Sonic Valentine

Scott and Ben talk about control surfaces including the D-Command and the Presonus Fader Pack, also a shootout of UA’s new 1073 plug and a real 1073.  Also featured is the Guitar God of Myspace – Bobby.

Sonic Valentine – Episode #3 from The Sonic Fedora on Vimeo.

I apoligize for no entry last night.  Turns out in Louisianna you can buy hard liqour at the local grocery store.  Also turns out they make premixed White Russians… and it is cheaper than a bottle of Kahlua.  Thus last night ended drunken on Tony’s couch.  Plus the Big Labowski was on… oh the irony.

Yestereday was fairly uneventful.  On friday we cut two songs.  Well today we got four.  The band has really been working their asses of.  Dan and I are asking a lot out of everyone.  We have been taking songs that they have been playing the same way for years and making them relearn everything in… umm… twenty minutes.

Keep in mind that all but one of these guys have day jobs, i.e. not professional musicians.  But they are coming through like gang-busters.  Dan and I have also realized that we are not going to be getting the tones that we are used to.  Thus, they must be cool tones, have purcinality and character, and they must sound professional.  Unfortunately we are not in a real recording studio.  We are in a room… that sounds like crap.  I have really had to work to get good tones.  I don’t have an eqs available, and the only compression I have is 2 1176s and the compactor.  Right now I am just trying to make everything as clean as possible, unless of course we are going for something dirty.
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Let me start by saying that I just got done swimming in Tony’s salt-water pool. The one great thing about New Orleans is that while it is hot, the pools are consistently at a perfect temperature. Oh so refreshing!!

Day two started off as expected. Dan and I get to the studio and chit chat a bit while waiting for the band to arrive. Along comes the drummer Randy and lead singer Michael. We start to set up Randy’s drums and begin the arguous task of becoming comfortable enough around one another to create “art”. Dan and I had requested that they buy all new heads for the drums preferably Remo Coated Ambassadors. Well… I think that Randy thought his kick drum didn’t count. Not only did his beautiful DW 24” kick sound like crap but Randy liked the way that it sounded.
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So these posts are gonna be a day or two late.  But I will try and keep them as up to date as possible.

I am typing this blog sitting on a friends floor (in I think his daughter’s bedroom… everything is pink) in Mandeville, Louisiana.  Why am I in Mandeville?  Well… it sure seemed like a good idea.  Who knows… it is too early to tell if it was a good idea or not.  What idea you ask?

About a month or so ago I was doing some mastering with Dan Baird and he mentioned that he might have some mix work for me.  He was going to do a record for a friend recorded in a warehouse down in New Orleans.  Well I had never been to NOLA… and I have hated myself for it cause it seemed like it was amazing and will never be the same.

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JBL 4328 Powered Monitors

Every engineer starts to worry about his or her monitoring situation.  There will inevitably come a day when you wonder if your are not hearing everything that you need to hear, thus producing bad mixes.  This time came for me about six months ago.  I had been monitoring with a trusty pair of Yamaha NS-10s and a pair of Audix A-1s.  Both great passive monitors but both left me wondering about what was really going on in my mixes.  The NS-10s never had enough low-end will the Audix’s always had too much.  What I needed was a powered set of speakers that were close to full range and didn’t cost me an arm and leg.

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