Big Update!

Hi, How are you?

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog, therefor I have a ton to report! Let's dig in, chronological-like..

First, I'd like to update everyone on the goings on within my new studio space. I'm proud to say that we're in the home stretch! There's paint on the walls, floor, electricity pumpin, and we're beginning the finishing touches: doors, floors, etc!

I can't even describe how excited I am to start recording in this space. As doors and such have gone up, Mark and I have been able to witness not only the rooms taking shape, but the SOUND of the rooms evolve. I think they're sounding better and better with every door that goes in.

Here's a shot of our live room, standing in front of Mark's control room:

The first sliding door on the right is what I refer to as the '70s drum room.' It's large enough to record a drum set. There's carpet on the floor and a drop ceiling. This makes for a very nice, thuddy sound. There are no right angles or parallel walls so It's very clean-sounding, too!

The second sliding door down is our small dead room. Perfect for a bass rig or guitar amps.. Or if you're looking for a very quiet room to record your most intimate vocal take in. Also carpeted and with a drop-ceiling.

Third room down is the drum-iso room. It's massive with full 16' ceilings. Bonham would be psyched! Here's a picture of the drum room:

Note the window opening. This window will provide line of site through all three iso rooms.

I'm actively starting to book for April 1st, 2012! If you're interested in a tour, more information regarding the studio, or straight up want to book some time, please reach out.

Here's a look at 2012 thus far..

2012 started out with a bang. The first session I did was with Elder. We tracked in mixed 2 songs in 2 days over at Black Coffee Sound. The recording is to be released on an 12" for Armageddon Records in Providence, RI for a Record Store Day release! Holy heavy! This might be one of the heaviest recordings I've ever been a part of. Big drums and big amps were the theme of the session!

Amherst's Californiax came into Black Coffee Sound to track 2 songs for their new single on The Sounds of Sweet Nothing, a UK based label. These dudes are somewhat new, as this was their first studio effort. We not only had a great time, but made some damn-fine recordings in a day's worth of time! We're hoping to hit the studio again in the not-too-distant future to work through a full length!

Boston's Banditas and I continued work on their forthcoming full length. We took a field trip out to 1867 Recording Studio in Chelsea, MA to cut vocals. The record really took shape with finished vocals! The band is now scheduled to mix this record next week.

J Mascis just completed mixing and approved mastering on his forthcoming solo effort. It's under the name Heavy Blanket and will no doubt, turn heads. I'm not going to say anything else about it. Get psyched for a May release!

Back in January, I teamed up with Rusty Belle to make a live recording. We set up a stage area, brought in many microphones, preamps, and my Pro Tools rig. The goal was to capture Rusty Belle's live set in front of an audience and we most certainly met that goal. The shows spanned 2 nights and were fully-documented. The recordings came out crisp and clean with a healthy dose of bleed from all of the instruments and lack of isolation. What made it work so perfectly is Rusty Belle's ability to play to any room that they're in. They did so, perfectly! We're set to mix this soon!

Speaking of mobile sessions, I brought the rig into Kim Gordon's basement for a short n sweet Body/Head session! They're in EU right now to play a few shows. Very excited about this band and project.

There's been much more exciting things happening.. but this is already a post of epic proportions!

Be cool.

Press!

Yesterday's issue of the Hampshire Gazette had a nice feature in the Arts and Entertainment section about the new studio.

It's partially about the studio and partially about the event we're going to be hosting there next weekend!

Amherst's Rusty Belle is performing live on Friday January 13th and Saturday January 14th. They're be performing before a live audience in our studio and recording the sets for a live album release! We're really excited to be hosting the even and would be excited to see your face at the gig. If you'd like to get a pass for one of the nights, go here.

As for the article.. Take a peek this way..

New year, new beginings.

Hello everyone.

I write this just after sunset of the Winter Solstice of 2011 following a beautiful walk through the woods of Northampton. I'm looking forward to some rest with family and friends through the next week leading up to the New Year's celebration. Following that, I will dive head first into new projects at the new studio and beyond!

I'm really excited about the way things are turning out. The rooms sound fantastic without any sound treatment. The studio is more flexible than I ever could have imagined and every time I stand in the live room, I think to myself, "I have never stood in a studio this large before." It's really quite impressive. Imagine drawing a picture of a room. After many revisions, two years later you're standing inside that room. It's hard to describe but it's really an amazing thing.

I've made some rough mixes in my new control room and even in it's raw state, the mixes sounded fairly balanced and even. Once furniture and sound treatment move in, things will really even out.

Here's some pics from some of the goings on at the new studio..

Banditas - crammed into iso room 2!

Crazy Room! It really sounds CRAZY!

Tapeyness

 

Been a while

Hey there, folks. Been a while since my last post. I suppose I've been busy in the studio and preparing the new studio for a move-in.

I've done some mixing and recording with Northampton's Big Nils. Set up the mobile rig in Kim's basement and tracked their new single. The band came out to my temporary mix room setup to mix with me and it is now complete!

I've also been spending some quality time with John Townsend on his new Bathysphere project. It's coming along, quite nicely. Lot's of amazing drum samples and a cavalcade of guitar and bass tracks - mind-bending, really!

Zebu's forthcoming surf record is now complete and awaiting the final touch (mastering) before being released to the masses!

Speaking of releases, Bunwinkie's new LP is out. It's titled "Map of our New Constellations" and can be had here. I highly recommend picking up a copy now, as it's really the perfect record to slip into yer winter hibernaculum with. We spent about a year and a half recording and mixing it. Dig it! The vinyl comes with a digital download and is on Feeding Tube Records.

Last week I received a packed containing a hard drive, containing the new Sweet Apple record. It's lacking drums and bass and that's just the reason I have it. This week J and I hit up Bisquiteen to begin drum tracking. Soon, Mr. Dave Sweetapple and I will track some Rickenbacker bass!

Now that the new studio construction is coming to a close, I'm actively booking part of December and part of January. To my surprise, I'm almost completely booked! This week the electricians begin their work. Hot on their heels are windows, doors, heat, floors.. Sounds like a lot but we've got a crew in the studio around the clock. The practice spaces are running at the same pace as well!

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed but this. In the best way possible, of course. This studio that Mark Miller and I designed is coming to fruition and it's looking even BETTER than it did on paper. I cannot wait till you all can step into this finished record facility!

Long time, no update..

Hi there faithful blog-readers.

I'm sorry that I haven't made an update in a long time- What can I say? I've been busy.

Since the last post things at the studio have REALLY started to take shape. Mark and I took a trip down to Ikea to buy some lighting, furniture, rugs, etc. All of our lighting has been purchased and ready for installation. The next two weeks will look like mudding, taping, priming, cleaning, doors/windows, electrical work, and then we start to move gear in.

It's looking like 12/1/11 is a solid move-in date for the practice spaces and the studio. I can't really describe the level of excitement I have. This project is something Mark and I have worked toward for the better part of a year now and it's finally coming to fruition. Anyone that I've brought through the space in the past weeks has been impressed. I'm very proud of that. We're building an amazing studio and many incredible recordings will be made there in the coming years.

Another very exciting thing to add is that I've already started booking sessions for December/January! I can't tell you how amazing this feels..

Here are a couple recent picture of the space.

A View of length of the live room. My control room on the left.

A peak at our wall situation. Lots of Quiet-Rock, insulation, soundboard, greenblue, air gap, and another insulated wall.

Standing in the widest part of our live room. Hard to tell in the picture but it's VERY wide.

This studio is so big that it's capable of recording an entire rock band plus horn section or chamber orchestra with total isolation OR all live in one room. Wowee!!

In other news, I've been pretty busy in the studio working on some great projects.

Trevor Healy, local luthier is in a band called Meridians. Years ago in San Francisco, Meridians committed their recording to tape with Tim Green at Louder Studios. Recently they asked me to mix this recording. We're currently in the middle of fine-tuning this beautiful batch of songs.

Big Nils, a Northampton 4-piece recently called me to track their upcoming single. I packed up my mobile rig and brought it down to their basement practice space, set up, and captured some sweet jams!

I spent 4 days at J Mascis's Bisquiteen to mix some tunes for a movie soundtrack J is working on and to record the score for a documentary about renown chanter Krishna Das. In this session, I was able to record a lot of cool things including tabla, harmonium, dotar, Mellotron, and tons of echoed-out guitar. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to mixing this next week.

Here are some pics from that..

Studio build update!

Standing outside my control room looking towards Mark's control room.

Standing in the middle of the room, looking toward the back wall. My control room on the left, drum booth on the right.

 

These pictures were taking about 4 days ago and show that the first set of walls are complete. That first wall is made of two layers of quiet rock, soundboard, Green Glue, and blown-in foam. If you look at the top pic, you'll see a metal stud on the ground. That is the stud for the second wall, which will be up by this Thursday.

Once that wall is up, the contractors move to our other space to start building the practice spaces. Meanwhile, we mop the floors, meet with the electrician, await all of our doors and windows and then start to wire this joint up!

Things have taken a little longer than we'd all hoped but the project is almost complete and it's absolutely breath-taking. We have approx. 1200 sq ft. of open playing space with an addition drum room (which is as big as some studio's live rooms!), and two dead iso rooms. Each of us has our own iso room build outside of our control rooms to allow for simultaneous recordings.

Rooms are starting to display their own sounds, too. Standing in the main live room, outside of my control room is very quiet and tight-sounding. As you walk toward Mark's room the sound starts to open up and fill the room up. We have so many options and such an amazing place to make records.

Mark and I will spend the next two weeks building clouds and diffusion panels, then we move in and start wiring.

Another exciting thing to announce is that we've already started to book sessions in this space. It's been difficult because we're trying to plan a lot but it's definitely the most exciting part of this whole process.. the reason we're doing it, in fact!

Stay tuned for info on our open-house!

AES 2011

Telefunken has my number..

The brighter side of transformers!

This past weekend I was able to make it to the 2011 AES convention in NYC. I was able to check out a bunch of new equipment from companies new and old and catch up with some folks I hadn't seen in a long time. Overall, a positive experience and I'll be going again, for sure!

One of my favorite new pieces of gear is Moog's new 500-series contribution, The Ladder. This piece actually surprised the hell out of me! It is way more useful than I would have guessed. It's basically an envelop filter that is dynamically triggered but frequency-adjustable. So for example, if I have a very boomy and "hummy" sounding floor tom track and I don't have time to cut out the extra crud in Pro Tools, I can patch this unit in and get rid of the rumble. Anytime the floor tom is actually being used, the envelope closes and it's back to the regular healthy floor tom. If my bottom snare track is being triggered by the bass drum hits, I can use this to minimize the buzz I'm getting from those bass drum hits and still get healthy fundamentals.

The rep also showed me how it could work on a thin or 'fizzy' distorted guitar track and WOW! I couldn't believe how it thickened that track up without the use of EQ, even.

I spent some quality time with the A-Designs Nail compressor and locked into some really fun sounds. It has a lot of options but my favorite was a pretty straight forward full-band compression. It went from smooth to pumping/breathing fun!

Latch Lake's microphone stands looked quite nice! They had very few moving parts and were very sturdy! I've been eyeing Atlas stands lately but these seem very trustworthy and the price is right!

Lindell is a company I'd heard of but didn't know much about. I noticed them because I wanted to check out some of the Golden Age Audio products. Let's just say that Lindell won! It's a totally different type of product. More high-end. A higher quality build. The 17x compressor just sounded awesome. It almost reminded me of an 1176 at it's nastiest with the attack/release quickness of a Compex. Lot's fun.

There were lots of pieces I wanted to check out but didn't have the time due to big crowds and long lines.. but my guess is that I didn't miss much.