Recently did some wonderful tracking with Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Brazilian guitarist extrodinaire, at Mavericks Studio, NYC for Zoho Records. This is going to be a real treat, as he recreates some of the great songs of Brazil’s golden 1960s. For the tone-geeks, classical guitarists are as in tune with tone as any guitar player, maybe more so. Such intensely developed technique to get the tone happening, and then we go an put a mic on it and run it though a preamp, so the choices and placements are really key here. We found an 87 to be too harsh, and ended up with a Royer 121 to keep the tone more natural and 3D. Ribbon mics are just so great when tracking to digital, espeically when there are vocals, cymbals or othere swishy high-end sounds involved.
Sarah Tolar’s beautiful new record is mastered and off to the plant for pressing! I produced the vocals at Mavericks Studio in Manhattan, and mixed the record at The Farm in Brooklyn. Look for this one soon!
My Brooklyn mixing and overdub room, The Farm, just went through some major upgrades, including a new Pro Tools HD system, which will run on Lynx Aurora and Cranseong HEDD192 converters, with monitoring controlled by Dangerous Audio, all powered with a new Equi=Tech balanced power system.
I mixed a song by Yerba Buena with producer Andres Levin that will be part of the soundtrack for the TV show Heros. I mixed on an SSL AWS900 for this one, and I really dug working on this innovative console / work-surface. I keep thinking this board would be a wise investment for any mixer, but mixers don’t need all the preamps. However, it’s a very intuitive piece of kit, and it’s integration into Pro Tools is seemless and brilliantly executed. Way ahead of the curve here, as any console would be improved if it could, with the flick of a switch, become a control surface for the DAW on hand.
Tracked the Spanish band Cabriolet at Mavericks, with Andres Levin producing — a lot of fun tracking the live band in the open room. Got to put on my drum-tech hat and really work hard with the killer Craviotto drums at Mavericks to get some of my favorite drum sounds to date.