Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog: A Control Room is Born

Latest in the “Building Strange Weather Blog” series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; #2: Design; #3: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and #4: (Part 2); and #5: Stops & Starts, #6: Demolition, #7: The Structural Work, #8 The Joys of Home Ownership, and #9 Rain, Rain, Rain.

Wow, what a month. If you remember last time we were held up because of rain, and I was watching it fall through and collect in our basement, wondering when we would get an opportunity to seal up the roofs. That opportunity finally came, and inside work has seriously begun. But first came AES.

In no way could I have expected the outpouring of support for the build we received during the convention. It seemed like every person we spoke to had heard about the build and had great things to say about how excited they are to see the place finished. After a year of toiling with what has felt like minimal results my ego got the boost it needed, and the excitement has returned. I’d like to take a quick moment to thank all of you reading this. Just knowing you’re doing that is moving this project along more than anything else.

Getting back to business, the Tuesday following the Convention Tony Brett and his crew came up from North Carolina to frame the control room. I don’t think I’ve ever met a better crew of guys in my life. To call them craftsmen feels like an understatement.

First thing on Tuesday they walk into the space and immediately discover everything I’ve been doing wrong, but in a very constructive way. One look at the few existing HVAC problems and Tony was able to tell me exactly what I needed to change to make it work.

At some point our engineer had switched out the split units (where the compressor is outside and the air handler is inside) for combined units that are entirely outside. While this does put the fan in the air handler farther away from the actual control room, it also means that there’s nothing isolating the ducts on the outside from the ducts on the inside; hence, mechanical noise such as rainfall could become a serious problem.

The solution is relatively simple in that we need to insulate the ducts that are outside in some way, but without that knowledge now we could have had a serious problem on our hands further down the road.

After analyzing the mechanical plans further, I am now going back to my engineer to redraw the entire thing. If we had installed the rest of the HVAC to the current plans it would have all had to be torn out. In an hour Tony had saved me more money than it was costing to put them up in a Brooklyn hotel for the month of work they’ll be doing.

The next big discovery was the centerline of the building. We had already laid out PVC piping for the studio wiring under the control room floor. The floor is cement and we had poured a new layer on top of it.

But when we measured the room to figure out where to place the pipes, which need to come up exactly under the console, racks, and patchbay, we worked from the center of the back wall. It turns out that the rear section of the building, which was built after the front, skews away at a slight angle. It’s only a difference of two or three inches, but suddenly it was clear that not having a definitive centerline to work from would have a severe effect on the symmetry of the place.

Out came the laser levels and scientific calculator, and a few tough measurements and trigonometric functions later, Tony had discovered a centerline that could be followed through the entire building without having to change the plans in any way. And then, the real work began.

The framing of the control room itself seemed to happen in a flash. The guys knew exactly what they were doing, and weren’t afraid to go back and recut a piece of wood seven or eight times in order to get the exact angle needed to make the room fit together. If I had to guess I’d say that they were working well within a sixteenth of an inch tolerance, and doing so with ten-foot pieces of lumber from a New York yard, some of which were straight and some not so much.

The front corners of the room were most perplexing to me, where multiple angles on multiple planes intersect, but Tony and his crew didn’t even flinch. By mid-Sunday afternoon the control room was standing as it’s going to stand from now on, and it finally looks like we’re building a recording studio.

On top of all of that, the guys helped me identify a number of problems I need to deal with including leaks, plumbing and electrical issues, and dozens of other things. I thought that being a year into this project, I had a pretty complete understanding of the plans, but suddenly it was like I was looking at a whole new set.

I have my work cut out for me over the next few weeks getting everything in line for them to come back up and help finish the framing, but for the first time I feel like I know exactly what it is I need to be doing.

Other parts of the project are coming along as well. In the apartment, all of the walls are framed, the plumbing is roughed in and the electric is all in place. Next step is to get an inspector to sign off so we can sheetrock the walls. However the riser diagrams on our stamped plans are missing one HVAC unit and a boiler, which means we need to get the plans changed before we can move on, and as I’m sure you know now, getting the Department of Buildings to do anything is a nightmare. Hopefully we’ll have all of that lined up just in time to sheetrock the studio as well.

Oh, and my neighbor who’d disappeared after demanding that I remove a tree finally sent a check, which at this point I had all but given up on receiving. Things are looking up and up.

You can head over to our photoblog at http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.blogspot.com if you want to see more pictures of the control room framing process, and as always please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at all.

And thanks for reading!

- Marc Alan Goodman
strangeweathersound [at] gmail dot com
http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

 

Review: 2Q Intelligent Talkback Remote by Marc Alan Goodman

Communication is vital in any recording studio, but the separation between the musicians and engineer will strain the conversation without a proper workaround.

Artists often come into the studio ready to bare their souls which can lead to extremely personal, and productive interactions during a session. However, in most studios there is more than a figurative wall between the musicians and the engineer.

Since that wall went up engineers have been looking for ways to get around it, to enable an ongoing dialog so the musician does not feel like they’re trapped alone in a fishbowl.

The obvious solution has been the talkback button – simply, a microphone in the control room which allows the engineers, producers, or whoever is isolated from the musician to share their input. Originally the talkback mic was just left on all the time, but in order to prevent feedback through the studio’s monitors it has over time been connected to a simple momentary switch. This switch is the only thing preventing clear communication between the two rooms, and it always seems to do a good job of it.

Our control room – at Strange Weather – has become crowded with gear over the past few years, and as a result it’s difficult for anyone other than the engineer to sit at the desk itself. When another band member, producer, or anyone else in the room wants to be able to speak with a musician in isolation they have to get right into the engineer’s space. To top it off, when conversations get excited people often forget to press the button and end up talking to themselves.

The 2Q Wireless Talkback Remote system – developed by Techshop NY – is not a new idea. I’ve worked in a number of SSL rooms over the years where the house tech had rigged up a similar wireless talkback system using garage door openers. However they were always directional, never seemed to work right, ran on batteries which died quickly and you had to be able to build it yourself.

The 2Q solves all of those problems.

The package includes two remote controls, a receiver, and a wall wart power supply. At our request it came wired up to interface with our API 1608, so all we had to do was plug in the 5-pin XLR to the remote port on the desk and plug in the attached wall wart. The remote controls could then activate the talkback microphone from anywhere in the room.

First things first, as soon as we had it plugged in I moved from the desk to the couch while the musician was warming up. We were tracking some preliminaries for the new Alfonso Velez album, and the drummer wanted an opportunity to get used to the kit and move things around.

Normally I would sit at the desk so I could quickly answer any questions he may have or make any adjustments to the cue mix. However this time I got my head out of the computer monitor and was able to respond in a timely manner by using the remote.

Once we got going I gave the remotes to the bass player, who was in the control room, and the drummer who was in the live room. Alfonso had a scratch vocal mic set up so it was easy for him to communicate, but not so easy for other people to reply. Now, when the bassist had something to say to the drummer he didn’t need to lean over and get my attention at the desk, he could simply push a button. The drummer, on the other hand, didn’t need the button to talk, but whenever he felt like something was going on in the control room that he couldn’t hear all he had to do was press the button and he was part of the conversation.

After the session we spent a bunch of time trying to trick the 2Q. We put the remotes under pillows, we brought them down the hall, and no matter what we did they worked flawlessly.

The 2Q is a simple solution for a simple problem, and it does a fantastic job of it. It may not be in the signal chain, but it’s amazing how much improving communication can improve both people’s moods and their performances. I’d been considering building my own system for the same purpose, and now that I have it running I can’t believe I put it off for so long.

- Marc Alan Goodman, Strange Weather Brooklyn

The 2Q Wireless Talkback Remote ($270) is available through Redco Distribution or directly from Tech Shop NY via www.twocue.com.

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog: Rain Rain Rain

Latest in the “Building Strange Weather Blog” series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; #2: Design; #3: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and #4: (Part 2); and #5: Stops & Starts, #6: Demolition, #7: The Structural Work and #8 The Joys of Home Ownership.

Just when I thought the Department of Buildings would my biggest road block, nature stepped in and showed me who’s boss. The structural repairs to the building have been finished for weeks, but the holes in the roof and walls they caused can’t be sealed up until the rain stops.

First was the storm two weeks before Irene. That was actually the worst since we weren’t expecting it. The roof was still wide open with a piece of plywood laying over it that read “CAUTION: HOLO ROOF”. An intriguing typo! Maybe I was too excited about the possibility of owning a “holo-roof” (holographic?!) to worry about the potential repercussions. Meanwhile, the rain was excited about swooping right in and soaking the hell out of the place. And insects were excited about the new stagnant lake that developed in my basement. It’s like a party down there.

Not much can be done while we’re waiting for the weather to take our side, but we’ve been doing it anyway.

The original chimney was removed (causing yet another hole in our exterior) and is now being replaced by one along the north wall, which will eventually go through the studios only closet space (who needs storage anyway?). The plywood radiant flooring system has been installed in the second floor. This took quite a bit of rain as well, but seems to be fine.

And the real exciting step forward is that the springs and grid to hang the ceiling of the studio have been installed. Right now the grid is pressed up against the ceiling joists, but once we hang three layers of 5/8 drywall from it the springs will compress and the ceiling should hang about three quarters of an inch below the joists. We were able to keep the drop so minimal by hanging the springs from the sides of the old wooden joists instead of from the bottom, as we would have had to do if we had completely replaced the structure with steel. Our planned ceiling height is only about ten feet, which while comfortable doesn’t leave us a lot of room to play with. Six inches saved feels like a mile.

Then, two weeks after that first storm, Hurricane Irene came to visit. If you were in NYC you know, but if not it’s hard to describe what a strange occurrence it was. Just ten or so blocks from here people were all evacuated from their homes, and due to the transit and taxi shutdown the whole city was quiet. Luckily for me both my current and future studios are set on higher ground. All we got was a slight addition to our basement lake. There were a couple of things stored in the basement on top of wood palates, including our RPG diffusers for the back wall of the control room. It seems like everything most likely survived, if damply.

The good thing the hurricane brought was a couple clear days afterward, which gave us time to put a first layer down on one of our four (!) roofs and to pour the concrete roof over the control room. Once that was done we got right into hanging the HVAC ducts. In order to keep them quiet Wes [Lachot, studio designer/acoustician] specified an extremely low air velocity for the system, which means we need to have huge ducts. However one look at them told me they were too huge.

I had to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate our needs in order to size them in a way that wouldn’t cost us the ceiling height we had just saved in the live room. Our engineer, Bruce, while obviously overworked still made time to work out the details within a couple of days of my asking.

Now, it’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, and I’m sitting in my apartment, listening to the rain again, wondering when we’ll get a chance to finish the roofs. As soon as we do we can start the inside work, including framing everything out and the wiring, but until then I’m keeping myself occupied by designing our new headphone distribution system. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

As always you can catch weekly updates on our photoblog at http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.blogspot.com and you can feel free to email me with any questions you may have.

- Marc Alan Goodman
strangeweathersound [at] gmail dot com
http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog — The Joys of Home Ownership

Latest in the “Building Strange Weather Blog” series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; Step 2: Design; Step 3: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and Step 4: (Part 2); and Step 5: Stops & Starts, Step 6: Demolition, Step 7: The Structural Work.

So the last tree in the backyard came up and with it, a whole series of problems.

Our next-door neighbor had a wooden post in her yard with her clothesline mounted on it. When we started to take our tree down, it immediately fell over, demonstrating that it wasn’t attached to the ground at all, it was just hanging from our tree.

So the woman immediately calls her son, who shows up at our site waving his arms and screaming, getting in the crew’s face. Nick, the GC, is cool as a cucumber and didn’t even flinch at the guy (hell, why would he, he’s got like seven guys behind him) but it almost came to blows.

After the guy blew off, Nick did him a solid and hung the clothesline from the corner of our building. If you swing by the photoblog you can see a picture of how rotten the thing was. Completely ridiculous.

To top it off I’ve still seen no sign of the money my other neighbor promised me for taking the tree down, which I didn’t want to do in the first place. I only agreed because she threatened to call the Department of Buildings (DoB).

To top that off, she DID complain to the DoB. They showed up due to a complaint from “someone in the community” that there were no permits posted. The permits were posted, but on the glass door which was behind a metal shutter when the site was closed.

The inspector couldn’t see them but also couldn’t get into the site so she left us a warning. However this had me panicked because we were still waiting for the final permits for the second floor, which we were supposed to have months ago. The DoB is slowed to almost a stop and I’m starting to question what my expediter has been doing this whole time.

After receiving the inspection notice I really kicked things into gear in order to make the second floor legit. I called the expediter and they informed me that there was paperwork that myself and my architect (Hannah) needed to get signed. So they sent it to Hannah, she signed it and got it notarized, then sent it to me. When I got it I noticed that my name was wrong, so they had to send me a new one which I signed and had notarized, then sent it to Hannah in Connecticut where she signed it, got it notarized, and sent it to the expediter.

Two days later I hear through Hannah that I put the wrong amount on one of the checks. Apparently what they meant by “I put the wrong amount” was that they wrote the wrong amount in the cover letter they sent me. So I had to get them another check.

Two days later I call again to check in and they informed me that my asbestos report from about a year ago was no longer valid, and the person who performed the inspection is no longer certified. So they sent over their guy to do a new inspection, as if we’d added new asbestos in the last year that we now wanted to remove.

The guy was scheduled to arrive at 2 pm but showed up early at noon when both Nick (contractor) and I were out to lunch. He walked in, didn’t explain who he was, and walked back out. I called the expediter to find out if he’d gotten what he needed and they said yes. Two days later I called back and they told me that no, he didn’t get it. So he came back again. However this time he took one look at the second floor, which has been gutted for weeks, and says “There are no walls to test, so I suggest he take a sample from the hallway. I asked if it had to be the second floor hallway and he said no, so he just took it from the first.

Five days after that the test results came back and I heard from the expediter that they were not valid because he wrote that they were from the first floor. So he had to come back again to take some from the second floor hallway. Two days after that we FINALLY had a valid asbestos report and could finish the second floor filings.

Which brings us to yesterday, when the filings were approved, meaning that we could pull the building permit as early as today. Of course today is the first day of the GC’s vacation.

And, of course, the inspector shows up today. She sees the permits out front, makes a note, and then says “Hey, while I’m here let me see the plans.” Somehow, by some stroke of luck, she doesn’t even notice that the second floor plans aren’t there, but she does notice that the engineer’s structural drawings of the joist work are not stamped and approved.

Both the architect and expediter have been telling me from the beginning that we shouldn’t need those, but the inspector wasn’t having it. She’s given us one more chance to get them together before shutting us down, so now we have to drum those up fast, which I’m in the process of figuring out how to do.

So that’s been my job. While I’ve been doing that the guys have finished sistering all the joists, moved the chimney, finished up the rear structure, fixed some of the floors to the basements, and cleaned up all of what’s going to be the exposed brick.

The new AC units have been delivered and came in through the front window, and now they’re out back waiting to get hoisted on to the roofs after we pour the concrete next week. Plus the ducts are now coming into the building so we can seal up the new roofs around them.

All the roof work is supposed to be done next week, but we’ll see what happens. This is all assuming the DoB doesn’t come shut us down for what, as far as I can tell, is absolutely no reason at all.

Yay Brooklyn!

- Marc Alan Goodman
strangeweathersound [at] gmail dot com
http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog — Step 7: The Structural Work

Seventh in the “Building Strange Weather Blog”series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; Step 2: Design; Step 3: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and Step 4: (Part 2); and Step 5: Stops & Starts, Step 6: Demolition.

Now that things are moving, WOW are they moving fast.

Upon opening the ceiling on the second floor we discovered a situation even worse than what we’d had on the first floor. Whoever had built the second and third floors must not have had joists long enough to span the entire building so they just rested them on the center wall.

However, if you remember from my last blog post, that center wall is the one that was removed on the ground floor and had the joists cut on both sides. Essentially nothing but plaster and good wishes has been holding the top floor up for what’s been at least years and most likely decades.

After some emergency shoring up was done, Nick and his crew went right to work replacing all the joists on the second floor with engineered wood beams called LVLs. You can work with them like wood, but functionally they’re closer to steel in strength. It’s an added expense and our first change order but it was well worth it for the peace of mind.

Once the new second floor ceiling joists were in place it was time to get cracking on the ground floor. Pulling up the floors led us to discover that they weren’t just linoleum covered in parquet; they were wood covered in plywood covered in linoleum covered in parquet covered in linoleum covered in parquet! Our ceiling just grew an extra couple inches by taking all those layers off. It was a difficult job, but once it was done, the rear structure — which will soon be our control room — started going up.

First we took down the top layers of brick and started to build the walls up with cinderblock. This was followed by setting steel I beams for the new ceiling and setting in the tin sub-roof which will have concrete poured over it. Standing straight up off of the I beams are pedestals which will hold the air conditioning units for both the first and second floor. When the original ceiling came out and I got to see the real height of the control room, it was inspiring. 14 feet in height makes for a big room.

Inside the steel C beams have all been getting cut up and placed along the ceiling of the first floor. The difference between C-beams and I-beams is exactly what you’d think: C-beams are shaped like a letter C and I-beams like a letter I.  I-beams are much stronger, but the C beams have one flat side to place against the existing joists. That way we can sister them, or bolt them together to increase the strength of the existing structure.

As usual things on the planning side have been hectic. It’s getting close to the time when I’ll need to fly in the studio building crew to frame the control room and do the initial technical wiring, but it’s almost impossible to tell when exactly they’ll be able to start working.

The plywood radiant floor heating system has been delivered but is for now piled in the back of the space waiting for the ceilings to be finished. There’s no way for me to know if installing it will take a day or two weeks, it all depends on how quickly the current crew can figure out the installation process and get the plumber to show up and start working.

To top it all off the HVAC guy wants to sell me the air conditioning units now so he can move them through the empty building and store them in the back yard. It does make sense (otherwise we’d have to crane them over the entire building) but it’s an expense I wasn’t expecting this week and I just spread myself nice and thin investing in a rack of Neves!

To top the whole thing off I stopped by the space Monday and was told by my crew that one of our neighbors had been screaming at them, threatening to call the Buildings Department. Last Friday my GC told me that someone had stopped by asking me to call and left a number, but I was running out of town and didn’t get back until late Sunday night.  So I called her back and met up to see what the problem was…

Apparently my one remaining tree in the backyard is pushing her fence over.

I got a good look at it and it must have been happening over the last decade so I can’t imagine what the rush is. The tree is situated in between our two fences. I always figured it was on their side since my fence looks older but she seems to think hers is perfectly surveyed (even if with a quick glance I can see that if it was perfect then her house sits a few inches on to her neighbors property).

Anyway, in order to keep things copasetic I decided to just take the tree down. It’s super sad to have to take down all of my trees but I can always plant more, and this time firmly on my own land. Plus if she’s sure that is the property line I’ll take my fence up and gain an extra twelve inches of property.

This point is only notable because I’m predicting problems with her in the future, when bands are hanging out in the back yard at two in the morning smoking cigarettes and yelling at each other because they’re deaf from hanging out in the control room all day.

In short, things are moving along. I’d say we’re about 75 percent of the way through the structural work, and after that we get to start building the actual studio. You can check out pictures of the progress on our photoblog at http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.blogspot.com and as always please feel free to contact me with any questions.

A number of people have gotten in touch with me through the blog so far and it’s been great to meet other engineers in the neighborhood. I felt like I already knew everyone a year ago and I seem to meet somebody new every week. There are a lot of us out here…

- Marc Alan Goodman
strangeweathersound [at] gmail dot com
http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

Record Release Roundup: Spring 2011

Brooklyn correspondent Justin Colletti listens to new releases every day of the week except Sunday. Here, he shares the twelve Spring releases that best broke through the noise and captured his imagination.

1. Booker T.  Jones – The Road From Memphis

From 1962 to 1970, Booker T. served as one of the essential sidemen who helped shape the sound of classic soul and R&B. As part of Stax’s integrated house band he played back-up for Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, and Sam and Dave. As bandleader for the MGs, he brought instrumentals to the top of the charts with the iconic cut “Green Onions.”

Jones’ latest effort, The Road From Memphis is a rootsy hybrid of hip hop, funk, and soul that makes the rock/fusion hybrid of his GRAMMY-winning 2009 release Potato Hole sound gimmicky by comparison.

Even with his name on the cover, Jones maintains the soul of a sideman. His playing is casual, relaxed, almost conversational, as he cooks through a cover of Gnarles’ Barkley’s “Crazy” on the Hammond B3, or supports Sharon Jones on an original tune.

There’s little musical grandstanding on this record, which features an all-star band of ace musicians who stay firmly rooted in-pocket throughout.

The Road From Memphis was produced by ?uestlove of the Roots and Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliot Smith). It was recorded by Gabe Roth of Daptone (interviewed here over the winter), and features guest performances from Sharon Jones, Lou Reed, Matt Berninger of the National, and Jim James of My Morning Jacket.

Watch the album preview (with studio footage and interviews).

2. Dennis Coffey: Controlled Aggression

Here’s a release that reminds us why we should never look to television or glossy magazines for music recommendations. Although you might not think it by the looks of him, Dennis Coffey will melt your face off with the funk.

When he’s not busy swapping fashion tips with George Costanza or posing to reassure you he’d do a great job adjusting your tax returns, Coffey leads a double life as a former guitarist for Motown, and the man behind the steaming new release Controlled Aggression.

Thanks to the good graces of the internet, this unlikely gem of a record doesn’t have to go undiscovered. Click the link below to hear the track “Space Traveller,” selected as NPR’s song of the day on May 31st.

When listening, don’t be afraid to turn up your speakers. Not only does this cut feature an old-school sensibility when it comes to musicianship, it features a refreshing lack of the aggressive over-mastering that’s had musiophiles up in arms for more than a decade. In a welcome blast from the past, the louder you crank this record, the better it sounds.

Listen to “Space Traveller” at NPR.

3. Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore had a new release last month. This largely acoustic, gracefully orchestrated collection of songs was produced by Beck for Matador Records, and has music geeks across Generations X and Y asking, “Where the hell was this record when I was a teenager?”

In some ways, Demolished Thoughts is Moore’s equivalent to Beck’s Sea Change. Although much of this record is as wizened and reserved as Beck’s navel-gazing opus, the tone of Demolished Thoughts remains notably less melancholy than that easy touchstone.

Arrangements are generally sparse and intimate, with subdued strings that are startlingly pretty and never overwhelming. On the production end, the album’s tone is spacious and milky, unafraid to stay just a little boxy and decidedly natural.

Listen here…

4. Kate Bush: Director’s Cut

If you’re a Kate Bush fan who’s disconcerted by musical revisionism, you may have mixed feelings about Director’s Cut. On this album Bush revisits and revamps songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

Unlike Brian Wilson’s 2004 revisit of the Smile sessions however, it’s doubtful any of these re-interpretations will be accused of ruining old favorites. Bush’s voice has stayed strong, and some of these cuts improve on the source material, which is largely culled from The Red Shoes, an album generally considered to be one of her weaker efforts.

After years of trying, Bush finally obtained permission to re-appropriate Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from the James Joyce’s novel Ulysses as the lyrics for this album’s opening track. It’s unusual to hear a woman of fifty-three take on some of the overtly sensual themes that drive the opening tracks on this record, but she does so with an effortless, unconcerned grace that belies her age.

So, is it worth listening? For those who are not yet fans, the now-classic 1985 album Hounds of Love is probably still a better place to start. (Like, yesterday.) For the already initiated? It’s definitely something to hear.

Listen here…

5. Eddie Vedder: Ukulele Songs

Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder has come out with a solo album. It consists exclusively of him playing songs he wrote for the ukulele.

Diehard fans of Vedder’s voice are likely to connect with the album’s intimate and un-ironic delivery. The rest of us could always use good excuse to gawk slack-jawed at our computers for a few minutes, wondering if our eyes are fooling us, so Vedder’s Ukulele Songs occupies slot 5 on our roundup of interesting spring releases.

But, is it good?

For a solo album that almost exclusively consists of Eddie Vedder playing songs he wrote for the ukulele, sure, it’s absolutely the best one I’ve ever heard.

How about compared to the rest of music throughout recorded history?

Well, it’s less weird than you might expect, and features strong, naked performances from a distinctive singer that you probably really love or can’t stand at all.

As for a rating? No matter which camp you fall in, Ukulele Songs is an odd, but well-realized effort that stands somewhere between the transcendent (Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” “Kind of Blue,” the first four Black Sabbath albums) and the laughably mediocre (Bruce Willis’ solo record, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Christmas album, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”).

Listen to “Can’t Keep” off Ukulele Songs…

6. Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part 2

There’s a good chance you heard about it when the Beastie Boys dropped a new album last month. If you missed it, you still have a chance to stream it below.

It’s all too easy to harbor low expectations for any album this far into the band’s career, but once again, the ‘Boys refuse to disappoint: “Hot Sauce Committee” plays out like the Beasties of Check Your Head meeting up with the Beasties of Hello Nasty to compare notes.

Although some disinterest can be expected from early fans whose tastes have changed over the decades, this record is sure to please the ears of anyone still ready for more high-powered and irreverent jams from America’s favorite bratty-New-York-whiteboys-turned-socially-conscious-hip-hop-all-stars.

Listen here…

7. Alfonso Velez: Alfonso Velez

Alfonso Velez is a stunning and rare find: an undiscovered Singer/Songwriter worth watching out for.

Mere moments into “Teddy,” the first cut on Velez’s self-titled LP, I found myself slack-jawed, remarking aloud: “Wow. Dude can sing.” Songs here feel like real performances, unfolding stories that sound refreshingly human and open up over time.

With a production aesthetic that’s informed by The Flaming Lips and Radiohead as much as it is by The Beatles and James Taylor, Marc Alan Goodman’s mixes on Alfonso Velez balance the organic with the epic, the subdued with the sublime.

Listen here…

8. Cults: Cults

Any journalist writing about Brooklyn-based band Cults is obligated to marvel over their “un-googleable name” and (historically) limited presence on social media.

Up until Sony picked up the band in response to the extravagant media buzz that surrounded their debut 7”, the band subsisted with a spare Bandcamp page and a text-only website that listed upcoming shows.

Bloggers marveled over their ability to ignite interest sans Facebook and Myspace, much like the rest of us wonder how we were ever able to meet in public at a pre-designated time before cellphones.

Blog-buzz aside, Cults are easily one of the more compelling new artists to release an album this spring.

Their sound is somewhere between the Ronnettes and Peter Bjorn and John. Co-producer and engineer Shane Stoneback provides giganticlly cloudy, reverb-drenched mixes that complement their casually cultivated air of mystery.

At their best, Cults offer simple, unpretentious, catchy pop tunes with a startlingly retro production aesthetic. After repeated listens there’s some question as to whether there’s a ton of substance behind the style. In the meantime, the style they do have is somewhat substantive in itself and thankfully, it’s of the sonic, rather than visual variety.

Listen here…

9. Sondre Lerche: Sondre Lerche

Earlier this year, we visited Rare Book Room Studios in Greenpoint to spend an afternoon with producer Nicolas Vernhes and Norwegian-born songwriter Sondre Lerche.

Vernhes, who’s explored distinctive and sometimes jarring sounds with Dirty Projectors, Black Dice, and Deerhunter, might seem like an unexpected choice for Lerche, an artist best known for his easy charm and earnest pop sensibility.

With Verhnes at the board and Kato Ådland co-producing, Lerche is able to embrace sonic colors in a more raw state than ever before. The new material is mature: both accessible and unusual, friendly to a casual listener, but challenging enough to attract a new kind of audience.

10. Here We Go Magic: The January EP

On this record pillowy textures and contrapuntal rhythms form a blurred bed of sound for Here We Go Magic songwriter Luke Temple’s ephemeral, high-reaching vocals.

From the first plodding bass notes of the opener “Tulip,” Here We Go Magic’s newest release doles out twenty-one minutes of big, fat chamber pop.

It’s dense, atmospheric, ambitious, and invites comparisons to some of the innovative work by Caribou and Grizzly Bear, or the most forward-thinking moments of 60s cult favorites The Zombies.

Like Pigeons before it, The January (covered here in May),  stands a far cry from Temple’s sparse solo effort on HWGM’s self-titled debut. The January serves a satisfying soup of sound that asks for repeat listening and suggests an unexpected expanse of space between the speakers.

Listen to “Hands in the Sky” off The January here:

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11. Hotels: On The Casino Floor

Since I’ve taken it on to write about the twelve albums this Spring that at least broke through the noise, and at best, captured my imagination, it would be dishonest to leave the Seattle band Hotels off this list, even if I have worked with them on prior releases.

Hotels has a new album On The Casino Floor, and, associations aside, I think you should hear it. They’re easily among my favorite bands playing today.

If band names like Devo, Black Sabbath, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Wipers and New Order randomly strung together in a sentence holds any appeal to you, this is the offbeat, electronic, post-punk, synth-heavy surf-rock band for you.

Listen here…

12. Bon Iver: Bon Iver

Is it just me, or do self-titled releases seem like a growing trend this year? If I had something profound to say about artists declaring their identity in a culture of fleeting interest I would. Until then: Gee. What’s that shiny thing?

Fans of the sleepiest moments of Iron & Wine and TV On The Radio may enjoy Bon Iver’s self-titled sophomore effort. This is music that’s sometimes unusual, and perhaps more pleasant than it is engrossing.

Atmospheric, moody, bold-yet-unobtrusive, the laconic Bon Iver is a thoroughly well-realized album, even if it occasionally bores this reviewer to the point where he forgets he’s even listening to it.

Listen here…

Lady Gaga and the Great Race to Cloud Storage

In other news, you may have caught wind that Lady GaGa’s label was so afraid her sophomore album would fail to make waves, they decided to effectively bribe fans into buying it. Hawking the entire record for $0.99 and giving away 40 GB of storage on Amazon’s new cloud server, they managed to sell 1.5 million copies in total, including a reported 750,000 at the $0.99 cheaper-than-free price point.

If you haven’t yet seen the video for the lead single “Born This Way,” don’t worry. You’ll be fine.

GaGa takes post-modern pastiche to a fever pitch of ADD, referencing more often and more directly than Family Guy. The only problem is that it’s rarely funny (at least not on purpose) and she staunchly refuses to admit to her influences, unlike the early post-modern pop-master, Beck.

Fittingly, GaGa’s latest video begins with music that isn’t even hers. The video version of “Born This Way” opens with Bernard Hermann’s classic score to the Hitchcock thriller Vertigo, which she somehow makes sucky by adding some comically pretentious narration and half-baked visual imagery culled from Frank Herbert’s Dune.

To her credit, GaGa has the theater of music down to a certain degree. She’s followed the playbooks of Freddie Mercury, Madonna, and Britney Spears, but forgot the rule about occasionally putting out an inventive song. Even Britney had “Toxic.”

Once the actual music kicks in, the problem is not that it’s awful. Rather, it’s amazingly plain – befuddlingly mediocre. The actual single serves as a remarkably bland backdrop to over-the-top visuals that are generally too racy for children and at times too vapid for self-respecting adults.

Those who maintain that her first record featured a few worthy pop songs obscured by a questionable production aesthetic will be disappointed to find nothing here to approach even that level of “interesting.” When listened to with any seriousness, “Born This Way” makes Cher’s most questionable 80s moments seem hip and current.

For the few who have cast GaGa as a secret champion of counter-culture, this release continues to reframe hers as work that panders to the easily entertained rather than suggesting a shred of the subversive.

At best, GaGa may have been able to achieve a level of insta-kitsch to rival John Waters. Only this time, it’s by accident.    – Justin Colletti

Justin Colletti is a Brooklyn-based producer/engineer who works with uncommon artists, and a journalist who writes about music and how we make it. Visit him at www.justincolletti.com.

Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog — Step 6: Demolition

Sixth in the “Building Strange Weather Blog”series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; Step 2: Design; Step 3: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and Step 4: (Part 2); and Step 5: Stops & Starts.

It Begins!

On tax day 2010, Strange Weather purchased a new home. On tax day 2011, construction finally started.

I was in the woodshop at 3rd Ward working on some furniture for the new place. It wasn’t until I got home in the evening and called Nick, my contractor, to see what was happening that he told me demolition had started that day. After a year’s wait it was a tad anti-climactic, but then again… it’s not a studio yet.

The early demolition went pretty quickly. It only took a day for all the walls to come down and the whole place to turn into a collection of garbage piles. For the first time I got a look at the whole thing. Rooms always seem smaller when you see them empty, but somehow this one still felt enormous.

A couple days later, the place was stripped bare and I finally got a good look at the carcass of the building which I’d only been able to speculate about to this point. With all the drywall down it turned back into a factory from 1919. The brick walls are in miraculously good shape for their age – they must have been built by a real craftsman. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the cinderblock addition in the back.

The back wall is crumbling away in the corner where rainwater has been washing down without a gutter for the last hundred years, and the southern wall has two huge cracks in it (one of which is big enough to see light through!). Nick called our engineer Bruce over to check it out. After smacking the hell out of the wall with a hammer he determined that it was fit for patching, so that’s the way we’re going. This saves me the trouble and expense of building a new wall, and – after all – I hired Bruce so that I could defer to him on things of this nature.

The floors are level, but the subflooring is rotting in spots. Luckily, it was covered by a layer of linoleum, which – in turn – was covered by parquet flooring. It’s going to be replaced by two layers of cement block, a layer of warmboard radiant plywood flooring and then a layer of engineered hardwood. The joists seem sturdy and more than up to the task.

I’ve certainly saved the best for last: the ceiling. If you can picture what it’s like being on that Universal Studios tour ride when the simulated earthquake sets in, that’s what the ceiling looks like. It curves and bows in ways difficult to describe. And for the first time I can not only see it clearly, but can also see why it is in this condition.

In the front of the building someone had decided to just cut the middle of the joists up in order to fit the bathtub on the second floor. It must have worked for a minute but eventually the tenants downstairs decided to take out the supposedly non-weight-bearing middle wall and cut the joists at the other end to add a second stairwell. And there’s one joist that isn’t securely attached on either side! Plus a few that are only attached on one side.

As you look further into the back of the space there are a number of what were probably skylights in the original factory. They’ve been built over and around but were never supposed to hold any weight so it’s buckled all around them. To top it all off there are a number of double joists at unnecessary points. That means that they were most likely already repaired at some point, but none of us could imagine what they could have been repairing since they add absolutely no stability to the structure.

Now that the demo is out of the way, Phase One starts with sistering steel C beams onto all of the ceiling joists. That means just doubling all of the joists with them in order to improve rigidity. I’m starting to imagine that when they do this the floors upstairs will level themselves out a little but nobody seems to be sure how the building will react. That’s why we’re putting in larger beams than the existing ones so we can level both the ceiling and floor of the apartment above at the same time.

I’ve started a companion photoblog at strangeweatherbrooklyn.blogspot.com in order to keep a visual record of the process. Please feel free to hop over and take a look, and to contact me if you have any questions as always.

- Marc Alan Goodman
strangeweathersound [at] gmail dot com
http://strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

Studio Tour: North Brooklyn, Part 2

NORTH BROOKLYN: Our neighborhood studio tour continues with four more decidedly uncommon studios in North Brooklyn. We talked to the owners of Strange Weather, Headgear, Metrosonic, and the Fort about sessions, toys, and building an active niche in this teeming slice of the city.

STRANGE WEATHER
South Williamsburg (Coming Soon: Williamsburg/Greenpoint)
www.strangeweatherbrooklyn.com

Room Rate: $450/day

Those familiar with the SonicScoop blog-roll may recognize the name of Marc Alan Goodman, who’s been recounting the saga of building Strange Weather’s new, full-service tracking studio on the Greenpoint/East Williamsburg border. In the meantime, it’s a small secret that his current location already hosts one of the most impressive collections of hand-picked ear candy in the city.

More than anything, this is a studio for artists and engineers with boutique tastes. No summary can do justice to the extensive selection of gear that includes names like Neve, API, Purple, Gates, Federal, ADL, Neumann, Coles, dbx, RCA, and Bricasti. Strange Weather is also home to a startling collection of guitars, drums, and keyboards at the ready for capturing any sound musicians can imagine.

Most surprising of all, according to Goodman, is the price, and the fact that all his vintage treasures are in prime working condition.

“I wanted to build a studio where people can walk in and use world-class gear at an affordable price in a functioning atmosphere,” Goodman says. “There’s nothing worse than booking a day at a studio where nothing works. I feel like that’s the rule rather than the exception in the commercial studios I’ve worked in.”

In the interest of full disclosure, this reporter has recently been in for some sessions at Strange Weather, and this kind of attention to detail has it fast-becoming one of my favorite places to work. Owning a studio has begun to turn Goodman into a capable tech in his own right:  his racks are over-stuffed with impeccably maintained vintage gear, and  handmade re-creations of studio classics like the LA2A, LA3A and 1176.

Built around a new 32-channel API 1608 console brimming with the choicest EQs, Strange Weather turns out to be an ideal room for overdubs, mixing, or any sessions that don’t require a cavernous live room.

When asked about his niche in the studio scene Goodman says: “Ideally everyone would complete their records from start to finish in a studio, but today it seems more common for musicians to combine studios with smaller at-home or portable rigs. We’re focused on making that process as seamless as possible; to give musicians and engineers used to working at home a place they can walk in and use great, often rare equipment in a functioning environment.”

—

HEADGEAR RECORDING
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.headgearrecording.com

Rates: Click for Room + Engineer Rates
Room Rate: $600/day; $550/day for blocks of 3 days or more.

If there’s any truth behind the idea that Williamsburg is a great place to make music, a lot of responsibility for that would have to fall on studios like Headgear Recording. Since opening in 1998, Headgear has been the birthplace of seminal records from  TV On The Radio, Massive Attack, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Animal Collective, CocoRosie, Nada Surf, My  Morning Jacket, Son Volt, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Moby and Santigold.

Although the “Room For Rent” model of studio has waned as competent owner-operators create their own personal oases of sound in every corner of the city, Headgear remains one of the most accessible and freelance-engineer-friendly studios in New York.

In addition to house engineers Alex Lipsen, Scott Norton, and Dan Long, Headgear has been home to projects from a who’s who of hip and distinctive producers and engineers, including John Agnello, Peter Katis, Dave Sitek, John Hill, Chris Moore Gordon Raphael, TJ Doherty, and Chris Coady.

Headgear is also no stranger to Film and Television Post. Recent clients include “Grey’s Anatomy,” MTV’s “Skins,” “CSI: Miami” and the Columbia Pictures comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

According to studio manager Jackie Lin Werner, the studio’s appeal is personal as much as it is technical: “ We’re not stiff or pretentious. We’re down to earth and like to be helpful. Beyond the gear and the size of our rooms, I believe people trust Headgear as an established studio with a respectable client list.  Headgear probably appeals most to indie bands and major label bands looking for an affordable, high quality studio in a space that has a creative vibe. “

Headgear’s A-room houses an automated Trident 80C console and offers a choice of Pro Tools HD and 24-track 2-inch tape. A well-equipped B room is also available for mixing and overdubs.

—

METROSONIC
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
www.metrosonic.net

Contact for rates.

Neve Console. Pro Tools HD. Ampex 2”. Engineers who know what they’re doing. What more could you need to know?

According to Metrosonic’s Pete Mignola, it’s the people who make a studio: “The people who built it, the people who run it, the people who use it,” he tells us.

“Everyone who comes to Metrosonic talks about the vibe. Of course they like the great gear, the affordable rates, the windows & city views, but they always say that they love the vibe here. There’s human element to this that makes each studio unique and special in its own way.”

Metrosonic has always had a large, comfortable control room. More recently, the studio’s originally modest live room underwent significant renovations in 2008, and now, Pete and the crew are excited to bring a new 850 square-foot live room into the fold.

—

THE FORT
Bushwick, Brooklyn
www.thefortbrooklyn.com

Rates: $40/hr, including Jim Bentley as Engineer.

Over the past decade, North Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood has filled up with enough small private studios to fill an area twice its size. In that time, Jim Bentley’s studio The Fort has stood as one of the neighborhood’s active mainstays.

Persevering in this competitive new territory since 2003, owner/operator Bentley has hosted noteworthy clients including Brit Daniel of Spoon, Doug Gillard and Kevin March of Guided by Voices, James McNew of Yo La Tengo, Jennifer O’Connor, John Agnello and  Jemina Pearl.

This especially affordable studio is equipped for both analog and digital sessions, offering a Neotek Elan console, Tascam 1” 16-track, and a 24-channel MOTU/Apogee system. The studio bills at $30/hr on weekdays from noon to 6pm and at $40/hr 6pm-midnight or weekends, and includes Bentley’s services as engineer.

Bentley is most proud of his live room, a large, vibey space with vaulted, heavy-timber ceilings: “I love to track full bands in the room live for feel and then sauce it up and make it sound supernatural from there,” he says.

Bentley’s down-to-earth approach is made clear in his parting words to us. The Fort, he says, “appeals to the clients who realize making records is more about the man and the performance than the machine or the media buzz behind it.”

Justin Colletti is a Brooklyn-based audio engineer and music producer who’s worked with Hotels, DeLeon, Soundpool, Team Genius and Monocle, as well as clients such as Nintendo, JDub, Blue Note Records, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visit him at www.justincolletti.com.

Marc Alan Goodman’s Building Strange Weather Blog: Stops & Starts

The next installment in the “Building Strange Weather Blog” series by producer/engineer and studio owner Marc Alan Goodman. Click to start at Step 1: Finding A New Home; Step 2: Design; Step 3-4: Waiting For Permits (Part 1) and (Part 2)

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN: The last three months have been a series of stops and gos unlike anything I could have imagined. I look back to a year ago, just before I became a property owner myself, and I can remember walking past vacant storefronts and wondering “how in god’s name can anyone afford to have a space remain vacant in this city?”

Little did I know that 10 months and seven days later I’d still only be imagining work on my own place. I’ve had to do some serious soul searching to figure out if there’s anything I could have, or rather should have done better, but when I look back on all the details I’m ultimately happy with how far we’ve come. The fact that we’re starting construction this week certainly helped…

Building a recording studio in Brooklyn…I knew going into it that there are certain things that would take longer than anticipated. I was told by a number of respected friends to plan for the build-out to take 3x as long as I would have expected. It turns out that I needed to double that — I’ve been delayed twice that long just getting started.

Everyone knows Brooklyn’s bureaucracy is like a black hole, so I understood that permits would take a long time. Contractors notoriously run behind schedule. But what’s really dictated the speed of work has been organization — more specifically any organization or lack of organization that I’ve been responsible for myself.

Communication seems to be the variable that’s both most critical and most time consuming. It only took a few months to get the plans for the ground floor, but I had to wait until I had them in my hand to take them to the structural engineer and other architect so they could begin work. As soon as the architects got working I left them to themselves and focused on the next most pressing problem: funding.

If I’d been in a rush, having someone around to manage the architects would have helped a great deal. As it turns out months later, when the money was finally in place, I had to get everyone to match each others’ plans. There goes another three months.

Actually getting that money in place was a mission in itself. I got a good deal on the building because I was able to make it happen fast, which meant dealing in cash and getting a mortgage retroactively. Every banker I spoke to prior to the purchase told me that this wouldn’t be a problem so I went ahead with the deal. However when I went back to those same bankers to start the procedure they all told me that there is a Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac restriction preventing them from backing a mortgage until the property has been “seasoned,” or simply owned for six months.

Once again I was told “Come back in six months and this will be easy!” Six months later I get a lot of “Great, let’s start the paperwork” responses.  But once the paperwork started there were more holdups.

Due to the recent falling out of the American mortgage industry all of the major banks have closed up their mixed-use property departments. So the residential specialists would say they can’t deal with it and send me to commercial. Then the commercial specialists would try to send me back to residential. After going through this two or three times I got smart and asked what was going on.

They weren’t authorized to work on a loan for me, but the mixed-use department didn’t exist anymore and there was nowhere to send me! On the occasion when I did speak to someone who seemed interested, the current status of the property would come up.

The big backers have no interest in a building that is partially vacant as collateral. In order to fix up a vacant property one would need a construction loan, which few banks still consider for businesses looking for less than three million.

After all of this my contractor directed me to a local mortgage broker who has financed a number of mixed-use loans in the neighborhood. He too was absolutely sure that a loan wouldn’t be a problem but in the end was unable to follow through.

I ended up taking a short-term small business loan at a far higher rate than I initially anticipated in order to get things moving. Theoretically I should be able to get a mortgage after the building is complete to pay off my short-term loans. I’ve been assured it won’t be a problem. I won’t pretend that I’m not nervous about it but logic dictates that if they’re going to give a loan to anyone, giving it to someone with an existing, cash-earning, finished property in Brooklyn as collateral should be a pretty safe bet.

The next major holdup was outside of my control but certainly could have been predicted, and could be considered even a tad pun-ish: the weather. This year, snow has basically brought NYC to a halt, freezing all kinds of developments and building in its tracks for months.

The first work we needed to do was outside, and there was no easy way to do it in the snow. On top of that, all of the local crews had plenty of work doing expensive repair jobs and no one seemed interested in settling into a long project before the spring. Although people were happy to talk about getting started in the snow everyone seemed to drag their feet a bit, and at this point I have to assume for good reason. I wouldn’t want to be working outside through the last few months, plus the roof and concrete wouldn’t dry. The whole thing would probably have been a nightmare

To wrap up: it’s a hell of a big project that I’ve gotten myself in to, but I’m excited to finally start getting down to the details. Next time I’ll have some pictures (at last!) to share and we can start getting our hands dirty.

Marc Alan Goodman is a producer/engineer who’s worked with artists such as Jolie Holland, Marc Ribot Shudder to Think, Dub Trio, Normal Love, Alfonso Velez, Angel Deradoorian and Pink Skull.

The SonicScoop Year in Review: Top NYC Music Business News and Trends of 2010

THE FIVE BOROUGHS: 2010 has been busy all right. For anyone involved in New York City’s expansive business of music – producer, publisher, entrepreneur, engineer, artist, and many more – the environment remains fast-paced, ultra-competitive and constantly changing.

With 2011 looming, SonicScoop looked for the news, trends and topics that stood out to us over the past 365 days.

In audio post, it was grow or die in the uppermost echelon. The biggest facilities, including hsr|ny, Nutmeg, and Sound Lounge made serious expansions into audio and/or video:

Sound Lounge opened an ADR Stage and multiple studios.

Nutmeg Post added a strong team and facility when it soaked up Soundhound.

The big post house Mega Playground built out audio capabilities.

Northern Lights added a 5.1 audio mixing suite.

Video house Click3X reversed the trend and added their own audio suite.

Celebrating 35 years in business, hsr|ny continued to expand as a full-service video and audio post facility.

Large and mid-sized recording/tracking/mixing studios kept making capital improvements and expanding:

Premier Studios took over the 8th floor at 723 7th Avenue.

Engine Room opened up its penthouse studio.

Stadium Red expanded with a new studio for Just Blaze and a mastering suite.

Platinum Studios added Augspurgers to Studio K.

Sear Sound set up the Moog-centric Studio D.

Tainted Blue swapped out its SSL for a Euphonix (nee Avid) System 5.

And props to Electric Lady for marking its 40th Anniversary.

Converse (yes, the shoe company) has an interesting business plan for the Rubber Tracks studio it’s going to open in Williamsburg in 2011: no-cost recording.

Advanced smaller studios – independent and within larger facilities — and producer rooms also opened up at a peppy pace:

Chris Theberge’s Music Works arrived on the Upper West Side.

The former One Point Six in Williamsburg was reborn as Three Egg Studios.

Manhattan Center Studios launched The Fuse Box with Public Enemy’s Brian Hardgroove.

Avatar opened up its Studio W writing room.

Sisko’s Min-Max Studios opened up in midtown.

Marc Alan Goodman announced an ambitious new expansion for Brooklyn’s Strange Weather, then blogged about the buildout – step by step – for SonicScoop.

Guitarist Justin King moved his Vinegar Hill Sound from Portland, OR to DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Avid capped off a furious year of reinvention and new products with the release of Pro Tools 9.

Music houses and composers still had a ton of TV, film and video game work to go after and win:

Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music continued to make NYC a TV music powerhouse.

Composer Peter Nashel turned ears everywhere with his work for shows like Rubicon.

Outfits like Expansion Team scored for networks such as the Biography Channel.

Tom Salta understands how to get chosen to score for games like Prince of Persia and Red Steel 2.

Production music and synch licensing remained a solid business, especially for those who got in at the right time or had a smart approach.

NYC’s Kingsize Music was acquired by 615 Music.

And later on Warner-Chappell (NYC) bought up 615 Music.

NYC’s Videohelper released the “Scenarios” music search tool.

Jingle Punks continued to grow.

Mechanical licensing experts RightsFlow kept progressing.

One of NYC’s most controversial music business plays, peer-to-peer file sharing network Limewire, appeared to be finally finished.

Tracking, mixing and mastering at NYC’s established facilities did a relatively healthy volume of A-level and independent work throughout the year:

The Black Eyed Peas, Rivers Cuomo and Kanye West were at Germano Studios.

Neon Indian, Beach House, Matt and Kim, Bear Hands and more were mastered at The Lodge.

MSR Studios handled Kid Cudi, Evanescence and Broadway Cast recordings.

Lenny Kravitz, The Dirty Pearls, “Glee”, and Vampire Weekend were all at Avatar.

Joe Lambert Mastering worked with Moby and Ninjasonik.

New software and hardware happiness abounded:

We elected many items “Buzzworthy” at AES, from Universal Audio, Focal, SSL, Burl, Shadow Hills, Izotope, Sound Toys, Lavry Engineering, Telefunken and more.

Propellerhead released Reason 5.

NYC suffered losses when beloved people and places left us:

Recording icon Walter Sear passed away.

The great hip hop/jazz experimentalist Guru was gone before his time.

Clinton Recording Studios hosted its last session.

Brick and mortar music retail took another hit when Fat Beats shuttered its last stores.

Baseline Studios, home of Just Blaze and countless Jay-Z hits, closed.

Chung King Studios started off 2010 with a bang by suddenly vacating Varick Street.

NYC-based producers, mixers, engineers and artists became businesses in their own right:

Producer Chris Coady worked on some hugely acclaimed records this year, including Beach House Teen Dream and Delorean Subiza, as well as records with Hooray for Earth, Zola Jesus, Smith Westerns, Cold Cave.

People like Allen Farmelo developed their distinctive sound.

Choice songwriter Claude Kelly made a business of hits.

Shane Stoneback’s career took off via work with Sleigh Bells and Vampire Weekend.

Mixer Mark Saunders embraced multiple aspects of the biz from his studio at Beat 360.

Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess took his iPad/iPhone app MorphWiz all the way to #1.

Joel Hamilton continued down an immersive production path, working on records with Blakroc, Dub Trio, The Parkington Sisters and Blakroc.

And John Agnello brought his classic production and engineering technique to new records for Kurt Vile, J Mascis, Shayna Zaid And The Catch and Dead Confederate (among others).

The studio scene got a lot more socialicious and FUN:

Flux Studios was always hosting something in the East Village, like Alto and Dangerous converging for a schooling from Fab.

Digital Music NY was one of many popular business-based meetups.

Stadium Red partied down post-CMJ.

20dot20 mixed advertising and music.

And the Connectors connected a LOT of people.

What big stories would you include? And what do you see next in 2011? Don’t be shy – leave a comment and let us know!

– Janice Brown and David Weiss

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