Studio Stories: Galuminumfoil Upgrade, Part I "Before"
This summer, Chris Cubeta set out to raise his game: As the multitasking/muli-instrumentalist co-founder of the busy Williamsburg recording/mixing/mastering facility Galuminumfoil, he and his staff have embarked on a serious upgrade of the studio, all the better to grab big sounds from their 400 sq. ft. live room.
The Galuminumfoil control room BEFORE.
Here, Cubeta — whose credits include John Hammond Jr., Tony Levin, Golden Earring, Ahmad Jamal, producer Bob Johnston, Eddie Kramer, Augie Meyers, David Hidalgo and Oz Fritz — gives us a look at the “Before” side of the situation. Find out how a solid start for Galumimumfoil made evolution essential after 10 years in business, and how he’s tackling this tough task of renovation – while he keeps the studio up and running. When it’s all said and done, rest assured we’ll circle back for the “After” to see if it turned out like he planned. Now heeeeeer’es Chris!
I Am:
I’ve been writing, playing, recording music in one way or another for the last 20 or so years. I started out playing piano at a young age, but around 12 or so I started fiddling with other instruments and tape recorders that my Dad had laying around the house. I guess it’s only natural that I ended up incorporating all of those things into my adult life. I’ve been very fortunate to make my living for the last 10 years just doing music.
The majority of my professional life is producing and engineering. My songwriting and performing career has allowed me to tour a bit and perform on some wonderful stages like Bowery Ballroom. My band, The Liars Club, has headlined and done several support shows there. We’ve built a small but loyal fan base here in NYC and are hoping to expand that in the future. At this point, though, the studio side of things is what supports me financially.
Why I Started Galuminum Foil:
Galuminumfoil started about 10 years ago in Poughkeepsie, NY. My best friend and novelist/spoken word artist Danny Lanzetta and I started it to join together our shared love of music and literature. Our vision was and is to have a company that ideally could release both literary and musical projects — kind of a record label/publishing house of sorts. Although Danny and I both have strong visions for Galuminumfoil, we are both constantly working on our own crafts and are admittedly (and proudly) not good businessmen. The hope at some point is that our work will lead us to a place financially where we can complete our original vision and afford to hire the right people to run things from a logistical standpoint.
In the meantime, Galuminumfoil, the studio, has been able to somewhat take on the financial burden of getting our work out there. In 2011 we have released Danny Lanzetta’s new novel, Gadfly, and his spoken word EP, The Declaration of Us, and we also just released my new self-titled record, Chris Cubeta and The Liars Club. Everything except the manufacturing of the books and CD’s was done in house by Danny and me, and some very good and talented friends.
Jeff Berner, John Passineau and Gary Atturio are three really talented guys who work with Danny and me in many facets. Jeff is the guitar player in my band and is also a wonderful engineer/producer at Galuminumfoil Studios. Gary Atturio often plays bass in the Danny Lanzetta spoken word project. He is also a fantastic engineer and an up-and-coming producer. My other good friend of 20 years is John Passineau. While playing bass in The Liars Club for eight years, he also handles all of our graphic design. Everything from our websites to album art and book design goes through him. If you know anyone who wants to throw some money at a few dedicated artists to help get this thing off the ground, please send them our way!
The Toft AB board served them well -- now its time to move on.
The Original Idea:
The studio was designed mostly based on the following idea: “How can I make this space do what I need it to for as little as money as possible?” I had a very small amount of money saved to build the place, and I had some of the equipment from a small basement studio I started when I lived in Poughkeepsie.
We use Digital Performer on a Mac computer as our main recording device. I had a small but really nice collection of mic pre-amps and compressors from API and Geoff Daking and a few decent mics. We built a 180-square-foot control room and a 400-square-foot live room. In February 2008, we added a 24 channel Toft ATB console which has served us very well. In December of 2009, we added an isolation booth and amplifier closet to give us more flexibility when recording live bands.
Now I’m Changing It:
Thankfully, the studio has gotten busier every year, which is why we feel the need to upgrade things. We are making three big changes.
The first is bringing in a new console. While the Toft has been great up until now, we feel the need for a large format console that will be much easier to repair, sounds better and also looks much more impressive. I grew up working on all analog gear and have always missed having a “real” console at my own place. Replacing the Toft will be a 32-channel Neotek Elan with a master section built by Purple Audio. Although I’ve embraced the computer audio world of today, I’m still an analog guy at heart.
The second upgrade is to our digital converters. We are moving up from MOTU HD 192 converters to the Lynx Aurora system. We hope this will ultimately make for better-sounding records.
Chris Cubeta walks the walk in Galuminum's accomodating live room.
The final piece of the puzzle is we are completely re-doing our control room both aesthetically and sonically. We will be installing new carpet, repainting, and hanging a series of diffusers, bass traps and sound absorbers to make our room a more accurate listening environment.
The Buildout:
I’m approaching the redesign the way I’ve approached the studio from Day One. I gather information from experiences and from friends and peers in the industry. For example, the studio we are purchasing the Neotek from is a great place here in NYC called Mavericks Recording. The owner, Robert Lurie, gave me some great tips on building my own inexpensive but effective diffusers. Other than these methods there is always the Internet!
See You Soon!
We got the Neotek and the new converters in mid-July, but we won’t be installing everything until the end of August as we are currently in the middle of quite a few records.
Stay tuned for Galuminfoil Upgrade, Part II “After”, coming up!
— Chris Cubeta, Co-founder, Galuminum Foil