The Studio Termite.........

Here is the assistant.



Mr Shadow McDermitt Termite.

Peters Acoustic Session.

Peter Peters on the Gibson J160e.

Both Peter and I were blown away by the gorgeous tone that we got last night off the J160e.
It was really nice.
Peter put a rhythm track on song #3 and a scratch track on the new song #8. That's correct, song #8!. One more song to go, some editing and comping and Peters album will be off to the Mastering Engineer.

I used my Beyerdynamic M130 Ribbon microphone direct to the API pre. Its amazing how much more gain the ribbon mics take compared to others. The API was almost wide open! but what a wonderful sound. Ribbon mics don't add anything to the sound, just nice full and accurate. I find the condenser and dynamic mics make the acoustic guitar sound exaggerated in the higher frequencies and I end up having to pull it down with an EQ. So far with the ribbon mic I have not touched the EQ. Really nice.

So, no sessions booked tonight. So that means I will be working on my stuff.
Saturday afternoon is a session with Tina Cartwright and Sunday again with Peter.

Reminds me what a "friend" used to say to me when I told him I was recording local talent.
" Your waisting your time!"
What an idiot.
Hey, its my Blog, I can write whatever I want.

Too much fun.

Huge Drums.......

Drum session with Ossie Bowe last night.

Ten microphones on one drum kit!!

What a night. Ossie has a project that he is working on. Its an album for a local band. At least one of the songs has programmed drums, I'm not sure if all do. Ossie was not happy with the drums and wanted to put real drums on the track.

So last night I set the room up with nine mics all over the drum kit.
Of course when Ossie arrived he added one more in a special (secret)position.
After an hour or so of tweaking and setting the mics we started tracking.
Awesome sound! Ossie completely took full advantage of my room. The drums sounded big and punchy. The drummer that Ossie brought is a church drummer who's name escapes me, did a great job.
All in all it was a great experience and I learned allot of techniques that I will be putting into practice. However, I am still not a fan of using a million microphones on a drum kit. Four or five is more than enough unless you are going for a specific effect, IMO.

Tonight.

Acoustic guitar with Peter Peters.

This is going to be great. I love recording guitars, especially acoustic.
Peter has a rhythm track to do for one song and an intro and bridge to do for another.
He will be using my lovely Gibson 160e. I will mic the guitar with a single Beyerdynamic M130 Ribbon mic into my Grace 101 mic pre. I will also run it into the Lucas tube EQ, just because I can.
Peter also wants to try another vocal run on one of the first three songs if we have time.

So much music, so little time.

2 Ready to go...............

Peter Peters has two songs ready to Master.

Peter and I spent Sundays session comping and editing songs #1 and 2.
They are done and they sound awesome.
Now I will start mixing song #3.
Peter says there will be 9 songs in total and he wants the album done by X-Mas. Should not be a problem. He is going to be blown away when he hears these songs after they are Mastered.

We now have 2 songs ready for drums and bass, hopefully we will be tracking them by this weekend.

Tina Cartwrights session was on Saturday.
She brought her brand new Yamaha Motif keyboard. It sounds incredible, her music has just gone up a couple levels with that.
We re-tracked a song that she is working on and it sounds awesome.
When she gets the structure worked out on this we will be ready to put drums on it then have Adrian come and put bass on her first 3 songs.

Moving along.

On Saturday morning I put the first scratch guitar and vocal tracks to a new song that I am working on. "Mr. Jones", one of the 3 songs that I wrote when I was on vacation in Abaco.
Its gonna be great, Peter listened to it last night and made a few suggestions on the structure. I agree with him and will hopefully be working on it this evening.

Peter is booked for Tuesday and Thursday this week.


Progress is fun.

The Countdown is On.........

SpookiFish " Thursdays Paper"

My proofs were finally approved yesterday afternoon.

The first SpookiFish release is on its final stage. Duplication and art work printing. The folks at Nationwide said it would take about 20 days. We shall see.

I am putting this EP together for two main reasons.

Firstly, ITS ABOUT TIME!!!!,
Time to make that next step, time to throw my soul out to the Lions and see what comes back. Time to give some people including some professionals a copy so that I can get an honest critique, good or bad so that I will have a better idea of what I need to work towards. All that said I am proud of what I have accomplished and really look forward to doing more. Thanks to everyone that helped.

Second. I wanted to go though the whole process of recording, mixing, getting it Mastered, getting artwork done, getting all the printing and duplication done so that if and when a client wants it I will be able to give some first hand advice. And let them see and hear a finished product.

Its really nice now that I have had a finished Mastered copy for a couple weeks to listen to. I feel that I know what direction I want to go in with my music. Its almost like stepping outside and looking in. You hear it from a new perspective. I can only see my work getting better and better.

I can't wait!

Vocals, Keys and Proofs....

Another productive session with Peter Peters last night.

We started with guide vocals for 2 newer songs, all went well.

Then onto some Keyboards, this time with a little different twist.
Peter has this ancient Yamaha keyboard that he loves the sound of. To me it sounds so so at best. We were running the left and right output directly into the API pres.
Last night I had an idea. The sound that Peter was using is a Hammond B3 type sound. Instead of running the signals direct I took the left mono signal and ran it into a low watt Fender guitar amp with a 12" alnico speaker. I miked it with an SM57 then into an API. It was glorious! so much nicer than going direct. The Fender amp gave the keyboard a nice round warm sound. It was great!
I will be experimenting more with this.

I am now in the process of proofing my new album cover with the CD duplicators.
It is truly a pain but I would much rather catch the mistakes now before they are all printed and shipped.
It looks like I will not be getting the albums shipped until the beginning of October. Oh well

LA DE DA.

Rhodes & Keys,Thunder & Lightning.

Peter Peters a couple weeks ago working it out on my lovely 1979 Mark 1 Rhodes Electric Piano.

I love the sound of this instrument, everyone that gets on it loves it.

Recently I have been running it through the 60's Ampeg jet with a touch of chorus and reverb.

My mic of choice for the Rhodes is a vintage EV RE15 that I won on ebay out of Canada.

Really great tone.

Sundays session was cut short by an electrical storm that came out of nowhere.

Even though I have all kinds of surge protection, nothing really helps against a lightning strike.

However we still got lots done.

Top picture.

Peter brought his ancient Yamaha Keyboard and we ran tracks on 2 songs. The Yamaha actually sounds quite nice going through the DI's of the API3124 mic pre's, nice and phat.

The first song was song #1 that I had spent the morning mixing. Peter was blown away by the mix. He put some finishing touches with the keyboard that I will mix in tonight then that song is done. I should have song #2 mixed by the time he returns on Wednesday evening.

Hmm, I have to return the Prototype Lucas Microphone this week to Compass Point Studios.

Much Thanks to Terry Manning.

Lets see......Oh yeah!

The mastering Engineer will be sending the Masters on Monday.
Soon as I get them I will forward them to the duplicators along with the artwork.
So hopefully before the end of this month I will have my first album!
What am I going to do with it?
Anything?
Nothing?
Bla bla blee?

Peter Peters is coming back on Sunday to continue his quest.
We had a session last night. We worked on 2 guitar tracks and did a little comping.

Tommy Goodwin stopped by to say hello and pick up his guitar and amplifier.
He says he will be on the island for a couple weeks, so I'm sure I will be seeing more of him. Hopefully he can get his drummer to come and finish the song we started a few months back.

Tomorrow I will begin mixing the first 3 songs of Peters. Peter will decide later if he will go with my mix or get someone else to do it. Either way I think he will be using the same Mastering Engineer that I used for my 5 songs. I am still quite impressed.

T G I F !!!!

Peter Peters an da 5 Masters

Tuesday night.

Another very productive session with Peter Peters.
We did vocals on 2 of his newer songs that are now ready for drums and bass.
The reggae song I really think we got the final vocals. Peter loves the Lucas prototype mic and I had the signal dialed in just right.
He has one more song to re-do guide/scratch guitar tracks then we will call in the drums and bass.
Its gonna be good.

My Masters are done!

I got the final 2 masters yesterday for approval. I approved. They all sound incredible.
Tom Waltz of Waltz Audio, http://www.waltzaudio.net/ did an incredible job and I will use him again.
We decided on the song order and Tom will FedEx the PMCD redbook reference and master copies.
I already have the album covers and credits done, and have paid for the duplication. So as soon as the masters arrive I will send them to the duplicators and in about a week or so I will have my brand new EP copies. This will be a first for me, I am very excited.

Busy Busy Busy............

Great weekend !

Saturday morning I was in the Studio at 7am. I emerged after 4pm that afternoon.

5 of my songs mixed and edited and ready to be sent to the Mastering Engineer. It was a major decision to draw the line on when to stop tweaking these songs because they are really never finished and I can go on forever trying to make them sound better.

But its done! The Fat Lady has sung, No Regrets.

The first song that I sent is called "Dennis". The engineer sent back a 1.30 minute sample of the song and asked for my opinion and whether he should make changes. It sounds perfect to me but I will listen to it on a few more sound systems before I commit.

I never realised how important Mastering is until the very moment that I heard my newly Mastered song being played back.
Fantastic sound! Nice and smooth, perfectly balanced, not only left and right but also dimension and frequencies. The song sounds like a real professional finished product ready for radio play.

The Mastering Engineer said that he can hear a Pink Floyd influence in my music!

I am a happy camper.


Sunday.

Peter Peters session went great.

I dialed in the Lucas prototype microphone a few hours before he arrived. When he spoke into the mic he had a big grin on his face. He said he thought he could hear his heart beating!

After the first track on the vocals for song #3 it was obvious that we were dialed in properly this time. Peter commented how effortless it was to sing into the mic. 3 takes and we were done. 1/2 hour later we had a finished vocal comped from the 3 takes and moved on to the next task at hand.

We went back to the #1 song, Peter wanted to hear all the guitar solo tracks that I had done a rough solo comp from. We spent some time and created an awesome solo for the song. Hopefully its the final solo.

Tuesday we have another session. Vocals and keyboards. The plan is to have 3 more songs ready for the drummer and bass player to come in and do their thing.

Wont be long when these songs will also be going out for Mastering.

Rock n Roll......................

Comping over here............

..........and comping over there.

2 songs comped last night with Peter Peters.
Vocals, guitars, keyboards all done. Time to mix.

Peter has decided to increase his sessions to 3 times a week. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursdays.

We got a really incredible sounding guitar track on song #2 thanks in part to Gavin Knowles elcheapo Fender Blues Jr. What a great sounding little amp. I have heard a couple of the vintage low watt Gibson amps that cost a fortune and this thing easily blows them away and its reliable. Dont believe all the hype about vintage gear, its just people getting rid of their garbage. Think about it, if you had a great sounding nice old amp would you sell it? If you had a troublesome old un-reliable bad sounding amp would you sell it, especially if there was a market full of morons that swallowed all the hype and were willing to pay outrageous prices sight un-seen? Sorry for the rant but hey, its my blog.

Thanks again Gavin!

BTW, I miked the Fender amp with an SM 57 > cheap Rapco cable > API3124 pre.

So, Sunday is vocals on song #3. We comped the guitar and keyboards on that song last night and it really does sound great. Its really nice to be able to hear these thing grow from a sketchy idea into a full blown song.


Tonight if I have time I will warm up the Lucas CS-? that Mr. Manning leant me. I want to experiment with compression and EQ settings before Sunday.

Saturday morning will be spent doing the final edits on my 5 songs to be sent away for mastering, and I think that I have a session with Tina Cartwright on Saturday afternoon.
Hmm, Tina should have her new keyboard!!!!! Lovely.


Creation is fun.

Good to have Friends.

After talking with Peter Peters about song #3 we decided it would be best to redo the vocals on that song.

This is the first time I have recorded and attempted to mix this type song so I put up a question on ProSoundWeb Forum for suggestions.

As usual I get lots of great answers from Pros from all over the world.
Mic placement, compression, EQ, Mic patterns. All kinds of techniques to try.

Then to top it all off, I get a phone call at work from Terry Manning at Compass Point Studios!!
He asked me a couple questions then offers to lend me a new prototype Lucas CS-? microphone that he thinks would do well in this situation. Of course I accept the offer and go pick up the mic from Compass Point after work. Mr. Manning is a really cool humble guy. I feel extremely privileged.

So, Peter Peters decided that tonight will be editing and some Rhodes tracks and we will do vocals on his Sunday session. He is also very excited to try the New Lucas Microphone.

This whole recording thing just keeps getting better and better, and to think that I had a Friend that kept telling me that I was "wasting my time". What a moron!
Ever time I go into the studio I learn something. Every session is different and they all have different challenges. As far as I am concerned its not possible to waste time as long as I am trying to achieve something.

I love it!

Up an runnin.......

Yes man!

The great Mr. Ossie Bowe came by last night.
Less that an hour and I was up and running again.
For some reason the patch bay was switched to 1/2 normal instead of normalled so I was getting a loop. I have no idea how it was working before we did the move? Ghost in the Machine.

Anyhoo, now its time to finish my 5 songs for Mastering.
This should not take much time as everything else is pretty much done with the mixes. Just got to get the vocals treated properly and seated nicely in the mix.

This is going to be exciting.