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blog: Keeping Records of the Records

9-17-08 Keith Obadike & Quasi-Improv New Music at Mavericks
Producer and composer Keith Obadike came into Mavericks to record a very intersting project in early September. Four musicians (cello, drums & laptop, trumpet, and floortom feeding effects through contact mic) read from a score of visual symbols that looked, to my eye, someting like electronics schematics. The scores were actually combinations of Nigerian / Cameroonian symbols, various historical western musical notations and some contemporary architectural symbols. Each player was to interpret the score as they saw fit, but with a generally agreed-upon approach. There were about 30 pages (I'm guessing here), and each player tried to stay on each on for about 2 minutes. The result was a widely dynamic improvisational piece. With two takes, one was 66 minutes, and the next ,whcih Keilt "conducted" was 33 minutes. From a recording perspective, I went for transparency, using mostly condenser mics. I also put up three room mics, as Keith may be doing a 5.1 mix of the pieces for possibly synchronization to an animated film.

9-15-08 Jesus H. Christ on NPR's All Songs Considered
A nice push for the recently released album Happier Than You, which I engineered, co-produced and mixed for Jesus H. Christ. I can see why NPR would cover this record, as the tunes are intelligent, witty, literate isights into the travails and mini-dramas of modern life and love. Check out the podcast here.

8-08 Mixing for Jonah Smith, Malcom Burn Producing
Just wrapped up mixing 7 songs for Jonah Smith's new record, which was produced and engineered by the venerable Maclolm Burn (Lanois' engineer for about 10 years, and who made seminal records like Dylan's "Oh Mercy.") What a cool opportunity to be mixing songs that will sit on a record with Malcom's mixes, and I'm so impressed with the tracks. Performances are killer, arrangements beautiful, and the stuff is engineered exceptionally well. When you bring the faders up, things just sit together so naturally. And, yeah, there's what I would call a Lanois flavor to some of the tracks -- that intangibly emotional, earthy, intimate quality. And, yeah, our mixes are really different animals. It's a study on the how much a mix can shift the vibe and focus of a recording. Malcom's low-end is something to belold, with a tightness and punch that I really admire. The record is really great! Nathan James at The Vault here in NYC mastered.

6-08 Audio Conference in NOLA, Antenna's Up, Jesus H. Christ
Had a great time at Pot Luck Audio Con in New Orleans, where I moderated the open-studio panel, which included Tim Hatfield, Pete Weiss, Dusty Wakeman and Craig Schumacher. All of us work in studios without separate control rooms, and discussed the pros and cons -- mostly pros, though. The panel is always a good time, I think partly because we get to show pictures of our work situations, which people seem to really dig. The pics give a very tangible entryway into discussion: "why is that mic hanging from the ceiling?"

Just finished mixing the new, and third, album from Chicago-area band, Antenna's Up (formerly Distance to Empty). Bob Power will be mastering it soon at Chez Bob in NYC. This record was recorded at home by their drummer, Ryan, and it's been an interesting process to be overseeing things a bit from long-distance, via email and phone, sharing some tracking ideas, mic techniques and other suggestions based on what I'm hearing as the tracks roll in for mixing. I'm often itching to be there in the space listening with them, but Ryan is doing a great job.

Also just finished mixing the new album from NYC-based band Jesus H. Christ. Mastering will be by Jeff Lipton at Peerless. This was tracked from scratch by me at Mavericks, and turned out to be a really amazing record. The material is so strong, and the production quality is really top-notch, so the mixes came together quite easily.

4-08 Barbosa Lima, Mix Room Improvements, Sarah Tolar's Record Done
Recently did some wonderful tracking with Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Brazilian guitarist extrodinaire, at Mavericks Studio, NYC for Zoho Records. This is going to be a real treat, as he recreates some of the great songs of Brazil's golden 1960s. For the tone-geeks, classical guitarists are as in tune with tone as any guitar player, maybe more so. Such intensely developed technique to get the tone happening, and then we go an put a mic on it and run it though a preamp, so the choices and placements are really key here. We found an 87 to be too harsh, and ended up with a Royer 121 to keep the tone more natural and 3D. Ribbon mics are just so great when tracking to digital, espeically when there are vocals, cymbals or othere swishy high-end sounds involved.

Sarah Tolar's beautiful new record is mastered and off to the plant for pressing! I produced the vocals at Mavericks Studio in Manhattan, and mixed the record at The Farm in Brooklyn. Look for this one soon!

My Brooklyn mixing and overdub room, The Farm, just went through some major upgrades, including a new Pro Tools HD system, which will run on Lynx Aurora and Cranseong HEDD192 converters, with monitoring controlled by Dangerous Audio, all powered with a new Equi=Tech balanced power system.

I mixed a song by Yerba Buena with producer Andres Levin that will be part of the soundtrack for the TV show Heros. I mixed on an SSL AWS900 for this one, and I really dug working on this innovative console / work-surface. I keep thinking this board would be a wise investment for any mixer, but mixers don't need all the preamps. However, it's a very intuitive piece of kit, and it's integration into Pro Tools is seemless and brilliantly executed. Way ahead of the curve here, as any console would be improved if it could, with the flick of a switch, become a control surface for the DAW on hand.

Tracked the Spanish band Cabriolet at Mavericks, with Andres Levin producing -- a lot of fun tracking the live band in the open room. Got to put on my drum-tech hat and really work hard with the killer Craviotto drums at Mavericks to get some of my favorite drum sounds to date.

...didnt keep a blog before this point.