The Wilburland Blog

The secret

2010-11-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

The secret to a good music recording is, and always has been a good performance. Helping you capture a good performance is what I do best here at Wilburland.

Joe Crookston!

2010-10-22T14:32:00.000-04:00

Doing rough mixes after 2 days of tracking with Joe Crookston and band. I'm smiling. A lot!

It Gets Better- Ithaca College

2010-10-15T11:27:00.000-04:00

WILBURLAND NEWS FALL 2010

2010-10-12T17:47:00.000-04:00

Want to know what Wilburland can do for you? Send me a song to mix or master and I will send you a sample of it back so you can hear for yourself. You’ll love the results!

Hmm, now, where were we? Oh, that's right, more Wilburland news!

Foghat bassist Jeff Howell has been in to spice up and rework some older recordings he did and they sound even better than they did originally, and that's saying something!

My new band crush, The Blind Spots had me master their latest CD “El Camino Dream” and I fell in love instantly. Good songwriting played by a good band and topped by the amazing vocal talents of Maddy Walsh. Go buy this one!

Alan Rose's CD "American Hands" was released with a multi-band extravaganza this summer, including Nick Bullock of Revision, The Fall Creek Brass Band, The Weeping Willards and ending with a new local band called Blow. What a night it was! Alan was smiling a lot that night…

I was asked to go to the Sonic Art Center at the City College of NY to give a talk on recording, owning a recording studio and winning a Grammy. Opportunities to talk with students always reminds me of how much I love what I do!

Dave Davies has been making music in this town for a long time and recently released a 30 year retrospective called “Downstream Where the River Meets The Sea” and wow, what a collection of songs and what a list of players! Thanks Dave!

Blues guitarist Steven Grills had me master a new collection of tunes for him and it was totally easy to polish up the great sounding tracks! Recorded by my friend Bob Potter, you should go find this CD!

Elmira's Gary Lash has been coming to Wilburland for a long time, and I love it. Gary spends way too much time in his room with a 4 track cassette recorder and brings me really weird but wonderful stuff to overdub and mix. Keep them coming Gary!

The Sim Redmond Band brought me new tracks to master, and yes, it was a piece of cake because the songs and mixes are awesome! The CD is called “Open The Door “and it should be on your IPod right now!

Laurie Hart and Stefhan Ohlström have been in a lot working on a cool CD of Swedish fiddle tunes called Scandinavian Fiddle Tradition. I love projects with super talent and interesting instruments and foreign music. Traditional regional tunes with fiddle, viola, and nyckelharpa, and oh yes, hurdy gurdy!

Wilburland was taken over by a film mix for the independent film Vito Bonofacci. 6 days later it looks and sounds awesome! Music for film is totally different than music for listening because no matter what, it's all about the picture and dialog. An interesting and wonderful challenge for sure!

Syracuse's 2 Hour Delay rocked their way through Wilburland and left quite an imprint! Led by singer/acoustic guitarist Tim Burns these guys have become one of my favorite projects this year. Really good songs, passionate vocals and some awesome electric guitar work. We're almost done!

Elmira College's Chiclettes came in for more a cappella madness! Big fun!

Also from Elmira College, the, uh, gentlemen of A1 and The Sauce made a 4 song demo recording!

George Mann will soon earn a plaque on the wall in the front bedroom for practically living here this past year. He released not only a benefit CD for veterans but also his own solo release “Songs For Jules and Bruce”. Check it out. It's good!

My other band crush this year is Mignarda. What can I say? Ron Andrico and Donna Stewart have captured my heart. They play early music for voice and lute and the depth and emotion in their playing is nearly overwhelming. I have learned a lot from them and we've made some stunning recordings together, most recently the incredible CD “harmonia caelestis”. You need to hear this. It will change you...

Regina O' Brien is proud to announce that she has finally released her second CD “Switchyard Lullabye”! Hooray!

Jimkata came in with producer Matt Saccuccimorano for recording and mixing their terrific new CD “Ghosts & Killers”. Don't be scared, just go buy it!

Mortal Combine are working slowly on finishing touches for their really good new CD of excellent roots rock tunes. I love this CD already and can't wait to finish it up!

Contradance mother/daughter team Confluence finished up mixing a bunch of kickin' dance tunes with the playful piano of mother, Barbara Dyskant and the amazing flute of daughter Nadine! Super nice stuff for your listening and dancing pleasure!

I've totally loved working with Mary Lorson on past projects but when I heard about her new band Mary Brett Lorson and The Soubrettes I wanted them in here! Well we have basic tracks down for a bunch of songs and me, Mary, Amelia and Leah had a blast! This will be good…

Laurie Hart came back in to record more Scandinavian fiddle tunes with Andrew Van Norstrand on guitar and bouzouki. Two of my favorite players in the same room! Um, wow!

IC trumpet professor Frank Campos dropped in to start work on an interesting recording where he plays single line versions of songs we all know, on trumpet! Cool, for sure!

Who knew that former Donna The Buffalo drummer Tom Gilbert was also a rocking guitarist? Well I know now because he came in to record some music for his upcoming web based fishing show. Way too much fun!

Horse Flies percussionist Taki Masuko brought longtime musical partner/jazz pianist Claire Ritter to Wilburland to overdub banjo and accordion tracks with fellow Horse Flies Richie Stearns and Rick Hansen. Do I need to tell you how it went?

I hooked classically trained vocalist Rebecca Leistikow up with multi-instrumentalist genius Dana Billings and the three of us recorded and mixed 3 awesome quirly pop songs of hers in a single afternoon. Think early Kate Bush/Joanna Newsome. Super fun! Real talent makes for awesome music!

Krystal City Crackdown spent the weekend rocking the heck outta the place and left with a sweet sounding demo!

Award winning and just generally amazing Joe Crookston will return to Wilburland soon to begin tracking for a new CD! This time he's bringing a band!

And last but certainly not least the fine gentlemen of the Delaney Brothers Bluegrass will return to Wilburland to record their third CD with me and I can't wait!

Whew!

If I may quote my friend Patti Witten again, Thanks for reading all the way down to HERE!

Check out the Wilburland Youtube channel!

2010-10-03T14:28:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/wilburguy

Tom Gilbert

2010-09-07T21:26:00.000-04:00

I leave 2 drummers alone for 5 min...

Amazing day with Tom Gilbert today at Wilburland! What fun, and what good music! Who knew Tom played guitar?

Eric Harvey in the studio!

2010-09-01T15:21:00.001-04:00

Eric Harvey in the studio today with Matt Saccuccimorano at the helm, Dana Billings on drums, Mike Stark on keys and Brian Dozoretz on bass!

2010-08-31T19:53:00.001-04:00

Final mix tweaks and mastering for 2 Hour Delay, then I spend the evening with Ithaca College trumpet professor Frank Campos!

George Mann tomorrow

2010-08-27T21:32:00.002-04:00

Working on vocals and mandolin overdubs with folksinger George Mann!

Polskas at Wilburland

2010-08-09T19:14:00.003-04:00

Spent the day editing and mixing great Swedish Polskas with Laurie Hart! Nickelharpa and fiddle, awesome!

Check out Laurie's site here

Intern blog

2010-07-11T14:40:00.001-04:00

http://wilburlandintern.blogspot.com/

2010-07-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

Rough mixes for Mignarda and mastering Regina O'Brien!

2010-06-30T14:29:00.000-04:00

today

2010-06-18T10:19:00.001-04:00

Mignarda recording today! Sonic bliss!

Vito Bonafacci

2010-05-22T08:20:00.001-04:00

SeSeven 14 hr days later the mix for the movie "Vito Bonafacci" is done!

2010-05-20T09:31:00.001-04:00

196 tracks of dialog, foley, sound effects, ambiences and music scored for the New Violin Family of insruments.

2010-03-03T21:02:00.000-05:00

WilburNews Winter 2010

Hi everyone!

We’ve been slammin’ busy here and of course I’m way behind on sending out the news!

The big amazing news in case you missed my plastering it everywhere I could think of is that the solo kora cd “Douga Mansa” that I recorded with kora master Mamadou Diabate WON A GRAMMY for best traditional world music recording! Mamadou was nominated for the first cd “Behmanka” which we recorded together in 2006 but winning this year is over the top!

The Weeping Willards will be releasing their awesome new album “Where There’s A Willard...” for free on June 18 from their Bandcamp site! Be sure to check it out!

Dave Davies has been writing, arranging and performing for several decades. He is almost done with a retrospective of original songs and arrangements called “Downstream” and you’ve just gotta hear it! My biggest problem with getting the mixes done is that I keep singing along...

Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand. Wow, what can I say? These 2 young men have quite simply blown me away! Awesome new songs, stunning performances and quite frankly, we all hit this one out of the ballpark! The new CD is titled “All The Good Summers” and trust me you want to get this!

Lutesong Duo Mignarda have made their home here and I couldn’t be happier! Wrist slitting ballads and medieval music played on lute and sung in French and Latin. I don’t understand a word of it and it doesn’t seem to matter. The emotion translates clearly and it’s hard not to be affected by this music. If you want to hear what these two are up to go buy their latest release “Au pres de Vous” and a box of tissues!

On her website it says that “Robin Blair has spent the last 20 years inviting children and their families to explore the arts as an expression of beauty and faith.” I’ve spent a lot of time with Robin, working both on her Common Good Radio and on a storytelling project with Ralph Singh, and I’m here to tell you that this description is totally right on. If faith and family are important to you you owe it to yourself to check her radio station on Live365.

Well, it seems that you simply can’t take 80s arena rock out of Kris Hadlock. We tried, but darn it he writes such awesome hooky 80s style songs that you can’t help smiling, pulling your lighter out and raising it high when each chorus comes around as you sing along! Check out his new cd “Your Wife’s Rock Band”

The lovely acoustic duo Littlewheel have finished their new cd “Honest Labor” and they should be proud! It sounds great and I hope you get a chance to hear it when they release it this spring!

Modern NYC Folksinger George Mann released a compilation of songs for Veterans called “Until You Come Home” and is just about done with his new CD “Songs For Jules and Bruce”. George has crafted a fine collection of songs here about topic we all hold dear to our hearts. This project started out good and has really grown on me!

Black Belt Blues came to spend the day kickin out some straight ahead old school blues. Nothing like the real thing!

Contra dance band Tunescape are ready to put the finishing touches on a great new cd of quirky and of course totally danceable tunes, featuring piano, flute, an accordion named Alfredo, fiddle and Nickelharpa! Produced by Andrew VanNorstrand, this CD should be in your collection whether you dance or not.

Another contradance band called The Contradictions have been playing together forever but don’t have a CD! So we are gonna fix that situation and mandolin player Rick Manning is finishing up some overdubs. Who knows, this CD might actually come out sometime!

A sweet duo named Hot Koko came in to record a holiday gift for their friends and family, including a mother/daughter version of the Cat Stevens classic “Father and Son”. What a nice present!

Brian Turner came in to sing and play trombone on a tune he recorded at home and I might as well have taken a spin in the musical time machine back to the day when The Tower Of Power ruled the airway! Wow! “I’ve got the Lube Room Blues, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh...”

Music doesn’t get much more “Ithaca” than the songs of Alan Rose. Alan has been supporting and studying the Ithaca music scene for over a decade and his upcoming CD is the delightful result of that research. With a band that consists of members of Kites In Space (formerly Seth Feldman), The Weeping Willards, The Hot Foot Club and The Sim Redmond band Alan weaves his way through stories of fun and everyday life and the results are sweet! I’m just about to start final mixing so look for a late spring release!

The Fall Creek Brass Band rocked Wilburland HARD when they dropped in with, well, a lot of BRASS! Really cool and fun arrangements and the chops to play them! I look forward to the next stage of this project that should involve some overdubs, and I imagine some surprises.

Laurie Hart and Stefhan Ohlström came in for round two of a project of region specific Swedish fiddle tunes. It’s been fun hearing the subtle yet significant difference in tunes from these different parts of the country. Now If I could only figure out where the one is...

The Destination wrote new lyrics for the old Beach Boys tune Kokomo and came up with Corkomo to promote the finger lakes wine industry. The hook is firmly set in my skull and no amount of listening to Megadeath seems to help!

Kevin Kinsella has teamed up with no other than Harry and Eric Aceto for a new CD of Kevin’s awesome songs! Watch out for this one folks! I’m not kidding!

Mike Callahan and Mortal Combine were in laying down some great basic tracks for a wonderful collection of songs. All of these songs sound like roots rock classics, really well written and played by a kickin band. I’m pretty psyched to continue work on this CD especially since the rough mixes sounded kinda like a finished album!

And then there was Funishment. What can I tell you? Blazing speed metal with some of the most provocative and offensive lyrics I’ve ever heard screamed, yet these 4 guys were perfect gentlemen at Wilburland and we had a blast. Oh yes, Phil, Beaner, Pookie and Oops will be back. You have been warned!

I had intended to finish this newsletter before Two Hour Delay came in but, oh well, I might as well tell you about the great weekend we just had recording 14 new songs and wow, what great tunes! Singer and acoustic guitarist Tim Burns sang his heart out and the band rallied, with a rock solid rhythm section and ripping electric guitar licks! Plus, it was Bob’s birthday...

From what I can see on the calendar, I’m not gonna get a break anytime soon...

If I may quote songwriter Patti Witten, “thanks for reading all the way down to here!”

2010-02-01T08:28:00.001-05:00

Mamadou Diabate's solo kora CD "Douga Mansa"
JUST WON A GRAMMY FOR Best Traditional World Music Album!

Recorded by Will Russell at Electric Wilburland.
www.mamadoukora.com
www.mamadoukora.com

A short video of Will Russell & Electric Wilburland

2009-01-27T09:18:00.004-05:00

The Flies Are Back!

2008-12-01T21:11:00.003-05:00

I did 2 HorseFlies gigs recently and wow. Just wow. Thursday 11/20 they played at The Corning Museum of Glass, and Saturday 11/22 at the wonderful Elk Creek Cafe in Millheim, PA.

The Corning gig was a hi tech extravaganza with a full light and video show. I got to mix the band on a new Yamaha digital console. But better than all that The HorseFlies played a great set.

But that was apparently just a set up for the stunning performance they did on Saturday night at the Elk Creek Cafe in Millheim, PA. The Elk Creek Cafe is a very cool cafe and micro-brewery kinda in the middle of nowhere, 25 miles from State College. The drive there was nice, the food delicious, and we stayed in a nice bed and breakfast. All really nice. BUT, the Flies freakin rocked! The room was sold out with folks young and old moving and churning to the HorseFlies grooves, and the band rallied, burning through fiddle/banjo grooves driven by Jeff's relentless uke, Taki's percolating world rhythms, Ricks pumping accordion and smoothly supported by Jay's awesome bass lines. Holy crap you guys! DO NOT MISS THE HORSEFLIES AT CASTAWAYS ON SAT DEC 13! THIS BAND IS ON FIRE!

Martin Simpson In Concert

2008-12-01T21:08:00.003-05:00

On Friday 11/21 I has the supreme pleasure of seeing my dear friend Martin Simpson play at the Unitarian church here in Ithaca. I will tell you straight up that if you were not there, you blew it. He was stunning.

I first met Martin in the early 90s when he was living here in Ithaca. He came to Wilburland to record a CD called When I Was On Horseback, which included the talents of cellist Hank Roberts, violinist Eric Aceto and bassist Doug Robinson. One of the best recording I've done. I also did another more blues oriented CD with him called Smoke and Mirrors.

The show was classic Martin Simpson. He played a perfect combination of instrumental fingerstyle, slide and vocal tunes, intermixed with wonderful stories. Martin was a stunning player when I met him and he has gotten even better. An amazing evening was had by all.

Rock Happens!

2008-10-28T07:09:00.003-04:00

Busy busy.

Wow, uh, ok, WAY too long since my last post. Here's what I've been up to.
I am continuing work with Pamela Goddard on what is turning out to be a wonderful follow up to her first CD "As Time Draws Near". Joining her are the sweet voices of Glass Of Water, fiddle and guitar from Kitchen Chair and other vocals from Jim Blake and even a cut with Diamonds In The Rough.

In contrast, the recent theme at Wilburland has been ROCK GUITARS! The Rochester band Hadlock has brought me tracks recorded in LA by Bob Kulick (know for his with with Kiss, etc) to finish recording and mix. Singer/guiratist Kris Hadlock has come down a a few sessions to record better lead vocal performances. Guitarist Richie Roccisano is replacing all the guitar leads in his home studio in Interkaken and then I get to mix it all! Yee Ha!

Richie's brother Michael has a cool heavy band called Seventh Son who recorded with Richie and brought the tracks for me to mix. The song Gone Forever came out great and can currently be heard on their myspace site (and mine) and on Sirrius Radio. I'll me mixing a few more for them soon.

Recording Mignarda

2008-10-02T12:38:00.005-04:00

Yesterday at Wilburland I had the supreme pleasure of spending the day with Ron Andrico and Donna Stewart of the duo Mignarda. They are wonderful folks and fine musicians, and we recorded a song with lute and voice. For those of you who don't know what a lute is, it is a guitarish looking stringed instrument with a deep round back and a sharply angled headstock. It is often associated with music from the early renaissance to late baroque periods. These folks have got an amazing thing going on. Ron plays with great dynamics and finesse and Donna's voice sounds, well, perfect!

We recorded the lute and voice together in one room hoping to record not only a natural sound but also to capture the natural dynamics of 2 people playing together, the connection that happens with two people in the same space. The challenge of course was to get the right balance of blend and separation between the two. I had Ron and Donna sit facing each other about 15 feet apart so they could see each other, but also so that the mics were facing away from the undesired sound, ie lute mics facing the lute and 180 degrees away from the voice. Of course in a reverberant space like Wilburland, which I made even more live by rolling up the rugs, there is both lute and voice reverberating in the room and a bit of this leaked into each mic helping to blend the 2 sounds on the recording. I initially had a tad more of Donna's voice in the lute mics than I wanted so I created a non reflecting wall behind Ron to stop her voice from bouncing off the wall behind and into the lute mic. Perfect!

For the lute I chose 2 old Neumann KM86 mics in a stereo configuration about 5 feet away from the instrument, and I miked Donna with a Klaus Heyne modified Neumann U87 about 18" away and slightly above her. All the mics went through Pendulum Audio MDP-1 tube mic preamps which I chose for their balance of articulation and richness. The resultant recording was just what we hoped for. I can't wait for you to hear it!

Mixing Big Leg Emma, Food Clothes and Shelter and The Sim Redmond Band

2008-09-21T19:01:00.010-04:00

Thursday night I went to the Rochester Armory to mix a favorite band of mine Big Leg Emma. I've been mixing these Jamestown roots rockers off and on now for several years and I had the pleasure of recording and producing a wonderful CD for them called The Color Of Wind several years back. They opened to another band of old friends Rusted Root who I worked with for several years in the mid 90s. It was really sweet to see Patrick, Michael and Liz after many years and of course Big Leg Emma rocked the house with their usual positive driving style.

Then I was back in Rochester at the Water Street Music Hall for a classic ITown event with ITown founder Kevin Kinsella The Sim Redmond Band. In case you haven't heard yet, Kevin knows how to put together a band and Food Clothes and Shelter just gets better each time I see them. and his kickin new band Food Clothes and Shelter, opening for Ithaca favorites

I do love mixing the The Sim Redmond Band, for all the reasons you all love to see them. Sweet folks making sweet music. Their positive vibe is totally infectious. Gentle afro/reggae grooves that just make you feel good and I get the same feeling when I mix them. They played a strong set mixing old and new songs to a full house. It's amazing how many people in the audience were singing along as they danced. That's love for ya!

Working with Littlewheel

2008-09-11T20:53:00.000-04:00

On wednesday at Wilburland I had the pleasure of doing a session with Art Godin and Joanna Green of the acoustic duo Littlewheel. These two play a kind of down home jazzy sort of music with thoughtful progressive lyrics played with acoustic guitar, fiddle and 2 wonderful voices. This session's agenda was to record basic guitar and vocal tracks for 2 songs. Their intention was to be able to add percussion and bass at a later time so playing to click track was essential to maintain a steady tempo to make the overdubs easier. Art came in a with nice preamp/EQ for his acoustic/electric guitar which we recorded through a Pendulum MDP-1 tube preamp, just the guitar and the click. We recorded the song on guitar 3 times beginning to end and then made a composite take of the best bits of the three. This is a very natural and intuitive way to get a really nice final take while maintaining the flow and emotion of the song. Then Art and Joanna recorded the vocals together using Neumann U87s through and Avalon 2022 mic preamp and a UREI 1178 compressor to help manage the transients. They sang the song twice and we again made a composite take of what parts best conveyed the emotion of the lyrics.

What we ended up with were 2 really solid and natural sounding basic tracks for them to build on. I will probably stop by their home recording setup soon to assess and advise them on how to do some of the overdubs on their own equipment. When all the tracks are recorded, we will mix them all here at Wilburland.

IthacaMusic.com

2008-09-10T09:25:00.000-04:00

Hi,

I just wanted to tell you all that I now have a regular spot on IthacaMusic.com where I will will be writing about what I'm doing at Wilburland, who I'm mixing live and adding tidbits of recording wisdom for all you home recording enthusiasts. Check it out!

Mixing The Pines at Castaways

2008-09-05T07:27:00.000-04:00

Wow.

What an amazing night! My friend Richie Stearns who plays with The HorseFlies called me up this week and asked me if I could please do sound for a band he was opening for at a local club called Castaways. He told me they were called The Pines and that they had played at another club a year ago and he fell in love with them. Now I know why.

The best description of them can be found on their website: "Composed of Iowa natives David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey, The Pines combine roots, blues and indie-rock to create a raw, haunting sound that is inventive and compelling."

They played 2 amazing sets, each time playing for awhile and then inviting Richie to join them and the combination was perfect. I will remember this performance for a long time.

back from dance camp

2008-09-03T07:34:00.001-04:00

So I'm back in the studio after 2 blissful weeks at DNE dance camp in Poland Spring, Maine. My family is part of a group called Dance New England. Each year 450 folks form a kind of intentional community focusing on a common love dance. As you can imagine, where there is dance, there is MUSIC!

At dance camp I get exposed to a lot of music that I don't often see at Wilburland. Each evening at camp there is a big freestyle dance, with excellent DJs from various major New England cities spinning amazing dance and club tunes. Some of the stuff they play is pretty awesome and they can spin a room full of dancers into a frenzy or lay them on the floor depending on how and when they play various tunes. A good DJ will "read the floor" and really tune into the dancers, and they in turn feed the DJ...it becomes a big symbiotic relationship and is cool to watch.

Well that's all for now. More soon!

Grassroots is here!

2008-07-17T06:48:00.000-04:00

So begins the 18th annual FingerLakes Grassroots festival! I love working at this festival for so many reasons. It is a gathering of so many wonderful musician and other folks, all together to celebrate music. Amazing bands from all over the world mixed with our own incredible local talent, playing for 10000 music fans of all ages, colors, nationalities. The energy at this festival is organic and positive, like no other I've been to. if you haven't been, now is the time to go.

I also love the work part of this gig. I get to work with a team of both enthusiastic volunteers and seasoned pros, and we lock together and do amazing things. It is teamwork at it's finest and I love it!

I'll be mixing a lot at the Grandstand stage, and wherever The Horse Flies and the Sim Redmond Band are playing. Come say hi!

Recording lute

2008-03-26T06:35:00.000-04:00

Hi,

One of my favorite things is recording rare or interesting instruments. A week ago I had the opportunity to record Ron Andrico of Mignarda playing an old guitar like instrument called the lute. It sounds sort of like a classical guitar, only the sound is much more complex due to the fact that the lute has many courses of strings while the guitar has 2 single strings.

I approached the lute recording in a classical style, incorporating the room sound as part of the recording. Usually I would use Earthworks QTC1 omnidirectional mics but for our application we found them to be too noisy so we instead used two Neumann KM86 mics in figure 8, through a Pendulum tube mic pre. The sound was wonderful...

Recording The Sim Redmond Band

2008-03-07T07:36:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I had the wonderful, long awaited opportunity to record basic track for The Sim Redmond Band! I've been mixing these guys live for many years, and I mixed a recent CD called "Each New Day", but I've always wanted to setup and do basic tracks with this band.

So we set up in the usual Wilburland fashion, where vibe and energy rule over technical things. The band wanted to setup in a circle so they could feed off each other and boy was it the right thing to do. We got great sounds and with the positive vibe in the room we got 2 day of really sweet tracks! I can alway tell which Wilburland projects are going to be winners by how things sound while tracking. SRB sounded like a finished CD while they were tracking. They are onto something special with this CD.

Like many bands these days they will take the tracks we layed down together home and overdub additional parts and vocals and then bring it all back to be here at Wilburland to mix. I can't wait!

Dance Flurry 2008

2008-02-21T07:34:00.000-05:00

Hi,

This past weekend I worked at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs. On this weekend in the dead cold of February 4000 dancers descend on the downtown City Center where there are 10 simultaneous dances in various conference rooms and local theatres. It is quite a scene.

I mixed the main hall where there is mostly contra dancing. I mixed acoustic rhythm bands through a D&B line array system for up to 700 dancers! For you tech geeks I was mixing on a Midas Heritage 1000 console.

The bands I mixed were extraordinary! Nightingale, Tidal Wave, Big Bandemonium, Notorious, and Laurie Hart were the some of the bands I mixed.

I had a blast!

Live music

2008-02-04T07:28:00.000-05:00

Hi,

Last week I had a potent reminder of the power of a live musical performance. On Monday I traveled to the German House in Rochester to see my longtime hero Todd Rundgren. I've seen Todd many times in many different band configurations and thay all have been great. Last Monday was no exception. Prairie Prince on drums, Kasim Sulton on bass, Jesse Gress and Todd on guitar. The show was a rock show, with deep and wonderful picks from the back catalog. A totally great show.

Last Wednesday I saw another longtime hero Richard Thompson, playing with songstress Judith Owen and percussionist Debra Dobkin doing "1000 Years of Popular Music at the State Theatre. Richard is always great, and his accomplices were terrific as well. After these 2 shows I was feeling like I'd had a pretty special week.

On Friday I mixed the Sim Redmond Band playing at the State Theatre for a "Barack The Vote" event. SRB's positive energy was the perfect match for the hopful vibe in the crown and they played really well. I love mixing this band!

As if that was not enough, Saturday night I went to see Ani DiFranco, also at the State Theatre. Ani and her band, that included drummer Allison Miller (with whom I went to Telluride with the Horseflies in 2003) was perfect for a very mature performance of great songs.

So it's the following week and I'm kind of floating in a post concert bliss. Live music is a truly powerful thing, capable of transforming our lives in positive ways.

The Death Of High Fidelity

2007-12-19T08:51:00.000-05:00

The Death of High Fidelity
Appeared on Rolling Stone issue 1042/1043 (Dec. 27, 2007 - Jan. 10, 2008), the following is an article I agree with completely.

The Death of High Fidelity
In the age of MP3s, sound quality is worse than ever
By Robert Levine
David Bendeth, a producer who works with rock bands like Hawthorne Heights and Paramore, knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet. So he’s not surprised when record labels ask the mastering engineers who work on his CDs to crank up the sound levels so high that even the soft parts sound loud.
Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered -almost always for the worse. “They make it loud to get [listeners’] attention,” Bendeth says. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song. Like many of his peers, Bendeth believes that relying too much on this effect can obscure sonic detail, rob music of its emotional power and leave listeners with what engineers call ear fatigue.
“I think most everything is mastered a little too loud,” Bendeth says. “The industry decided that it’s a volume contest.” Producers and engineers call this “the loudness war,” and it has changed the way almost every new pop and rock album sounds. But volume isn’t the only issue. Computer programs like Pro Tools, which let audio engineers manipulate sound the way a word processor edits text, make musicians sound unnaturally perfect. And today’s listeners consume an increasing amount of music on MP3, which eliminates much of the data from the original CD file and can leave music sounding tinny or hollow. “With all the technical innovation, music sounds worse,” says Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, who has made what are considered some of the best-sounding records of all time. “God is in the details. But there are no details anymore.”
The idea that engineers make albums louder might seem strange: Isn’t volume controlled by that knob on the stereo? Yes, but every setting on that dial delivers a range of loudness, from a hushed vocal to a kick drum - and pushing sounds toward the top of that range makes music seem louder. It’s the same technique used to make television commercials stand out from shows. And it does grab listeners’ attention - but at a price. Last year, Bob Dylan told ROLLING STONE that modern albums “have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like - static.” In 2004, Jeff Buckley’s mom, Mary Guibert, listened to the original 3/4″ tape of her son’s recordings as she was preparing the tenth-anniversary reissue of Grace. “We were hearing instruments you’ve never heard on that album, like finger cymbals and the sound of viola strings being plucked,” she remembers. “It blew me away because it was exactly what he heard in the studio.”
To Guibert’s disappointment, the remastered 2004 version failed to capture these details. So last year, when Guibert assembled the best-of collection So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley, she insisted on an independent A&R consultant to oversee the reissue process and a mastering engineer who would reproduce the sound Buckley made in the studio. “You can hear the distinct instruments and the sound of the room,” she says of the new release. “Compression smudges things together.” Too much compression can be heard as musical clutter; on the Arctic Monkeys’ debut, the band never seems to pause to catch its breath. By maintaining constant intensity, the album flattens out the emotional peaks that usually stand out in a song. “You lose the power of the chorus, because it’s not louder than the verses,” Bendeth says. “You lose emotion.” The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness, says Daniel Levitin, a professor of music and neuroscience at McGill University and author of ‘This Is Your Brain on Music: ‘The Science of a Human Obsession. Human brains have evolved to pay particular attention to loud nQises, so compressed sounds initially seem more exciting. But the effect doesn’t last. “The excitement in music comes from variation in rhythm, timbre, pitch and loudness,” Levitin says. “If you hold one of those constant, it can seem monotonous.” After a few minutes, research shows, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song. “If you limit range, it’s just an assault on the body,” says Tom Coyne, a mastering engineer who has worked with Mary J. Blige and Nas. “When you’re fifteen, it’s the greatest thing - you’re being hammered. But do you want that on a whole album?”
To an average listener, a wide dynamic range creates a sense of spaciousness and makes it easier to pick out individual instruments - as you can hear on recent albums such as Dylan’s Modern Times and Norah Jones’ Not Too Late. “When people have the courage and the vision to do a record that way, it sets them apart,” says Joe Boyd, who produced albums by Richard Thompson and R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction. “It sounds warm, it sounds three-dimensional, it sounds different. Analog sound to me is more emotionally affecting.”
Rock and Pop producers have always used compression to balance the sounds of different instruments and to make music sound more exciting, and radio stations apply compression for technical reasons. In the days of vinyl records, there was a physical limit to how high the bass levels could go before the needle skipped a groove. CDs can handle higher levels of loudness, although they, too, have a limit that engineers call “digital zero dB,” above which sounds begin to distort. Pop albums rarely got close to the zero-dB mark until the mid- 1990’s, when digital compressors and limiters, which cut off the peaks of sound waves, made it easier to manipulate loudness levels. Intensely compressed albums like Oasis’ 1995 (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? set a new bar for loudness; the songs were well-suited for bars, cars and other noisy environments. “In the Seventies and Eighties, you were expected to pay attention,” says Matt Serletic, the former chief executive of Virgin Records USA, who also produced albums by Matchbox Twenty and Collective Soul. “Modern music should be able to get your attention.” Adds Rob Cavallo, who produced Green Day’s American Idiot and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, “It’s a style that started post-grunge, to get that intensity. The idea was to slam someone’s face against the wall. You can set your CD to stun.” It’s not just new music that’s too loud. Many remastered recordings suffer the same problem as engineers apply compression to bring them into line with modern tastes. The new Led Zeppelin collection, Mothership, is louder than the band’s original albums, and Bendeth, who mixed Elvis Presley’s 30 #1 Hits, says that the album was mastered too loud for his taste. “A lot of audiophiles hate that record,” he says, “but people can play it in the car and it’s competitive with the new Foo Fighters record.”
Just as CDs supplanted vinyl and cassettes, MP3 and other digital music formats are quickly replacing CDs as the most popular way to listen to music. That means more convenience but worse sound. To create an MP3, a computer samples the music on a CD and compresses it into a smaller file by excluding the musical information that the human ear is less likely to notice.
Much of the information left out is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Cavallo says that MP3s don’t reproduce reverb well, and the lack of high-end detail makes them sound brittle. Without enough low end, he says, “you don’t get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord.” But not all digital music files are created equal. Levitin says that most people find MP3s ripped at a rate above 224 kbps virtually indistinguishable from CDs. (iTunes sells music as either 128 or 256 kbps AAC files -AAC is slightly superior to MP3 at an equivalent bit rate. Amazon sells MP3s at 256 kbps.) Still, “it’s like going to the Louvre and instead of the Mona Lisa there’s a 10 megapixel image of it,” he says. “I always want to listen to music the way the artists wanted me to hear it. I wouldn’t look at a Kandinsky painting with sunglasses on.” Producers also now alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. “You have to be aware of how people will hear music, and pretty much everyone is listening to MP3,” says producer Butch Vig, a member of Garbage and the producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind. “Some of the effects get lost. So you sometimes have to over-exaggerate things.”
Other producers believe that intensely compressed CDs make for better MP3s, since the loudness of the music will compensate for the flatness of the digital format. As technological shifts have changed the way sounds are recorded, they have encouraged an artificial perfection in music itself. Analog tape has been replaced in most studios by Pro Tools, making edits that once required splicing tape together easily done with the click of a mouse. Programs like Auto-Tune can make weak singers sound pitch-perfect, and Beat Detective does the same thing for wobbly drummers. “You can make anyone sound professional,” says Mitchell Froom, a producer who’s worked with Elvis Costello and Los Lobos, among others. “But the problem is that you have something that’s professional, but it’s not distinctive. I was talking to a session drummer, and I said, ‘When’s the last time you could tell who the drummer is?’ You can tell Keith Moon or John Bonham, but now they all sound the same.”
So is music doomed to keep sounding worse? Awareness of the problem is growing. The South by Southwest music festival recently featured a panel titled “Why Does Today’s Music Sound Like Shit?” In August, a group of producers and engineers founded an organization called Turn Me Up!, which proposes to put stickers on CDs that meet high sonic standards. But even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost. “CDs sound better, but no one’s buying them,” he says. “The age of the audiophile is over.”
Get the Most of your iPod.
1. Increase the bit rate: Higher bit rates = better sound. Set your iTunes to rip at 192 kbps, or better - we recommend jacking it all the way to 320. (AustinVegas recommends always 320 for MP3 but you can always rip straight to WMA)
2. Ditch the white earbuds: For an upgrade. try higher-end earphones from Shure. Ultimate Ears or Etymotic. Bonus; fewer muggings! (AV says true that on the muggings!)
3. Don’t re-rip!!! Morality aside, it’s a bad idea to re-rip a CD burned from MP3s - the sound will be noticeably worse. (AV says: Did you ever make a copy of someone elses copy of a cassette tape? Yeah with this is the same concept)
4. Upgrade from MP3: Use iTunes’ AAC format or windows Media Audio . (AV says SKIP! the AAC, it’s proprietary and if you don’t plan on using iPod for life, don’t get stuck with this format, use WMA instead).

Fall 2007

2007-11-14T07:09:00.000-05:00

Holy Smokes! Another long wait for a blog entry! I've been pretty busy. I have been working lately with Sophia and Emily from Glass Of Water working on a wonderful folk A Capella CD. There women can sing! Producer Rich DePaolo was in a bunch working with local Tamar Haviv working on vocals for a CD that includes Jerry Marotta on drums and Sara Lee and Tony Levin on bass! I'm continuing work with Joe Crookston on what is turning pout to be an amazing collection of fine songs. Joe invited to of my favorite local players Molly MacMillian and Doug Robinson to track piano and bass on a few tracks.
I have also been out on the road with the Sim Redmond Band opening for Donna The Buffalo and having big fun!!

This Weekend

2007-11-03T08:17:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

This weekend should be fun. I work today recording piano and vocals with Tamar Haviv, then it's off to Castaways for an evening with The HorseFlies!

Tomorrow I will work with Joe Crookston tracking new songs with Molly MacMillian on piano and Doug Robinson on bass!

Heading Into Fall

2007-10-08T07:29:00.000-04:00

Hey there,
It's monday morning and I'm reflecting on my past week. I've started on a new project with songwriter Joe Crookston. Joe was voted as one of the top three showcase artists at this summer's Falconridge Folk Festival and I'm excited to be working with him. I met him a while ago when he was interviewed at Wilburland by Tracey Craig for the Rootabaga Roadhouse radio program and was impressed by his playing and singing and thoughtful lyrics. This CD should be wonderful if our first sessions are any indication.

This weekend I worked with a wonderful A Capella duo named Glass Of Water. Sophia Smith-Savedoff and Emily Hurst are 2 cornell students who discovered each other about 4 years ago and have been singing together ever since. We had a fun weekend full recording about 15 songs. There is something so pure about a cappella voice...

Mixing punk with The Berettas!

2007-09-25T07:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day with The Berettas, a fine punk band from Trumansburg, NY. This trio have been together for three years and have apparently been practicing because the tracks that they brought to me to mix were tight and well played. Like many bands these days, The Berettas saved some money and did the recording at a cheaper studio with a young engineer, and then turned to me and my experience to sort it all out in the mix. The young engineer at the other studio did an admirable job as most tracks sounded pretty good. The only issue was that there was more snare in the kick drum mic than kick drum, but, whatever, I made it work anyway.
For these mixes I decided to build a virtual analog console using Waves' fine API Collection console plugins, in particular, the API 550b equalizer. I put this plugin on every track and even without using the eq the tracks seem to glue together like a real analog console. These eqs also have a well deserved reputation for their sweet musical sound and their sonic signature lent itself well to this punk band. We mixed and mastered 5 songs in 7 hours and it sounds pretty great!

Digidesign, Boynton Pro Audio, and Wilburland

2007-09-20T07:27:00.001-04:00

Last night Wilburland was host to a Digidesign/BoyntonProAudio sales presentation. Regional Digidesign rep Brian Doser gave a short presentation of the ProTools product line and Bill Scranton from Boynton Pro Audio presented the Digidesign's new PMC designed RM2 powered monitors and the Digidesign D-Command control surface. While I didn't have the opportunity to A/B test the new monitors against my trusted Genelec 1031As, I can say thet these new RM2s sound pretty detailed and have an extended and tight low end response. A few folks in the room asked me If I had my sub on. As for the D-Command, I'm pretty impressed in first contact and look forward to kickin it's tires in the next week.

Today I look forward to doing mix touchups and mastering on Jay Mankita's upcoming CD. Who knows, maybe I'll listen to the new RM2s and touch up with the D-Command!

Catching up

2007-09-19T07:21:00.000-04:00

Whoa. Over a month since my last blog! Well, I have apparently been busy!

So, uh, let's see. In the middle of August I was busy mixing tunes for the upcoming HorseFlies CD! Then me and the family went to Dance New England dance camp in Poland Springs, Maine for 2 weeks. A well needed vacation!

I arrived home after labor day and hit the ground running with more HorseFlies mixing and mixing for Zion Fellowship. These projects present totally different challenges. With the HorseFlies, we are trying to blend the ideas of alt rock and old time together, sweating tiny balances and paying focused attention to rhythm and "feel". It's all about the groove. With the Zion Fellowship project, I am managing a bunch of midi based virtual instruments provided by Native Instruments Miroslav Philharmonik and SampleTank2, as well as Propellorheads Reason. Here the challenges are presenting this "inspirational instrumental" music with sampled sounds that hopefully sound realistic. I have discovered that a lot of the secret of making sampled sound work is tweaking attack and release parameters to make up for the fact that trumpet or string sounds are being played with a keyboard.

Both of these mixing projects are benefiting from the use of some new plugins from Waves. I have recently aquired the Waves V Series, API and SSL console bundles. For the first time I can now set up ProTools with plugins that actually sound and respond like a true analog console. These new plugins have met with high praise from industry veterans who have spent years working on the "real thing". All I know is that I can now totally emulate analog recording and mixing within the digital realm with no compromise. Finally!!!!

My life in a busy studio

2007-08-07T07:09:00.000-04:00

Wow. My last post was 2 weeks ago! Oops! So, let's see, what has Will been up to? Well, last Wed and Thurs evening I had the pleasure ow working with a talented young man named Abe Roberts, who came on to record a collections of his songs on piano and voice. When folks call up for sessions like this you never know who will walk in the door. Abe turned out to have a bunch or very nice songs that he played well and sang to beautifully. Abe has a voice that will make young girls swoon and think about marriage, and his heartfelt performance and sensitive lyrics only make it worse! I suspect he'll be back...

Last week I also had the wonderful opportunity to work with one of my favorite singer/songwriters Jay Mankita. For a long time I have admired Jay's songwriting and delivery, blending sharp humor with a a keen insight to life as a human. We worked together on a mixing a song for a compilation of kids's music relating to good nutrition and health. Jay made the topic fun and intersting in his music. Looks like Jay will be back in the fall to mix his upcoming CD with me. Yay!

Over the weekend I worked again with an amazing modern percussion duo called the Marassa Duo. Jim Armstrong and Nick Papadour rolled in once again with marimba, vibes, bata drums, pans and congas. We spent the weekend recording and mixing a 12 minute piece called Marassa 2. For this session we rolled up the carpets in the big room to make a more reverberant environment to create more of an "event in a space" feel. I love working with these guys not only because they are great guys but also because the compositions are interesting and the recording is a fun challenge. Most of the time for me percussion is something you add to an existing track, rather than the entire focus of the project, so I have to think about the instruments differently.

So that's all I have time to write this morning. I'm off to Wilburland to mix the upcoming HorseFlies CD!!!!

Mamadou Diabate

2007-07-25T07:36:00.001-04:00

Some days I am simply a service provider, and some days I am part of a truly amazing musical experience. On Monday night I had the supreme pleasure of working again with kora master Mamadou Diabate here at Wilburland. He recorded all 12 songs for his upcoming solo CD in a single evening! Mamadou and I form a good team; he is comfortable with my energy and advice and I can deliver him the best kora sound he has heard. I in turn get to be in the presence of a true master musician. Who knows, maybe this one will win a Grammy! (Mamadou's last solo cd was nominated for one)

For you recording geeks out there, I record Mamadou primarily with 2 Earthworks QTC1 mics on a Jecklin Disk right above the instrument, with a Neumann U87 1 ft above the sound hole for shaping the bass notes. The recordings have no reverb added and very little eq.

The Fingerlakes Grassroots Festival

2007-07-24T07:28:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy time for me and I've been negligent in my blogging! Well, anyone local knows that this past weekend was the annual Fingerlakes Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, held just north of Ithaca in Trumansburg, NY. This massive festival has 80 bands on 4 stages for 4 days and is just amazing! The vibe is positive and the music that you can see and hear is jaw dropping.

Like the Great Blue Heron festival, I work for Calf Audio at Grassroots, who supplies the systems in the Dance Tent and the Grandstand stage. I was the primary FOH (front of house) engineer for the weekend and got to mix regular favorites like The HorseFlies, Sim Redmond Band, Samite of Uganda as well as my new friends The Greencards. In my opinion the Grandstand stage is the best sounding stage, and it is a fun privilege to be able to mix there. The only band I mixed that was not on the grandstand Stage was another favorite band, SloMo, who I fired out of the Cabaret Hall like a cannon. This band hails from Philly and truly needs to be experienced to be believed. They totally deserve a bigger stage.

So now I am very tired, but still smiling!

The Greencards at the Chapter House

2007-07-13T00:41:00.000-04:00

Ok. I'm just back from a gig at the Chapter House in Ithaca with The Greencards. I had heard about them and knew that they were a good band, but I totally did not expect to be completely blown away. This band is incredible! They are a bluegrass trio at the core, and tonight were joined by a great guitarist who rounded out the sound perfectly. The band are smokin players and wonderful singers, not to mention just plain great people. They played a terrific set of covers and originals to a far too sparse crowd considering their talent. And as if tonight wasn't cool enough, I get to mix them at the Grassroots Festival next weekend!

They are playing at Friday at 9:15pm on the grandstand stage. Don't miss this!!!!!!

The Great Blue Heron music festival

2007-07-09T17:16:00.000-04:00

Hi,

In addition to studio recording I do live sound, mostly for The HorseFlies and the Sim Redmond Band. This weekend I worked at the Great Blue Heron music festival in Sherman, NY, near Jamestown in western NY. I was mixing front of house sound on the main stage for the entire weekend, which involved mixing every band that played on that stage except 3, who brought their own engineer. The sound system was provided by the wonderful Calf Audio located here in Ithaca. Their sound systems and crew are a pure pleasure to work with, and both people and gear make my job pretty easy.

Festival sound is different than doing sound in night clubs. First of all, music festivals are usually outside, so you rarely need to deal with a bad sounding room. You also have far less time to setup and soundcheck, so you have to hustle and get a good mix going as you line check. I often start with a kick/snare/hihat groove with the drummer, then invite bass and rhythm instruments as I balance the mix. often, by the time the band is ready to start their set, I already have a pretty good mix up and so they they sound good right out of the gate.

Here are the bands I mixed:
THE HORSE FLIES
SIM REDMOND BAND
BIG LEG EMMA
BOY WITH A FISH
JIM DONOVAN
KELLEY AND THE COWBOYS
THE CHICKEN CHOKERS (reunion)
BARTON LIUZZO & WARD
JOHN AND MARY & THE VALKYRIES
SHOOT THE MOON
CROW GREENSPUN
BRUCE PETERSON BLUES PROJECT
STEEL PAN ALLEY

That's a lot of bands!!

Now I sleep as much as possible and get ready to do it all again at the Grassroots Festival!

More mixing fun with Lana Losey

2007-07-03T07:15:00.000-04:00

Well the recording is all done and now we move on to the mixing portion of The upcoming Jana Losey CD called Blocks! I may have mentioned before that I've been excited about this project since I initially heard song demos awhile ago. I'm happy to report that the songs have held up and the mixes are coming together really nicely!

Jana's partner Melanie Peters has a lot to do with why all these songs sound so good. Mel not only played bass, guitar and synth on most of the tracks but has also been the producer and arranger for the project. This CD lake most CDs done at Wilburland these days is a combination of studio and home recording. Mel has been crafting alot of the parts at home with a Apple PowerBook G4 and a Digidesign MBox running ProToolsLE software. All of the piano tracks were recorded as MIDI and then we used the amazing new Reason Pianos samples for the actual piano sound. Mel brought these songs kind of premixed, and my job is to take the mix concept that she presents and "do what I do" and use my expertise and experience to present a proper mix. We're having fun and the results are wonderful!

A week with Alizé

2007-06-29T08:42:00.000-04:00

Good morning,

Again it's been too long since I blogged but man have I been busy! I spent this week immersed in French traditional music with a local trio called Alizé. They are Laurie Hart on fiddle, nyckelharpa and hurdy gurdy, Julia Lapp on guitar and Gordon Bonnet on flutes and whistles. These guys have done all their work on this project here at Wilburland. We have Laurie and Gordon in cubbies in the big room and Julia in the control room with me for isolation. We have almost completed all the recording it its all sounding really good!

I love recording music that I have not heard before, especially when it involves cool and interesting instruments like the nyckelharpa and hurdy gurdy!

My weekend with the HorseFlies

2007-06-19T20:44:00.000-04:00

Well, well, well, I have so much to tell you! As if my week with Jana Losey and Melanie Peters wasn't enough fun, on Friday I started setting up for a weekend of recording with my all time favorite band The HorseFlies!

The Flies have been together for several decades, starting as a quirky old time fiddle band, and evolving through and alt rock sound, releasing records on major labels and touring with the likes of 10,000 Maniacs. The core of the HorseFlies are fiddler Judy Hyman, banjo player Richie Stearns, banjo/uke man Jeff Claus and rhythm meister Taki Masuko on percussion. They are currently rounded out by Plastic Nebraska's Rick Hansen and Jay Olsa on accordion/keys and bass. There music is indescribable, though many have tried...

The HorseFlies music is all about pocket and groove, and so recording as an ensemble is a natural way to approach the capture of basic tracks. They also like to experiment with sounds alot so isolation between the instruments is critical as well. The secret to achieving this balance at Wilburland (with no isolation booths) is all about mic placement and baffles. The environment around each instrument is carefully treated to avoid reflecting unwanted sounds into the mics. Each mic is positioned not only to capture the desired instrument but also to reject unwanted sounds. Amplifiers are placed downstairs and special cables and line amps are used to drive the instrument signals downstairs without signal loss. The two devices we use were the Little Labs Mercenary Audio STD and a Pendulum Audio MDP1 mic preamp/DI. The Pendulum was especially crucial in dealing with the hi impedance needs of the piezo doorbell that Richie used for a banjo pickup! Judy setup in the control room with me to get the needed isolation for the fiddle.

Once setup was complete and sounds were crafted, the band did what they do, running through takes and and then assessing the performances. Again, the focus was often on the groove and movement of the music. Did it sound too weighty? Did it float? How did it move? How did the backbeat feel? Intense discussion of rhythm, pocket and tempo. It was an amazing process to be part of, and the result of the weekend was 4 more amazing sounding basic tracks.

All this goes back the The Gray House, Jeff and Judy's home studio for overdubbing and premixing. They have a really nice ProTools HD system and a sweet collection of select mics and preamps that deliver the sounds they like.

We plan to mix at Wilburland in August. I can't wait! This will be an awesome CD folks. Well worth the wait.

Jana Losey

2007-06-08T07:14:00.000-04:00

Hi There!

It's been a busy week and I haven't been able to sit down and write in this blog. Here is what I've been up to.
On Monday I finished up mixes for singer/songwriter Burt Myers. On Tuesday I did mix touchups for a fun band called The Talk To Mes, which features Gregor Sayet-Bone on guitar and vocals, and Sim Redmond from SRB on bass. These guys did their recording in various places and brought the tracks here to Wilburland to mix. Sound familiar? On Wednesday I did mixes for a nice a Capella group from Elmira College called the Chiclettes, who recorded all live here at Wilburland and sound terrific. Thursday I did final mastering for a band called Hadlock who have done almost all of their recording here at Wilburland except some electric guitar. You can definitely hear the difference when most or all of the tracks were recorded here.

Today, and for alot of this month I'll me working with songstress Jana Losey and her partner Melanie Peters. Jana has a lot of experience out there in the music world, having been in a cool group called Squonk Opera for many years, which included a long run on Broadway. She has involved me and Wilburland from the beginning of this project and it shows. She and Mel brought in their band and did basic tracks live here, utilizing the my great sounding room, many great microphones, individual headphone mixers, not to mention, well, me! We got a a bunch of sweet sounding tracks, that sound like a great band because they were! Jana and Mel consulted with me about a ProTools setup, came in for a few ProTools 101 tutoring classes, and then they were able to take the tracks home and decide which takes were best and figure out what piece we wanted to edit together without the pressure of the clock ticking away.

Once the basic tracks were assembled we got together again and I helped them set up their ProTools sessions to record midi tracks of the piano parts for the project. This they could easily do at home and they took their time getting the piano performances just right. Then we can play their midi tracks through Reason Pianos here at Wilburland and have the flexibility of choosing just the right piano sound for each song as we mix.

Today we will do lead vocals and maybe harmonies. Over the next few weeks we will overdub move vocals, perhaps some guitar and percussion, and then settle down to mix. It will be a good few weeks for sure!

Ithaca Festival Weekend!

2007-06-01T07:20:00.001-04:00

Well good morning to you all! This weekend is a very busy weekend for me as a live sound guy. Most of my mixing efforts will center around the 2 night performance of The Sim Redmond Band, for whom I've been mixing live for over 5 years! They have also brought their last few recordings to Wilburland to mix, and I personally did the last one, Each New Day. If you have never heard the band, I have often described their gentle percolating sound and lush harmonies and "a big warm hug from a dear friend". These 2 shows are a CD release party for their new live CD recorded at the Grassroots Festival. They are playing at Castaways in Ithaca, with 2 other local bands that are no strangers to Wilburland, IY on Friday and Five2 on Saturday, featuring former SRB member Uniit! The Castaways shows start at 10pm.

As if that wasn't enough, I will also be mixing for my friend Boy With A Fish on the Ithaca Commons at 7:30, featuring Jeff Claus and Judy Hyman from the HorseFlies, Rick Hansen and Jay Olsa from Plastic Nebraska and Ryan Cady on drums. Guaranteed to be a great show.

So come on out and see some great Ithaca music this weekend!

Mixing tracks for Burt Myers

2007-05-29T07:24:00.000-04:00

Today I will be mixing tracks for Binghamton's Burt Myers. Burt came to me on the recommendation of my friend Mark Dann, who owns Mark Dann Recording in NYC and also has a smaller studio in Woodstock. Burt has recorded and edited a bunch of songs in a home studio and has brought them to Wilburland for me to mix.

I am going to set up some rules for myself for these mixes. First, Burt has limited funds to get these mixes done so I will try to spend only 1 hour per song. Second, I am going to set up ProTools like an analog mixing console, with Digidesign's new Reel Tape plugin, then a URS N series EQ and a Massey CT4 compressor on each track. All of the plugins will be the same, just like mixing on a large scale console with built in eq and dynamics. My reverb will most likely be the amazing Altiverb. I'm also going to try to mix through McDSP's AC1 analog channel on the mix buss.

I find that setting up rules like this can be very freeing, partly because you eliminate the "which plugin" debate which is confusing and time consuming. I can just get into the headset of "these are my tools, now do the mix" and this works for me.

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, mixing folks' home recorded tracks is something I do more and more, and it presents a fun and interesting new challenge for me. When I record the tracks here at Wilburland, the sounds and shape of the songs are already there at mix time. I know the songs, I know the emotion that the artist wants to convey, and the mix comes easily. When people bring me stuff that they recorded at home, I get to play with the tracks until the song presents itself, and this discovery process is challenging and exciting to me.

Working with Judy Hyman

2007-05-27T12:08:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I was at Wilburland mastering a number of film scores for composer/fiddler Judy Hyman. Judy is perhaps best know as the fiddler in The HorseFlies and Boy With A Fish, but has also been very busy the last few years composing and performing soundtracks and winning awards for documentaries including "John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature", "Through Deaf Eyes" both for award winning film producer Lawrence Hott, and "The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine" and "Dream Anatomy" for Madison Films.

Judy has also embraced the new recording paradigm by composing all the work at home in Digital Performer. Then I come to her house to engineer the recording of some real instruments on her own home ProTools system which I helped them design and install. Then either she or I can do composite edits of the best performances. When all the tracks are recorded it all come back to me at Wilburland for the final mix.

Technically speaking, my objective in this mastering was to bring the levels up to "pro standards" for film soundtracks without changing the essential sound and dynamics of the original mixes. I feel that limiters can be best suited to this task as compressors tend to impart their own sound. After auditioning all the limiter plugins I have the one I choose was the Massey L2007 Mastering Limiter. This $79 plugin allowed me to make the program much louder without the usual sonic penalty of some other limiters. I was able to push pretty deep into this limiter before I started hearing it crunch up. You can download a free demo it it here.

Mac Benford and the new recording paradigm

2007-05-25T07:16:00.002-04:00

Good morning! It looks like mornings are when I'll be writing most of these blogs. Looks like a beautiful one out there!

Today I'm doing some mixing for Mac Benford and John Hoffman, currently in an oldtime band called UpSouth. Mac is legendary in the the american oldtime music scene, having been a founding member of the infamous Highwoods String Band back in the 70s. The Highwoods helped revive the oldtime scene, and were the first act signed to Rounder Records. Mac did a CD at Wilburland called Willow with The Woodshed Allstars about 10 years ago, with Pete Sutherland, John Rossbach, John Kirk, Doug Henrie and of course the lovely Marie Burns. Mac's musical influence can be heard in many younger bands around here, helping form what we know as the "Ithaca sound"

So anyway, Mac and John have approached the making of this upcoming CD in a way typical of the new recording paradigm, where advances in recording technology have democratized the recording world. Wilburland was there to help them through the complete process. First off, they consulted with me when they were first thinking about putting together a small home based ProTools LE with an MBox2 setup. I was able to save them money on the actual purchase of the equipment and I helped them navigate through the crowded home recording gear market to purchase good quality microphones etc that would work well for their needs.

When they got the equipment and kicked the tires a bit, Mac contacted Wilburland for my ProTools 101 tutorial. Mac was able to start making good recording a lot faster and with less frustration. He came back several times for lessons/consulting as he gained proficiency.

Mac and John then recorded their basic tracks at home, saving studio recording costs. They did preliminary editing to make composite best takes. They did some very good work, not to mention stunning performances! Then they brought their tracks to me at Wilburland to mix in the tuned mixing room, with an endless list of great ProTools plugins.

The end result will be a great sounding CD with Mac and John effectively using their home recording rig.

This is the future folks, and it looks cool.

Thursday

2007-05-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

It's another totally beautiful day here in Mythaca NY. Hard to get in the car and go to work, but then again, I have the anti-job!