No Sleep 'Til…
Last week, SonicScoop linked up with Maureen Droney, the Director of the Producers & Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy (NARAS), who was in town for AES.
Based in Los Angeles, Maureen had heard — and heard right — about Brooklyn being a choice destination for recording studios, and wanted to see some of the hot spots first-hand. We picked her up at the L train and commenced our Brooklyn studios tour at Mission Sound, in Williamsburg.
We spoke with owner Oliver Straus about the gear, the business and how he’s created and maintained a studio facility that’s so friendly and appealing to both musicians and producer/engineers.
Between Mission’s Neve 8026 console, a tracking console which was originally built for George Martin’s AIR Studios, Pro Tools HD3 and key outboard effects, loads of live room, isolation, amps, keyboards, etc….Mission does a lot of recording and mixing sessions. A lot of rock sessions for sure, including Arctic Monkeys and Animal Collective recently, but the clientele is totally varied.
View out of the slate-floor booth into Mission's live room
“We have a string quartet coming in this weekend,” said Straus, showing us how/where he sets up players in the large main tracking space. “This room is great for string sessions.”
Sessions with NeverShoutNever were happening at Mission last week, though not bright-and-early when we were there! This full-length record is being produced by Butch Walker and mixed by Jon Kaplan, who has a production and mixing room within the Mission complex. NeverShoutNever is like a super-young acoustic Dashboard Confessional that’s built an impressive fan-base on Myspace.
Maureen Droney’s toured and worked in a long list of studios worldwide, so we were definitely interested in hearing her insights after each stop on our Brooklyn tour. “If I were engineering or producing a record, I’d sure like to work at Mission, not only for the gear, but for how it feels,” she noted.
“It has a great vibe and aesthetic. And that board is priceless. When I was an engineer coming up in San Francisco, on Trident TSM and Harrisons, I didn’t have the opportunity to experience vintage Neves I went to LA to cut drums at Capital on an old Neve — that’s still there — and when we put the tracks through the console, without even adding EQ, it sounded different and better. And that’s when I realized there was a whole bigger world of sonics available. It’s not just mystique about old Neves, its very tangible.”
Maureen Droney and Hugh Pool at Excello
Next up, we crossed the street to Excello, where we caught owner Hugh Pool on his way in, with a big old vintage amp in tow. We followed him in and all the way back through Excello’s clubhouse-style lounge area, filled with musical ephemera, down the hallway lined with stacks of vintage amps, and finally into the great Excello control room.
Hugh filled us in on how he came to own Excello, named for the enormous air conditioning unit hanging down from the ceiling (and actually miked for its echo effect) in the big, open industrial gallery of a live room, and it’s clear his love and aim for this place is true: Make great music and enjoy yourself in the process.
Excello’s unique equipment setup includes a Calrec Series B console, stacks of (10) Neve 1063 modules and API mic pre’s, and an Altec 1567A 5×1 tube mixer. They do a lot of tracking to tape here and are equipped with Studer A-800 and 827 2” 24-tracks, 1/2″ 4-track and 1/4″ 2-track machines and an Ampex ATR 102 1/2″ 2-track, in addition to Pro Tools HD2 with an expansion output card for 32-outs. Full-time technician John Charette Electronics repairs/builds amps and pedals out of his shop on-site at Excello, and maintains the studio’s equipment. In the live room, the wooden acoustic clouds hovering at the ceiling, carpets and collection of vintage instruments and gear give Excello a kind of 60s vibe that feels really rock-and-roll.
Excello AC unit miked up in the live room
Maureen agreed: “Hugh’s energy and really the energy of the whole place was amazing, like the essence of rock and roll recording. It’s obvious he’s one of the naturals, who didn’t get into this for the money, he just loves music and found himself owning a studio. Now he has this great collection of gear, working hard every day and still having fun and getting excited about the projects he’s working on.”
As for the gear, Maureen added, “I really like the setup with the Neve sidecar, which is routed so that things can be swapped out and experimented with very quickly.”
“I love all the natural light in these Brooklyn studios, too,” Maureen continued, “Both Mission and Excello feel really homey and personal, but not that kind of ‘personal’ where it’s a someone’s private studio with features kind of inaccessible to clients coming in. Everything in both studios feels really personalized yet welcoming to bands. And everything feels really cared about.”
Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings' eight tracks per song.
After lunch, we headed over to Daptone Records in Bushwick. What a trip! Daptone’s tape op, CTO Wayne Gordon, greeted us at the front door, wearing a white lab coat (Shades of vintage Abbey Road!). And inside, we met Joel Katz, who was repairing one of the inputs on Daptone’s 8-track tape machine. Gabriel Roth, Daptone co-owner and engineer/producer, gave us the full tour, walking us through the live room, describing their fully-analog (to 8-track) process in the studio. Daptone’s in the process of making a new Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings record, and Gabe talked a bit about their approach of ‘balance engineering’:
“We try to use as few mics as possible, and we’ve been using a lot of ribbon mics on this record. We figure out who’s coming in too loud and have the players and backup singers balance themselves, get the tones all right, in rehearsal, and then we record,” he said. “When you start using a lot of tracks, you end up having to do all that stuff in the mix. If you do it when you’re recording, it’s not really harder, it’s just sooner. People think it’s scary because you don’t have choices later, i.e. bring up the trumpets, but it’s like you’re going to have to hear that at some point. Whether it’s two months from now when you’re mixing, or now. So you may as well deal with it now.”
Gabriel Roth, Maureen Droney and Wayne CTO Gordon
Gabe showed us the basement space he may convert into an echo chamber one day, as well as the upstairs record label offices, where we met Daptone co-owner Neal Sugarman. They played us some of the new Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings record, as well as a cut from an upcoming holiday release. So much soul in this music, and such tremendous sound.
On our departure from Daptone, Maureen’s take: “Wow, they are their own wonderful planet here — people truly on a mission! Very cool! They’re punching in, comping vocals on a 2-track then flying them back into the 8-track without SMPTE, going old school all the way looking for vibe and soul. It brings Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd to mind to me, because it’s so much about participating with and capturing what the musicians are doing. But Gabe is really very unique, and the team approach — with Wayne running the tape machines and splicing…it’s like they’re channeling greatness from another time.”
From Daptone, we headed across Williamsburg to a brand-new facility called One.Point.Six Media, a gorgeous two-studio facility with access to a 5,000-square-foot photo/video space located downstairs. The temple-like Studio A has been meticulously and uniquely designed and built, with a totally symmetrical control room that makes a top-notch mixing environment, and a large live room with two large booths (drums and vocals), and sightlines throughout, for an excellent live band tracking space.
Studio A at One.Point.Six
The A room features a Neve 5316 broadcast console and Pro Tools HD, while the urban-rustic B room is more a production and overdubs studio.
With its cozy log-cabin/treehouse vibe, the B room is equipped with Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Logic and controllers, a live room and tie-lines to outside tracking spaces. (Stay tuned for an upcoming longer feature on this studio here on SonicScoop.)
“It’s pretty fabulous,” Maureen chimed, of One.Point.Six. “It’s obviously someone’s vision, and it felt very zen and very modern. The space, acoustics and equipment create an environment that’s great for recording acoustic music. It’s so serene and vibey, I can imagine it being especially wonderful for jazz sessions.
SonicScoop's David Weiss in photo studio in the One.Point.Six Media complex
“This was an amazing day. There’s a great scene happening here in Brooklyn. It’s obvious in all the studios we visited, where everyone’s so very excited about music, and about sound. It’s “more music, less computers.” Amen!
Hey, audio facilities (tracking, mixing and mastering) in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island and Queens! Let us know why you should be included in our next borough tour.
Get in touch. Email Janice@sonicscoop.com or David@sonicscoop.com