Project Interconnectedness

Is that a word? Interconnectedness? It’s not getting autocorrected so I’m going with it. 

I’ve got a new project on the way from a band called Projector (or PRJCTR to stay away from in-use names on iTunes). It was a lot of fun to make and I played the role of producer on this one versus just mastering or just recording. The songs are all Zack (ex-Nerves Junior) and the band (Chris and Greg), but we were all in the same place sonically affording me some fun in additional sounds and treatments along the way. We recorded in West Point over the long weekend of July 4th last year in the oldest brick house in the city built by the town’s founder on the confluence of the Salt and Ohio Rivers. 

As I was connecting all the dots on how this project came to be and whatever it becomes as we collectively move forward, I started considering the sheer number of projects I’ve been involved in with and the luck that my path has intersected and intertwined through the years with some amazing musicians. The diverse music history and continuing talent exposed by this city and those it connects with are amazing to me. I’ve worked with idols because of this place and consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have the musical resume I have. It certainly isn’t marketing skills and doesn’t feel like any magical ears or some innate musical or sound tweaking talent. I’m eternally grateful to have stumbled into some of these situations and wanted to share how they happened. 

If nothing else my daughter will one day understand just what her dad was doing in the basement those afternoons and evenings and can appreciate why I’ve put time and money into such things even though it has never “replaced the day job”. 

Two people from the vast talent pool that has called Louisville home rise to the top of causing some of my most memorable projects. Over the course of this stream of consciousness series of blog posts, I hope to convey my appreciation for them and if it seems coherent enough to continue, I’ll ramble past into the rest of my musical world.  

In the coming posts, I’ll share my eternal gratitude for the late great Jason Noble and the brilliant and giant-hearted Jacob Duncan. Without those two guys, I wouldn’t have the resume I have today and I’d simply be the nerdy IT guy I play during the work weeks. 

Stay tuned. You’ll at least get some interesting music links from it. 

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Hello 2016!

Facebook reminded me this morning that 3 years ago, I had an empty room.
emptyStudio

Today we have my 81st project being worked through the analog rig. We’ve got 3 albums on WFPK’s top local releases from 2015. We’ve got a wide variety of albums and projects coming through and some new gear ideas that I’ve pushed off for a while that just might happen in the early part of 2016.

For those that have made their way through with a project, thank you for your support. For those that haven’t made it in yet, I’m looking forward to working with you.

Let’s make even more in 2016!

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Ben Sollee and Mother Falcon

They’re about to start a tour together and used a video for a song I mastered in the promo email. I’d forgotten about doing this song because at the time I was rushing off to vacation and had just finished up working on a recording project with Ben. Weird having this cool little Daft Punk cover pop back into my life after having lost it. 

Enjoy the video: Lose Yourself to Dance

Enjoy that record from the cabin: Hollow Sessions

Go somewhere and enjoy the tour: Referenced leg starts with the Louisville October show

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Jaye Jayle | Pull Me Back to Hell / Evil Windows

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Antelope 10M

So I’ve really enjoyed the Antelope converters in the mastering rig with the Eclipse 384, and even sold off my Lynx Aurora to get an Orion 32 for the recording rig. This has been on the wish list for a long time and I finally made the leap. We now have even more accurate clocking and the imaging and depth that comes with it.
10M

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Stone Iris | Grand National

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Liberation Living Room

I’ve posted a bit about this on my personal Facebook page, but I wanted to share it over here as well. More episodes are on their way, but here are the 2 that are out for now.
What a fun project…I’m lucky to have been asked to handle audio duties for this kids’ web series. Check it out and subscribe to the channel so you can get to our amazing upcoming episodes as well.

Liberation Living Room | Will Oldham

Liberation Living Room | Ben Sollee

Update with Episode 3 (Oct 2013)
Liberation Living Room | Rachel Grimes

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#FreeMastering #RTcontest

Let’s try a little something here.

This blog post should end up over in my twitter feed at https://twitter.com/DecibelMaster.

For every follower that retweets this post’s accompanying tweet, they’ll be entered into a drawing for free mastering of a song with up to 2 revisions. I’ll allow one retweet entry every day between today and 6/15/13 at 8pm Eastern.

To win you:
– must be registered on Twitter (preferably with real contact info so I can find you after you win)
– must follow @DecibelMaster

That’s it.

To sweeten the pot here…if we exceed 10,000 followers by the end of the contest I’ll make it 30 minutes of free mastering, and if we blow this whole thing away and reach 25,000 followers, I’ll do a whole CD (or 70 minutes of some other format) for free.

Remember you get an entry credit for one retweet each day, but the more you retweet and the more followers we get here, the bigger that prize gets.

And if you happen to use your girlfriend’s account to increase your odds, that’s cool…she can transfer the prize to you if she doesn’t have a band. Someone is getting a free mastering job out of this still.

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Dangerous Bax EQ

Hopefully this can be my last addition for a little while. Everything is working together well and I’m certainly not lacking anything in the analog chain. I still have wish list items out there, but long wait lists with the builders make those a bit easier to wait on.
Lets get this thing wired in and make some sweet sounds.

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Maselec MLA-3

I’m very excited about this new piece. It will prove itself as a very flexible tool offering tone shaping capabilities at 1:1 settings on the compressors, but also giving me another dynamics option through the other compressor responses. With options to link bands into a common behavior or control each on their own, I can use it to tighten up low end, address de-essing situations, or use it as an overall program compression. With the option of soloing each band I can also narrow in on exactly what is happening in each movable band. I’m excited to dig into this one.

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