I could also bring a larger ProTools rig for multi-tracking. In addition to the audio recordings, I made some animations with my friends "Loudmouth Bill" and Kane. You can see this and other films and photography on our new multi-media art site at UMOUR.ORG The animation is titled "Where Are The People".

03.11.2005 MORE ORSUS VOCALS

Brought the Mbox and iBook rig to work on Cisco's vocals over at Tommy's house. Also brought a RP-220 Tube Mic Pre-amp, and DBX 160A compressor, and the Rode NTZ tube mic. We set up a makeshift control room in Tommy's spare bedroom, and hung some moving blankets in his living room to create a vocal booth. Cisco did excellent takes of two songs. Except for occasional noise of neighbors coming from the hallway the recording setup seems to work fine. We will be continuing this way until the vocals are completed.

02.28.2005 METRO MUSIC DRUMS AT LEOPARD

Joe Kelly (of Provan) brought in a drum recording session for a commercial music project he is working on with friend Dan McKay. This was truly a drum tracking marathon, as they had 12 songs to record, and there were 3 versions of each song, a full length version, a 30 second version, a 15 second version and a 10 second version. Amazingly we got it all done in just 2 and half days, thanks in large part to the awesome talent of the drummer they brought in. We used several of Joe's mics, and many of the studio's as well, along with both house Mic Pre's and some that Joe likes to bring.

In addition to the close mics on the drums we also set up 2 sets of room mics. The first set were AKG 414s set up in an "X/Y" placement in cardioid pattern (pictured in foreground). The second set of room mics were Joe's Cad Equitec mics, which we placed near the corners of the room and set in omni pattern. The 414s gave a very "true" room sound, sounding much like what you hear standing in the room, and the Cads gave a more distant and ambient sound. For all the takes we tracked both sets of room mics so that we could decide later which one to use in each song.

02.24.2005 SOME FUN OF MY OWN

With the time I had at Leopard Studio between bookings I did some recording of my own. Ever a fan of 60's psychedelic music I endeavored to re-create some of my favorite tunes and tones. Keeping in mind the nature of the technology of the time I limited myself to using a minimum number of tracks and I kept the mic'ing very simple. I used only the available instruments and amps, which Jimmy has at his studio. No EQ either, just amp tone controls.

I used just 2 mics for the drums. One Oktava MK-52 ribbon mic for the kick drum and another for an overhead. I ran these through API Mic Pre-amps. Getting just the right placement of the overhead took quite a bit of trial and error, as I had to record myself playing each time until I got all the drums sounding balanced.

For the bass sound I played Jimmy's very nice Fender Precision bass, which sounded great through Jimmy's Ampeg M-15 (re-issue) bass amp. I used a Sennheiser MD-421 microphone and API Mic Pre-amp. I set the tone controls on the amp so that it sounded very round and fat. Not much high-end at all. I isolated the amp with a single "gobo" in an attempt to simulate what might be done if there was a full complement of musicians playing live in the room. As with all the tracks the signal path was as simple and direct as possible; from source to mic to pre-amp to recorder.

Jimmy has several wonderful guitars and amps. For most of the tracks I played his Dan Electro through the Vox AC-15. The Vox amp does have a pre-amp gain stage for overdrive but for some tracks I opted to use his MXR distortion pedal to get a more "fuzz" tone. The Vox Wah pedal also came in quite handy. So did the "reverse" plug-in in ProTools. OK, some would say that's cheating but I had to reverse some guitar tracks to be true to the psychedelic form and since there were no reels to flip...

In all I recorded basic tracks for 3 songs. The first was "Corporal Clegg" by Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. Then, using much the same setup, I recorded a song called "Lulu Arfin Nanny" by Kaleidoscope, and finally an original composition based loosely on another Sid Barrett track called "Madcap's Embrace". The experiment was a great success. My tracks really sounded vintage. Many thanks to Jimmy for letting me stay and play!

02.20.2005 ORSUS VOCALS AT LEOPARD

Spent these past 2 weekends working with Cisco and Tommy on vocal tracks. Gary came up too and shot lots of video, which he is posting on their site www.orsusband.com. Cisco sat at the piano and did warm-up exercises before each vocal session. Between takes, to give him a rest, Tommy and Gary also tracked some acoustic guitar and solos. For the vocal tracks I used Leopard’s RODE NTK tube microphone through the Avalon 737 pre-amp. I needed to use quite a bit of compression, as Cisco is a very dynamic singer. Between the 2 weekends we got excellent takes of about half the songs. For the guitar tracks I mic'd the acoustic guitar with an AKG 414 and used my Rolls RP220 tube pre-amp. For some of the solos we used Leopard's Vox AC-15 and Fender Bronco mic'd with a Sennheiser MD-421 through API pre's. All in all it was a very productive block of work. All the music tracks are completely done, and about half the vocals are finished. Some of the songs still need some lyrical tweaks, which the band will be working on over the next week or so. Then we can finish the vocals and move on to the mixing process. I'm excited about how this project is turning out. It's sounding really impressive. All the time and attention to detail is really paying off. Here are some stills. Don't forget to check out the videos.

01.26.2005 PYTHON MIX AT LEOPARD STUDIO

Just completed the 9-song project with PYTHON. We mixed and mastered digitally in ProTools at Leopard Studio, monitoring through my Yamaha NS10Ms and of course giving several of the mixes the all important car stereo and walkman tests. This project went very smoothly from start to finish and was completed in just 5 days. PYTHON was a pleasure to work with and will no doubt be a force to be reconded with on the metal scene. Look for some of the tracks for free download at: www.pythonband.com

01.17.2005 PROVAN GUITAR TRACKS AT LEOPARD

Boys And Their Toys!

This weekend I’m at Leopard Studio with PROVAN. As our previous guitar tracking sessions have been less than fruitful for a variety of reasons, from failing guitar amps to poor monitoring conditions, we finally decided to come back to Leopard where we have gotten proven results before. In search of the ultimate guitar tones we have pulled out all the toys and borrowed even more. For amps, Joe and Bill brought their usual fare, the Roland Bolt and Fender Prosonic. They also borrowed a vintage Vox AC-15 and a Little Lanilei. In addition, I borrowed 2 amps; a small Supro, and a Marshall JCM-800 with 4x12 Peavy cab.

They brought 8 different guitars, and I brought along my own Fender Strat just for good measure (six amps, nine guitars). As if that won’t provide enough variables, they also borrowed several very eclectic pedal effects, from hand made fuzz boxes to a Korg multi-effect pedal. In all we counted 29 pedals.

We brought several of our own mics too; The famous Oktava ML-52 ribbon, a pair of Oktava MK-012 condensers, the Blue Dragonfly, and my dad’s Altec 639-B “Birdcage”.

While they were setting all this up I was freaking out over a problem with their hard disc drive, which stubbornly would not mount to the computer’s desk top. I called my favorite computer tech (woke him up) and explained the problem. Eventually, after much plugging, unplugging and disc utilities, the drive mounted, though the cause of the problem, and the solution still remains a mystery. Needless to say we backed everything up to another drive immediately.

By sometime after noon we were ready to start getting sounds and do some tracking. At least we thought so. We got a good tone with the Bolt for the first track but after a couple of takes it became clear that the bass we recorded weeks ago was somewhat suspect for tuning issues. Undaunted, we went online and downloaded a demo version of the Antares Autotune plug-in and bounced the bass tracks through it.

Finally we got the bass track’s pitch issues under control (thank God for the internet). We began tracking guitars (that is, after all, what we came to do!) and as is the case with most guitar tracking sessions it’s 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration (or something like that…Joe said “the inspiration happened so long ago I don’t know what the ratio is”). Thankfully Bill and Joe both had the intonation set ups done on all their guitars. Still it’s a constant battle to keep an axe in tune, even good solid Fenders like the ones they play.

Whoever said “good enough for Rock N Roll” never actually recorded a Rock N Roll record. Granted, Provan’s music isn’t your garden variety Big Dumb Rock sound. In fact the music they write is deceptively complicated and the guitars interweave in unusual ways making it quite challenging (both to play and to record). Observing the process an outsider or non-musician might wonder how we ever get anything done at all. But to be sure the end result is always something we’re all very proud of, so we persevere.