Vintage Service

Call me Old Fashioned.

 I remember a time when the end user was King. A time before the big box shops and internet sales that a dealer or manufacturers rep would come visit you at the studio or venue to show their latest products. You would get a demonstration, then they would leave it with you for a week or so to try it out. Then if you liked it, guess what.....you would by it from them! We wouldn't go on Ebay or Amazon to find it, we would buy it from the people that provided the SERVICE. Then, after some time passed the salesman would come back to see how you were doing with a follow up, provide any more training you would need and make sure you were completely happy. Some people look for vintage gear, I look for vintage service. And it worked very well, just ask a company called Digidesign how their product "Pro Tools" became the industry standard.
 With the onslaught of crappy consumer users, came the crappy consumer gear with prices cut so low, that companies could no longer pay a field rep to have one on one contact with the end user. The majority of consumers now are more concerned with how cheap they can get something, rather than the quality and type of ground support you get. Some manufacturers support is non existent, it's cheaper to buy another product from the box shop than to get it fixed by a human. Some that do offer support, offer it in terms of paid email tickets. Where is the human touch any more.....cue Rick Springfield.
 There are a few dealers/reps that offer personal support and I encourage you to support them to the best of your ability because they will support you. Make an investment in your craft, not just a purchase. Support the industry that supports you.
 Dealers and Reps....support your customers! Check up on them, give them a phone call and make sure they are happy with what you just sold them. Word of mouth does travel a long way these days and it can be your strongest ally. And don't focus on the superstars to get an ad in print, here's a little secret, they will use what they want when working on their projects.  Make sure all your customers are happy big and small. Treat us how you would like to be treated and hear us roar your praises. Screw us over and feel the wrath of modern day technology. We are the Curmudgeons! Here us ROAR!

Recording and Mixing "The Whole Earth" OR How Presonus invaded my life.

Recently I was called to record and mix a live praise and worship event for release on CD.
The dates were clear so, I took the project because for me capturing and mixing a live event is my forte. It's what I first learned to do when I started to record and I much prefer it to sitting in a studio all day.
The call came from a friend of a friend and turned out to be one of the nicest people I've met. You never know how the person is going to be to work with, especially going in blind. Our first meeting was a meet and greet and I got to look at the gear that was on site.They had a



       separate mix room in a balcony off of the main lobby. In the room is two Presonus Studio Live 16 input mixers channel mixers tied together creating a 32 input mixer, a pair of Yamaha msp5 monitor and an iMac loaded with Cubase and Capture. I was familiar with everything in that room, I have used the Presonus mixers before, I owned a pair of Yamaha msp7's and have used Cubase often. I felt good and confident about what they had. Then I found out they were lacking in the microphone end. Especially for a live recording. I ended up calling my friends at my local Shure representatives office. Not only would this provide me with great recording mics, but also give the church a chance to demo some stellar Shure recording gear, a win-win! They came through with some of Shure's top recording mics such as the wonderful KSM44 and and I won't forget what they did for me,
As the time grew closer to the rehearsal dates I just kept getting an uneasy feeling about using Cubase. I don't know what it was, but I wasn't feeling good about it. I started looking at other programs that I could bring and load into their Mac, but nothing thrilled me or made me feel at ease. Then I remembered the Presonus includes a program with their consoles called "Capture". It's basically just a very stripped down, non bloated recorder that integrates tightly with the Studio Live mixers. If anything was going to give me the best stability to capture (no pun intended) the event this would be it. Capture records wave files, then you can import those files into any DAW program you like to work in. All righty, I have the mics, and I have a plan for recording, lets rehears and see how this goes.
I'm thrilled to report that the rehearsal went fantastic without a single glitch and I recorded it for back up purposes. So I'm feeling super confident now, I know it's going to work....feeling great!
Time for the event! (You're just waiting for the bad news to drop aren't you?) everything is setup ready to go, I start rolling during the opening welcome and kept right on rolling through nearly two hours of music doing a live stereo mix for video, while Capture was faithfully doing its job. The event ended and all was success! I checked the files, all there all good to go. The rep from Shure came to collect the mics, made some new contacts and everyone is happy.
Now....getting on with it....I had to decide what I was going to use to mix. I didn't have the budget to go into a studio and mix like I normally would do, so I had to build a setup at home. I had a computer with some software, and converters. I needed some speakers.
After doing a lot of research looking for accurate but low cost speakers I found Equator Audio's D5 model speaker. A compact coaxial speakers the received high praise for being spot accurate. The company has a 60 money back guarantee so what's to lose to try them? I received my pair and burned them in for a while, and started to mix. I have to confess, that in the middle of mixing on these things, I started to not like them. They're not exciting. Then I noticed something.....everywhere I played the references, they sounded exactly the same as what came out of the Equators at home. Deadly accurate. Translating very well. I was in love!
So before all that got started I had to decide what software to use. Now, if you have read any of my previous blogs, you know I pretty much have tried every DAW out there and I hate them all. I needed something that would be stable, but also would let me use my right brain to mix more than my left. Something that wouldn't make me feel like I was operating a computer, but rather a mixer.
I already owned some software but wasn't too thrilled with the idea of mixing two hours worth of music on any of it.
Again Presonus invades my life. I've heard about how easy their Studio One software is to use, how good it sounds, etc. but then I found out it will straight open Capture sessions. Then I remembered how stable and how much fun I had recording with the Presonus gear I decided to try Studio One.

I downloaded the demo, and at first was a little skeptical, given Studio One's affordable price tag. I kind of saw it as more of a non-pro type app. Also, the feeling of trying to learn a new DAW while mixing a paying clients project seemed a little.......well, silly.
I must confess that not only was it easy to learn, it is actually fun to work in. Opening the Capture project was a breeze. The workflow is intuitive. Most importantly this is not a toy program. This is a seriously professional program that just gets out of your way and let's you create. I am very happy with my results so far and have become a big fan of Presonus...and Shure in the process.
I'm really thrilled with how the project came together and in the process I have discovered the perfect tools that I need to do remote recordings with confidence and with great results!

2012 Christmas Eve

Here is a Link to this year's Christmas Eve service. I really enjoy live recordings but this is a straight FOH mix. I had a lot of fun on this one because of having to mic the string quartet that played in conjunction to a pre recorded multi track.
 I decided to use a pair of Audio Technica 4050's in a Spaced Omni configuration for the strings and
Was happy with the results that the mic choice gave me.  The mix came straight off my Avid D show console and track playback was throughs Pro Tools HD10. The music that follows the reading is all live with no tracks and is the raw mix off the D Show.
 I've been very pleased with the results I've been getting from the D Show. It's a fun console to mix on with a great sound and the Pro Tools integration is superb. It makes live remote recording a breeze.