Drewcifer's Tone Zone

DREWCIFER'S TONE ZONE HAS MOVED!

2011-07-12T16:32:00.004-04:00

Click HERE to get to the new improved Tone Zone!

Blondie's "Heart of Glass" Broke New Ground in Studio Craftsmanship

2010-11-28T13:08:00.025-05:00

Blondie combined both pop AND art.

I was one of those teenagers that actually had heard of Blondie before the Parallel Lines LP. I had heard X-Offender on the radio, and had read about Debbie Harry, New York's platinum-headed punk bombshell who wore clingy t-shirts and knee-pads. Knowing she had been a Playboy bunny certainly got the attention of this 17-year-old.

Then they hit it big with "Heart of Glass" in '78. A lot of people said, "Blondie has gone disco," "Blondie has sold-out!" Well that may have been true and I may have even said that myself (to nobody there). However, I didn't know anybody who actually didn't like the song. I mean, I loved the song and went out and bought the album. The whole LP was great, with it's other, much more rock/punk/power-pop offerings. I realized that, no matter what genre they dabbled in -- and they dipped their pens in all colors of musical ink -- Blondie was at its core a great rock-band with excellent musicians. Those cats could play the phonebook and it would sound good. Add to that Blondie's hip image and one of the most beautiful singers ever to ever pout with a microphone, and you have a sure-fire formula for success in 1978.

With that said, I found this neat video on YouTube, a short little rockumentary on the making of "Heart of Glass". It's really interesting. I especially like how the narrator mentions how this session was during the peak of analog recording, and I couldn't agree more. As a recording engineer I love learning how they built this million-selling crossover hit. As a music-lover with a rose-tinted rear view mirror, It stirs up a nostalgic affection for the song, the band, and the time.

Death of The Dreamer

2010-11-19T16:24:00.008-05:00

Sandman All Lit Up...

Like a lot of people, I've always wondered what caused Mark Sandman's sudden and untimely death back in '99. There has been rumor, speculation, myth and mystery surrounding the tragedy. Was it drugs? Heroin? Coke?

As you know, a documentary film on the Sandman story will be released in the coming year. Apparently, and disappointingly, the film chooses not to delve in to an explanation for his death. Maybe because it wasn't mysterious? Maybe because it was just a rare and unfortunate event where a middle-aged heavy smoker dropped dead. These things happen.

Apparently, here's the real story about the day Morphine's frontman passed in to the dreamworld: You and What Army Blog

Drewcifer Joins Vintage King Audio!

2010-11-19T07:41:00.010-05:00

El Rey!

It's official! Drewcifer is now Ridin' with The King -- VINTAGE KING that is! I'm excited to join the sales-team on the biggest baddest gear-shop in the world. New, used, vintage, analog, digital - VK has it all! And now they have me! WoooHooo!

Can't wait to start blogging about some of the awesome new gear we offer, like the Retro Power-strip and the Lisson Grove R-124, an enhanced reissue of the vari-mu comp used on Beatles records at Abbey Road.

Fab Gear!

VK's main site, here.

VK on Facebook

AES 2010 a Big Candy-Dish of Exciting New Gear!

2010-11-11T15:59:00.008-05:00

Exciting exciting exciting! Read all about the eye-poopping and ear-bending new gear at AES 2010. We're especially wowed by new gear from Audient, SSL and Universal Audio. Bazooo!!

Nuclear power from SSL

Read all about the yummy eye and ear-candy here:
Sonicscoop AES wrap

Mojave MA-101 Goes Stellar with Everything Audio!

2010-09-30T10:23:00.010-04:00

Rockets to the Stars!
http://mojaveaudio.com/MA-101fet.html

Mojave Mic's MA-101 small-cap condenser gets a stellar review from the Everything Audio Network, who went so far as to give the mic their coveted "Stellar Sound" award. Nicey nice!

A Perfect Home Studio Mic For Instrument Recording
by Dr. Fred Bashour
David Royer, noted microphone designer and creator of the made-in-USA, high-end Royer ribbon microphone line, has created a line of home-studio priced microphones with professional-grade specifications — Mojave Audio. And from the Mojave line, the new MA-101fet is one of the most remarkable instrument microphones I have used in the past forty-five years!
In all those years, my mic cabinet has included numerous high-end, small-diaphragm microphone — and many of the large diaphragm microphones as well. These new Mojave mics, however, defy the “small diaphragm vs. large diaphragm” microphone character paradigms.

Read the rest of this review here.

The Sky Still Cries

2010-08-27T12:07:00.010-04:00

Stevie Ray Gone...

Twenty years have gone by since that helicopter crash in 1990. Wow. I still remember getting the news in a room surrounded by boxes and piles all my things, as I prepared to move to a new apartment. I was lucky enough to have a chance to meet Stevie a couple of times, as well as seeing him perform about ten times. He was a nice man; really a gentle soul. Right before he died I had engineered a blues record that had a couple of Austin-based players on it who were close to Stevie. I called one of those guys in Austin the day after it happened. He was shell-shocked, and from the conversation I gathered that Austin was devastated -- a city draped in black. Shortly thereafter I wrote a requiem for SRV, which was published in Metronome Magazine.

Here's a short vid piece and article from Austin 360.

ADK's Berlin 47Au Makes It Big!

2010-08-12T07:04:00.039-04:00

Sure there are lot of Asian-made wanna-be U47s and 67s and 251s out there right now. I know, I'm a dealer for several of them. A few of these condensers are actually pretty good, especially in-terms of price vs. performance (although if someone calls me looking for an under $1000 tube mic, I'll recommend they buy a Heil PR40 dynamic for under $300, because that mic will sound better on vocals and many other sources than a cheapo condenser). In comparison with the genuine article, however, the Asain "remakes" tend to fall apart pretty quickly.

I Can Hover!

But now there's a mic by ADK that is so good it's garnering some well-deserved ballyhoo. I use it and own one myself, in-fact, and I personally think it's one of the better-sounding instruments in our entire mic closet. I'm referring to The ADK Custom-Shop Berlin 47Au, a 47FET type condenser. Hand QC'd and tuned by ADK's Custom Shop here in the USA, the Berlin has a noticeably solid build-quality, and a sound to match. You can use it for all the things you'd employ a vintage Neumann 47FET for; sung vocals, voice-over/announcer vocals, and of course, kick-drum. The Berlin has a classic fat, mid-forward tone with a smoothly rolled-off treble. For a thin and nasally singer like me, the mic is a really good helper. It has that nice puffy proximity boost, and enough presence to be articulate, even subtly airy, without being harsh. It's really a nice, syrupy microphone. I love it. And considering what a used Neumann 47FET goes for now -- I mean, come on, this is more than ridiculous. Most of these mics have been absolutely hammered over the years as kick mics and smoke-blown radio-station workhorses. When they were $1200, even $1500, that was ok. But 47FETS are now fetching between $3500 and $4000. Are you freakin' kidding me? No way in Hell I'd ever pay that much! At $1200, the Berlin is THE 47FET to have now, and I'd daresay it sounds much better than many of the cheap tube-mics out there today. In fact, it sounds better than some of the newer Euro-made condensers I've heard lately. When coupled with a good pre -- we've liked it a lot with a UA LA-610 -- this ADK can rock the world.

In this era of low, and I mean lllooowww budgets, a $1200 studio-condenser might be the biggest microphone investment many little studios will make. I'd buy ADK's Berlin 47Au over many many other choices. It really does have that high-class German condenser sound that will give a track the major-label elegance so often missing in self-produced tracks. (People will hear it and think it's "toob"!)

But don't take my word for it. Here's what Recording Magazine (Sept 2010) said in their recent review:
The Berlin is well suited to sources needing a touch of rounding, such as shrill soprano and alto vocalists, tambourines and shakers, and even bright/harsh guitar cabinets, where it works quite well in multiple-mic setups (I have used it this way myself with absolutely stellar results -- Drewcifer)
Conversely, it works well to add punch and girth to sources as well, such as baritone vocalists (especially crooners) and low-end sources like kick drum and floor toms. I really liked this mic padded down and placed about one to three inches outside of the kick.
At $1200 street, the Custom Shop mics do come with a higher price tag than you may be used to from ADK, but these models are a serious step up in every way. They compete comfortably not only in their own class, but even with models selling for $500 more.

Buy me here on Analog Planet!http://www.analogplanet.com/shopping/Microphone_Planet/Tube_and_FET_Condensers/ADK_Custom_Shop_Berlin_47_Au/index.html

UA's LA-3A Mixes Mojo and Modern!

2010-07-06T12:46:00.025-04:00

Hi. I'm L.A. I Rock. You might want to put tape over my meter.

Anyone who knows me knows that my desert-island compressor is the Teletronix/Urei LA-3A Levelling Amplifier. This classic opto-compressor/limiter does a great job of squashing, while sounding really musical; big, almost tubey, and definitely full of iron. There was a time when I would not work in a studio that didn't have at least a pair of them. In 1998 I finally bought my own vintage pair, which I still have and vow never to part with (unless you offer me a lot of money -- a LOT).

For me, when mixing, nothing beats my LA-3s on lead voice and lead guitar. The unit not only grabs and holds, it adds a hot presence to the signal. There's a forwardness and amped-up quality that I like even more than an LA-2A. The LA-3A defines the meaning of set-it and forget-it. You hit the comps big sweet-spot, push the lead vocal fader up till it's sitting right, and you won't have to touch that fader again. They don't call it a leveller for nothing!

The baby has mojo!

The LA-3A is hot, with reams of gain. The only down-side of the box is that it's noisy. (The noise never bothered me, and my vintage units are un-modded). That's why, years ago, a so-called "gain-mod" was developed for the LA-3A by, I think, Bob Alac. It makes the gain-structure more efficient, thereby lowering the noise floor. It also cleans the unit up, and while it may make it better spec wise, the mod removes a little of the noisy dirty funky mojo that myself and other LA3 lovers love.

That's why (how cool is this?), the reissue by Universal Audio is my favorite hardware reissue they make. It has both classic more AND mod mode, available at the flip of a switch. Sweeet!

Clean or Cream? Rear image showing mod and gain toggles.

When using my reissue a few years back, I learned the effectiveness of this feature. I kept my reissue in mod mode because I have two vintage ones without any mods. I was doing a mix and the lead voical was going through the new one. I liked the mix and was ready to print it, but something just wasn't happening. That last little bit of sauce was still missing. Then, boing, I thought, "Lemme switch that LA-3A bugger in to 'classic'!" So I did. Wow! That's all it took to give the lead voice that slightly heated, amped-up presence I was looking for. From modern, to mojo!

Review it here: Mix Field Test
Buy it here: UA on Analog Planet

Audient's Zen Desk Has "All Mod Cons" for Natt Weller

2010-06-10T10:16:00.025-04:00

Daddy Was a Pop Star and Mama Was a Rickenbacker!

Musician, songwriter and producer David P Goodes has recently used Zen to record and mix the ultramodern pop track Tallula for rising star Natt Weller. *Scroll down to see Natt's Tallula Vid.

Son of Paul ‘The Modfather’ Weller of the Jam, Natt is carving out a style very much of his own - not only with his androgynous looks but also in his musical taste. Goodes has worked with Natt and co-writer/producer Judie Tzuke on five tracks so far, and a month after its arrival said of the desk: “Zen has made a big difference sonically. I really love the sound of it; the mixes have more depth and clarity and the top end is cleaner too.
“I was mixing in the computer before I had Zen. I now have 16 high quality analogue outputs going through Zen from Apogee DA 16X which show off the desk’s abilities even more.”

According to Goodes, Zen’s features are manifold. “I love the built-in mix bus compressor – I use it on all my mixes now. Having faders and mute and solo is so useful for quickly checking things whilst mixing. It’s also really handy to have the busses as well.

This is the Modern Zen!
See Zen here: Zen

“The centre console section is very comprehensive: things like the mono switch, 3-way monitor selection and dim switch really streamline my workflow. The cue section is great too, and means I can give my vocalists no compromise monitor mixes to work with,” he enthuses.
“Everything feels more hands on and real, having a proper mixing desk in my studio,” confirms Goodes.

Verdict? The ZEN JAMS!

The Green Ghost

2010-03-31T09:51:00.060-04:00

I have been on a journey to rediscover blues of late, having left it behind in the early '90s. I needed badly to take a sabbatical away from blues. Now I'm ready to start over. In the age of YouTube, I can now find a wealth of wonderful material to dig through. One of the first key-word searches I did (after Otis Rush, Albert King and Freddie King) was Peter Green. There is a lot of great stuff from the early Mac on there, like TV appearances and such. In addition to marvelling at Green, I love watching young skinny Mick pounding the kit. Talk about great and original musicians! Go to my YouTube channel and check out my playlist called Blues Guitar Greats and you'll find some really cool stuff, including a Mac appearance on Hugh Hefner's Playboy Club show. For your consideration: A priceless 1969 performance of "Oh Well", a track that deserves to be ranked with any blues-riffed rocker on Led Zepplin I.

"Oh Well, Oh Well!" The Original Mac Transform The Blues, 1969

I don't recall exactly when Peter Green became my British Blues Deity. I think it was one night when I was a teenager listening to late-night FM on my Dad's expensive stereo. There I sat, Indian style, with my headphones on, just digging what was coming down the airwaves, when that opening riff of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" began. The station played the full LP version, including the haunting slow part at the end. I was captivated, and a little scared. As a young guitarist, one of my huge heroes was (and still is) Santana. Eventually I learned that Green was a big influence on Carlos, and that in fact, "Black Magic Woman" was originally written/recoded by Green's Fleetwood Mac. That was big. By 1992 I was recording a Les Paul instrumental dedicated to Green, called "The Demon Everclear," the master tape of which is currently missing.

Of course I love Clapton. But Greenie , I don't know, as fragile and short (and brilliant) as his time in the limelight was, seemed to move on a darker, more intense level. Was it a dream? Did I really see that shadow? Did I really hear that whisper? Thinking of Peter Green always gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. He was like a spirit moving in the night; numinous, otherworldly, supernatural. The chilling minor-key triads and tortured cries of his Les Paul took electric blues deep in to the midnight. Sadly, no one knew at the time that Green's mind was descending in to blackness as well. In retrospect, songs like The Green Manalishi or even Black Magic Woman serve as signposts pointing to PG's personal highway to hell.

He was one of the greatest white guitarists ever to amplify the blues. The "woman-tone" that he coaxed from his '59 sunburst rivalled all the other greats. With his incredible phrasing, fluidity and vibrato, he took the influences like Otis Rush and Albert King and made his own sound. Green's guitar personality is so identifiable it only takes hearing a couple of notes to know it's him. I think Green distilled the powerful and dark essence of the blues into his chops even more than did Clapton himself (who I regard as certainly the best British blues guitarist, and arguably the best white blues player ever).

It's sad to think where Green might have gone had he not fallen in to his nightmare of schizophrenia. (It's often the greatest artists, living on the edge of sanity, who stumble over it: Van Gogh; roky erickson; Syd Barrett). Greenie might have become a guitar superhero; a full-blown '70s rock star. He could have towered up there with Page, Clapton and Beck.

The Haunted

Instead, Green's legacy is as a ghostly cult-figure whose music threw a long shadow over the guitar generations to follow. Where would Santana be without Peter Green? You hear Green's licks played note-for-note by a young Carlos. Or The Allmans? Or guys like Gary Moore? Like Gram Parsons and Alex Chilton, Green is regarded as one of the great influences in rock.

If Clapton was The God of British guitar...

Maybe Peter Green was The Devil.

From Wikipedia:

Green is praised for his "swinging shuffle grooves" and "soulful phrases," and favoured "the minor mode and its darker blues implications.

No discussion of The Green God would be complete without mentioning so-called "The Green Mod", where the neck-pickup on the Les Paul is flipped updide-down, causing a polarity reversal. It causes the guitar to have a unique and extra-feminine tone. Peter did this supposedly by accident. Here's a nice explaination of the mod: TechTips

** Although this may read like an obit, Peter Green is alive and well today. He still plays really well. However, the 1967-1972 flame in his eyes and fire in his fingers reside in annals of rock histoy.

Alex Chilton: The Water We Drank.

2010-03-18T12:39:00.021-04:00

Chilton: Pop Poet, 1950-2010

Coming up in music in the 80's as I did, it was impossible not to be influenced, even if only tangentially, by Alex Chilton. Bands like REM and the Replacements wore their love for Chilton on their sleeves, and demanded their fans notice. Like many at the time, I had the Big Star LPs in my collection. Those records blew me away on multiple levels: The songs, which are among the most perfect pop ever crafted; the guitar playing/tones which brought clean/ringy/bell-like to new heights; and the engineering/production by Jim Dickinson (one of my all-time studio heroes. See this blog for my post-mortem on Dickinson), which was WAY ahead of its time.

Now, sadly, Chilton has joined his old studio mentor behind that big microphone in the sky. He died yesterday at only 59. The news is hitting me much harder than I expected it to. His passing feels like what Obi Wan would call a disturbence in The Force. Like losing the man behind the curtain. Like the passing of The Patron. It's not like you thought about Alex Chilton every day, but if you're a modern rocker like me, his presence was felt on a cellular level. Chilton was in the water we drank.

In more recent years, I've grown a new appreciation for Chilton's blue-eyed soul days with The Box Tops. I engineered an R&B LP years ago by a Louisiana artist named Miki Honeycutt who used the Box Tops' "Soul Deep" as her title track.

I wasn't the Chilton desciple and evangelist that some of my friends were, but I certainly understood their reverence. Like Gram Parsons, Chilton was one of those very potent underground well-springs that fed the music we call "Alternative" and "Americana" today.

Here's a Chilton nice piece from Entertainment Weekly.com

Twang 'em High! Plays "Longhorn Caddy"

2010-01-29T10:37:00.004-05:00

Big Tones Part 3, the Audio Clip!

2010-01-12T14:11:00.005-05:00

Drewcifer Begins Video Blog:

2009-12-22T16:19:00.006-05:00

Analog Planet Presents Big Guitar Tones in the Studio

Part 1

Part 2

Stranger Than Fiction: The Bizarre Journey of Kings of Leon

2009-12-05T09:41:00.047-05:00

Rock Royalty: From Holy Rollers to Rolling Stone

First of all, I realize I am very late the the KOL party here. I paid no attention to the band at all. Heck, I thought they were from England.

But lately, my wife has been having a love affair with their music. She's totally in to it; maybe too much (I'm afraid she's going to accidentally call me Caleb one of these nights). So I started paying attention. The music of the brothers Followill is very very interesting. I hear all kinds of diverse influences blended artfully together. In one song I thought I heard undertones of Psychedelic Furs, Pearl Jam and Morphine. Yet it's all very new and original-sounding at the same time. The Kings are drawing me in to thier sound and their...thing; their vibe -- whatever you want to call the intangible aura that true rock music has.

Finally, somebody got a record deal that DESERVES a record deal. The Kings have talent in spades. And, most importantly, soul, which I believe is sorely missing in most modern music.

Maybe their fresh sound in a result of the boys growing up without the usual rock-pop influences; without the pablum of commercial radio.

So then I read their history. Holy crap! What a story: Their dad was a Pentacostal preacher. I know from my years in Texas what that means. They are the "Throw down your crutches!" people. They are the snake-handlers and the lay on-ers of hands people. From tent to tent the boys went in a purple Oldsmobile while papa preached...while daddy ranted and raved all over the deepest of backwater south. It's the stuff of gothic fiction.

Now they jet from country to country playing sold out stadiums where people worship THEM as idols. They themselves are god-like snake-handlers of rock. Currently KOL are up for three Grammys. What a story! What a great AMERICAN story they are.

While reading their bio I found that they are produced by (and early songs co-written by) none other than my old associate and Boston rock veteran Angelo Petraglia. Go Angelo, Go! He moved to Nashville years ago and has been working as a songwriter and producer with some really accomplished names in Americana, Country and Rock. Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Patty Griffin and Brooks and Dunn are just a few names on Angelo's resume. I worked with him when he was in Boston with both Face to Face and The Immortals. I overdubbed and mixed the Immortals' "Two Sisters" on the acclaimed North by Northeast compilation back in '91.

Angelo worked with and developed KOL from the beginning, when the brothers were young and as raw as sugar cane. But he saw the talent and helped them develop it. Here's a nice piece about Angelo and his work with the Kings.

The kids started their lives rallying against the Devil and his deeds.

Now they play his music.

The Devil's, that is....

Awesome!

Here's a great Sound on Sound Magazine Article on the recording of Only By The Night: Secrets of the Mix Engineers: Jacquire King

Tyler Crashes Perry's Party

2009-11-11T20:07:00.013-05:00

After all the buzz coming from both Joe Perry and Steven Tyler about Tyler's immenent departure from Aerosmith, what happened last night in New York stunned everybody, especially Joe Perry. When The Joe Perry Project went back stage at New York's Irving Plaza for a quick pause before their encore, the last person they expected to see was Mr. Tyler himself. But there he was, in the well-worn flesh. Apparently Tyler asked to sit in, and Perry oblidged. From his comments today, you'd gather that Perry did it as a favor to Steven and as a treat for the fans, not because he relished jamming with his old buddy. Once onstage, Tyler shouted something about not quitting Aerosmith, then, as soon as he finished barking out "Walk This Way," Tyler bolted in to the New York night. Today, undeterred, Perry stated to Billboard.com that the band is still planning to move forward without Tyler. Check out the full article and Perry's comments here.

Here's the YouTube of the "incident" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC7EK68tdEY&feature=player_embedded

Rockin' New Joe Perry Solo LP Was Produced Dangerously!

2009-10-06T14:22:00.009-04:00

Danger! Joe Perry, Live Wire!

Edmeston, NY - October 6, 2009 - Engineer Pablo Arraya recently completed Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's solo record, Have Guitar, Will Travel, where he acted as both the recording engineer for the final tracks and the mix engineer as well. Perry's solo album was released today, October 6, 2009. Arraya, a Grammy-winning engineer, brought his newly purchased Dangerous Monitor ST monitor controller to Perry's Boneyard Studio in Boston for the project. "The decision to buy the Monitor ST was directly related to working on the Joe Perry album," states Arraya. "His vintage Neve console has an amazing sound, and I wanted to add a more modern and flexible monitoring path. When I came in to the studio, Joe asked me to listen to a lot of Hendrix, Doors, AC/DC, and a lot of early Rolling Stones. He told me he wanted to get that sort of sound and feel. Perry told me 'I don't want it to sound pop-y and modern' - that was his vision at first, and things evolved from there."

On the Monitor ST choice, Arraya says, "Of all the things in a studio, the monitor section is an important one. It was time to do an upgrade to a better monitoring section - I had used the ST at a different studio and I loved how it felt, and Dangerous Music has a reputation for making great sounding gear." Arraya had been speaking with mastering engineer and good friend Dave Kutch, "He literally sold it to me on his recommendation - it was a no-brainer."

"When I got the Monitor ST, I hooked it up at Joe Perry's studio first," says Arraya about working on the Aerosmith guitarist's solo album. "I chose the Dangerous Music Montior ST over the Neve consoles' controls. I knew a lot of the mixing we were going to do was going to be like Hendrix-stlye, Doors-style, very 60's style mixing, where your drums are panned to one side, the bass to the other, your vocal shows up half way through the song. So I wanted to be able to have something to mute the left and the right speaker easily. On Joe's Neve console, you can't do that."

Comparing the Monitor ST to the sound of a large format console's monitoring, Arraya added, "When you bring the volume on the ST all the way down you still feel the punch of the kick and the power that's coming through the mix. And it doesn't matter what level it's at. That transparency for me is very, very important.

Since the studio does a lot of vocal overdubs, the headphone out puts and talkback get used a lot at Audio Piranha, "One of the things I like about the Monitor ST is that the mic for talkback is very dynamic, the person in the vocal booth can hear real well on their headphones. It sounds great. The headphone amp is really clean too. The Monitor ST is a very flexible box. I love the fact that you can do mono, the Dim function works really well, the ability to add the sub-woofer with the filter - that's a great option - calibrating the speakers is really easy; and the options for the inputs are super easy to use too." Another thing he likes about the Monitor ST, "When we want to update to 5.1, it's adding a box and you're there, you don't have to buy a whole new setup."

Pablo Arraya started his career with Sony Music Studios in 2000 after graduating from Middle Tennessee State University. The Native Bolivian quickly moved up the ladder to become one of the most requested engineers inside Sony's wide stable of talent. His diverse cultural background made him a versatile engineer. His engineering experience brought him to the attention of some of the most demanding international acts leading to a Grammy(r) in 2006 for Nancy Wilson's Turned To Blue album. Arraya leads sessions for all styles of music, and handles any studio situation with ease. He recently opened a new studio with the Audio Piranha Group on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Contact Pablo Arraya through the Audio Piranha Group website: Here

Visit Joe Perry's website for the latest news about his solo album Have Guitar, Will Travel at: http://www.joeperry.com

X-Cellent!

2009-09-28T23:26:00.011-04:00

SSL, You Sexy Mynx, You!

Analog Planet has been tapped as a dealer for the SSL SuperAnalog Range! That includes the awesome X-Desk mini mixer! How cool is that? More on this later!

Annual TEC Awards Will Miss Les Paul

2009-09-07T17:34:00.043-04:00

With the annual AES (Audio Engineering Society) Convention fast approaching, it occurs to me that there will be a big part of the show missing this year: The presence, participation, and indeed, the spiritual leadership of Les Paul himself. For decades LP was a mainstay at the convention, walking the floor, shaking hands, meeting and greeting, and generally blessing the event like The High Pope of Audio. Most AES goers, myself included, consider Les Paul the father of modern recording.

Most notably, Mr. Paul will be missed at the annual Mix Magazine TEC awards ceremony (which accompanies AES every year), where he always presented the annual Les Paul award. The coveted award is given to the artist who, like Les himself, has most creatively blended musical achievement with the art and science of recording. Les presented the winner with, what else? A Les Paul guitar!

"Wow, this thing's heavy!" Les Presents THE AXE to 2007 Winner, Al Kooper

The list of Les Paul award-winners is impressive; artists like Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Brian Wilson, to name a few. Les Paul Winners 1991 to present

Here's a vid produced by Mix about The TEC Awards and The Les Paul Awards: TEC & Les Paul Award Highlights

This year's AES Show is at New York's Javitz Center. Appropriately, the 2009 TEC Awards will feature a special tribute to the beloved Mr. Paul...

Les Paul, The Guitar, The Man, The Legend

2009-09-03T11:53:00.004-04:00

Here's a good bio/obit of LP from the AP. Les Paul Dies at 94.

Yours-Truly with Vanessa, one of my 3 LPs.

2009-08-27T19:50:00.025-04:00

The Big Man of Memphis! 1941-2009

As I watch the Ted Kennedy funeral motorcade on TV, I'm reminded that the world lost another great American this month: Jim Dickinson, the legendary musician/engineer/producer of Muscle Shoals and Ardent Studios fame. He was one of the architects of the American sound, and specifically the Memphis sound. The Big Star Records Jim produced in the early '70s did a lot to change my musical direction, when they re-emerged in the '80s as alternative music prototypes for bands like REM and The Replacements. Those records were way ahead of their time and they sounded really fuckin' cool.

That was just the beginning of the Jim Dickinson legend and legacy. The man cast a big shadow.

Jim Dickinson on AllMusic

A Hot Blog About on a Cool Memphis Cat

How Blue Are You?

2009-08-18T09:02:00.004-04:00

Although no one would mistake me for being a big fan of Jazz, much less an aficionado, I do appreciate it as an American art-form. When I was younger I'd go to Jazz dates and snap my fingers like a Beatnik. The groovy hipness of 50's Jazz and Bebop works for me. And I dig Dixieland. I like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Dave Brubeck, Herbie Hancock, and of course there's Miles Davis. 50 years ago his Miles-tone LP, "Kind of Blue" was realeased. Not only was it a breakthrough in Jazz and music in-general, it was an incredible recording, from an audio standpoint.

Here's a nice blog on that topic:

BlemBlog: "Kind of Blue"

Soul of '69

2009-08-17T20:59:00.026-04:00

'Stock Stage '69: Santana Sacrificing with his Serpentine SG Special

There's a lot of coverage going on right now of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. There were some great and historic performances of course -- Hendrix, The Who, CSNY, Sly, Janis, and more. But there was one that for me has always stood out. Not only is it my favorite performance from the festival, I think it's one of the most electrifying performances in rock history. Thankfully, it was captured on film.

Santana!

Soul Sacrifice!

The band was tripping their socks off, and you can tell! Carlos is on fire, teetering right on the edge of losing control. He has famously said that he was hallucinating so hard, he thought his guitar was a snake. He couldn't feel the stage under his feet.

I love the raw tone of his SG Special with P90s. (Hey, does anybody know what amp he was using?)

The percussionists, Greg Rolie on B3, the teenage Michael Shreve on drums; it all came together in a red-hot explosion of Latin rock. Transcendence was achieved by Carlos and company on that muddy day in Bethel. If you can't feel this energy, you have no soul to sacrifice.

If you don't believe me, dig the clip, baby!

Soul Sacrifice on YouTube

And whatever you do, STAY AWAY FROM THE BROWN ACID!

Here's a great little article on Gibson's web-site written by my old friend Ted Drozdowski. "The SGs of Woodstock"

Audio Zen, by Audient

2009-08-05T11:40:00.020-04:00

"Ohms...Ohms...Ohms...Ohms..." Enlightened Mixing with The Zen.

EXCITING NEW PRODUCT ALERT! The new Zen analog console from Audient is a truly trancendental piece of gear, offering in-demand analog features and DAW control for a really affordable price. How would you like 16 dual-path channels, WITH mic-pres, DAW-control AND moving faders for $15K? And that's dollars, not Pounds! And the best part is Audient's high-quality sound -- clean but with a hint of classic British color. My mixing chakra is resonating with joy!

Here's the Zen of Zen

You know what I like about Audient? And what I have ALWAYS liked about Audient? They make useful gear at the right price. The price-point vs the high-level of performance is always great with Audient. The gear always sounds excellent, works well (good ergonomics) and it's never the most expensive gear in the store. That's what ya call VALUE, son!

Audient doesn't make something and put it out there and hope people buy it-- they look at what studios need and what kinds of budgets are there and then they make gear that answers the call.

Always great bang for the buck -- That's Audient.

With Zen, Dave and Gareth have done it again. The mixer is a perfect example of Audient's smart marketing. Form and function!

Can't wait to get my hands on it, and I'm psyched to be a dealer for it!

It's About Time (constants)!

2009-07-30T15:44:00.005-04:00

Mmmmm....Pretty...

Pendulum Audio is finally on the eve of shipping it's new and highly-anticipated Opto-Compressor for the API 500 format. Appropriately, it's called the Pendulum OCL-500. Based on the same proprietary opto-cell circuitry found in Pendulum's hugely popular OCL-2 stereo tube comp, the OCL-500 provides smooth transparent compression in a single-wide mono "Lunchbox" module. The OCL-500 uses clean solid-state make-up gain, avoiding the inherent problems encountered when trying to run tube amplifiers on 500-format power. Pendulum's OCL-500 is slated to ship any day now $1295.00 These will immediately be on back-order, so Analog Planet will be happy to get your name in the queue for the first run. Place your order now! http://www.analogplanet.com

Finally, Gibson Issues Pearly Gates!

2009-07-16T13:33:00.009-04:00

I have been hoping for years that Gibson would do this. Of course there's no way in hell I'll ever afford it. But a guy can dream...

See Gibson's Devine Guitar

"Baby, Gimme Dat Axe, haw haw haw haw!"

Heil Turns Up The Volume!

2009-02-28T12:41:00.004-05:00

Click here to visit YouTube to watch a very interesting biography of Bob Heil and his gear.

The Heil PR40 on Analog Planet

The Heavenly Tone of Pearly Gates...

2009-02-27T16:05:00.012-05:00

Billy and Pearly '75 -- Tone made in Heaven, Texas

Just a quick one. Every guitar-player eventually dreams of a '59 Les Paul flame-top. The reason is that this generation of the venerable Gibson is said to have the fattest, sweetest tone of any electric guitar ever. In the world of guitar, the '59 is known as "The Holy Grail". Jimmy Page, Dicky Betts, early Clapton, Peter Green, Gary Rossington, and my favorite, Billy Gibbons all crafted their sound with '58 or '59 'bursts. Gibbon's '59 LP Standard has been called the Holiest Grail of all -- perhaps the best Les Paul tone ever heard. Appropriately, he named his axe Pearly Gates. You can hear Pearly on all of ZZ Top's early recordings. Miss Pearly's loaded, searing, harmonic-laden tone was the stuff of my rock-star dreams as a kid.

So the other day I was looking for info on Seymour Duncan's Pearly Gates guitar pickup, which I want to fit in to my Les Paul, and I came across the above image -- I'm guessing it's circa '75. It's the baddest pic of Reverend Billy and Pearly I've ever seen. The "Rio Grande" amps in the back are simply Marshall 100-watters re-tolexed and re-badged for ZZ Top.

The Story of Pearly Gates

YouTube vid of Billy playing Pearly, 1980

The Large (and Very LOUD) Legacy of Bob Heil

2009-01-11T14:01:00.033-05:00

"Woo You Weel....Wike We Woo?" The Squakin' Heil Talk Box

Bob Heil is truly a unique dude, and one of the real living legends in the arena of pro sound. And I use the word arena in the quite literal sense, as it was Heil's pioneering designs and high-powered hardware that so many of the classic supergroups trucked around from arena to arena during rock's glory days. His credits are astonishing when you add them up. From taking cast-off theater equipment to build The Grateful Dead's notorious Wall of Sound, to being the engineering mastermind behind sound systems for The Who (can you say Quadraphenia?), Joe Walsh, ZZ Top, Humble Pie and many others. Heil was literally one of the agents of change that took live sound reinforcement from the dark ages of the 100-watt Shure Vocal Master to the fully modular, crossed-over, bi-amped, triamped, multi-channel mega-ton mega-watt monster of the modern day. And lest we not forget that wierd, wonderful device called the Heil Talk-Box, made famous by Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton and Joe Perry. Oooh-wah-oo-wah, baby! And all the while, Mr. Heil has continued to stay active in his first love, amateur "ham" radio.

The Great Wall of China Cat Sunflower

One thing Heil had not done until recently, was to design and build microphones. over the last decade or so, Heil, along with lifelong friend Joe Walsh, began to revamp the dynamic microphone. For 40 years the industry has been using the same tired old dynamics, so Heil set out to create a newer better transducer for broadcast, stage and studio. The result is the startlingly good line of Heil microphones, quickly becoming embraced by the professional music and sound industry, as well as broadcast, podcast, VO and ham radio. The Heil dynamics' sonic purity, detail and quietness not only beat the usual crowd of dynamics, they rival much more expensive condensers. Analog Planet proudly offers the PR Series, among others. In addition to all being excellent vocal mics, the PR20 and PR40 are our new go-to mics for snare and kick, respectively, and the PR30 may be the best electric guitar dynamic since the Sennheiser MD421. I personally own a couple of these, including a Classic Pro (a PR20 element inside a replica body of the 1950's RCA 74 ribbon) which I use as my personal voice mic. Check out the PR series here.

Heil's Fantastic 40: The PR40 rocks for numerous applications

In four decades in the business, Bob Heil's still as excited about his endeavors as ever. He's easy to get on the phone, and when you do, it's like a pep-talk. His contagious enthusiasm is like that of a 20 year old!

Bob Heil when he WAS 20!

Much has been written about Heil and his accomplishments, as a quick Google search will show. Here are more resources to explore about the iconic Bob Heil:

Heil Mics on Analog Planet
Heil Sound Homepage
Blog 2006
Blog 2007

Bye Bye API -- Hello Pacific-AAAAH!!!

2009-01-08T14:25:00.023-05:00

The vaunted A-Designs Pacifica Dual Solid-State Mic Preamp. As Rachel Ray would say, "Yummo!"

I know it's been forever since I blogged. You know how it is -- you get busy, then the stock market tanks, then comes the holiday season, then your toddler starts projectile vomiting, yada yada yada. Sheesh!

Anyhoo, in this first blog of '09 we're singing the praises of the A-Designs Pacifica, the discrete transistor preamp based on the legendary Quad-8 Pacifica console of the 1970s. Over the years, API has been widely heralded by engineers -- myself included -- as being the ultimate "American" sounding mic-pre circuit. Well, maybe not. Read this letter I wrote to A-Designs last week:

For 20 years the API 512 was my go-to mic-pre for pretty much anything and everything in the studio. Lately, I’ve been finding that I go to the A-Designs Pacifica instead. Why? Because it has everything I like about API and then some. It’s midrange character reminds me of the API but the Pacifica is less mid-forward and in general rounder, bigger and more open than the API. It has more high and low frequency response, sort of like a 512 with the “loudness” button on. As a result, the A-Designs is more detailed and airy, while having the fast dynamics that I always liked about the API.

I noticed this when I had a 512 and an A-Designs P-1 Pacifica module side by side in a 500-rack. On a male vocal, using a Mojave MA-200, the P-1 gave a bigger, more present sound. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy the sound of British iron (Neve,Trident, Daking) as much as the next guy, but ultimately I guess I lean more on the versatility of that clean, fast “American” sound. The Pacifica, with its Quad Eight heritage, may be the ultimate American preamp. Move over API!

A-Designs Homepage

Pacifica on Analog Planet

The Heritage Desk! A real Quad Eight Pacifica console, circa '79, rocking on in Austin.

U2 Paints The Rocks Red, 1983

2008-10-23T13:45:00.037-04:00

Finally on DVD: U2's "Under A Blood Red Sky, Live", one of the great rock shows of all time...

U2 Sets The Stage Ablaze at a Rainy Red Rocks Amphitheater Near Denver, 1983

I wasn't at the well-known Concert at Red Rocks, where U2 played on June 5, 1983, which was, coincidentally, my 23rd birthday.

I was at the show about a week later, in Dallas , where U2 played to an UNsold-out 1200 seat theater, located inside -- get this -- a bowling alley. Dallas had a really small "underground" rock scene then, and I saw REM twice, The Pretenders twice, and even Talking Heads at this unlikely venue. "The Bronco Bowl" in Big D's Oak Cliff section, was a small and intimate theater with great sound. The Irish Rockers had never been to Dallas , and had never even had any commercial radio-play there. If you were a North Texan who didn't have MTV by '83, and a lot of people didn't, it was quite likely that you'd still never have heard of U2 at all. Not me, though! Having recently been in college in Rochester , NY , I was very aware of U2, and a very big fan by this point. I had all three of their LPs, including the newly released "War". I would have seen them play at Rochester Institute of Technology in '82 if it hadn't been for a huge exam I had to study for the next day. (Interesting side-note here: That show at R.I.T. was panned in the next morning's Rochester paper, saying that Edge's guitar sounded like a "chainsaw" and Bono was "caterwauling". The reviewer hated them. However, I had one friend that went and said they were fantastic.)

So here was my first chance to see them live, on The War Tour, with 800 other hard-core believers.

Let me say they did not disappoint. In fact, Bono, Edge, Larry and Adam proceeded to perform the greatest rock concert I have ever seen, before or since. And I have seen everybody (including U2 in later years)! The kids ripped my head clean off! Their energy was electric. The sound, the songs, the stage itself, were all ablaze. Bono (with his spiky, blonde-tipped mullet) went as far to the back of the stage as he could get, and ran, full speed ahead, taking a leaping header into the crowd. That's right! Head first, arms out, like diving in to a pool, landing on the shoulders of astonished fans. I kept blinking my eyes, wondering if I had actually just seen it, or had hallucinated the dive. (On the Red Rocks video, by contrast, he falls backwards in to the crowd). At one point he marched up and down the ailses of the place, waving his white flag of Surrender. And surrender we did, to the 23 year old singer in the black t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Bono had not yet achieved the God-like and masterful showmanship he would very soon have. At this point, he was flying high on his own energy, like a kid with a brand new rocket-ship. He was always right on the edge of control, at times literally staggering and swaggering, as if drunk on his own power. By the time I saw them again in 1985, at a sold-out 20,000 seat Dallas Reunion Arena, he had learned to channel and control that spirit like a Shaman. At The Bronco Bowl in ‘83, it was already clear that Bono was an amazing and passionate performer, with the bright aura of a future Superstar.

Then there was The Edge! His guitar-playing, all shimmery and majestic, was a total rock revelation for me, myself a young guitarist. Not only was it a completely unique and fresh style, it was huge-sounding. His one guitar filled the theater like a guitar-chestra. I soon went out and bought an analog delay effect like the one he used. Of course my attempts to emulate his sound proved futile.

The girl I took with me was one of those Texans who had never even heard of U2 before that night. On the way out of the show, she thanked me profusely for introducing her to the incredible Irish Band. I haven't seen her since that night, nor do I remember her name, but I'll bet all these years later she's still telling people, "I saw U2 before they were famous!"

So, why do I post this review of "Under a Blood Red Sky", being that I was not at Red Rocks? Well, it's very fortunate for the world of rock music, and U2 fans especially, that it was filmed. Back in '83, I was really excited when I heard the film was coming out, and that indeed it was shot within days of the show I saw. It captures U2 on the rise to stardom, and why they deservedly became among the greatest bands in history. Back then I bought the 12" record and the VHS video as soon as they came out.

Is Red Rocks as good as the Dallas show I saw? No. It's actually tamer by comparison. (Too bad they didn't film THAT one!). But will Red Rocks mesmerize you? Will it thrill you? Will it inspire you?

Might it be the best rock show you've ever seen?

Oh yeah....

Under A Blood Red Sky, U2 Live at Red Rocks CD and DVD Set at Amazon.com

U2's official web-site features the long-awaited DVD Release of "Under A Blood Red Sky"

Dallas Business Journal, 2003: Bronco Bowl site sold to Home Depot, facility to be razed

Bronco Bowl Memories Web-Site

Now this is exciting!

2008-10-13T11:36:00.009-04:00

New Audio Toys to Land on Analog Planet!
Among the many new audio goodies shown at this years AES, there is one which will be of special interest to Analog Planeteers. Pendulum Audio is introducing a new OCL Opto-Compressor for the API 500 format. Appropriately, it's called the Pendulum OCL-500. Based on the same proprietary opto-cell circuitry found in Pendulum's hugely popular OCL-2 stereo tube comp, the OCL-500 provides smooth transparent compression in a single-wide mono "Lunchbox" module. The OCL-500 uses clean solid-state make-up gain, avoiding the inherent problems encountered when trying to run tube amplifiers on 500-format power. Pendulum's OCL-500 is slated to ship in January of '09 at a projected price of $1295.00 These will immediately be on back-order, so Analog Planet will be happy to get your name in the queue for the first run. Place your pre-order now!

The New Pen OCL-500: Sweet!

Lunchbox Hero Contains No Baloney!

2008-10-02T15:00:00.008-04:00

What's in your lunchbox? I'll trade ya my API 512 for your Tubule!

Just discovered a new web-site and forum, Luncbox Hero.com, dedicated to the API 500 format and all the many modules now available for it. It has a database listing every device, and a forum for 500 officionados and enthusiats. The best part is my old friend James McCaffrey is the Lunchbox Hero himself, How cool is that?

Check it out!

Pan 60

2008-08-14T10:30:00.007-04:00

Here's a cool web-site I recently became aware of: Pan60

Pan 60 is a frequent poster on my favorite forum, GearSlutz, and he's quite an officionado of the Gear-o. Check it!

Bloggity Blog Blog!

2008-08-03T21:00:00.012-04:00

"Jimi, Buddy, Janis, I'm coming to see you in Rock and Roll Heaven!" Does the name of this Toadworks-USA pedal refer to the fact that classic tube amps like the '60s Marshalls always sounded incredible just before they blew-up?

I have not blogged in a while because Analog Planet has been taking most of my time, and my commitment to little drew takes up the rest. Oh Daddy Day Care!

So this will be a catch-up blog.

First, Analog Planet has gained some new lines of gear, including Quested Monitors and Coles Microphones and AccuSound Cables. We're also talking to a couple other companies that we are very excited about, Pearlman Mics and Toadworks Guitar Pedals. Been looking for a good boutique pedal and I am rippin' with excitement about Toadworks!

Excited about all the new schtuff!

Second, I was profiled in the Patriot Ledger. Check it out here.

Third, we did some business with a cool studio in Evergreen Colorado, named, appropriately, "Evergroove". This is a neat, neat studio, and Brad, the main guy there is one of the good ones in this crazy business. Check out their site here.

Microphonium

2008-07-13T19:33:00.007-04:00

Analog Planet is not a dealer for Crowley and Tripp Ribbon mics, which is too bad because I like them. They're not taking on any more dealers at the moment. When and if they do, I hope Analog Planet will be on-board. In the meantime, Bob Crowley has a wonderful blog called Microphonium, dedicated to the art and culture of the microphone.

Bob clearly has far more time to blog than I do, no small feat considering how busy he must be. It's admirable that he's such a prolific blogger. He even blogged about the Analog planet logo a few posts ago.

So enjoy Crowley's "Microphonium".

The Perfect "Nectar-ita?"

2008-07-08T21:03:00.010-04:00

!Muy refrescante! Una Tequila mas, por favor...

OK! I may have just mixed up the perfect Margarita. And I have made some GOOD 'ritas before, so this is sayin' somethin'! Without dilly-dallying around, let me get straight to the recipe:

We're using Partida Blanco Tequila. One might argue that a $50 blanco is too good to make a 'rita with, but I say, it's too good NOT to make a 'rita with. The other ingredients are Triple Sec, a dash of Presidente Mexican Brandy, Key Lime Juice, Master of Mixes Margarita mix, and the secret weapon, about a teaspoon of Partida Agave Nectar (aka Agave Syrup) a honey-like syrup made from the Blue Agave in the same way maple syrup is made from tree sap. Shake it up good with plenty of ice!

For inspirational images and some nice Spano-Mexican music check out the Partida Margarita Web-site, here.

Fender buys Groove Tubes.

2008-06-20T14:57:00.007-04:00

http://www.gearwire.com/fender-groovetubes.html

Analog Planet is a Groove Tubes dealer. I don't know what impact, if any, this will have on us. I hope they get behind the pro audio line, which is great, but has been very under-represented/under-marketed. Hopefully Fender won't dumb it down to a pure MI line, because the GT Pro Audio stuff has sort of been teetering on that ledge for a few years. Studio guys don't take it seriously because they think it's an MI line. All they'd have to do is listen to a ViPre or a SuPre or a Glory comp to realize that this stuff holds its own against, and often beats, venerated studio brands like Tube-Tech and Summit and DW Fearn and the like.
Aspen Pittman, GT's founder and designer, is a master tube circuit-rician.

The mics are excellent for the money too, a cut above the typical Chinese condensers out there.

PS: I live my new Fender American Standard Telecaster. Best guitar I've acquired in years!

2008-06-09T15:10:00.003-04:00

Hello folks! Well I have some big news! I have started my own company - a web-boutique called Drew Townson's Analog Planet. Yazoo! The Planet sells high-end analog recording gear, including lots of tube stuff. I call it "The Audio Hardware Store...in space!" Great idea, starting a high-end business in this economy, right?

What am I thinking?

Well, I'm thinking I want to start a a genuine high-end thing, based on my own deication to quality, as well as creating a legacy for my family and son. Plus, I was getting sick of the guys I was working for driving in to work at 11 am in their Beemers and Benzes and coming up to me with, "Sold anything today Drew?" "What have you done for me lately Drew?"

What I had done for them is a lot. Made happy customers. Brought in a lot of money...which was not trickling enough back down to me. So I said, "screw it!" and started my own business.

The site's young and buggy and still in development, but hey, go check out Analog Planet!

Cool New Ribbon Mic, er, I Mean Warm!

2008-05-27T11:47:00.015-04:00

The Telefunken RM-5C Cardioid Ribbon Mic
This is the first gear review in a while...

RM-5C, Muy Cremosa!

We shot this baby out verses the Royer R121 on both clean and crunchy electric guitar, and male voice. In all cases, the Telefunken sounded more old-school; more vintage. The cardioid pattern, which few ribbons have (the Royer is Fig 8 of course) is an asset when you need tight-in micing and a focused sound. You could use the RM-5C on-stage. Sonically it is midzy with a smooth, rolled-off top and a bottom which is not boomy or overly fluffy. Telefunken's literature on this claims it's NOT your Daddy's RCA and has modern updates. I'm sure this is true, but it still sounded quite vintage to my ears. The 121, by comparison, sounds more modern, having an extended top and bottom.

I loved the Telefunken on country-style Telecaster (Tele on Tele!) through a Fender Deluxe Reverb with an API 312 pre. Sounded like a classic Merle Haggard recording from the ‘60s. However, the T-Funk was not a good match for loud, heavily distorted rhythm guitar (API pre again). Obviously, this is where the Royer is money. he 121 shone in front of a Marshall 4X12 with Diesel head, while the RM-5C fell apart in to a splattery mess. We then went to a gooey “woman-tone” lead solo, ala Santana or the Allman Brothers. The RM KILLED on that singing, sustainy lead sound. Loved it there! And it CAN take far more SPL than an old RCA.

On male vocal, matched to a Groove Tubes SuPre set to 300ohms, the RCA, er, I mean Telefunken, proved the clear winner. It was velvety, not too fat, and had a little mid/upper-mid bump that would make a vocal sit nice and cozy in a mix. The Royer does not claim to be a vocal mic (although it has been used that way my studio once or twice) and its fig-8 pattern makes it less conducive for vocal than is the RM-5C.

Like the 121, the RM-5C takes to EQ very well. You can boost highs without harshing anybody’s buzz. The Telefunken isn’t going to be a mic you can use on everything, but it is very good on certain sounds, indeed. In a word, I'll call it "creamy". With the resurgence in Americana and vintage-style recordings, ribbons and good dynamics are having a nice revival. The RM-5C makes a special contribution to that cause. I’d not hesitate to try it on any singer, or even use it at a live gig.

My “Sound With a Soul”® soulfulness rating: 144 proof.
Velveteen Units, 12

drew@analogplanet.com

Telefunken USA

Cinco de Mayo, ¡Vámanos de fiesta!

2008-05-05T18:38:00.006-04:00

OK, in this year's installment of Cinco de Mayo, we'll pose the question, ¿Que tequila es el mejór?

For what it's worth, here are Drewcifer's top five:

1) Penca Azul Anejo Reserva -- the most superb I've had the privilege to taste. To me it is to Tequila what Johnny Walker Blue is to Scotch. It almost tastes like a fine whisky or brandy; starting smoky and oaky, but finishing strong with the essence of blue agave. Because it was a gift, I have no idea what the price would be, if it was even available in the US, which it's not. Muy suave.

2) Patron Reposado -- Now I think in-general Patron is over-hyped and over-priced. It's good, mind you, but there are others that are also really good that are not as well-known or pricey. The silver they have in most bars I don't particularly go out of my way for. However, the Reposado is superlative.

3) Espolon Reposado -- You take one sip of this Tequila and say wow. Near perfection. Smoky, woody, spicy, smooth and flavorful with little or no alcohol burn. Has that warming effect that great whisky and wine have.

4) Corralejo Reposado -- The oldest Tequileria in Mexico still makes great stuff. It's light for a reposado, with a pale tint the color of olive oil. Probably not aged more than the minimum. But it's a great every day reposado, tastes nice on ice and is pretty darn smooth. It's not too fancy to use in a Margarita, either.

5) This is a tough one because there could be so many I like here in the cinco position; Don Julio, Corazon, Cielo, Cazadores, Sauze Tres Generaciones...But I'm going to go with my old every day fave, Herradura Blanco (Silver). Makes Margaritas muy buenas. I discovered it years ago at The Rodeo bar in NYC, which is known for it's great 'ritas. We were playing there and I noticed their "house" 'rita was made using Herradura blanco, poured from a big 1-litre bar-bottle. To this day that's what I use in my Margaritas, and I've tried many, but the Herradure just works the best. (I am lucky as hell that my local liquor store sells the litre bottle --typically impossible to find at any price -- for $40!). It blends well, while at the same time revealing a fresh, citrusy agave flavor. I like to taste the booze in my 'ritas, so the booze has to taste good. When you go to a typical bar, they're using bad-tasting mixto tequila (not 100% agave) like Cuervo Gold, so they bury it to where you can't taste it. If you're going to use Cuervo, at least use the Tradicional, which is 100% agave and makes a decent Margarita. Which reminds me, I just tried this highly-touted new Cuervo called Platino, which is $50 per bottle. Didn't like it. Freakin' greasy! Metallic after-taste, alcohol burn and an oily mouth feel.

As always I digress.

And just look at the clock!

It's Tequila-thirty!

Salud!

(PS: Just had a sip of Espolon...BUTTERY!)

New Drew-Who Post

2008-04-19T15:38:00.001-04:00

Check out this post on my Drew-Who Blog.

Blowing Joey's Ears

Nowhere Man: How Christopher Moore went from the Boston Scene, to Stuck-in-Between

2008-03-31T14:45:00.007-04:00

While I was working at that Hellhole whose name shall not be uttered (go back 1-year on this blog), I became acquainted with one Mr. Chris Moore, a part-time helper there who was, well there's no better word for it, Chris was cool. We're talkin' wrap-around shades, the latest in hair-spikage, mod clothes, and a rave-club pallor. Young Chris had an air about him, that is for sure. Didn't take long for me to find out that the kid was funny, too, in a dry, ascerbic way. Smart kid, Chris Moore.

Because he was sort of the lone hipster among a bunch of long-toothed rockers, he caught more than his share of ribbing from the gang. But he laughed right along with everybody and returned the abuse in-kind. All the while, Chris was learning audio engineering and live sound. Turns out he was a singer and was beginning the process of getting a demo together. Chris was even planning a trip to Cali to track and mix with a very well-known veteran producer/mixologist. Yep, that Chris was on his way up in life. He had big plans. Big dreams. He was on the launchpad. He was ready to ignite. He was on the Road....

...to Nowhere.

Or, more accurately, he was on the Rotary to Nowhere. For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, a Rotary is a traffic circle. They're all over the place up here, and they're scary as-hell. Where three or four or more roads converge/intersect, instead of a traffic light, there's a rotary. You enter the one-way mixmaster, circling until the road you want comes up and then you exit. And it's not just one lane, either. There can be two, sometimes three cars side-by-side. So all these vehicles are getting on and off and going 'round and 'round. What sometimes happens is, you might be in the outside lane, and the car on the INSIDE lane (to your left) decides to exit (to your right). This was the unlucky position Chris found himself in last summer. He was on the notorious Fresh Pond Rotary in Cambridge, one of the busiest and craziest in the area.

CCRRASSSHHH!

In an instant, Chris's life changed, and not in a good way. He didn't have health insurance and ended up with a bad doctor. The story goes down hill from there. But I'll let Chris tell it himself. Instead of Hollywood, he's out in the middle of Cow-cake Ohio, surrounded by a sea of mud, trying desperately to get back to civilization through his laptop. So, check out his site, TheQuarterProject, watch his video, and maybe flip a couple Washingtons his way...

Spellbinding!

2008-03-11T09:39:00.005-04:00

Playing the new Mobile Fidelity Soundlab remaster of Santana's legendary Abraxas conjures up a lot of teenage memories for me; 1970's summer nights with the FM radio piping from the car as we lounged by the lake, stargazing. Or wearing those big clunky headphones in my room in the wee hours of the night, spacing out to Carlos' crying guitar, Rolie's swirling B3, and that hypnotic, stereophonic percussion. The future was endless and anything was possible.

Half-speed re-cut from the original studio masters by MoFi --yes the company still exists and is going strong after 30 years-- the vinyl is quieter than the tape-hiss! Stereo width and depth-of field are better than on any CD I've heard.

Abraxas was one of the sountracks to our dreams.

Dream again with this sonically beautiful reissue.

Props for Joe Ely

2008-02-25T14:52:00.008-05:00

Texas Head '77: Joe Spins Stories with Ten Gallon Attitude.

Been listening to Joe Ely again lately. Seems I get a hankerin' for the Texas balladeer's music every so often. Burned a "favorites" CD for the car with West Texas Waltz, Cool Rockin' Loretta, Dallas Froam a DC9, Row of Dominoes, She Never Spoke Spanish to Me, Gallo de Cielo and a couple others.

What made me think of him this time was that he appears briefly in the Joe Strummer documentary that's out now. I guess I didn't know that he and Strummer were good friends. Wow, talk about uncommon bedfellows: A London punk and a West Texas cowboy.

Yep, Joe's the Real Lone Star Deal.

(Not to mention, he's launched the careers of guys like Charlie Sexton, Will Sexton and David Grissom, all of whom played lead guitar in his band at one time or other).

Joe Ely Homepage

PS: Forgot to mention that with my band The Derangers I opened for Ely in '97 at Mama Kin. Got to hang with him back stage and got his autograph. The best part was, we were to play first of three, but the middle band didn't show up, so we got bumped up to right before Ely. By the time we went on, like ten-ish, the place had filled up with Ely fans, who really dug what we were doing. We were at the top of our game by that point, so that was a good night for us. And Ely and his band were amazing, of course.

The Mysterious Track 16

2008-02-14T15:37:00.017-05:00

While doing Anastasia Scream's "Moontime" LP at Nashville's at Sound Emporium Studios, we encountered some bizarre happenings. I'm not jivin' you. Some really crazy wierd shit happened. In one anomalous event, we recorded a loud thunderstorm that was happening outside the studio. This was a real boomer. I quickly threw on a blank 2" 24-track reel, popped track 16 in to record, and put a mic in front of an open doorway. This was a $3,000 Neumann U47fet that happened to be handy, and the studio assistant was none too happy later when she saw it placed inches from the torrent outside.

We recorded about six minutes of big rain and thunder. It's not like we had any plans for "the storm track", but thought it might be cool to have. (And besides, we were like, wicked baked, y'know?)

Eventually, we needed that reel to record songs, so we put track 16 in safe and recorded around it. Pretty much forgot about it.

Days later, when we were mixing this finished song called "Blues", I remembered track 16. About two minutes in to the song I eased fader 16 up. At one point right before the song, which is raging full-on, breaks down in to a quiet part, Chick Graning sings, "there's a hole in my head where the rain gets in," and, BOOOOOOMMM! A huge rolling thunderclap follows his phrase right on beat, and rolls and rumbles for about 20 seconds right through the breakdown! (The low-frequency of it vibrated the whole control-room)

Yes, for real.

Of course anybody listening would assume we very carefully placed a thunder sound-effect right there in the song. But no! It was there before the song was even tracked.

The breakdown is followed by this manic sax solo, so we left the magical track 16 in behind there...with the rain and thunder and sax wailing, it sounds like total madness!

Superbowl, Rock 'n' Roll!

2008-02-04T07:33:00.000-05:00

Last night's Superbowl MVP?

Tom Petty!

Need for The Needle...

2008-02-02T15:09:00.000-05:00

I’m a Vinyl Junkie!

It didn’t take long but I swear I am addicted to playing records. The whole process has hooked me; taking the record out, cleaning it with the Discwasher thing, reading the liner notes and admiring the great big jacket art. etc. Mostly though, it’s the sound. My ears crave this all-analog aural opiate. No digital jitters. Gimme my fix of smooth, soothing hi-fi audio.

I put the Shure M97Xe cartridge on last night and what a difference! The signal is quieter now, more highly detailed and yet silky smooth. I might as well have been using a rusty nail before.

I think it was Rupert Neve who said he observed that when you play and listen to a record, you relax and unwind and drift and dream. When you spin a CD, by contrast, you feel jumpy and hyper and fidgety. He thinks it has to do with the ultra high-frequency harmonic content of analog, vs. the band-limited nature of CD digital. He thinks the brain responds to the super-sonic frequencies, finding them pleasing, even though theoretically the ear can’t “hear” them. Apparently Neve thinks there’s some AIR UP THERE.

Fairydust.

Sonic Smoke.

Vapors.

Whatever the cause, my lips are smacking just waiting for the needle to drop once again...

Tres Hombres Revisited!

2008-02-01T14:23:00.000-05:00

On my new quest for vinyl, I have now received a few records, including U2’s 20th Anniversary pressing of “The Joshua Tree”. Nice. But the one I'm rockin' out to the most is ZZ Top's 1973 masterwork, “Tres Hombres”, re-cut from the original analog masters and pressed on to 180 gram audiophile vinyl.

I grew up in Texas and Billy Gibbons was my guitar God. I don't know how many copies of "Tres Hombres" I wore out trying to get his licks as a kid. To this day his earlier work (pre "Eliminator", pre MTV, pre 24-inch beard) may be my favorite rock guitar of all. I mean the guy plays like a mean motor-scooter, mama! That blues-driven, amp’d-up style is overdosed with Texas hot sauce. Mmmmm doggie!

Billy’s guitar sounds and the way they recorded and layered them were ahead of their time, and still my favorite tones other than Hendrix. Gibbons could pluck chimey, bell-like chords from a Strat or milk his vintage “Pearly Gates” Les Paul for every sonic color she had. He was one of the inventors of the "thick" tone; the "fat" sound. False harmonics, right-hand hammer-ons and pick-dives were new tricks in the early ‘70’s. He took the syrupy “Woman Tone”, established by guys like Clapton, Peter Green and Duane Allman, and added a searing harmonic liveness, like a high-voltage wire with too much juice coursing through it. You knew sparks could fly at any moment.

The Reverend Preacheth: A Nudie-Suited Billy with Pearly, 1975

So I play this record, and my jaw drops. Frank’s kick-drum socks you right in the solar-plexus, Dusty’s bass lays down the bad-ass eighth notes, and Billy’s guitar scorches. Chunky! And again, I’m listening to an all-analog signal path. Hearing the original master like this makes me really respect the recording engineers at Brian Studio in Texas and Memphis’s legendary Ardent.

The songs? Well, this is simply the most bodacious, bluesy batch of Texican tunes ever tracked, inviting us to get low-down and boogie, y’all! The LP opens with the righteous “Waitin’ For The Bus”, then busts in to the smoky, “Jesus Just Left Chicago”, a track that showcases Billy’s prowess on the Fender Strat. Then comes a helpin’ o’ “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers”, whose hair-raising solo is Billy G. at his blistering best. It’s arguably the best recorded solo of the Reverend’s illustrious career, and it still rips my head off every time.

Side two opens with “Move Me on Down the Line”, one of those long-gone lost and forgotten album cuts. It’s a surprisingly tasty little nugget of straight-up rock. And of course, buried in the middle of side two is…yes, “LaGrange”, the monstrous, monumental hit about the best little whore house in Texas. It’s a Muddy Waters riff on trucker speed and mezcal. Still love it! The opening chord riff is plucked while Gibbons mumbles (it has been reported that this was the scratch vocal, recorded by the talk-back mic while he was doing the basic guitar), followed by the big, bad chuggin’ train thang. The trio is incredibly tight here. I still admire how the first solo is a Strat and the second is the Pearly Gates Les Paul. It’s like havin’ a first course of brisket and a second of ribs.

“Tres Hombres” spins its Tall Texas Tales like a twister in a trailer-park. It’s a true Rock Hall of Famer, at least in my book.

I’ll never apologize (to Pearly or anyone else) for lovin’ that Li’l Old Band from Texas! Have Mercy!

Gibbons Gets A-Low Down 'n' Dirty!

My New Old Hobby!

2008-01-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

When I was a teen and in to my 20's I collected vinyl. I'd go to the funky record stores -- not the one in the mall -- and buy imports and colored vinyl and picture vinyl and rarities and even bootlegs. Every time I visited NYC, I'd go down to The Village and spend hours pouring through the racks of those ratty record shops. By the time I was 25 I had quite a collection. We're talkin' thousands of records, many of them collectibles. Like I had Hendrix's Electric Ladyland with the original banned cover depicting a bevy of bareskinned beauties. I had the Beatles White Album on white vinyl. I had the famous Lynyrd Skynyrd "Flame" cover of Street Survivors. My Stones collection was breathtaking--rare imports boots and picture-sleeve singles.

Sadly, over time and more than a few financial hiccups, I sold most of my beloved records, usually for far less than they were worth. For instance, I had a special audiophile pressing of Heart's debut, Dreamboat Annie, made by Nautilus. It was half-speed mastered on quiet virgin vinyl. Sold that at a yard sale. I checked on-line recently and found one place that had it for sale...$125.00. Crap.

So, now I'm rediscovering the joys of vinyl. I have a pretty good semi-vintage system: Marantz 2230 for phono-preamping, McIntosh 2105 power-amp and Tannoy SRM10B speakers. The weak link so far is the turntable. It's a Gemini DJ table I've had for years. Good turntables cost a fortune, so this will have to do for now. I'll buy a nice Shure cartridge for it in the meantime.

I've found that there's a big revival in vinyl, especially audiophile pressings. Go on-line and you'll find many sites. And it's not just old stuff. New releases are coming out, along with reissues of great albums of the past. For instance, U2 has just released the 20th anniversary The Joshua Tree on 200 Gram hi-grade vinyl, remastered from the original studio masters. Tom Petty continues to put his records out on vinyl. Universal Japan is remastering and re-releasing many great LPs in a limited run, again on 200 gram virgin vinyl. From that lot I just bought the Stones Let It Bleed. Sounds great...so clear..so big...so wide...so detailed...so, well, analog. It's amazing to hear an all-analog signal path again. Think of it: Analog master tape, mastered to analog record, played back by an analog record-player. When was the last time YOU listened to an all-analog reproduction of recorded music? (That's what I thought!)
Let me tell you it's a warm bath for your ears!

I plan to buy and album or two a month, play them only a couple times and record them on to my professional reel-to-reel tape machine.

The downside is my new old hobby will cost me far more than it did the first time around. These disks start at $30 a pop, and the sky's the limit. An unopened original Beatles record can go for $500. As a kid, the most expensive record I ever bought was $20. But that was a lot, seeing as LP records were three to five bucks.

Tacos El Charro, El Magnifico!

2008-01-11T13:37:00.001-05:00

At long last a new blog post. It's on my other blog, Drew-Who.com

Happy new year, dammit!

I hope '08 is an improvement upon '07.

It better be! Other than my son's birth, 2007 was a total stinker. Worst year ever!

Fathom This, Baby!

2007-12-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

I CD I poured my heart and soul in to engineering/mixing and co-producing was recently released. "Fathom This!" is the first release in nearly a decade by Boston's Daddies of Surf Instro music, The Fathoms. I had worked with them back in '95 or '96; then we started this in '05 -- 10 years later. It took a while to get it done and even longer for the label -- Cali's MuSick Records -- to release it. But it's out and I hope everybody likes it as much as I do. I listen to it in my car regularly. It's great driving music. Twang guitar God Frankie Blandino and company have created much more than a Surf LP. "Fathom This" ranges from Surf, Spy Jazz, Western film and TV themes to, I guess you'd call it '60's Brit-influenced Beat music. There's even a "Bike-Sploitation" track, ala Davie Allan and the 60's drive-in biker-bash vibe. Sax-master Dave Scholl and Mariachi Trumpeter Tom Halter make wonderful cameo appearances.
We recorded it at my Altitude Studios and then mixed it at my house in the Flying Scotsman room.
Go to Amazon, order "Fathom This!" and ride a reverb-splashed wave!

Wake Up, It's The Arcade Fire!

2007-11-12T15:09:00.000-05:00

Photo: FLAME ON! Arcade Fire in-concert.

Another new musical discovery! From Montreal come the wonderful Arcade Fire, an eight piece amalgamation of talent led by Win Butler and wife Regine Chassagne. They play anthemic, lush and dramatic pop. It's flowery and often dark at the same time, creating a sound reminiscent of The Cure and Dream Academy. Yes, 80's influenced to be sure. But instead of synths, these guys (and gals) use accordion, mandolins, hurdy gurdy, pipe organ, violins and percussion. They've realeased two full length LP's, 2004's "Funeral" and the newly issued "Neon Bible". Highlight songs are "Wake Up" and "Tunnels" from the first CD, and "Black Mirror" from the second, a tune that conjures Bowie's "Heroes" era. And if the cathedral organ chords at the beginning of Neon Bible's "Intervention" don't raise the hair on the back of your neck, I'd question whether you actually have a soul.

In April of 2005 they appeared on the cover of Time Magazine's Canadian edition, with the headline "Canada's Most Intriguing Band."

Saw them on Austin City Limits over the weekend and both I and the wife were blown away. These kids, all multi-instrumentalists, put on an energetic show, with Butler the very charismatic front-man. No big histrionics on his part, but no shoe-staring either. Very solid, and a huge cut above the average emo-alt pablum of this generation.

Get ignited with The Arcade Fire!

Dwight Sings Buck!

2007-10-25T18:41:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while a record comes along that reminds you why you love an artist or genre. It revives the feeling that started you on a musical path, as a listener and even as a player. Dwight Yoakam's new album, "Dwight Sings Buck", is one of those records for me.

I grew up as a rock kid, but even then I liked the Eagles, Linda Rondstadt and Jackson Browne -- that Cali-Country rock thing. I liked Southern Rock like the Allmans and Lynyrd Skynyrd. By the time I was in my early 20's, even rootsier American music caught my attention. A friend turned me on to Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. Hippie Country.

I've been a Dwight Yoakam fan since day one. In 1988, right after I bought my first CD player (a Denon for $750 that I still have and still works great), one of the very first CDs I bought was "Hillbilly Deluxe". I have performed one of the songs from that LP, "Johnson's Love" for years. I have many of Dwight's CDs: "This Time"; "Guitars and Cadillacs"; "Gone", as well as many CDs that he guests on. "Partners" by Flaco Jimenez stands out. On it, Dwight's version of "Carmelita" may be my favorite rendition of the Warren Zevon classic. Speaking of Zevon, his bittersweet final LP, "The Wind", features some great backup singing by Dwight.

But of all the great work he's done, and Dwight Yoakam's contribution to American Music is significant,"Dwight Sings Buck" may be his best ever. Obviously Dwight owes his career to Buck Owens and the Bakersfield Sound. But to his credit, he did not make clones or direct soundalikes of Buck's best. Instead, he lovingly crafted each song to have it's own fresh personality. The tracks have one boot in Owens, and one in Yoakam.

Here's a message I sent to Dwight:

We all love Buck, and I really appreciate how you did fresh interpretations of his classics. I have been playing it non-stop in my car--love the lean production and so many great tunes. "Corner of Love" and "Under Your Spell Again" are awesome. But I think the last five songs are my favorites of all. What a groovy new version on "Close Up The Honky Tonks" -- love the latin percussion and the B-3 solo. "Tender Loving Care" is priceless, with the weeping steel, low-twang Tele and the '60's Nashville reverb. But man, you saved the best for last. Of the many versions of "Together Again" that have ever been made, I think you topped them all (except the original, of course). The twinkly piano alone is worth the price of admission. Floyd would be proud.

Heck, Buck must be proud!

The Worst of the Worst!

2007-10-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

Blender 'Zine's 50 worst songs ever.

They missed a couple.

Years ago Bernadette and I came up with The Elephant Gun Awards. Songs that were so annoying that the only way to put us and everybody out of our misery was to blast the song with an Elephant gun. And I ain't talkin' tranquilizer dart here. It's a song that more than irritates; it infuriates.

The runner up for the all-time EG award is Natalie Merchant for her insipid rendition of the great Springsteen-penned Patty Smith hit, "Because the Night". Whereas the original was stirring, fiery and soulful; indeed one of the great singles of its era, Merchant's remake was as limp and lifeless as a washed-up Cape Cod flounder. And as smelly. Some records are so great as to be untouchable, and that's one of them. Merchant brought nothing to the table on the remake. Except, as I said, a stinky dead fish.

KABOOM!

And to think I liked the early 10,000 Maniacs. The gum on Patty Smith's shoe has more soul...

The number one hall-of-fame EG award goes to Supertramp. Not rock. Not even a local call from Rock. I don't even know the name of the song because I've never tolerated it long enough to hear it. It starts, "Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got...KABOOOOOOM!!!!

The Wonderful Sony C37A

2007-10-08T14:52:00.000-04:00

A while back, I had a Sony C37A mic. It sounded great, especially on my voice. Along around 2000, I sold it for like, $1200. This is one of my biggest gear regrets (of many). In the last few years they have become increasingly rare, sought-after, and pricey. A good one goes for three grand now.

Investigating the mic in recent months, I'm seeing that it really became an industry standard in the early and mid 1960's, especially in LA studios. In my recent interview with legendary LA producer Bones Howe (to be published in Tape Op at some time in the future), he mentions the C37A a couple of times. When micing drums, he used one or two for overheads, and a Telefunken U47 out front of the kick. It was a favorite vocal condenser in studios like United Western, Radio Recorders, Wally Heider, and others. Apparently even Frank Sinatra preferred it to the U47.

I'm convinced the reason the C37A is now so scarce and desirable is Daniel Lanois' religious dedication to the mic. He uses it on every singer he works with .. Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Bono, Willie Nelson...I have a video of him producing Emmylou, and that mic is everywhere. She has guest singers coming in like Neil Young and Steve Earl and yep, same mic goes up on eveybody; the Sony C37A.

More on Magnecord

2007-10-04T12:22:00.000-04:00

So, I started cracking open these boxes with these old tape-machine elctroncs heads in them. It's like opening a time-capsule. I just opened a box dated Oct 1957. Do the math. That's exactly 50 years ago. This freakin' thing has been in the sealed factory box since 1957. Ike was president and Elvis was all the rage. I started doing some web-searching and (after I got the spelling right) I found some cool stuff about the company. Magnecord and it's "Magnecorder" began in Chicago right after WWII. These GIs came back, and if I read the archives correctly, their start-up funding came from Armour. Yeah, the meat-packing company. They started making wire recorders, but by '49 they had switched over to tape. Seems like they did really well, really fast, grabbing a big market share right off the bat. Like, $90,000/month. In 1949! That's a decent month for me NOW in 2007.

Here's a link to one of the many broadcst history sites which has the story of Magnecord.

Cool, eh?

Me Likey!

2007-09-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

Here's what I'm listening to this week: Eisley.

They are these kids, all siblings, from Texas. Tyler, Texas. Yup! If you don't know about Tyler, there's only a few things you need to know. First, it's in East Texas. Second, it's the Rose capital of the world (sorry Pasadena), and third, it's where the first three ZZ Top albums were recorded all those years ago. Back then it was home to Robin-Hood Studio, and the colorful engineer Robin "Hood" Bryan. I met him back in the early '80s, and he had some great stories.

But, as always, I digress.

Now Tyler is also the home of the DuPree kids. Why is the band called "Eisley" and not "DuPree"? No freakin' clue.

So check 'em out. The stuff is dark and dreamy, yet alluringly poppy. Sort of Evanescence meets The Corrs meets Belly. Neat stuff. My song of the week is "Invasion"

Selling my gear

2007-09-20T11:53:00.001-04:00

If you're interested in the list of audio gear I have for sale, go here.

See...this is what I mean!

2007-09-10T12:52:00.000-04:00

Here is how the industry is changing!

Wall Street Journal

New Drew-Who Posts!

2007-09-10T11:17:00.001-04:00

Ckick here to go to my other blog.

Magnitude...Magnacord!

2007-08-29T14:06:00.000-04:00

OK this is a weird one. We have a bunch of NEW OLD STOCK Magnacord mono tape electronics heads. Yeah.

What is a Magnacord, you ask? Well, here's a pic:

These all-tube tape-machine electronics chassis' were put in a box at the factory in April of 1960 (My mom was seven months pregnant with you-know-who), and have been waiting all these years to come to life. Seriously. 47 Years ago. It was like they were buried in a time capsule. They look absolutely mint! Brand new!

So why is this so great? Well, inside these boxes are all-tube mic preamps. You can plug a microphone right in the back, and there's a line-out, a tape-head out, and an on-board speaker (which makes the thing a stand-alone amplifier!).

Plugged in first an SM57, then an RCA 77dx. Both sounded really tubey and euphonic through the M-Cord. Fluffy! I joked that it made the 57 sound like a 67! And you can easily overdrive this baby in to really cool sounding tube distortion. We turned up the speaker and it sounded like a bad overloaded PA. Awesome! You could put a mic on that! Or maybe play a harmonica through it.

Hell, the NOS RCA tubes that are in it are worth hundreds!

We're sellin' em for $1100 each.

I want one!

Wowza!

2007-08-23T12:35:00.001-04:00

This is one of the most exciting things to come down the pro-audio pike in years! I'm so excited I might wet myself. API, who makes my favorite recording gear, is introducing (or should I say RE-introducing) the 1608 16-channel all-discrete analog mixing desk. In the 70's API made the popular 1604 broadcast console. We have a vintage one here at Sonic Circus that is pristine. (I admire it on a daily basis). Modern recordists love having these as control-room side-cars. Well, after years of super-secret development, API is unveiling the new 1608 console, based on the 1604 but with bouble the bussing (obviously) and a host of modern features. Here's a sneek-peek at the gorgeous 1608. Ain't she sexy? I'm in analog heaven right now.

Um, so who can loan me $50 grand?

New Drew-Who Post today...

2007-08-17T11:31:00.000-04:00

Haven't blogged here in a while.

Ribbon Candy: The Royer Mic and Great Guitar Tone

2007-08-15T10:32:00.000-04:00

Over the last decade, Royer Lab's R121 Velocity Ribbon microphone has changed the lives of guitar-recordists like me. I've always quested for great guitar tone, both live and in the studio. Even in the '80's people asked how I was getting my studio guitar sounds, and my secret weapon then was the Beyer M500 large ribbon. So, I had already discovered ribbons at a time when I literally knew of NO other engineer that was using them for electric guitar. For my lead solos I was using typically a Fender 1966 Super Reverb or a Mesa Boogie MKII through a 2 X 12 Fender Bassman cab (old cream colored one), with an M500 on each 12", through API 512B mic pre-amps, through Urei LA-3A compressors direct to tape. This was usually with my '61 Strat, so as you can imagine, the tone was pretty freakin' good.

The problem with ribbons is they can't handle loud levels, so of course, I ended up blowing out the ribbons in the Beyers. Then in 1998, along comes David Royer with the R121 mic, and bang! A ribbon mic that can handle high SPL. I bought one immediately. Mine is from the first 150 ever made, and I still have it. Changed my life and everyone else's because by then people had started talking about using ribbons for guitar. Producer Steve Albini, who was working with the biggest bands in alternative and Grunge was a vocal proponent of ribbons. The Beyer M160 and the Coles 4038 (both of which I had) were old designs that were getting popular again. The Royer gave me a tone that was dark, velvety and downright chocolatey. I got a Bogner Shiva amp in Y2K that was already really "brown" sounding, so that coupled with the Royer was as thick and syrupy as it gets! I had also started a resurgent love-affair with Gibson guitars, and was revelling in the fat humbucker tone that I had loved as a kid. Woman-tone ala early Clapton, Peter Green, The Allmans and Santana. Oh and lest I forget Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, was my Numero Uno Guitar-God (or should I say Diablo?) when I was a kid. Needless to say, my guitar tones of the past half-decade, using a couple different LPs and a screamin' SG have been, um, high-calorie. Greasy. Buttery. Cream-filled. Gumbo-esque.

I'm getting hungry...

Here's a taste: Listen to the song "She's The Devil" which, as I recall, is mostly my SG Standard through either my Bogner or my Top Hat Emplexador. Pretty sure it's the Bogner with it's own 12 double-mic'd. Mics are Royer R121 and Shure SM7 (that's right, SM7, not 57) pres are API 512C (hey, don't fix what ain't broke!) and there was no compression while printing. I'm especially fond of the dual harmony lead guitar solos. Notice how both main guitars go to lead, leaving just the rolling bass and drums beneath (no extra rhythm gtr).

The Wonderful 121

Recording FAQ: J. From PA asks,

2007-07-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

I just acquired a near-mint pair of dbx 165's. I have heard they sound a lot like the Urei 1176. How are they similar or different? Also, the Urei comps, 1176, 1178, LA-3, LA-4, etc, all seem like different versions of the same thing. Am I right about that?

Hey J,

Are those 165's or 165A's? The "A" goes for about $150 more typically. The only reason is that the "A" has the peak-stop limiter which nobody uses anyway (ugly clipping). The non-A does not have that, but who cares?

There are many differences between the Urei comps. The LA-types, LA-2A, LA-3A and LA-4 are opto (optical) comps. They have a electro-optical attenuator in there that creates the compression. The 1176, 1176LN and the 1178 are non-opto FET comps. So, they are a completely different circuit principle, and have far more parametric control (attack, release, ratio). For one thing, an 1176 is much faster than any LA. The LA's have a softer knee and a smoother dynamic response, so they are great for tracking things like vocals, but they sort of do one thing really well. The 1176 is far more versatile and controllable, so you can use it on a lot of things. In my opnion, the best REISSUE 1176LN is the Purple Audio MC77, which we sell for $1640, and it sounds more like the original blackface LN from the mid 1960s than the UA reissue. "LN" stands for "Less Noise" BTW. The silver ones are less expensive and less desirable than the black, because the black ones have a UTC output transformer that people love the sound of. When they went to the silver-face later on, they went to (as I recall but I might be wrong) an op-amp for the output, which changed the sound. They still sound good, but most engineers prefer the black ones.

I know and love the dbx's well, and in my whole 24-year career, I've found that any serious studio has both dbx and Urei comps because they are both good for different applications. The only dbx that might get used on a vocal WOULD be the 165, and if set correctly CAN be used on many sources. (The "auto" attack/release on there is your friend!) However, the dbx comp uses a VCA (voltage controlled amplifier) for dynamic control, yet ANOTHER circuit principle. dbx stands for David Blackmer Electronics, and David Blackmer revolutionized audio by inventing the VCA back in 1970(?). So the dbx's are great, but they sound very different than any Urei. They shine on drums and percussion, and are what gives you the famous snare-crack and kick-drum pop or punch. In general, though, a VCA comp tends to be harder-sounding than other types.

You can certainly get away with a lot with those 165's, but a nice pair of optos, LA-4s, or my personal desert-island comp, the LA-3A, is gonna give you a whole 'nother flavor.

Any questions? I can be reached at Sonic, 802-365-9190 or drew@soniccircus.com

More info on VCAs

More info on Urei 1176 and LA-2A

More on opto compression

Photo: THE famous blackface 1176LN, a studio standard for 40 years.

Drewcifer runs away and joins The Circus!

2007-07-10T15:42:00.001-04:00

WoooHooo!

Back in the saddle. Drewcifer is now on staff at Sonic Circus, and we have moved the homestead to Vermont. Here's Sonic's site. This place has everything! New used vintage. We got a 40,000 square-foot old furniture factory just jammed full of gear gear gear. Attention gear-slutz!! I will enable your audio addiction and satisfy that jones!

I have joined The Circus!

Check out these mixes

2007-07-03T21:59:00.000-04:00

I've just finished mixing a great American roots-rock project by Mike G. and Associates. It's school of Tom Petty, Neil Young...that type of good song-driven, guitar-driven rock. It was tracked by a great engineer, Sean McLaughlin, and mixed by me. Check out a couple of the mixes on Mike's page, here: Mike G

Happy 4th!

New Blog

2007-07-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

Check out my new blog, Drew-Who.com

June Recording Tip...Passive EQ!

2007-06-13T08:14:00.001-04:00

Anyone who has spent more than two hours in recording has heard of “passive EQ”, but what is a passive equalizer, and why is its sublime quality so desirable? There are two ways to explain passive equalization: First, one can describe the circuit as a series of passive filters made up of resistors and inductors, followed by a make-up amplifier on the output which restores the amplitude lost by inserting the filters. OR, we can use the much more fun one-word description: “Pultec”! Yep, those old, three-rack-space mono monsters are passive EQs with a honkin’ tube amp on their back-end to make up gain. This is a different principle than “active” EQs like the famous Neves, which have a more aggressive sound. The magic of a good passive EQ is that it is subtle but VERY musical, enabling many db of boost without sounding artificial. For instance, the low-boost on the famous Pultec EQP-1A has been the BIG knob for kick-drum for decades. When you dial in that Pultec 60hz for the first time, you immediately recognize it from major recordings. Of course, Big Blue's treble-boost is famous for giving air and presence to vocals. You can floor it at 16K and it still sounds natural. Manley’s Massive Passive is a brilliant modern rendition of the passive EQ, and one of my absolute favorite devices ever made. (And forget those plug-ins, they don’t cut it! If you want the sound of real passive EQ, analog hardware is a must!)

Drew’s favorite passive EQs: THE Pultec EQP-1A, EQP-1A3, EQP-1S, EQH2, MEQ-5; The Manley Massive Passive; The Manley/Langevin Mini-Massive; The Chandler EMI Channel MKII; The Pendulum Quartet/Quartet II; The Amtec PEQ-1A

The Story of 213 Howard Street on Cushing Corner, Rockland, MA

2007-05-31T09:02:00.000-04:00

Our house at 213 Howard Street was once part of the old Cushing Homestead, a property which included 213 and 214 Howard Street, as well as the main family house and barn at 131 East Water Street. “Cushing Corner”, as it is known, was designated as a Rockland Landmark in 1981, and is marked as such with a granite plaque, right near the intersection of Howard and East Water.

The Cushings were an industrious, prosperous and well-respected family in Rockland, having settled in the town in the early 19th Century. The family’s history on the South Shore of Massachusetts can be traced all the way back to 1639, when Matthew Cushing of Hingham England and his wife traversed the Atlantic to Boston, settling in, appropriately, Hingham, Mass. Matthew became a town father in Hingham, cutting the template for generations of Cushings to come. Over the next 150 years, the Cushings proliferated around the South Shore. From Hingham to Halifax they were town clerks, teachers, ministers and masons. One of those Cushings, Thomas, became the lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and is buried in the old Granary Burying Ground in Boston. The family history says that anyone with the surname Cushing in North America is a descendant of Matthew’s. To this day, there is much evidence of the Cushing name on the South Shore, in place names and street names. (It is doubtful that the well-known Richard Cardinal Cushing, one time Archbishop of Boston, is part of this same Cushing Clan, as the Hingham Cushings were English Methodists, not Irish Catholic as was the Cardinal).

One member of the original generation of Cushings to settle in East Abington, later re-named Rockland, was William S, born in 1827, who resided at the family homestead at East Water and Howard Street. He was one of nine Cushing siblings, and the oldest male. The main family business before the Civil War was trunk-making and wood-working. The youngest of the nine was Henry Jacob, born in 1843, who served in the Union Army in the Civil War. In later years, he often participated in Civil War memorial events, parading in Union Square in full uniform.

At some point after the war, the family business turned to meat and ice, two endeavors that went hand-in-hand in those days. There was an ice-house near the house on East Water, whose purpose was to both refrigerate meat and provide ice to Rockland residents. The Cushings operated a meat-wagon (lettered “Vermont Hams”), and an ice wagon; both horse-drawn, of course. They harvested the ice at Cushing’s Pond, now long gone. (What remains is Cushing’s Brook, which crosses East Water just a couple of blocks east of Cushing Corner). During the summer months, Henry Waldo Cushing (son of Henry J. and known as Waldo), sold home-made ice cream from a cart.

Having met his future bride, the lovely Julia Lane (the Lanes were another prominent Rockland family), Waldo set about to build a house for the young couple. He did so right on the Cushing property, just south of the barn, facing Howard Street. The address was 213. It is not clear exactly when construction began, but it had to be sometime in the early to mid 1880’s. (Documents dating the house to1850 are incorrect). On March 7, 1888, Waldo and Julia were married, and he carried his brand new bride across the threshold of their brand new home. A local news article from 1938 reports the Cushing’s Golden Wedding Anniversary celebration, which included an open-house reception at their 213 Howard Street residence.

Within three years, the Waldo Cushings of 213 Howard added two new residents to Rockland; sons Lester (b. 1889) and Burton (b. 1891). Lester went on to graduate from Harvard and became a professor at Lowell Technical Institute. The athletic fields at the college still bear his name.

After early years spent helping his father Waldo with the family business, Burton graduated from M.I.T. and became a teacher at East Boston High-school. He authored a text-book, “Fundamentals of Machines”, published in 1943. Burton built and lived his entire life in the house across the street, 214 Howard Street, and was a highly respected civic leader in Rockland. He was a life-long member of the Chamber of Commerce, The Kiwanis Club, and occasionally submitted op-ed views to the Rockland Standard newspaper. Not bad for a kid who started out selling ice-cream from a horse-drawn cart!

Review of the ADAM P22A 2-Way Active Studio Monitor

2007-05-22T13:51:00.000-04:00

This review appears in the current issue of Tape-Op, a 'zine I ocassionally write for. It's a great publication geared toward the DIY musician, engineer and producer:

I love great-sounding speakers. I guess you could call me a monitor guy. Ever since I blew up the studio’s last pair of NS-10s in 1990, I’ve been on a quest for the perfect tracking and mixing monitor, one which exhibits the rare balance between musicality and accuracy. It’s not an easy thing to find, as I’m sure all you Tape-Op readers know. I am also a true-believer that an excellent pair of monitors, well-matched to the room, should be at the very top of any gear wish-list when assembling a project studio. Really, how can you get any work done if you aren’t hearing the full spectrum of sound?

My own quest started seventeen years ago, when I experienced Genelec S-30 ribbon monitors for the first time. They were the most realistic speaker I had heard up until then. I couldn’t quite get them rocking loud enough for my tastes, but they sure sounded good. At this point I realized there was no going back to the Yamahas. By ’92 I was using Meyer HD-1; the first popular self-powered console-top monitor. By ’94 it was the first generation KRKs, and then it was on to the Genelec 1031A in ’97. In 1998, I first encountered the Dynaudio BM15A, a discovery which changed my life. Never before had I heard a speaker so dynamic, so three-dimensional and detailed, so punchy, and so versatile. I’ve used it for tracking, overdubbing, mixing, you name it, without getting fatigued. The bass is deep enough even to track drums and bass. I thought I’d found the perfect studio monitor, and to this day, I love that speaker. Since then, not much else has grabbed my attention…until now.

I recently became hip to the ADAM P22A, and wow, I am lovin’ that monitor! And I thought I hated ADAMs! All I had heard before was the ADAM S3A, which some people swear-by but which I have never been able to get a handle on. I guess they are a, “Can you handle the awful truth?” kind of speaker. And at five grand a pair? Fuggedaboudit! I’ll take my Dyns any day, thank you.

Then one day not too long ago ADAM’s Dave Bryce informed me that ADAM makes monitors in every size shape and price-range, so just because I disliked the S3A didn’t mean I should condemn all of the ADAM range. He asked me some questions about the type of speakers I like, and then suggested the P22A. I’m very glad he did. Thanks, Dave. For one thing, I'm a fan of vertically aligned two-way monitors (like a BM15A). So the P22A is a good match for a guy like me. (Even when I used the old NaSty-10s back in the day, I never laid them on their sides. Do people listening at home put their speakers on their sides?). I found the P22A to have tight yet deep bass, high SPL, fast, supple mids, and highs that are sparkly but never harsh. There are many things about the P22A I really like. First, they have a very wide and solid sweet-spot. Sometimes ribbon monitors bother me because the off-axis response gets phasey and weird, and you have to lock your head in to one tiny little mix position to get a clear image. This is not the case with the P22A at all; they have nice dispersion. Second, you CANNOT hear the crossover. It's absolutely transparent -- no odd valleys or peaks, which is a very desirable trait. Smooth from bottom to top. Even my beloved Dynaudio 15As get a little fussy at the crossover-points. Third, the speed of the folded ribbon gives the P22 really nice dynamics, detail, and three-dimensionality. This enables fine sculpting because you can really hear your EQ, compression and effects.

Fourth, they’re LOUD, rating 109db in the SPL column. You rock and hip-hop guys can get them cranking, which again is a trait not typical of classic ribbons.

Fifth, the P22A has deep bass, going down to 38hz, so you can feel the bottom octave, but it’s a tight, defined low-end, never boomy or rumbly. For many applications, this avoids the need for a subwoofer. But what I like the best is that the P22A is a very musical monitor. The silky highs, supple mids and punchy lows make it a pleasure to work on all day long. Most importantly, they translate AMAZINGLY! I usually have to mix and remix a song a couple of times to get the frequency balance right. My very first mix on the P22A was perfect. One and Done! (One song on a ten-song CD was mixed on the P22A, and I liked it so much I told the mastering engineer to use that track as the model to match all the others to). It's a rare speaker that is both musical AND accurate. Usually real "happy" speakers don't reference well, and super-accurate speakers are boring and no fun to work on. I can count the monitors that do both on one hand. The P22A is in that rare group. At half the price of the S3A, it lands at the same $2500.00/pair price-point as the Dynaudio BM15A.

Yep. I think the ADAM P22A just knocked my Dyns off the console.

Sad Day

2007-05-14T07:55:00.000-04:00

Well, our house went on the market last week. This is yet another big chunk of fallout from my firing back in February. We moved to our home here in Rockland on Feb 1, 2001, and over the next six years poured every bit of heart soul blood sweat and money in to our little scrap of the American Dream. Never did we think we'd see a "for sale" sign--one placed there due to duress--in our front yard. And this is NOT a good time to sell. It's a beautiful house, but in a buyer's market where in this town alone there are 150 houses for sale. I'm most sad over losing the baby's sweet little nursery, which I spent all winter making ready.

I look forward to the day when "He Who Shall Not Be Named" gets his come-uppance. Oh and what a come-uppance it will be!

Viva Zaragoza! Drewcifer's Cinco de Mayo Margaritas!

2007-05-05T08:14:00.000-04:00

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I’m gonna give you not one, but TWO of my secret special ‘rita recipes. Well, actually, I’ll give one of my established recipes, and then I’m going to concoct an all new “Cinco-rita” for the occasion.

1) The Silver Armadillo: This is a really simple and delicious “white” ’rita which has a refreshing, silky smooth taste. It should have very little green or yellow color, thus the name “Silver”.

Put lots of ice in a cocktail glass or jigger
Put a splash of Rose’s Lime Juice on the ice
Squeeze a little real fresh lime juice on the ice
Pinch a dash of margarita salt (aka kosher salt) on the ice
Big shot of blanco (aka silver) tequila (see suggested tequilas below)
½ shot of Triple Sec
Top off with Collins Mix (I usually use Polar)
Mix well
Wedge of lime and salt the rim to taste
Serve on the rocks or strain in to a martini-type glass for a chilled “straight-up” ‘rita.

Recommended Tequilas

Good: El Jimador Blanco
Better: Herradura Silver
Los Mejores: Espolon Blanco, Corazon Blanco, Corralejo
Blanco, Patron Silver

2) The Margarita Cinco-Cinco: I figure since its May 5 (5-5), let’s make one with five main ingredients.

Uno: Good Reposado Tequila
Dos: Presidente Mexican Brandy
Tres: Gran Gala Liquer
Quatro: Orange Juice
Cinco: Grenadine
(This is sort of a cross between a Presidente Margarita and a Tequila Sunrise)

Put lots of ice in a cocktail glass or jigger
Put a splash of Rose’s Lime Juice on the ice
Squeeze a little real fresh lime juice on the ice
Pinch a dash of margarita salt (aka kosher salt) on the ice
Big shot of Reposado
¼ Shot of Presidente Brandy
¼ Shot of Gran Gala
Top off with Orange Juice (or Polar Orange Dry)
*Dribble a little Grenadine in for color – “Montezuma’s blood” (don’t use too much because it will make the drink overly sweet)
*Mix well and pour in to appropriate glass BEFORE adding Grenadine
Garnish with a wedge or slice of orange

Recommended Tequilas
Good: Sauza Conmemorativo, El Jimador Reposado
Better: Chinaco Reposado, Cazadores Reposado, Herradura Reposado
Los Mejores: Centenario Reposado, Corralejo Reposado, Patron Reposado

Viva Zaragoza!

Grand Theft Parsons

2007-04-27T14:29:00.001-04:00

Just saw a funny but soulful indy film on IFC (Independent Film Channel): "Grand Theft Parsons"(2004), the true story of how Gram Parson's road manager, Phil Kaufman, stole Gram's body and cremated it in the Joshua Tree desert. Got a little misty at the end. It's a great story, told here with humor and heart. It was not well-reviewed, apparently, but being a huge Gram fan, I liked it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Parsons
http://www.gramparsons.com/

PS: Here's a good account of the actual events: http://ebni.com/byrds/memgrp6.html#Lgods

Lila Downs, Mexican-American Diva.

2007-04-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

As summer slowly begins to warm away the cold shadows here in the northeast, one’s thoughts may turn to good summer listening. Being that it's almost Cinco de Mayo, let’s choose Lila Down’s “La Cantina” (2006). This CD will get the car-stereo pumping while you make those windows-rolled-down summer road trips.

It was The “Frida” Soundtrack that first brought Mexican-American singer Lila Downs to my attention, followed by her subsequent stellar performance on The Oscars in 2003. Her voice soars through the film’s songs, “Burn it Blue”, and “The Floating Bed”. She also appears in the movie, as the breathless gypsy singer in the smoldering tango scene between Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd. Lila’s alluring sound caught my ear, big-time.

Lila Downs’ story is an interesting one; being the offspring of an American father and Native-Mexican mother of Mixteca heritage, she grew up bouncing between Mexico, Los Angeles, and Minnesota. Her dad was a college professor whose academic studies brought him to Oaxaca in the 1960s, where he met and married Lila’s mother. As a small child, la “chiquitita” Lila sang the popular mariachi and ranchera songs of southern Mexico. After her parents split up, Lila spent a good portion of her childhood in the US with her dad, eventually attending the University of Minnesota (how much farther from Oaxaca can a body get?). Naturally she became somewhat Americanized, developing a love of classical and jazz, as well as rock and roll. Hippie Lila dropped out of U of M and even became a Grateful Dead-Head for a time, following the band from show-to-show in a VW bus and making her way by selling jewelry.

As she grew in to a young woman, the Oaxacan blood in Lila began to stir, then to pulse, then to pound. For one thing, Lila looks strikingly Mexican. Her jet-black hair and sculpted Indian features remind one of Frida Kahlo herself. Other similarities are not entirely accidental, as Lila has often referred to Frida as an inspiration and muse. Her tightly braided mane and colorful Mexican frocks summon the iconic image of Frida, to be sure. In the ‘90s, Lila answered the call, moving back to Oaxaca. There, while singing in clubs, she met American ex-patriot and jazz saxophonist, Paul Cohen. Their artistic collaboration (and romantic partnership) has resulted in some of the most eclectic folk-rooted music being made today. As “All Music Guide” puts it, “She has created a very individual strain of song that has indigenous Mexican roots and North American sonorities.”

The first fruits of the Cohen-Downs collaboration were a couple of cassette-only releases which leaned more to the jazzy/world-music side of the fence. By the late 90’s a more deep and folkloric style began to emerge in the music. In ’97 came the first CD, “La Sandunga”, whose standout track is a heart-wrenching rendition of the Chavela Vargas tragic ballad, “La Llorona” (the pioneering and legendary ranchera queen Vargas is another great influence on Lila). By the time she released “Tree of Life” in 2000, the lyrics of which were derived from the religious codices of the Zapotec and Mixteca tribes, Lila had found her voice. The result is an exotic sound, richly infused with layers of Euro-Spanish, Latin, and native Mexican music. Lila delivers the songs like a torch-singer; like a Diva, using her voice’s incredible range of pitch and tone to express the emotions of each piece. Against a black-velvet backdrop of Spanish guitar and native percussion, she conveys a jazzy sense of world-weary sophistication on songs like “Xquenda” and “Luna”.
2001 saw the release of “Border (La Linea)”, followed by the Latin Grammy award-winning “Una Sangre (One Blood)” in 2004. Both of these LPs weave an increasingly colorful cultural tapestry, incorporating traditional songs and instruments. Lila explores styles like norteno/Tejano, ranchera, mariachi, and even reggae on these releases. The “Border” LP is especially compelling, telling the story, occasionally with English lyrics, of the immigrant crossing the border from Mexico for the dream of a better life in the USA.

Lila’s latest work, “La Cantina”, pays homage to canciones rancheras; traditional, tequila-soaked ballads of the Mexican cantina bar. Cantina culture is central to small town life in rural Mexico, having given rise to cantina singers and table dancers, and a wealth of popular, heartbroken songs.

An excerpt of Billboard.com's review of “La Cantina” says this: Downs' dark, smoky voice is the perfect vehicle for these (ranchera) songs, which juxtapose the deep emotion of fado and mariachi music with norteno and tejano influences (notable especially on those songs that feature the legendary Texas accordionist Flaco Jimenez). Everywhere you turn there are deeper complexities lurking beneath the already complicated surfaces of the songs: the quietly wailing clarinet that follows the distorted guitar solo on "Agua de Rosas"; the ska-funk inflections that are constantly hovering around the edges of "Tu Recuerdo y Yo"; the dubwise phase-shifting effects on "Cumbia del Mole" (a song that explains how to make one of the more popular Mexican sauces, and which is helpfully performed in both Spanish and English versions). Very highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson

The LP’s opening track, “La Cumbia del Mole” has instantly become one of my favorite tunes of all time. While spending some formative years growing up in Texas, I fell in love with certain Tex-Mex styles, especially the cumbia, an infectious Afro-Latin dance rhythm with origins in Colombia. The Tex-Mex or Norteno version of cumbia, typically played by small border bands called “Conjuntos”, adds melody to the rhythm with accordion and an almost klezmer-like snake-charmer clarinet (picture a guy in a fez). Yes, that’s right, Mexican and Tex-Mex music has German, Bavarian, Polish and Czech influences. Weird but true. Listen to the trumpets in a good Mariachi band. If they were a little more sober, slightly less slurred, they could pass for those of the German beer hall. The classic “Arboles de la Barranca,” covered by Lila on La Cantina, is a great example of the strong Germanic influence in Mexican music, with its anthemic trumpets and oompah-pah brass. I have seen and danced to great Texas bands like Brave Combo, performing polkas and cumbias. My favorite Tex-Mex artist is the almighty king of accordion, Flaco Jimenez, who appears as a special guest on "La Cantina". I have had the great pleasure of enjoying Flaco and his Conjunto on several occasions. If you can remain seated during a good cumbia, well, either you need another shot of tequila, or you have had one-too-many, and have passed out. (I also love a good mole sauce -“mole” meaning “the grind” or “ground”- a notoriously hard thing to make, because it typically involves dozens of ingredients. Why do most Mexican restaurants in the U.S. NOT have mole on the menu? Simple; it’s too complex and time-consuming to make!)

Like a delicious mole, Lila’s voice is dark, chocolaty and full of rich, smoky spice. La Cantina’s second track, “El Corrido de Tacha” is an example of the Tejano/norteno style at its best. The song tells the story of a country girl, still a teenager, who catches the bus to Mexico City to become a table dancer and singer in the cantina. Flaco’s accordion does some deft dancing of its own on this track. Next up is the soulful “Agua de Rosas”, a journey of healing, showing Lila’s more delicate side. The instrumental breakdown features a very Santana-styled guitar solo over a Cubanesque minor-key mambo. “La Cama de Piedra” and “Penas del Alma” are examples of the slow, weeping waltzes which are as much sobbed as they are sung. Their message: “Entre copa y copa” (from one glass of mescal to the next) we drown our sorrows and count our miseries. On a brighter note, the delightful “El Relampago” (The Lightning Bolt) is a refreshing treatment of a Mariachi classic. The lyrical violins and famous “ly ly ly's” make this one of our favorite warm-weather, top-down tunes. “La Tequilera” is another Tex-Mex number about a cantina “regular”; the female tequila-lush. Accompanied again by Flaco’s irresistible accordion, Lila sings the song with hiccups, sighs and “oys”, as if soused herself! (Apparently Ms. Downs is no stranger to the joys of agave!) Throughout the album, Lila adds unexpected modern production treatments, yet remains extremely loyal to the source material. Wonderful!

"La Cantina" makes you want to quit the daily grind, buy a casita in somewhere south of the border, and live a tequila-splashed life full of fiesta, music and mucho mole!

NOTE: This LP should be listened to while enjoying ONLY top-shelf, 100% blue-agave Tequila. My recommendation (if you can find it) Corralejo Reposado! Salud!

http://www.liladowns.com/index_en.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejano_music
http://www.flacojimenezmusic.com/
http://www.tequilacorralejo.com/

2007-04-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

Drewcifer’s Recording 101 Primer

Spring Mixing Tip: Pre-delaying the Reverb

You don’t hear a lot of heavy or obvious reverb on modern pop recordings. The vocals tend to be very up-front and dry. But are they really dry? Is it possible to add depth and dimensionality to vocals using reverb that is extremely subtle? Absolutely! It’s done all the time. One way to accomplish this is to pre-delay the ‘verb. That’s why that “pre-delay” parameter is a feature on most modern reverbs, be they plug-ins or outboard. It wasn’t always so easy: Back in the days of the analog pioneers, the mixing guy would send the vocal-signal through a delay unit, usually a tape delay, which was daisy-chained in-front of a plate reverb. This delayed the onset of the reverb by 50ms to 100ms or more. The gap between the dry vocal and the reverb makes the vocal stand forward more, sound “drier”, and not be “swamped” by the ‘verb. In the end result, the reverb may not be obvious at all, but if it was removed you’d definitely notice something was missing.

WHY IS THIS BABY SMILING?

2007-04-04T09:08:00.000-04:00

Because his daddy has prevailed in getting unemployment benefits, even though the man at daddy's old job was fighting it! Yay daddy! You're my hero! Now go get me some new clothes and MORE dipeys!

So, let's do one final recap here; the "Reader's Digest" condensed version.

Let it be known that this was a personal blog, just a practice-run of a blog that had only been in existence for three weeks at the time I was sacked. It never mentioned Mercenary or was linked to Mercenary. Any references to pro audio or recording were drawn on my 24 years as an engineer, musician and producer (I had only been at Merc for a year). It was solely my intellectual property. Only one of the five blogs was about studio-recording. The others were rants about social issues, and the announcement of the birth of my baby boy; the posting that got me sacked.

1) I was fired for blogging. That was the reason given to me at the time, in no uncertain terms.
2) I was fired without any prior warning whatsoever. (I had worked there 13 months)
3) I was fired over the phone on voice-mail. It was the day we got home from the hospital with our new baby, and also my wife's birthday.
4) I was not given any second chance, and was cut off on that very day without a penny of severance.
5) In an attempt to save face, Fletcher created a laundry-list of additional reasons for firing me.
6) "Excessive absences": a) There was no company policy in-place until after I was fired. b) My absences were due to very legitimate issues like a high blood-pressure spike (180 over 110), migraine, and primarily my wife's very difficult pregnancy. c) According to Mercenary's own newly written policy, one is allowed 5 vacation days, 4 sick days and 2 personal days. That's 11 total. d) Going by Mercenary's own numbers, I used 4 sick days, 4.5 personal days, and only 2 vacation days. That's 10.5. So, how excessive was that actually?
7) "Failure to sufficiently participate in Mercenary's 'educational' program": a) I am already a veteran engineer with more experience than anyone at Mercenary, with 24 years, including six recording projects in the last 18 months, four of them being full-length CDs. As such, I have a very good knowledge-base in all things pro-audio. b) I have a wonderful home studio in which to test gear, which is far more convenient for me than staying after hours at work (for which no additional pay was offered). c) Using my home studio, I brought home and tested at least 26 pieces of gear during the time I was at Mercenary. d) I did four recording projects at the Mercenary studio, during which I tried and learned dozens more pieces of gear. e) Fletcher said I failed to do the 4 hours-per-week required in the Mercenary studio. Well, so did everyone else. There is not a member of the sales staff that came close to filling that "requirement", yet others were not fired. Like them, I was busy answering the phone and talking to customers.
8) I worked on my blog during "company time": a) I worked on the blog during breaks in my work-day, and at home. b) There is rampant non-work related activity going on there with regard to computer and internet use. All day, every day, employees are surfing places which have nothing to do with their work. Why were they not fired? At least my blog could be considered a supportive companion-piece to my day-job at Mercenary.

Lastly, I really wanted the blog to be a positive part of Mercenary. I hoped that in the future it could be tied-in as a feature of Mercenary's web-site and the company's marketing efforts on the internet. Clearly, blogging and the blog-o-sphere itself is a growing phenomenon on the web, and can certainly be used as a tool to draw interest and draw traffic to a certain issue, or in this case, a certain sales agenda. Good marketing right? Not anti-Mercenary! PRO-Mercenary! What if in my blog I talked about this great new microphone I just tried and really love, and in that posting I embedded a link to a place where you can learn more about, and PURCHASE, that mic? A place like....um... Mercenary? Hello!

I believe Fletcher lost his temper, became enraged, and did something out of impulse and anger. His firing me may have been legal (maybe, barely!), but from the standpoint of moral righteousness, it was utterly wrong; a horrific decision, and personally damaging to me and my family. In a word, it was viscous. I absolutely have punitive grounds to stand on. I'm sure the deed hasn't been good for Mercenary either. Not only has it generated bad press for the company, but they lost a top-performer in sales, and one who was popular with and respected by the customers.

The next place I work, and yes, there is plenty of interest out there, will respect my talents and embrace my blog.

In the meantime, Drew the Fourth is screaming for hs bottle. Gotta go!

Chili's Original Texas Red Chili Recipe (by popular demand)

2007-03-25T15:34:00.000-04:00

I've had a number of requests for the recipe for Chili's original "Texas Red" chili, now no longer available at Chili's restaurants (see my outrage here: http://drewciferstonezone.blogspot.com/2007/02/chilis-red-is-dead-long-live-red.html)

So here it is, as provided by their "guest relations" people. It is very similar to Drewcifer's own, only I add diced green chilis, and sometimes chopped red bell pepper.

Chili
Ingredient Measure
Chili Meat 4 lbs.
Water 3 ¼ cups
Tomato Sauce 1 pound
Chili Spice ¾ cup (recipe attached)
Onions, Yellow, Diced 1 ½ pounds
Water 1 cup
Masa Harina 2 ½ ounces

Procedure:
1. Preheat a 6 quart stock pot over medium high heat.
2. Place the meat in the stock pot and cook to medium rare.
3. In a small bowl, combine the 3 ¼ cups water, tomato sauce, and chili spice.
4. Using a wire whip, mix well to make sure chili spice is evenly distributed.
5. Add the water, tomato sauce and chili spice mixture to the stock pot and bring to a slight boil.
6. In a separate saute pan, cook diced onions until they are transparent and lightly browned, and transfer to stock pot when cooked.
7. Cook at medium setting for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
8. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup water with masa harina. Mix well with wire whip. Add to the stock pot and cook an additional 10 minutes, and serve.

Chili Spice
Chili Powder ½ cup
Salt ⅛ cup
Ground Cumin ⅛ cup
Paprika 1 tablespoon
Black Pepper 1 teaspoon
Granulated Garlic 1 teaspoon
Cayenne Pepper To taste

Procedure:
In appropriate container, combine all ingredients until thoroughly mixed.

Yield: ¾ cup

Enjoy!

Fired for Blogging: Drew's Side of The Story

2007-03-18T04:19:00.000-04:00

I have never been fired from anything in my life, which made this blindsiding even more of a blow to our system. This has created a sudden and unexpected hardship for me and my family. Financially we find ourselves in the very difficult position of having a brand new baby, and an income that has dropped to only my wife's small maternity-leave pay.

I certainly had no intention of doing anything that would harm, compete with, damage or detract from Mercenary Audio in any way. On the contrary, I originally wished to create something that was a benefit to Mercenary.

With the benefit of three weeks to compose an official reason for my dismissal (required by Mass so he can stop me from collecting my unemployment benefits), Mr. Fletcher has made his case. Now I will make mine. Keep in mind I had no warning of any kind, written or otherwise, that I was in danger of being sacked. There was no performance review after my first year, or anything of that nature. Fletcher never indicated in writing to me there was a problem. And never was I given any kind of witten policy guideline or list of "do's and don'ts"

2007 began business-as-usual at Mercenary, with me as part of the team. When I left work on the 15th to go have our baby, everybody said, “See ya when you get back! Bring cigars!”

A POINT SO OBVIOUS I HAD OVERLOOKED IT: At no time did Mercenary give me the option of deleting the blog and saving my job. They never said: "The blog or your job, you choose" At that point, only a small handful of people had seen this little practice blog. Not the case now, obviously...

Fletcher has published: Mr. Townson was dismissed for a variety of reason, the blog "Drewcifer's Tone Zone" http://drewciferstonezone.blogspot.com was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. I will give you the broad strokes in this blog entry.Mr. Townson was dismissed for excessive absenteeism, failure to meet the continuing educational requirements we expect and demand from our staff, misuse of company time and resources, attempting to create divisiveness among the staff, and finally, the insubordination of creating a blog that references "professional audio tools and techniques" [which is in direct conflict to the goals of the company].

Never, not once, was there any official sit-down with me to discuss any of these issues. Had Fletcher communicated his concerns, making clear my job was at risk, I could have addressed them.

Our company is unique in that it requires our key staff, especially the sales staff, to be up to date on the tools and technology involved in the recording of music. To this end we have built a well equipped audio recording control room so our staff can use the tools they discuss in sales matters. The idea behind this control room is to have our sales staff be educated about the tools they discuss from an applications perspective. Hence the studio is called "The Methods and Applications Laboratory". Our sales staff is mandated to spend a minimum of four [4] hours per week working in this area, those four hours may be spent during "company time" though most choose to spend their time in that room "after hours". Mr. Townson spent less than 4 hours per month expanding his education in this room.

For Fletcher to imply I was not “up to date on the tools and technology involved in the recording of music” is absurd and borders on defamatory. It was well-known to all at Mercenary that I have my own home studio. I am a partner in a commercial studio as well. I have the ability to test gear –and really put it through its paces—at home. No one else that works there, including Fletcher, could claim having a studio at home. This was one of the many upsides to hiring me in the first place. Through this method, and over the course of my tenure there, I regularly tested a LOT of gear for Mercenary; arguably more than any of the other sales staff. I have a good ability to translate my findings both by speaking and writing. I wrote reviews which appeared on Merc’s web-site (like this one: http://www.mercenary.com/weco.html), and told all my customers about the cool sounds I got with the new “widget X34”. This led to me selling plenty of “widget X34s” for Mercenary. So, I spent many more hours than four a week using my own studio, educating myself and keeping up to speed. I also DID use the Mercenary studio for two ACTUAL sessions. Not play-dates or guinea-pig trials, but real sessions for an upcoming release. And finally, hello people, I’ve been doing recording for 24 years, I’m not a rookie! It’s not just my job, it’s been my life and career for decades. I have a deep knowledge-base, I have a keen ear, and I know how this stuff works. Indeed, I even taught Fletcher how to use the studio’s Nuendo DAW system. As an acknowledgment of my abilities, Fletcher asked me on a number of occasions to suggest improvements to mixes he was working on.

Mercenary Audio never had a "sick day/time off" policy prior to the hiring of Mr. Townson. However, it seemed that as soon as Mr. Townson was hired there was a parade of "sick days", and personal days, which caused the management to begin a log of his days not in the office. Prior to the creation of this log our policy had been "if you need time off, take it", until Mr. Townson abused that policy.

First off, I contest that I took more days out than anybody else there. When I did, the reasons were entirely valid, and I always called in, always checked (and answered) my Mercenary email from home. When I joined Mercenary, I was told, “This is the only place you can call in hungover.” I replied, “Well, that’s good to know, but it’s more likely that I will call in with a migraine”. This was understood by Mercenary at the time of my hiring: I have suffered from migraine, diagnosed, since age 13. Ask anybody who knows me. I have had to leave sessions in the middle of a mix. I have been to emergency rooms where double-doses of intravenous toradol and demoral didn’t make a dent. Lucky for me, I currently can control the headaches pretty well. I tend to wake up with one at about 5 or 6 am, take a dose, lie back down and by around 9 or 10 I’m good to go. So, yes, I’m late, but in the past that would have been a full sick-day. As far as “abusing a policy”, there was no policy to abuse that I was aware of.

Then in May we got pregnant, and it was an unusually difficult pregnancy; horrible, to be honest. My poor wife was 96 lbs before carrying a (very big) baby, and she's in her mid 30’s. We had at least half-a-dozen trips to the hospital, as well as weekly doc appts, sonograms, etc. She had multiple and very painful UT infections, a kidney stone, noro-virus, and other problems, like hormone-induced depression. (The petit 5' 0" woman gained over 50lbs of pregnancy weight, and felt absolutely misrerable the whole time). She was not allowed to drive, for instance. I had to call in sick a couple times after I had rushed her to hospital at 2 am or 4 am and she ended up being there all day. One day, I actually left her at the hospital and went to work for six hours, because the Doctor needed to keep her there till 4 pm. During this time, the comments I was getting from Fletcher and Jay Fitz were, “Family comes first’” and “Do what ya gotta do,” and “We got your back.” I repeatedly and strongly expressed to Mercenary that after the baby was born, things should smooth out in this area. I never got the chance to prove it.

Mr. Townson was informed prior to joining the company that travel would be mandatory for trade shows, client demonstrations, and further education. This requirement extends to every employee at Mercenary Audio who is directly involved with the equipment we sell, be they in the marketing department, sales department or management. When assigned to attend a trade show and educational event in September, 2006; Mr. Townson declined to attend, leaving the company with a staffing shortage at this show, which required us to not only scramble to rearrange who would stay at the office and who would travel to San Francisco, but also damaged our ability to meet with various manufacturers, expand our relationships with those manufacturers, and discover new companies whose ethos was on par with Mercenary's goals.

I don’t know about damaging Mercenary, but it is true I declined to go to that AES convention. I told them right from the gitgo, like in March or April, that I could ABSOLUTELY not go to the San Fran AES show DUE TO PERSONAL FAMILY REASONS; previously scheduled. It was a timing-related issue, requiring me to remain in the Boston area over that weekend -- AES extended through that same weekend. Then, in maybe July, they asked me again to attend AES, adding more pressure and making me feel even more uncomfortable about it. Again, my answer was no, and I said that it would not change, and begged them not ask me again. Incredibly, in September, they asked me a third time. I was so stressed out and full of anxiety that I literally puked a couple of times. I said, “Ok, if you’re going to fire me for not going, then fire me, because I’m not going, and this is a deal-breaker. While the rest were in SF, I was part of a tiny skeleton-crew, myself handling the work of three guys (including taking all incoming sales calls). I came in early and left late. We were a lean mean machine, cranking out the work. We got it all done, seamlessly and flawlessly. It was good. I was proud. Not a beat was missed as far as the customers were concerned. Discouragingly, Fletcher reprimanded me for not posting enough on the Gearslutz forum over those days. Wow. Silly me, I thought handling in-coming orders came first, leaving no time for forum-fishing.

It was never about refusing to travel for the job or not pitching in to do my share as Fletcher states. I told them I was willing to and WANTED to go to the Tape Op Con in June, but they denied my request. I told Fletcher and Jay that it was highly likely that I’d have no problem attending the NY AES convention in ’07.

*As an interesting footnote here, when Jay and the others came back from SF, I expected a whole AES roundup meeting, discussing what was seen, who was met-with, what was new and exciting, etc. Nothing of the kind happened. When I asked about the show I got a shrug and a, “Ugh. Nothin’ really good this year.” That’s it? Yep, that was it, a non-event.

We did take umbrage to Mr. Townson's blog for the following reasons. At one point Mr. Townson asked Mr. Fitz [Mercenary's C.O.O.] if he could start an educational blog about professional audio. Mr. Fitz said he may not start such a blog. He then asked me [Mercenary's C.E.O.] if he could start such a blog ["going over Mr. Fitz's head"], I too responded in the negative. Yet if you look at the blog, the very first line at the top of the page says: "Mics, Drums, and Rock & Roll: A Music Recording Blog!" That says "conflict of interest" to me, what does it say to you?

WHAT?! I asked if I could start a blog that linked to Mercenary, potentially to drive traffic and sales its way. I had the best interests of Mercenary in mind. Mercenary said no. When I started my personal blog, in part to post photos of my kid, I never had any inkling that I needed permission. Indeed, as Fletcher himself admits, other employees (who still have jobs at Mercenary) blog. , Given this backdrop, it is unimaginable that they meant no blog, whatsoever, period.

My personal blog (prior to my firing) doesn’t mention Mercenary anywhere. Why? Because when Mercenary said no blog linked to Mercenary. I took it to mean, and who wouldn’t, that I could do no blog linked in any way to Mercenary. That’s why I was not only careful to not use Mercenary’s name, but I even decided to post NON-audio related content to get started, just to get my chops honed. Nothing on the blog could have possibly adversely affected Mercenary or its business. We're talkin' five posts people. One about chili. Five little posts! My intellectual property. Does that say “conflict of interest” to you? And, by the way, I did not use my real name anywhere on there either.

What does my anonymous blog say? It says: this is the blog of a guy who has had a two decade history as a recordist, musician, published writer, and pro audio consultant who just became a father. Is Mercenary claiming it owns phrases like “pro audio” “recording” “rock and roll” or “microphone?”

The majority of the time stamps on the blog entries were posted during company hours

This was not the reason given to me for my dismissal. There was actually confusion on the time stamps. They originally defaulted to either GMT or PST, and I later changed that setting to EST. But first let me say, if the boss is going to fire people for doing non work-related stuff on their computers, then I’m the least of his worries. He’d have to fire everyone, and then he’d have to fire himself. One guy’s got his IM window open, chatting with a buddy all day. Another guy’s surfing MySpace. And there was worse. I would mostly go to sports web-sites like Dallas Cowboys or Boston Red Sox. At this job there was no set schedule during the work day, and you didn’t leave for lunch (a runner was sent out).

Is it not true that labor law requires that people have a minimum half-hour lunch break and a couple of 15 minute breaks daily? And that that break-time is legally considered personal, NON-company time? Obviously, no-one can work a straight 8-hours without a break. It was typical for me to take a couple of 10-minute brain-breathers throughout the day. I would do personal stuff during lunch time, like pay a bill or listen to an internet radio station. In the late afternoon, I’d take another ten minute “brain-breather”, and go get a cup of coffee or walk around the warehouse or call my wife. Talking gear all day can get monotonous, especially when you end up answering the very same questions day after day, so the mind can wander. Let he whose mind does NOT wander cast the first stone. As such, I never wrote any posts on Mercenary time.

Our "shop" is open from 10a Eastern Time to 6p [18:00] eastern time. During that time we are somewhat flexible as to what may be done with the time. Playing with the equipment in "The Methods and Applications Laboratory" is encouraged. Researching other audio related websites is encouraged. Viewing sites like CNN's, and "Boston.com" is tolerated. Mr. Townson also used that time to create the beginnings of a children's clothing line, which was also tolerated. The creation of an 'outlaw recording tools and technique' site was intolerable.

I did not create “the beginnings of a children’s clothing line.” I came to Fletcher with an e-commerce idea for children’s t-shirts. (Mercenary sells T-shirts, including children’s shirts). I showed him the idea one-day at work. He wasn’t interested. That was all there was to the “clothing line.” I had several other ideas which were brushed off like dandruff. I created an idea for a new Mercenary product, which was not shot down so much as it was ignored. So much for the “somewhat flexible” work environment that allegedly tolerates creativity. My ideas and comments to Fletcher were often met with the reply, "I don't have any bandwidth for this!" Even more often his responses were alarmingly disrespectful, but that I can't get in to now.

Further to that, Mr. Townson told several members of the Mercenary Audio staff about the existence of the blog, with strict instructions not to let either Mr. Fitz or myself about the existence of the blog, creating an air of divisiveness among the staff.

This is utterly not true. Who knew and didn’t know about the blog was random coincidence. If anything, the ones who knew were the other bloggers, and the ones who didn’t were not blogging. Simple as that. No conspiracy. No strict instructions.
(I'd like to know if Fletcher was aware of the other blogs. If so, then it makes me look all the more singled-out, and if not, has he accused the other bloggers --who were not fired-- of conspiricay to keep secret their blogs?)
FURTHERMORE, a blog is public. It goes out to the world. Why would I think I could keep it secret? Even so, it's MY PERSONAL BLOG, never mentioning Mercenary at all. It's not their business anyway!

They capitulated, but because we have a "family atmosphere" at Mercenary forgot the request when the picture of the child was posted on the blog. This was how Mr. Fitz came to learn of the blog. He held onto this information for several days before showing me the blog. Upon seeing the blog I sat with it for a day or two to let my temper cool before acting. It was at that point that Mr. Fitz, myself, and our Human Resources person met to decide a course of action.

Sat for a day or two? That’s an interesting statement because on the voicemail left by Fletcher he says that something had come to his attention “within the last few hours, so you’re fired.”

Did the timing of his dismissal absolutely suck? Yes, it most certainly did.

We are in agreement here. It should be noted that no severance was offered; my pay was immediately cut off as of the day of the call. Also there was no ability for me to come in and clear my desk or settle my affairs. Within three hours of the call, a courier was at my house delivering all of my personal effects from Mercenary – the contents of my desk and some audio gear. Three hours...

Had Mr. Townson's son not arrived only days earlier there would have been no "cooling off" period and he would have been instantly dismissed upon the discovery of "the blog".

Again, a highly dubious claim. The proof is in the voicemail which refers to a matter of hours, not days.

Yes, I dismissed Mr. Townson via telephone. No, he was not home when I called, so yes, he was fired on a voicemail. We discussed the matter later in the day when Mr. Townson called the office later to determine if this was "a joke" or not [it wasn't], and while we did not discuss the other matters at length. A proper letter of termination was subsequently drafted and sent to Mr. Townson.

I have yet to receive that letter. I’m guessing it’s a requirement by Massachusetts in order for Mercenary to fight me collecting my unemployment, which, unfortunately, is the course they’ve chosen to take.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels that, if you have any class at all, you sit down with the employee, in-person, mano-a-mano, and you say, “This is a problem. This isn’t working.” And maybe you say, “We’ve made our decision, and it’s final. You are being let go.” And then you give the fired guy a chance to gather his stuff, clean out his desk, maybe delete some personal stuff from the computer (Oh yeah, they went through that with a fine-tooth comb, too), and maybe you give the guy a little parting money for his newborn kid. And maybe you don’t fight him claiming unemployment benefits, because, yeah, there’s that new screaming boy and formula is $24 a can. That’s fair, right?

That’s what you do if you have any decency at all.

What you don’t do is leave a voice-message on the day the couple’s first baby comes home from the hospital.

Not fair.

At the end of the day, I did a good job at Mercenary where it counts: I helped customers; steered ‘em the right direction, helped ‘em make the right choices. I’d say I have a 100% happy-client satisfaction rating, with nothing but praise for my valuable contributions. I talked, advised, answered Emails (sometimes wrote Harry Potter-length replies), posted on forums, tested and reviewed gear, taught those around me what I knew, and generally contributed in a positive way. There’s a reason why I have made many friends and am universally liked by the people that know me in the music, recording and pro audio scene. It’s because I do right by them.

I have been heartened by the great show of support I have received during this crisis. Turns out a LOT of people are on my side.

Bottom line: My actions and my little blog certainly did no harm to C.N.Fletcher or his company (or his family). Contrarily, he MOST CERTAINLY has harmed me, my wife, and my new baby. By firing me the way he did, he not only threw our lives in to crisis, he stripped me of the joy of being a new, first-time dad. And now he's continuing the cruelty by fighting me on getting my unemployment money. WHO IS HURTING WHO?

* the mud may continue to fly, but I am not going to engage in it. This is a huge and exhausting distraction, and my efforts need to be focused on getting a new job (opportunities are presenting themselves, and anyone who is interested can contact me through here), and looking after my wife and new baby. And maybe, just maybe, getting a little sleep.

Mr. Townson's Dismissal

2007-03-17T14:34:00.000-04:00

Mr Townson, that's me, Drew Townson, was dismissed by his employer, Mercenary Audio on February 22, over the phone, via voicemail, on the day we got home from the hospital with our new baby. It was also my wife's birthday. The reason given at the time was my blog. This blog. Now, the blogosphere has erupted with posts weighing in on the issue. My former employer, Mr. C.N. Fletcher, has carefully crafted his full side of the story, saying that the blog was the final straw among other issues. I am also carefully crafting my counterpoint to this, and after it is reviewed by my attorney, I will be posting it up here....soon. Stay tuned.

2007-03-16T10:22:00.000-04:00

Hi Gang..well, it's been a few weeks since my last post. Hard to believe little Drew-bear is already a month old today! He's a noisy (and hungry) little devil. A lot has happened to the Von Tone family in the last month, some of it great, some of it not so great at all. The day we got back from the hospital with the little guy, also my wife's birthday, Drewcifer (me), was fired from my job, suddenly and unexpectedly. Even worse, the deed was done in an utterly classless way; over the phone, via voice-mail. And us with a brand new mouth to feed! The reason given by my (to remain nameless) employer? This blog. Yep. This little, insignificant practice blog of mine. Legal advice has recommended I not blog or speak about this in detail, so that's all I can say about it at this time...

Sucks, don't it?

Maybe not. Maybe a blessing. Vows of support and job possibilities are rolling in from every direction now. Thank you for your votes of confidence.

'Nuff said about that.

In the meantime, let me add a couple quick items. First, and this is timely, I have become aware of a soon-to-be-published book called, "Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace," by Bruce Barry. In it, Barry explores the question: "Is it legal to fire people for engaging in free speech that makes employers uncomfortable, even if the speech has little or nothing to do with job or workplace? For most American workers, the alarming answer is yes." http://www.speechlessthebook.com/

Secondly, Loreena McKennett (see blog below) performs tonight on Boston's WGBH Channel 2 on "Great Performances: Loreena McKennitt, Nights from the Alhambra". The show is running on PBS stations all month long. Set your Tivos for that one; I know I will. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/mckennitt/

2007-02-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

Drewcifer is proud to announce the arrival of Drew the Fourth, aka Drew-Bear, born Friday Feb 16th at 11 am, weighing-in at a very bear-like 8lbs, 12oz! Mama and baby doing great!

2007-02-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

Drew’s Reviews:
Occasionally I will review a CD, film, guitar or piece of audio gear. Here’s a review on a CD I am currently addicted to; Loreena McKennitt’s “The Book of Secrets”.

UNDER LOREENA’S SPELL:
The Book of Secrets, 1997 Quinlan Road Records
By Drewcifer Von Tone

Take a musical journey through an exotic, alluring world with Canadian singer/multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt; a world where east harmonizes soulfully with west.

I am a late-comer to McKennitt's music, but what a wonderful find she has been! "The Book of Secrets" is a musical masterwork, conjuring magical imagery and dreamscapes of rich color. The 1997 release is, like all her albums, on her own Quinlan Road label. Being a fan of Clannad, and to a lesser extent of Enya, I find McKennitt's music to be more haunting, more imaginative and more aurally textural than either of the other two.

There are many enchanting tales inside "The Book of Secrets", but none more stirring than the 1997 hit single, "The Mummer's Dance", a positively addicting blend of Arabic percussion, hypnotic drones, and soaring vocal melody. I consider myself much more a Celtic music fan than a New-Ager, but this song is a genre-buster; cutting a wide appeal across World, Celtic, New Age, Folk, and even Pop. The more traditionally Celtic "Skellig" paints the lonely picture of a Medieval Irish Monk and Scribe, living in devout solitude in the harsh Skellig Islands. The instrumental "Marco Polo" transports us to the smoky late-night Bazaars of Persia, where mystery, danger and romance await around every darkened corner; behind every silken veil. You can almost smell the opium on the night air. And perhaps my favorite is "The Highwayman", a tragic love story whose lyrics are adapted from the famous poem by Alfred Noyes. McKennitt is obviously a life-long student of classic poetry, and her own lyric-writing reads like it. These songs resonate. These songs intoxicate.

McKennitt's musical quest has set her on a pan-continental journey from the misty moors of Ireland to the mysterious markets of Marrakech. Atop it all, her ringing soprano stirs the very soul of the ancient traveler, the lover; the dreamer. You wouldn't imagine that an artist could weave Celtic and Arabic styles so seamlessly in to one tapestry, but not only does McKennitt do just that, she does it so beautifully that it makes one realize that these ancient sounds are not so diverse after all. She has found, at the core of it, that eastern and western music share a common and radiant soul.

RECORDING NOTES: From a production standpoint, “The Book of Secrets” is immaculate. The project was tracked and mixed at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio in Wiltshire England, and was mastered stateside by Bob Ludwig at Gateway in Maine. Producer credits go to McKennitt and Brian Hughes, with engineers Stuart Bruce and the famous Kevin Killen (U2, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello). It was an all analog recording, recorded in 1996 and ’97 using multiple Studer machines and Gabriel’s wrap-around SSL 4000. The challenge of blending no less than fifty different instruments of every era and timbre must have been incredibly daunting. Heck, just getting them in tune was a project, so I’m told. McKennitt blends traditional European instruments (piano, harp, pipes, strings) with Arabic drums and drones, while also incorporating ancient devices like hurdy-gurdy, viola da gamba and Victorian guitar. Add to that McKennitt’s resonant operatic soprano, and the result is the most eclectic and exotic sonic-texture I have experienced, maybe ever.

Loreena’s web-site
http://www.quinlanroad.com/homepage/index.asp
Look for Loreena’s PBS TV special, “Nights from the Alhambra” coming in March.
http://www.quinlanroad.com/newsandviews/currentupdates.asp?id=553

Part 2: Chili's Red is Dead! Long Live The Red!

2007-02-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

You've heard the expression, "Don't Mess With Texas". Well, there's a lesser-known version of that saying that goes, "Don't Mess With a Man's Texas Chili!" This is what Chili's restaurant has done; another indication of the further dumbing-down and homogenization of America. Local color and authentic flavor are dying faster than Lindsey Lohan's brain-cells!

Before I explain what Chili's has done, let's get some back-story: Chili's started in Dallas in the late '70s. I'm sure it's goal was to be a national chain right from the git-go. Dallas is the home of national food chains such as Friday's and Bennigans. I lived in Dallas back then, and I was fond of lunching at one of the first Chili's on Belt-Line Road in Carrolton. Why were we drawn to Chili's? Shoot, for the chili, silly! Yeah, way before the "Baby Back Ribs" jingle, the place was known for its "Texas Red". There was a big sign over the door which read, "Eat More Chili". And yeah, the name of the freakin' restaurant is Chili's...hello! We were under the impression, correct or not, that this was an award-winning Texas Red recipe, as indicated by all the photos on the wall from the famous Terlingua, Texas Chili cook-off. This event takes place every year with hundreds of contestants and chooses the supreme Chili of Texas...no small feat! And what is "Texas Red", the non-Texan might ask? It is a BEAN-FREE, all meat version of Chili native to Texas, characterized by its red-chili-pepper induced heat and masa-flour thickness. That's right. No beans! Never had 'em, never will. That would be a sin. Or worse; that would be yankee chili!

In later years, I found it funny when we'd go to Chili's here in Boston or elsewhere and find people who had never had Chili's chili. That'd be like going to The Lobster Pot and having a hamburger. As Chili's "national" brand identity evolved, we found that even the waitresses thought of the chili as a side-dish, an appetizer, or on-occasion were not aware of it at all, especially if you asked for "Texas Red". To me and my wife, the Red was the heart and soul of the menu and almost the only reason we went there. You could go to any Chili's anywhere and get it, even if it wasn't on the menu (which for a while was the case), and it was always the same good recipe. Our "bowl o' Red".

Now chili snobs are going to say, "Drewcifer, this is really COMMERCIAL chili!" Bunk, says I! Sure, there's better chili being slopped up at some little road-side shack south of Austin. I make an incredible bowl of Red about twice a year myself, but it's time-consuming and messy. Chili's Red was very good, and very reliable and very consistent. It would vary in heat from visit-to-visit, but we saw that as a sign of its authenticity. Yes, Chili's is a huge chain, but the chili WAS authentic. Especially by the poor standards here in New England, this was the best bowl around. That includes the offerings of very well-intentioned small restaurants attempting to make the real deal. Too bad, but true. We have been to some Chili contests here in the area and have not tasted anything as good. If Chili's entered those contests, their Red would win the blue ribbon.

So, back to the present. About a week ago, as we do on a regular basis, we call in our pickup order: Two bowls of chili, a bag of chips, and side of guac. When I get there to pick up, and after a quick Presidente margarita, the girl tells me that the chili has been changed, somehow knowing that this was important to me. What?! No!! You're joking, right? No joke, the Texas Red has been discontinued. Aaargh! This is not happening! Go to my happy place...go to my happy place...Don't tell me it has beans. Oh God please don't let it have beans! Yes, it has beans! NIGHTMARE!!! I am seeing white. The room is spinning. I am disoriented as my reality falls away. It feels like the floor has dropped out from under me. What, just at this location? No, all of Chili's. I have fainted dead away.

OK I didn't really faint. But I was apoplectic to the point she called the manager over, who was very apologetic and offered to comp us the order. He explained to me that Chili's makes these decisions based on "national tastes", and only in Texas do people demand bean-less Chili. Right! So, the fact the company is Texas-based and loosely Texas-themed no longer has a bearing on the classic, authentic Texas chili. "People expect beans," he explained. So I sampled the new stuff: Thin, soupy, beany and a bit less spicy. And clearly lacking the masa-harina corn flour ingredient. So, what makes this any different than what Uno's or Friday's offers? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

This is just another indication that we are heading in the direction of a world where nothing's original, nothing's authentic, nothing's unique. All must appeal to a larger and increasingly LOWER common denominator. The dumbing-down of everything. More Wal-Marts, more Targets, more Ikeas and Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts and Burger Kings and malls with all the same stores as every other mall. Is there ONE of anything anymore? My kid's being born in to an America very different from the one I had.

On top of my anger at Chili's, I am just sad. Christ! I really LIKED that chili. I'm going to miss it. Of course I sent an outraged email to their corporate headquarters expressing my displeasure and requesting the recipe for the Red. To their credit, they actually responded and, surprisingly, DID give me the recipe. (It's astonishingly similar to mine, only without the diced tomatoes and green chilis that I use).

CHILI'S TEXAS RED, RIP 1978 - 2007

Ikea, Chili's Restaurant, and the Wal-Marting of America, Part 1

2007-02-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is supposed to be a recording Blog, I know. But if you let me rant away about the malaise of the American marketplace in general, trust me; I will get to pro audio. Believe you me, I will drive straight in to the heart of the so-called "pro audio" scene, which I call "amateur audio". Because this all tied together. Think of this as an on-ramp to my opinions about pro audio. Or better yet, an "on-RANT".

First, let me address Ikea. I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about, because we needed a dresser, and we were going to Jordan's Furniture, whose nearest location happens to be right next to the new Ikea mega-store. This fact in itself was curious. This Jordan's store has been there for 20 years, and Ikea opens up in 2006, literally right next door. A coincidence? Obviously not. Why does Starbucks always open up a new location within a block of an existing neighborhood coffee shop? To kill the old shop, that's why. It's probably in their mission statement. Wipe out the old mom and pop shops until there's nothing left but green signs selling $5 burnt, bitter excuses for a cups of coffee.

Wow, first paragraph and I already digress.

So we are approaching Ikea, and it looks like we are driving up to The Boeing Factory. Or some giant industrial building in Detroit. Or a prison. I am reminded of those future-shock movies where people have become hopeless automatons of The State. No windows. Even prisons have windows. So we drive around the huge parking area for what seems like hours trying to find parking. At one point we stop and ask one of the guys directing traffic if there's an expectant mother parking zone, as my wife's nine months at this point. Um....gosh, uh like, no, we don't uh, have... OK, well, what's the closest lot to the entrance? Oh, uh, over there... So we go "over there" where he said, and I dunno if he was mentally challenged or just stoned, but this was absolutely nowhere near the entrance. 500 yards away, at least. So we waddle in to the flow of hundreds, following signs to the huge entrance. At this point it feels like we are going in to a sporting event. Crowds like this are more typical of Fenway Park or The Boston Garden. Up escalator! Once inside, we discover quickly that this place is designed like a giant cattle-run. Or a really bad ride at Disneyland. You are in a maze laid out on a grid, with only one way and one direction of flow, passing by one cubicle of prefab "style" after the next. OK, I see. Well, I'm not a crammed city-dweller in Tokyo or a college student wanting to outfit a one-room dorm. I'm also a full-size person with some weight to me. Even if I was 22 and starting out for the first time, I don't know that this cardboard world would appeal to me. The prices: $59.95, $79.99, $129.95, $29.95, $9.99. Cardboard, cookie-cutter, D.I.Y. crap! No quality. No sturdiness or reliability. Why on earth were people telling me this place was fab? "Have you been to Ikea yet?" "Dude, ya gotta go check out Ikea!" And for every hundred people, there is one haggard-looking Ikea customer-service person. One such guy is answering questions about a $30 foam fold-out couch/bed thingy. What's there to explain? It's thirty freakin' dollars, it's made out of foam, you lay on it, and in about four months it's in the dumpster. Seems like the buyer (good thing he was a smaller Asian man) is concerned about the quality. Again, $30. Same thing Wal-Mart has. Actually, I think I've seen this "bed" at Petco! You want sirloin for hamburger money, or what? Very quickly the wife and I realize we want to get out of this crowded, horrible place. That's when the real trouble began. We follow a sign that says, "Shortcut to Exit". We keep following...and following... making turns, going in to big one room after another, making our way from one "shortcut to exit" sign to the next. This is the same kind of "shortcut" a New York City cabbie takes when carrying a drunk, rich tourist from Texas. We are getting more and more agitated. We realize at one point we really are going in circles. Then down a level. Yet more store to walk through. It's starting to feel like a nightmare you can't wake up from. My wife is going to have the baby before we get out of this Goddam store! Horrible. You get the picture. It takes us WAY longer to get out of the store than we actually spent browsing the store. I'm sure this design is on-purpose. All it did for us was piss us off.

We will never go back there. But what haunts me is this is what America is coming to. Mass marketed, no-quality, cookie-cutter crap. No customer service. Nothing authentic. Nothing unique. What's worse is there in NO expectation of quality anymore. The bad thing isn't just Ikea itself, it's that people throw good money at Ikea. They shop there, in droves. They support it! Not only that, they have bought in to some clever marketing, and actually think it's COOL! And they are cool by association.

Sadly, I notice a lot of the older, higher-end furniture stores in the area are going out of business now. Is it because of Ikea? Yes. Yes it is. My Dad was in the furniture business, having two or three small specialty stores. Everything was custom. Nothing was cheap.

This is America now: Ikea, Target, Starbucks, McDonalds, Wal-Mart. In fact, I have an idea: What if we took the Ikea sign off the big blue building, and put a Wal-Mart sign up in its place? Because that's what it is. It's Wal-Mart furniture. Forget the whole Swedish design marketing bullshit. Maybe the meatballs are good. I don't know or care. But if it said "Wal-Mart" up there, how hip and trendy would it be then?

So the wife and I make our way to Jordan's, a store with high quality, fair prices and great customer service. (And yes, Jordan's has its gimmick side, but it's a very smart and entertaining one) We buy a $500 dresser for the baby's room; a very slightly blem'd floor-model, for $315. That's more than anything in the whole Ikea store. It's a solid, real wood dresser that will last for decades. http://www.jordans.com/

Stay tuned for Part 2: Chili's discontinues it's original, award winning "Texas Red" chili after 30 years. The last authentic Texan thing on the Dallas-based chain's menu is replaced by a dumbed-down, bean-filled imposter, and Drewcifer from "Big D" is beside himself with rage.

Ghost Harmonics

2007-01-31T17:45:00.000-05:00

Well, I have to start with something, right? I have so much I want to post, that deciding where to begin is hard. So I went to some recent posts of mine on Gearslutz and pretty much randomly grabbed one.

It's choice was not quite random, truth-be-told. I have been listening to a couple CDs I engineered and produced back in '90 and '91 by a band called Anastasia Screamed. This was a very unusual, adventurous band. You could almost call them Avant Garde, and definitely ahead of their time (Pre Nirvana "Never Mind"). The sound-scape we created was that of noisy but flowery guitars, sometimes harmonically beautiful, sometimes clashing and dis-cordant.

http://www.anastasiascreamed.com/index_flash.html
http://www.myspace.com/anastasiascreamed23

We layered electrics (primarily Fenders) and acoustics over multiple tracks. Like, the two guitar-players would both play on the basic track along with the drums and bass, and then I'd have the two of them both do an overdub pass at the same time, often playing different parts and guitars than they had played on the basic. So in two passes we had created four electric tracks. Then we'd do leads and acoustic guitars, feedback tracks, the occasional slide guitar part, and even a dulcimer or mandolin track on a song or two.

The guitar mics we used were SM57, Senn 421, Beyer M500 ribbon (my secret weapon back then, before the whole ribbon revival), and even some very nice vintage condensers, like Neumann U67, M49 and AKG C12. Pres were usually API 512B, along with the desk pres from a Trident 80B and a Neve V. Compression, when used, was usually my standard choice, the Teletronix Urei LA-3A. Nice gear huh? Recording guitar is my love and my specialty anyway, so I was in hog-heaven. And these guys were good players, albiet unorthodox. Funny thing was, they could play everything from country to blues to jazz to Led Zepplin if they felt like it. But their original songs sounded like all of those influneces spun together in some psychedelic Osterizer. The result was challenging alternative rock music, which some might even consider an acquired taste.

So I'm driving around in my car the last couple days, listening to these CDs for the first time in 1o years, and really enjoying what I was hearing, especially the guitars. And knowing full-well there were many guitar tracks, I was hearing sounds-- voices, bells, organs, etc --that I know were NOT part of the recording. And this time I was sober as a judge, unlike when we were creating the recordings. Let's just say there was a lot of "magic" happening in the studio then.

Which brings me to the Gearslutz post:
http://gearslutz.com/board/
Replying to a guy who was hearing a "phone ring" in a mix he was working on.

Phones, choir voices, horns, acoustic guitars, harps, angels...If you DON'T hear those things in your mixes you are unusual. I noticed it much more in the all-analog days, but when all those instruments combine they create overtones and bell-like sounds that become a sounds in-and-of themselves. We called 'em "Ghost Harmonics". I remember one time we were mixing this tune and suddenly this keyboard string kinda synth part just appeared out of nowhere. There were no keys on the tracks. All guitars and vocals. When we played the finished mix for the artist, they actually thought we had added a keyboard part. Nope. Overtones.