Fall 2007

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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!!!!