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Win!!! Congratulations to Jim and Nancy and the band! The CW network used “Recognize” from Draw Blood! Undead @ Stella Blue on last Monday’s episode of Life Unexpected! I spent some of last August assembling and mastering the live record from DAT recordings done at Stella Blue in Asheville, NC back in 2002. Just finished mastering this record for Jason Lewis and the band. Give it a listen!
I have to share this EP with everyone who knows me. Mike Kuehn is a Toronto-based recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist songwriter who has worked with The Most Serene Republic, Born Ruffians, and many, many more. I only know Mike from the Tape Op Message Board, where he’s contributed a lot of great recording experience and info over the years. I absolutely love this EP and it was one of my favorite releases of 2009. You can stream his I’m Getting Pretty Good At Giving Up EP (released May 2009) and read and interview with Mike here on CBC’s Radio 3 website. And you can pick up his EP here as “pay your own price” MP3s. Wednesday night I’ll be picking up some mixes from my friend Dave Hartley, who plays bass in The War On Drugs, BC Camplight, and the Lindsey Buckingham Appreciation Society. Dave has recorded a really beautiful solo record during the last year, and I was flattered that he asked me to help out recording some drums tracks last fall. I am psyched that he has asked me to mix a few of tunes on the record. It’ll be a lot of fun. Really looking forward to this. Later Wednesday evening I’ll be finishing up small mixing tweaks on the Young Lion Apprentice full-length Save The Soundtracks. I’ll then be mastering that record over the next few weeks. During my free time this week I’ll be working on analog transfers for the new Sad Iron full-length, and starting the mastering process. I met Jason through the Tape Op Messageboard (TOMB). He’s a really talented songwriter (and singer, player, etc) currently residing in Iowa City, Iowa. I am really excited about this mastering project. Can’t get his songs out of my head since I first heard them last week. Sunday I’ll be tracking lead vocals with Greg of the Blank Pages at his home studio in South Jersey. Their new record is getting close to being completely recorded. We’ll start mixing it in March or April. Busy busy busy! Just a few photos I took today after digging out my car, getting 500 lbs of snow off of my awning, and helping my neighbors out a bit.
Thanks to Jeremy and Mary for getting this piano over to my place this morning. It is either from the 1920’s or 1930’s and was manufactured in New York City by the Cambridge Piano Company. It needs to be tuned up and refinished (fire engine red?), but I plan on having this for a long time. It fits great in the big room. I’m going to keep a set of tacks around for it. Really excited to have this here and can’t wait to get it tuned up!
Spent the afternoon and early evening tracking bass and keys (and some loops) with Adam and Dave of The War On Drugs. I’ve been asked to hang out and help out with some overdubs over at Adam’s place here in Philly, and since I am such a huge fan of this band this whole adventure is a real treat. We worked on a few songs (which are in various states of amazing). Tracked Dave’s bass both direct (DI through my Sytek) and through a Fender Bassman 4×10. The Bassman was miked with my Shure SM7b through my 1970’s Yamaha PM-1000 preamp. Adam laid down some passes of his new ARP Omni 2 (which I almost bought last week but finally abstained from gear lust). We went DI through the Sytek. Everything was recorded to Tascam MS-16 1″ analog tape…the good stuff. Oh the smell of oxide! Preamps XLR’d right into the back of it.
Between songs we transferred tape into Digital Performer through the Black Lion Audio MOTU 828mk2 (it has the old analog and clock modification from 2006…more on this to come in a later post). I exported everything as WAV files so Adam can drag and drop into PTLE to continue the madness. Looking forward to getting together next week for more tracking, reamping, and burritos! Mike V and I finished recording vocals tonight for his Young Lion Apprentice debut, Save The Soundtracks. As usual, vocals were tracked using Jeremy’s (Swivel Chairs) Microtech-Gefell UM70s. Most of the vocals on the record were done with this mic (at some point Mike Kennedy from Audible had it for Isolette’s vocals, so I switched stuff around). I used a few different preamps, including the Yamaha PM-1000, Electro Harmonix 12AY7 (which is out of commission and needs to be repaired), and my Burr-Brown modified Presonus MP20 (with the RNC “Really Nice Compressor” inserted). I believe the other mic we used at times was one of my Audio Technica AT4050s, which we ran through the MP20/RNC. Mike recorded everything at home on a Tascam 424 MKIII 4-track. He can chime in here if he wants to and go into his gear list or his fondness for Rustica Pizzas (Basil pesto / sun-dried tomato white pies) that fueled the sessions over here. Anyway, we started transferring at 24-bit 96K and mixing last summer. I think at some point he wanted to re-record some vocals that he wasn’t happy with (originally recorded with an SM58), and I was having a difficult time getting some of the vocals that he recorded at home to sit in the mix. The mixes are pretty rich for 4-tracks; lots of delay and reverb direct to tape. We made the decision to redo all of the vocals back in September or October in order to have them cut through the instruments. In the past two weeks we finished them up after a few sessions this Fall and a break for the holidays. I think that it took five or six sessions, tops. Mike and I are a lot happier with the way that things sound between now and last Fall. Tonight was especially cool since I was able to use my 1977 Maestro Echoplex as tape delay for Mike’s vocals on “Withered Arms”. (The Echoplex was a gift this Fall from Dave Palaitis of Lifetime, a life-long friend.) It is amazing that something that sounds so noisy at times (and that at times deceives you into thinking that a hamster runs around on a track inside of it) can actually sound so good. I have to get this thing into the shop so that I can use it for more and more vocals, even those that are up front in the mix. It is a little scratchy and noisy right now. However, I’m totally in love with this thing. Thanks again, Dave! We recorded the vocal track and then used the Radial X-Amp reamp to get it to the Echoplex. Then the EP-3’s output was fed to the PM-1000’s DI. We’ll finish some mixing tweaks in the next week and then master Save The Soundtracks. |
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