Britches keeps me in stitches!

Hey nerds,

So while Britches and I have been working on their Demo/EP, random antics have expectedly ensued (does that still make them random?). On this particular day Andrew and Marty decided to get "creative" during the notion of a spur-of-the-moment photo shoot.

hyphy for sure!

Recording Guitar with Britches

Nerdles,

So with drums tracked, Britches and I moved forward with phase 1 of guitar tracking. We decided to move the tracking location to Andrew and Marty's house where Britches practices. So we threw a couple amps into a downstairs bedroom and threw some mic's in front of 'em...ya know, no big deal. For this particular session we used Marty's amazing '52 re-issue Fender Tele through his awesome late-90's Fender Blues Deville 4x10 and my AC30. For mic's we decided to just stick with the old stand-bys, the SM57 and the Sennheiser e609. Stay tuned for more with those dudes!

until next time,

cutawaycurator

Recording Drums with Britches

Nerds,

This past weekend local noise rock band, Britches were at the SPACE cutting some drums. Andrew, the drummer, was able to knock out his tracks in pretty quick succession...a rather impressive feat if I do say so myself. Check out these photos, and this short vid of the session.

some quick specs:

Kick - Sennheiser e835

Snare - SM57

Hi-Tom - SM57

Floor Tom - Beta58

Overhead - Rode NT1A

All the mic's (except the tom mic's) went into a recording snake whose corresponding XLR patches went into channels 1,2,and 4 of an M Audio Fast Track Ultra which fed into Ableton. The two tom mic's went into a mixer where I EQ'd them independently, set gain and volume levels and then sent them via a mono main out into Channel 3 of the Fast Track Ultra. The Fast Track was also serving as the phantom power supply for the Rode NT1A.

But enough with the boring tech stuff, here's a little clip of the session...

Britches will be recording for their upcoming EP over the next several weeks. Stay tuned here for more info or check them out at myspace.

Until next time,

cutawaycurator

music in video by The Tender Tribe (myspace.com/thetendertribe)

Drums for Hire

Nerds,

St. Louis duo, Villains for Hire, are in the process of recording an album and they needed some spacey, junky sounding drums for one of their tracks. So they enlisted the help of the SPACE and the now infamous (thanks to You Tube) silver sparkle Ludwig kit to get just the right sound!

Check out this video of the session.

Some quick specs:

-SM57 on the snare

-SM57 on the floor tom

-Sennheiser e835 on the kick (mic'ed close to the rim)

-MXL 603 condenser over the kit, pointed toward the ceiling.

-Shure beta87 AND MXL 990 placed about 15 feet infront of the kit in the next room, placed at kick drum level.

-Rode NT1A first placed up the stairs on the landing (about 30 feet from the kit) then moved to an adjacent hallway (still about 30 feet away from the kit). This was for varying ambience.

Thanks to Sam and Jimmy for letting me be a small part of this awesome project. I can't wait to hear what else you guys have in store for the world!

'til next time,
cutawaycurator

We Junked up the SPACE!!!

That's right, it's a disaster area right now. A new local band is practicing in the SPACE right now and they have been using all sorts of stuff to do their bidding. One of them is running two amps in stereo while the other has got the RC50 loop station and he's running pre-recorded tracks from that into the PA! It's just two dudes, but they have managed to use as much gear as four. Needless to say, it's getting pretty loco.

I better get to cleanin',

cutawaycurator

Vasu's Boutique

Nerds,

I met up with an old college buddy of mine, Vasu, who I haven't seen in years. Well Vasu is really gettin' things done right now in the Bahamas working his way through medical school. While he was in town he was kind enough to stop by The Space with a couple of jewels from his gear collection (oh, did I forget to mention that Vasu is a guitar player?) Well the Doctor was in indeed! Needless to say I have rarely been in the presence of such fine gear!

First off, The Savage Blitz 50. A 50 Watt (duh) class AB head which is modeled after the original Marshall JTM45 "Bluesbreaker", the one that Eric Clapton played with when he was with John Mayall & Bluesbreakers. Anyway, enough about the pedigree, this amp SINGS! Vasu had the amp "jumped" so both the normal and bright volumes were compounding to create one mean tone. If you get the chance to check one of these out, I highly recommend it. And look at that thing! It's HUGE!

Next up Vasu brought along his Fender Custom Shop Strat. This thing was gorgeous! A beautiful butterscotch "thin skin" nitro finish with the single-ply pickgaurd. The main claim to fame of this Strat is the humbucker in the bridge with a "coil tap"! One minute you're shredding with the Humbucker, then with just the roll of a knob, you're G.E. Smith gettin' pickin' with a nice Tele sound. Ash body, V-shape neck, relic'd out...what else could you ask for?

Finally Vasu showed me his very unique Equator Instruments hollow-body. This thing is a true hollow body with a very boxy tone. But when I played around with the tone knob, I was really surprised at the different tones and colors I was able to get. And those two humbuckers can really scream!

So Vasu had to depart back to paradise and I had to say goodbye to the lovely toys, but I'm sure they'll make another appearance in The Space before too long. In the interim, Vasu was kind enough to let me borrow his Keeley mod'ed TS9 and Blues Driver...so that should be fun!

Thanks for reading,

cutawaycurator

SM57 vs e609

Nerds,


The Shure SM57 and the Sennheiser e609...


They are probably the most common, most used mics for mic'ing guitar amps. So I decided I would pit them against eachother.
Even though both these mics are extremely common-place both in the studio and on the stage, they do have very unique and distinct sound characteristics. And being the detail-oriented, mediocre guitar player that I am, I decided that I would let you all hear some of the differences between these two mics.

Here's the setup...

Clean Tone:
1994 MIJ Strat with rosewood neck-->Boss TU-2-->Fender Twin Reverb 1965 RI


Overdrive Tone:
Strat-->Boss TU2-->Epiphone Valve Jr.-->Celestion Heritage 75W 12"


Now I tried my absolute best to place these two mics in the same position relative to the speaker(s).


And without further ado...




You make the call, the SM57 and the e609.

Until next time,
cutawaycurator