TRIBECA/CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN: Rich Lamb is a studio nomad. He’s an NYC audio hired gun who works in studios and recording situations that span the region – turns out, Lamb has a lot of favorite local places to work, and he’s going to share them with us right here.
Rich Lamb, shown here tickling the ivories with Amie Amis, knows his way around NYC recording.
Lamb was 18, living at home on Long Island and driving to college one day, when he saw a life-changing sign for an audio school. “Eventually I dropped out of college and pursued a 30-week program with complete dedication,” he recalls. “After some time out of college, which included interning at a local studio in a basement with quite a bit of impressive gear — Ampex 2, API board, etc… I got a degree at Berklee College of Music, taking their Music Production and Engineering major.”
Shiny new diploma in hand, Lamb started by assisting at Skyline Studios, followed by the Power Station [now Avatar] before forging out on his own. He scored his first semi-steady gig doing house audio for Blue Man Group, and “My career has been a combination of studio, live, and corporate audio ever since.”
When we met at the Massey Plugins mixer at Lakeside Lounge, I enjoyed hearing your philosophy on how you work as an engineer. What do you find so fulfilling about a freelance career where you’re on call to go anyplace and record or mix?
Not that it was intentional, but I guess the most stimulating thing about freelancing in audio is that there’s rarely a dull moment if you’re always in different rooms. You have to remember different layouts, different patch bays, what mics are available, what drawbacks and strengths there are to each room, and how to adjust your ears to different monitoring situations — from control rooms to large venues, different PAs, indoor or outdoor. Either way, you have to mix differently when you have an outdoor gig and you’re used to the studio, and vice versa.
For example, you begin to understand EQ as something to enhance or sculpt — like in the studio — versus it being used more for damage control or feedback attenuation, when working live. Same with compression. Being able to juggle different types of gigs really enhances your troubleshooting reflexes too, though someone who works just one room could argue that he’s fast because his knows his room cold.
But my approach to my career is about doing whatever it takes to advance myself through great projects that I get to record and mix. Ideally each great album gets me recommended to someone new, or hired back. If it pays the bills and I enjoy it, I’m not too worried about whether it’s going to “go anywhere.” I don’t work on spec. Even if it’s a close friend, which can be a blast, I have to charge something fair, otherwise I’ll put off working on their stuff.
When it comes to projects that are dear to me, including projects where I have a say on where we track or what musicians we should use, even if I’m not technically producing, my first choice is to do a large chunk of work in any of the studios where I work at the most. If they can’t afford the expensive one, we go to a more affordable place, work within our limitations, forego the real piano and the awesome acoustics, and get the job done well either way. I’m drawn to producers and studios that generally make music I’m into. How else can you improve at your craft than get to practice on the styles you like? The more work feels like play the more aligned you are with your purpose, and you’ll probably live a longer and healthier life.
By the way, in fairness to top-dollar studios and musicians, they aren’t always more expensive in the end. Professionals get the job done faster AND the results are better, saving you time in editing or even recutting tracks later, and you’re happier with your tracks.
Why did you like the idea of telling us about all the different places you work in, in and around NYC?
The Big Room at Water Music Recorders
Because this information should be shared. I want to know more NYC rooms, while alerting my peers to the places I work at. Everyone wins when more artists and producers are hip to several studios, and comfortable at all these places.
Therefore, in no particular order, here we go. In fact I’m starting with the one I hardly work at nowadays:
This is probably where I did my first freelance sessions. Owner Rob Grenoble, a gregarious storyteller with a HUGE knowledge of the biz, respected me just because I was a Skyline alumnus.
Huge live room with concrete floors, for more of a sustained reverb, particularly nice for horns or strings, plus a big Neve/Studer control room, where the Augspurgers sound like the NS10s, only bigger, making for a smooth transition. The North Room is interesting in that it’s affordable though a little funky, yet you get a lot of the same acoustics.
Working at Water Music, I feel like I’m closer to Woodstock for some reason. Maybe because it’s a residential studio! I’d love to be someone like John Agnello and just put in long days with the band and then crash in the duplex, having no commute the next day. Tons of indie rock albums are done at Water Music, they have a very impressive client list. And I’m impressed with any studio that lasts in this day and age. Go there if you want a great near-NYC rock studio with residency.
Mark Dann is an accomplished musician, especially on bass, and he has had a facility in a TriBeCa loft for 20 years. I started bringing work there in 1994. He is the man to go to if you have any technical questions, especially regarding Apple or Pro Tools, and if you have drum tracks that need replacing or vocals that need to be tuned.
His way of working is extremely organized, he’s a great editor, and he mixes and masters with a keen ear and perpetual student’s inquisitiveness. His enthusiasm for the craft of recording and technology is such that he’d rather talk about plug-ins than anything! But lots of us get that way!
In Woodstock he runs an identical PT system — allowing projects to work between the two rooms – in a nice tracking space with a piano and B-3. Where a lot of studios always fall by the wayside, here and in the Woodstock area, Mark has hung in there and even thrived. Hiring Mark to do your album is quite a bang for the buck. More people should know about both of his rooms. His Mac is decked out with every plug-in you could ever want. There are also some nice preamps and a great DDA console. Check out his site, too.
Before I continue I want to mention two other colleagues I’ve worked with or for: A.T. Michael MacDonald and Tom Durack, both fellow alumni from Skyline. Michael MacDonald has done a lot of stunning jazz albums — Fred Hersch, McCoy Tyner, Roy Haynes — and is a superb mastering engineer, running his own studio in DUMBO, called AlgoRhythms which has a fantastic combination of analog and digital gear, plus Dunlavy monitors. I like bringing my work to a place where I can hear much more detail than I can at home — that’s the whole point! Michael has taught me so much about mastering — I used to work for him — and audio in general…he’s my mentor more than anyone else. The ultimate piano recording for my money would be Michael engineering at Ambient Recording in Stamford, CT.
Inside Trinity Church — this reverb tail lasts over 200 years.
Tom Durack has been an inspiration ever since I met him at Skyline, which he had ‘graduated’ from, to working there as Nile Rodgers’ engineer. Sitting in on the razor blade editing of the single release of “Love Shack” was a trip. I have always been struck by Tom’s abilities to track and mix albums that sound as good as you could imagine. He’s been great to run mixes by, plus he is now a co-worker of mine at Trinity, and one of my closest friends. He too has impeccably mastered a few of the albums I’ve mixed.
An old friend who was working at Trinity recommended me for this gig, which has gone from doing house sound for services and concerts, to now streaming for the church’s large Web audience, plus field audio, Pro Tools editing, outdoor concerts and live conferences that transmit to sister Episcopal churches around the world. It’s the gig that keeps giving, and it’s quite educational.
And Trinity Church is never going to go away. How many studios stick around for over 200 years? The church itself provides the constant challenge of knowing how to function while basically working inside an echo chamber.
Systems Two Recording Studios, 117 Ditmas Ave., Brooklyn NY 10018, 718-851-1010
Of all the places where I have put in a lot of hours as a freelancer (post-Skyline and Power Station), Systems Two is easily the most glamorous, and the place I’ve gotten the most work from since 2002. Over 30 years in business, making thousands of clients happy, mostly in jazz, it’s basically a mom-and-pop business with none of the huge overhead of payroll that weighed down the Manhattan places I remember.
Between the two of them, husband and wife owners Joseph and Nancy Marciano wear the various hats of chief engineer, assistant, manager, bookkeeper, and general maintenance! The other main engineer is Michael Marciano, brother of Joseph. There’s an assistant engineer who now engineers a lot, and myself, I’m brought in around twice a week for much of the rest, lots of evenings and weekends. I’ve had this gig for nine years, it’s my one long commute, but that’s what books and iPods are for.
Their famous Steinway is from Carnegie Hall, their C3 and drum kit are also legendary, one of their ribbon mics is John Coltrane’s, etc. Nice big room with a short reverb which works for just about everything. Their main bread and butter comes from being a top-notch, word-of-mouth jazz studio, even though they sometimes do everything else, including orchestral, choral, metal, etc. Their discography is staggering. They have two Pro Tools rooms and one mastering room.
Way out there, but only yards from the F train. I love these people and I love this place — I open up a mic and it always sounds good. When I come in it always looks like I’m doing the first session of the day, even if a big band just finished up an hour ago. Work there is effortless: no wrestling with acoustics, monitoring, or a finicky patch bay. It’s my first choice for any client that can afford to work there.
Next week, come back for Part II of Rich Lamb — Nomad Engineer: Going to the Fab Faux, Maxing Cable Access, and Hitting the Poconos. Write Rich at pitchie@earthlink.net to join his Song of the Week email list!!!
Why I Luv It: I’ve been a fan of two fired-up Texans now living in Manhattan called the Sniper Twins since the day they played me one of their first demos going back five years or more. On that history changing day, Dax Martinez Vargas and Barry Flanagan played me a snippet of a song that’s now called “Computer Friends,” and I’m fairly certain that both of these gifted MC/Producer/Writer/Directors would tell you close to the same thing if you asked them how the song ultimately came about. If my memory serves me right, it went something like this…
Sniper Twins are NYC-based writer/director/musicians
At the same time Dax and Barry played me their demo, I was helping my friend and regular collaborator film and TV director/writer Christian Charles develop the soundtrack for his pitch to potentially land the job directing a new remake / reimagination of Revenge of the Nerds. So I was in a vigorous search for multiple homerun-songs that perfectly embody the life of the quintessential computer nerd.
Enter Dax and Barry…..
Upon first listen, I immediately gravitated to the then unnamed snippet of a song due to its obvious “hit potential,” and based on certain witty lyrical elements of the song and a great instrumental starting point, I urged D&B to focus their writing on computer nerd life and computer technology specifically. D&B liked the idea, and along with a few more encouraging words of musical constructive advice, they were back in the studio and off to the races.
Result?
The ultimate hip-hop nerd anthem “Computer Friends” by the Sniper Twins was born. The Revenge of the Nerds remake didn’t materialize for Christian and I or anybody for that matter so far, but “Computer Friends” became a cult internet sensation (well over 700,000 You Tube Views to date) and Sniper Twins scored a sponsorship with technology firm Seagate to fund their video.
“Computer Friends” is totally licensable through Sniper Twins, so don’t worry about the sponsorship. They own their rights 100%. Oh, and they followed it up with another sponsorship deal with Hershey’s for their new song “Chocolate Shoppe” too!! Not bad at all, right? Right! (They wrote and directed both videos themselves, btw.)
Yeah sure, I’m a fan and a creative muse on this one, but I’ve got no financial stake in this, so feel free to take your shots! Regardless, this song kicks major ass, and the video is smart and hilarious.
Dax and Barry (and vocal contributor Rob) are all very creative, cutting edge, smart, and talented artists with a very big upside for future success in this business. Make it your business to get familiar with their business both musically and visually because they’re not straying anywhere too far away from the road to success any time soon. I’d like to be there when they arrive, and now here’s your chance too.
Scene I Can See it In: Since I basically laid it out blatantly in my “Why I luv it” section above, I will keep this part short, sweet, and immediately to the point.
Dax Martinez Vargas and Barry Flanagan: Sniper Twins / Computer Friends
With all due respect to our intellectually gifted buddies throughout the media land, “Computer Friends” by the Sniper Twins is the quintessential stereotypical nerd anthem folks, and you, me, and the rest of the world know there is plenty of good opportunity to license the perfect song for anything related to technology — whether it’s scripted or reality visual media we’re dealing with.
Here’s the short list of where to place this overdue baby immediately:
Technology / Computer related story or recurring segment on a cable news or information channel: Your segment theme song should be “Computer Friends” by The Sniper Twins. Who’s your music supervisor MSNBC, CNN, SKY News, Fox News, CNBC, Fox Business Network, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX??? Well, whoever they are, they’re missing the boat on this one. Sorry. Next.
Feature Film focused on computer / technological geniuses like David Fincher’s The Social Network: Even if the film isn’t comically-based in terms of storyline, don’t tell me there isn’t a funny moment somewhere in this film for this song… and any film related to computers, hand-held devices or digital technology for that matter.
Oh and if you’ve got a film that is focused on computer / technological geniuses in general, and it’s a comedy, then your main title theme song or end credits song should be “Computer Friends” by The Sniper Twins.
So there you have it… “Computer Friends” by The Sniper Twins is a hot untapped nerd commodity, and the only question now is who gets the opportunity to license it in the coolest place first? It’s off to the races jockies and horses. Put your money on the Sniper Twins. It’s a sure thing.
“Computer Friends” by The Sniper Twins Complete Lyrics:
My desktop is the best top
Nothing less bought
Check my desk bra’ Killa machine
That’s a G5 clean and white
250 Gigabyte Gig of Ram killa man
20 inch screen
Wanna burn a disc How bout a DVD Wirelessly?
Check my POP 1-6-6-2-4-6-7
If there’s ever a problem I call my Tech man Devon
Yo devon man whatcha doin’ tonight come over to my crib
disc permissions aint right
Check out the back of my CPU I got more ports than a wine store do
Let’s talk mouse
And lets talk keys
Bluetooth rays
Compute through the breeze
With my desktop Hey I compute with ease
think your lap top stand a chance bra’
pleeeaaase.
I’m goin’ buy… baby a new disk drive…lady one point five… terabytes stack the memory to the sky
—Chorus— [I’m goin’ buy… baby a new disk drive…lady one point five… terabytes stack the memory to the sky
It’s been a while… baby on the 30-day trail… lady it’s probly time for us to buy hit that paypal and comply]
—second verse—
Come on take a ride on the super highway
information you cravin’ your keyboard’s like a steinway
enter escape or print this screen
if your computer freezes up hit control alt delete
you can re-boot reload restart and re-figure
your motherboard’s crashin while my bandwidth gets bigger
i bust through your firewall with my fireball no network protects kid from this Viral
get your norton, your symetec, and your MacCafee
got a hail storm of pop-ups now you mad at me
OMG, BRB when I chat is my protocol k
eep em all in stitches with my smiley face emoticon
like a robotron i’m a stay multi-taskin’
go to message boards for my class what they askin’?
Gotta research Rwandan murders and death counts
better re-connect my proxy server then let’s bounce
—Chorus— [I’m goin’ buy… baby a new disk drive…lady one point five… terabytes stack the memory to the sky
It’s been a while… baby on the 30-day trail… lady it’s probly time for us to buy hit that paypal and comply]
—Bridge— [ I got double your ram, ask your man my home office looks like a space ship..bam! your girls got a busted myspace pic…damn! your whole PC needs a face lift…man!]
Flippin these digits and switchin these keys
what can Brown do for you?
Send me software for free downloading diamond bundles from his ftp Pluggin in plug-ins and VST
Preamp these vocals lay them down on track 3
So I’m covering my tracks from the interpolice
and I’m watching my back making black market beats
with my refurbished dell plug-in USB
mass appealing to the fans going P2P
DMV on the mic and I need more power,
So patch it right in to my workstation tower
Megahertz popping through my Pre-Sonus Amp
Pumping these beats and kicking these jams
Despite my fiber optic cable ethernet
my quadrupple core processor is working up a sweat
something slowing down my system that I can’t even see
my folder’s full of cookies, eating up my memory.
I’m goin’ buy… baby a new disk drive…lady one point five… terabytes
stack the memory to the sky
It’s been a while… baby
on the 30-day trail… lady
it’s probly time for us to buy
hit that paypal and comply
I’m goin’ buy… baby
a new disk drive…lady
one point five… terabytes
stack the memory to the sky
AMC’s new series Rubicon features a brilliant, subtly-suspenseful original score by Peter Nashel of NYC music production company, Duotone. And the composer/producer has been recording said picture-perfect score at NYC’s Avatar Studios, with engineer Roy Hendrickson assisted by Aki Nishimura. Tune into Rubicon Sundays at 9PM!
Punch Brothers are a Brooklyn-based bluegrass band featuring Chris Thile (mandolin), Gabe Witcher (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass).
Avatar has been booked by a variety of other artists, film and theater projects of late, including:
Filipetti also recently engineered on sessions for producer Phil Ramone with singer/actress Elaine Paige in Avatar’s Studio G.
The cast album for Broadway’s La Cage Aux Folles starring Kelsey Grammer was recorded in Studio A and Studio G with producer (and PS Classics co-founder) Tommy Krasker and engineer Bart Migal assisted by Bob Mallory and David Rowland.
And the score for the upcoming film, The Beaver, was recorded in Studio A with composer / producer Marcelo Zarvos, director Jodie Foster, engineer Richard King assisted by Fernando Lodeiro and Charlie Kramsky.
For more information on Avatar Studios, visit http://www.avatarstudios.net/ and follow them on Twitter — where they are known to announce last-minute deals on studio time — @avatarstudios!
OK Go has partnered with Indaba Music and the Rock Band Network to launch a remix contest for their new single, “White Knuckles.” The grand prize winner of this contest will have his/her remix turned into a game track by The Authority, a Rock Band Network authoring studio, and made available for download for Rock Band 3 in late November.
Remix OK Go's "White Knuckles," be judged by producer Dave Fridmann, get your track authored for Rock Band play!
The grand prize winner will also receive a gaming console, a copy of Rock Band 3 and a set of Rock Band instruments. In addition, two runners-up will receive copies of Rock Band 3 and OK Go’s Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (Deluxe Edition) album, as well as a “White Knuckles” UK vinyl import single and a signed set of ping-pong balls from the band’s “This Too Shall Pass” (RGM version) video.
The contest runs from September 7 through October 14 with the grand prize winner announced on October 29.
A cool twist in this contest is in the judging! Each week starting Sept 21st, Dave Fridmann, producer of “White Knuckles” and the album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, will choose his favorite remixes to feature across all OK Go web properties. Fridmann is a Grammy-winning producer/engineer known for his work with bands such as The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, MGMT, Weezer and many more.
All featured remixes will also be available for fans to download on the database that accompanies the pre-order for the 11/2/10 U.S. album release, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (Deluxe Edition).
Contest entry forms and further details are available HERE.
“White Knuckles” will be released to radio on September 14. This single will also be available for purchase in Rock Band late October around the release of Rock Band 3.
For more on OK Go, called “the most downloaded band ever” in this Indaba contest press release, visit: http://www.okgo.net.
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN: At 5AM, multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay woke up from a dream with a full song and lyrics, newly formed, in his head. He grabbed his laptop, wrote it all out, and went back to sleep.
“Usually when you wake up later on and look at what you’ve scribbled down in the middle of the night, it reads like some kind of stoned epiphany: ‘Blue is blue,’ or something,” Nicolay relays. But not this time…
Banjo-accordion-keysman, Franz Nicolay
The keyboard/accordion/banjo, etc.-playing former keysman for The Hold Steady woke up to more than a song. What he had was the ill-fated love story of two characters named Felix and Adelita. “I don’t know anyone by those names, so I Googled them and it turns out that in Latin and Spanish the names mean Luck & Courage,” Nicolay explains. “And that’s the name of the [new] record.”
Nicolay is quick to point out that Luck & Courage is not a concept record, however. “I wrote a couple songs about these characters which are then mapped loosely against these other songs which are about a plague,” he describes. “So it’s the story of the troubled relationship of Felix and Adelita writ large on this story of a country that’s ravaged by plague.”
Now, we’re sitting in producer/engineer Jim Keller’s Brooklyn studio, sun streaming in through big windows over the mixing desk, as Keller cues up the album-opening track, “Felix and Adelita.” Freshly mixed just the day before, it’s Nicolay’s musical reverie come to life, and the church organ, banjo, slide guitar and brushed drumming set a sentimental, if not dark, tone.
“I wanted it to be a dark country record,” Nicolay describes. “One of the records I was thinking of when I was conceptualizing how I wanted this to sound is Lyle Lovett’s I Love Everybody.
“That record uses a simple drum kit with brushes, bass and Lovett playing guitar and singing. So there’s that sort of classic country rhythm section. And then a string quartet that’s playing the kind of arrangements you’d have on a big, lush 70s Nashville record, but compacted because they didn’t do it with a 50-piece orchestra they did it with 4 string players. I thought that was a really neat way of reinterpreting that sort of lushness, while retaining this really stringent, humble arrangement of the record.”
As Nicolay headed into the studio to record Luck & Courage other references he had in mind were American Music Club’s Mercury and 16 Horsepower’s Low Estate. “The banjo and accordion from 16 Horsepower, the pedal steel stuff from American Music Club and the string stuff for the Lyle Lovett record are like the three touch-points for this record,” he depicts.
WRITING & RECORDING LUCK & COURAGE: BROOKLYN to HOBOKEN AND BACK
Nicolay wrote the songs for Luck & Courage on piano and guitar, as well as banjo, which he’s taken up since his debut solo record, Major General, released in January of ‘09. “On one of the Hold Steady tours, I demo’d a half-dozen of my songs in a motel room in Boulder with the guitar tech who had Pro Tools on his laptop,” Nicolay shares. “I pitched them to The Hold Steady, but then ultimately left the band, so I took them with me.
Nicolay wrote much of “Luck & Courage” while touring his first solo record, ’09’s “Major General.”
“Then in the fall of last year, I was on a solo tour supporting Mark Eitzel of American Music Club and we were in Manchester, staying at this house that’s sort of a legendary rock crash pad that has a piano and a bunch of rooms for the bands that come through. I had a day off and the place all to myself; I spread out and had my headphones on and guitar out, and all in one day, all these lyrics came together to this collection of songs I’d been working on. That was the first day I thought ‘wow, this is what my record’s going to sound like.’ It was a really cool feeling.”
In the meantime, Nicolay had met Keller during the making of his friends’ record, the NYC rock band Demander’s album, Future Brite. “I was just blown away by how good that record sounded, and I knew I wanted to try to do something with Jim,” he notes. “So I came in here and we demo’d the vocals on those existing songs and banged out a couple more that I’d written in the meantime and lived with those for awhile before we officially started the record.”
Keller, meanwhile, set out to find the right studio in which to record Nicolay and band as a group and to capture the desired sound. They ended up at Excello Recording in Williamsburg to track basics. “It’s a great, huge live room with two or three huge windows,” says Keller of Excello. “And we came away with really good sounds. We tracked 11 songs in two days. Everyone was very well rehearsed and getting good sounds in that room was easy. The assistant, Nathan Rosborough, was also really great.”
Keller captured a lot of “room” in the basic tracking sessions. “I put up a lot of different room mics, which is something I usually do when tracking a band,” he explains. “You get all the close mics and the main mics on the drums sounding good, and then you add the fun mics. You never know what you’ll get — especially in a room you haven’t worked in before — so I’ll put mics up in a couple random spots.
“This time, I took Excello’s old RCA 77, ran it through their Altec tube amp and just smashed it. Sometimes you’ll get something that could be just perfect to be featured in one section of the song.”
Keller made an exciting technical discovery at Excello one night after everyone had left. “Excello has this old Calrec board from the BBC, and we didn’t use the pre’s in the board (I used their Neve sidecar and the API pre’s), but at the end of the day, when I was printing roughs of the monitor mixes, I patched a couple of the board compressors in. These Calrec DL 1656 compressors that I’d never used before are awesome. Now I’m totally on a search to find a pair that I can rack up!”
Nicolay and Jim Keller listening back to “Luck & Courage” mixes at Keller’s studio in Brooklyn.
After capturing the band sound at Excello, including drums, bar room-sounding upright piano, banjo, bass and guitar, Keller and Nicolay booked a couple days at Water Music in Hoboken to record strings, Hammond A100 organ, group vocals and grand piano. “We took the doors off of the piano booth there and put some room mics out in that big live room,” Nicolay points out.
Keller reflects on his spacious production approach: “The way sound behaves in a room is what makes a record exciting, which is what I hear when I listen to old records that I like. Spot- and close-miking things is great, but you don’t give the sound a chance to work around the room and build up its energy. When you put up a lot of mics in different places and you keep the pre’s pretty wide open, you bring those up in a mix and it’s like all of a sudden adding this energy to the track.”
“For the control and the dynamic element of the piano and drums, everything gets a spot mic, but the room mics are in almost all the way too,” he notes. “So you get the dynamic sense from the close mics and the sense of space and energy from the room mic.”
OVERDUBS & MIXING BACK IN BED-STUY
Nicolay’s commanding lead vocals were tracked at Keller’s studio back in Bed-Stuy. “We cut all the vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo, horns, cello and percussion here,” Keller explains, pointing back from the control room area to a small, glass-doored room he uses for overdubs.
On the day of our visit, Keller was mixing with hopes to finish before Nicolay left on tour with Against Me! He’d be out with the band all summer. “I’ve been a fan and friend of Against Me! for years so I’m excited to go on tour with them,” says Nicolay, who’s also been a member of the Brooklyn-based cabaret-punk collective, World/Inferno Friendship Society. “Plus, it’s coming at the right time — basically, the Against Me tour is paying for this record! (laughs)”
Keller in the zone.
Prior to mixing, Keller had been having technical problems with the automation on his Amek Big 44 console and, ultimately, decided to mix the record in Logic.
“I’d been thinking about what would be the most efficient way to mix this record,” explains Keller. “I like faders, but the last two records I’ve done, I’ve mixed in Logic to surprising (for me) results! To the point where I’m second-guessing my setup here — do I even need this console and all this stuff?”
He continues: “For me, it’s all about the workflow. And I’ve gotten this thing down to where mixing in Logic is really fast.”
As for the sonic processing palette inside Logic, Nicolay offers, “I’ve always been super impressed by the plug-ins that are bundled with Logic.” To that, Keller adds, “Yeah, and I’m using all stock plug-ins. The only thing I’m running out for is to go through my SSL clone compressor, a couple of dbx 160x’s and a 1/4″ tape machine for tape delay, but, for example, the Logic Silver compressor is great. It’s all really useable stuff, right there. I don’t need to buy thousands of dollars of plug-ins — it’s just not necessary for me.”
We’ll have to sweat out the rest of the summer before hearing anymore of Luck & Courage — Nicolay expects the record will come out sometime this Fall. After a spin of another album track, the horn-heralded lament, “My Criminal Uncle,” it seems Felix and Adelita’s star-crossed fate is sealed, and we are left captivated, wanting more.
Germano Studios, located in Noho, has been a total hot-spot these last few months. A rundown of recent sessions at the studio provides a nice snapshot of some of the big pop records in the making in NYC right now.
Songwriter-producer Ryan Tedder, of OneRepublic, has been writing/producing new material with BC Jean and Sky Ferreira at Germano Studios in Noho.
Other sessions in Studio 2 include: Marc Anthony recording vocals with Christian Baker engineering, Justin Bieber writing for a new project as well as recording vocals for “Young Artists For Haiti” with Bob Ezrin producing and Baker engineering, and Twin Shadow mixing their new album with Grizzly Bear‘s Chris Taylor producing and mixing with engineer Jake Aron.
Jennifer Hudson worked on her new album at Germano, writing and recording with producer-writer Harvey Mason Jr. and engineer Andrew Hey, and Jazmine Sullivan was in session with producer-writer Lamb, Missy Elliot and engineer Paul Falcone. Finally T.I. recorded vocals for his new album with Kevin Porter engineering.
And Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers recently held two special invitation 5.1 playbacks of their soon-to-be-released new album, Mojo, produced by Petty, Mike Campbell and Ryan Ulyate, at Germano Studios. Mojo is due out June 15 and will be released by Warner/Reprise Records.
Germano Studios features two control rooms, each equipped with 48-channel SSL Duality consoles and Pro Tools HD4, and each with corresponding live rooms. For more information, full equipment list and photos visit http://www.germanostudios.com.
BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN: New York City still has its temples of mastering – Sterling Sound and Masterdisk among them. But one that’s gone and is still missed is Sony: The spirited mastering complex there hosted a dozen or so of the world’s top mastering engineers there at its peak.
Today, Sony Mastering is a memory, but its alumni – scattered throughout NYC and the world – continue to make an impact on the audio world. One of very last people to be promoted to full mastering engineer there was Kevin Blackler, who is now building on the Sony tradition in his Brooklyn-based practice. At Blackler Mastering, the expertise of the masters he learned from can be heard clearly in his work.
Kevin Blackler is flying this ship.
“I think I hear differently than most people,” says Blackler, whose recent credits include Prodigy, Paul Oakenfold, Plies, The Metropolitan Opera, The Hymns, and organ genius Joey DeFrancesco. “I’ve worked so hard to create a great listening environment at Blackler Mastering, because I’ve learned from the best. At Sony there were 12 different mastering rooms, 12 different engineers and 12 opinions. I was able to take something away from each one of them, and create my own recipe from all those flavors: One guy is all-digital, another is all-analog. No one else has the education that I got while I was there.”
On the border of the bohemian Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Bushwick, Blackler’s room matches the dimensions and elite gear choices of his suite at Sony, making him the go-to mastering engineer for the myriad local artists as well as international acts. Within his George Ausperger-designed mastering room, purchased directly from Sony Studios and transplanted to Brooklyn, are Custom Dunlavy SCIV monitors, Stax SRM 32311 Ear speakers, Massenburg Design Works MD3 EQ, and an Otari MX 50-50 tape machine.
“Being able to trust what you’re hearing is the essential element of mastering,” Blackler says. “Converters are one important part of the equation. My D/A’s are the first thing the music touches coming out of Pro Tools HD, and after my analog chain it’s back to the converters on the A/D side. The imaging that I get from my LavryBlue converters, for example, is a little bit wider, the upper mids are a little smoother, and they have a touch more bass presence than other converters I’ve heard. Although what I capture with it is extremely accurate, they have a smoothness and an EQ curve that’s apparent and natural.”
In the spirit of sharing, Blackler offers up a couple of choice mastering tips that he’s honed. “You have to figure out which bass frequencies will really help the music,” he notes. “For straight bass, 60 Hz and 80 Hz is where to look. If you want to get more bass and also raise the vocal level, 100 Hz is the perfect place to boost it. After the raise there, the area around 120 Hz and 220 Hz can get muddy, so I’ll cut around there to compensate.”
A mastering engineer who also makes the time to jam out live on keyboards with other musicians, Kevin Blackler loves nothing more than being immersed in music. “I like being engulfed in sound onstage,” he says. “When I’m in my mastering suite, I’ll close my eyes and imagine that people are performing the record in front of me.” – David Weiss
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN: Since Auto-Tune The News #1 hit back in April ’09, the series’ creators — the Brooklyn-based Gregory Brothers — went from being a young, indie-soul band with a new EP to an overnight Internet sensation. Done in a format they call “news opera,” Auto-Tune The News (ATTN) is web-video-musical series created using Auto-Tune (and other less ubiquitous tools) to process vocal clips from the news into full-on musical performances, à la T-Pain.
“The Gregory Brothers” (l-r) Andrew, Evan, Michael and Sarah Gregory
The latest installment, ATTN #8, actually features T-Pain himself, who — in effect — duets with Michael Gregory and Katie Couric.
“Turns out T-Pain actually has a really nerdy sense of humor just like us,” says Michael, the youngest Gregory Brother, whose musical exploration of the presidential debates via YouTube laid the groundwork for ATTN.
“T-Pain saw the videos and wanted to collaborate with us. Here we thought he might even have beef with what we were doing, but I guess he sees it as imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.”
While The Gregory Brothers’ brand of blue-eyed soul music showcases their impressive R&B chops and affinity for Stax and Motown records, ATTN shows an entirely other side of this family band, one that’s hopped up on beats, hooky-electro melodies and vocoded rap-singing silliness. Via audio/video trickery, the Gregory Brothers and stand-out singer Sarah Gregory (wife and sis-in-law) appear in these news mash-ups alongside an unknowing cast of characters, including Katie Couric, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow.
WORKING WITH THE BEST UNINTENTIONAL SINGERS
The Gregory Brothers are constantly writing music and making beats to fuel ATTN tracks. The video work, editing news footage and their own video antics in Final Cut Pro, is ongoing as well. “We keep an eye out for crazy news pieces,” says Michael. “But non-crazy stories also have a place in our songs, and can even be more humorous if the unintentional singers are talented because the mundane becomes epic (i.e. Ron Paul’s “Ya Gotta Believe In It” chorus of Episode #3.)”
“Unintentional Singers” are the newsmen, pundits and politicians whose sound-bites become the featured vocals in these songs. It’s not just anyone that can be Auto-Tuned so musically. Evan Gregory describes, “The better a speaker you are, the better an unintentional singer. Like Joe Biden — he’s so emotionally invested and energetic; his words are protracted and drawn out. We’re able to work it to music really well.”
With powerful speakers and inspirational speeches, Auto-Tune can work wonders, notes Andrew Gregory. “Probably the greatest performance of an unintentional singer is Martin Luther King Jr. Michael did a treatment of his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. It works really well because the words are so lyrical and it’s written almost in a song structure, with refrains that build.”
In comparison, Katie Couric is, perhaps, an unlikely ATTN star. “Katie Couric is great,” says Michael. “She speaks with a lot of clarity. There’s a natural cadence, a rhythm to her voice, as opposed to, say, Bill O’Reilly. I thought I could make it work with him, but he just sounded awful.”
See Joe Biden and a Katie Couric-Evan Gregory duet featured in Auto-Tune The News #5:
To produce these tracks, Evan and Michael lay the musical foundations in Logic and then swap ideas regarding enhanced bass lines, auxiliary percussion and integrating more interesting production elements. “It eventually blooms into something beautiful, although there’s a lot of McDonald’s mixing going on to pump out episodes quickly,” Michael notes.
Millions have viewed ATTN on YouTube, and in the last few months, the Gregory Brothers have appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show and MTV’s It’s On with Alexa Chung. “It’s been gratifying to get phone calls from folks in the TV and music businesses,” says Evan. “The video series has been driving a lot of new fans to our original music, and some of those fans are industry types.”
Releasing their Meet The Gregory Brothers EP amidst the early ATTN buzz in June, the band felt the side-project boosting their music careers almost immediately. “We had our record release show like a month after ATTN went viral, and there were definitely a bunch of people there singing along to our songs who wouldn’t have otherwise known about us,” says Michael. “There’s no denying that it’s brought more people to our band website and shows.”
Sales, too, of the EP and ATTN tracks, have ranked high on the online music store Amie Street. And they’ll continue to cross-promote. “We’re planning on using Auto-Tune The News to continue getting exposure for our other projects,” says Evan. “We have a number of shows coming up this Fall. And, Andrew’s just finished recording an album that’s in post-production right now and we’re all super-excited about that.”
“It’s almost a compositional project for me,” Andrew describes. “Because I’ve written these songs for Sarah to sing on; some of them, she’s the lead vocal and some are duets. It also features some of the players from The Welcome Wagon band.”
Fullen also has a band, Sarah & The Stanley’s — featuring her husband, Evan, on keys. They may be headed into the studio next. And in the meantime, there’s really no shortage of material for AutoTune The News. Stay tuned!
Twitter @autotunethenews to keep up with these guys.
MIDTOWN WEST, MANHATTAN: Yoko Ono, Nellie McKay, Scissor Sisters and Amazing Baby recently made records at Sear Sound, a NYC recording treasure owned and run by analog guru and purveyor of “good sound,” Walter Sear and favored by sonically discriminating artists such as Sonic Youth, Bjork, Wilco, Jim O’Rourke and Marianne Faithfull.
McKay recorded and mixed her new record, a self-produced retrospective of Doris Day hits, in Sear’s Studio A. The record, Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day will be released through Universal Music Group / Verve Records. Renowned jazz engineer James Farber (Bill Frisell, Dave Holland, John Scofield) tracked and mixed the album on the Neve 8038 with Flying Faders.
Scissor Sisters recorded for their next album in Studio A with producer Stuart Price, aka Thin White Duke and Jacques Lu Cont and member of Zoot Woman. Sear Sound’s Chris Allen engineered. The group used Apple Logic interfaced with the Neve 8038.
Bjorn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn and John, produced Anna Ternheim‘s new record, Leaving on a Mayday (released this week on Universal) in Sear’s Studio A as well. They captured Ternheim’s atmospheric acoustic music on tape — tracking to 2” RMGI tape on the Studer A827 machine and mixed down to 1/2″ on the ATR 102 2-track machine. Lasse Marten engineered the sessions.
Sear Sound regulars Sean Lennon and Yuka Honda booked Studio C to produce a new record by Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, called Between My Head and the Sky, to be released next month on Chimera Music. They tracked and mixed the record with Chris Allen on the Sear-Avalon console, an entirely Class-A 60-input console with Flying Faders, loaded with 48 custom-built Avalon M3 mic pres and 48 E3 Class-A parametric equalizers.
In addition to the custom-made Sear-Avalon analog console, classic Neve and tape machines, Sear Sound contains racks and racks of meticulously maintained vacuum tube equipment, a microphone collection that has to be seen to be believed, and the very first commercial Moog synthesizer (pictured). Sear designed modular synths and theremins with Bob Moog when they were grad school comrades at Columbia.
Going back a few months, Brooklyn-based psych-rock band, Amazing Baby made their record, Rewild, in Studio A, with Claudius Mittendorfer engineering and the ban’s bass player Don Devore producing. Devore, formerly of Ink & Dagger, The Icarus Line and Lilys, also co-produced a record by his other band, The Historics, with Mickey Madden of Maroon 5, and engineer T.J. Doherty mixed it in Studio A to 1/2″ Quantegy GP9 on the ATR 102 2-track machine.
And, Studio ‘C’ hosted tracking sessions for music by Philip Glass for an upcoming film Mr. Nice. Hector Castillo engineered and Michael Riesman produced, while Sear’s Chris Allen, Tom Gloady and Ted Tuthill assisted on the large ensemble tracking date.
Other recording sessions at Sear Sound in recent months featured French artists Hugues Aufray — in with producer Phillipe Rault and Jay Newland (Norah Jones, Missy Higgins, Ayo) engineering — and Okou — also tracking with Newland and producer J.P. Allard. Sherman Irby and Lizz Wright also tracked at Sear Sound with Newland, and Sony Japan artist Keiko Lee recorded with Newland and jazz pianist Kenny Barron producing. Flying Machines worked at Sear with producer/engineer Mickey Petralia for Cornerstone Promotion, Dick Annegarn was in with Tom Schick engineering and Vincent Frerebeau producing and The Kings of France tracked in Studio ‘A’ with Gary Maurer, of HEM, producing and engineering.
