Career Engineering: Allen Farmelo on Recording Cinematic Orchestra, & That Post-Pink Floyd Sound

CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN/FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN: What headspace are you in? For a music producer/engineer/mixer like Allen Farmelo, getting your talents to that sought-after place is all about finding yourself.

In the process of doing that, of course, people will find you — that explains why one of Farmelo’s fans is an artful outfit like Cinematic Orchestra, the engrossing British jazz/electronic/soul influenced outfit led by Jason Swincoe. The ever-evolving group recently called on Farmelo to engineer their upcoming release for Ninja Tune, a project that he executed in the semi-exclusive confines of Chinatown’s intriguing Mavericks Studio.

Whether working at Mavericks or mixing/mastering at his rapidly evolving Fort Greene facility, The Farm, Farmelo’s primary angle – a sound he gravitates to that he calls “Post-Pink Floyd” – and artist-centric philosophy shows how an NYC audio pro gets on the map. As his list of credits grows (The Loom, Second Dan, Cucu Diamantes, Jonah Smith, Ian Gillan, The Cabriolets, Jesus H. Christ), so does his insight on what makes today’s music, and the business of it, tick.

You’ve been working a lot with Cinematic Orchestra the last few weeks. How would you describe that workflow?
I wouldn’t say it’s improvisational, but I would say it’s a very grand project that operates on a lot of different levels and that there’s a lot of exploration happening. Jason’s done a lot of writing beforehand, and he brings in musicians to flesh out the ideas. The writing is extremely intentional, and harmonically/melodically very plotted out. He knows the goal of those songs.

He’s an amazing producer because he manages to get people to do stuff that works for the song, without telling them what to do. Is he micromanaging? No. But is he getting the micro-details he wants out of people? Yes. So I’m watching him closely and learning from him.

Cinematic’s not like the Beatles where you have the same four members, and without one of them you’re done. Jason’s brought in people he feels will contribute to that particular song in the way he thinks it will happen best. Different singers for different songs, that kind of thing. So far it’s a bit of a different-sounding record than the previous one, and I think the lineup will reflect those changes.

So what’s it like coming into the project as an engineer? Do they let you do your thing, or is it a collaborative process?
Jason knows what he wants to hear, he is extremely good at communicating it, and he lets me achieve that. He can sometimes get right down to the gear. They were working at Livingston Studios in London, using those Coles 4038s as the overheads. He described that setup, and I did that here to get the specific sound that worked well when he tracked in England.

So sometimes he’s very specific, other times he’ll describe a vibe or metaphor to get what he’s looking for, and then the way I achieve that is up to me. Mixing the Grey Reverend record that Jason produced was a lot like that, where both Grey and Jason would articulate well what they wanted from the record. Then I sent them home, said, “Let me do this,” and then let them come back.

My first stab was good on about 70% of the material — and then fell on its face on the other! We talked about that, and they were very good at articulating what they wanted changed. So we freed up some things in the mix, found the center of the record, and let those things happen. As the record went on, I was able to take more ownership of the aesthetic. So the collaboration is very easy and open.

So is it easier to go into this project now that you’re in the same headspace? Are there traditional references to other records he’s listening to as far as the approach, or is it like you’re already aware of what he likes based on the past experience?
Jason has written amazing, amazing music that is dictating everything about what follows. The songwriting is so strong and beautiful that everybody else is just there to serve that song – including Jason. I don’t feel any references to anything outside of those songs happening at all. Instead we’re coming from the center of those songs. And when you hear them, they all have their own character, life, logic, feel, tonality and beauty that’s obvious from the get-go, even when they’re just played on acoustic guitar. You say, “That’s freakin’ beautiful. Let’s make it more beautiful.”

How do you go about taking the song further at that point?
So everything from changing a mic to subdividing a beat to figuring out how to lay a crash down is there to serve that inner logic. Jason makes sure we’re there to serve that inner logic and the inner beauty of the song, and he communicates it very easily. You have the songwriter, the vision, and the songs are giving you tons of information from that.

You don’t have to do that much to know how to get the studio to sing properly for the song, and that’s where I feel I’m trusted to make some good choices along the way. It can be something as simple as, “Wow, slow tempo – let’s raise the overheads and let the drums sing a little more,” or for more complex patterns I might think, “Let’s get things a little tighter.”

For me, setting the tone on the guitar amp is instinctively informed by the guitar pattern. Since we feel very much in tune with the music, we all kind of trust each other aesthetically and say, “OK, let’s make this happen.” There’s not a lot of discussion about this stuff. It’s kind of obvious when things are working or not, everyone’s got great ears.

The thing that’s refreshing about working with these guys is that there’s no ego to get in the way of this discussion, so it’s an aesthetic conversation at all times – a really clean and artistic conversation.

That sounds like a rewarding way to be recording. Why is this studio a fit for this band and record?
Well, Maverick’s fits any project really well, as long as you don’t need to record forty musicians here. I had thirteen here once – that worked surprisingly well. That was a big, amazing, raucous New Orleansy anti-war album. So Maverick’s can kind of do that. We did the strings for Grey Reverend’s upcoming album here – we had a quartet in the main space. I did the whole Loom record, Teeth, which was a six-piece band all playing in the room together. A lot of people come to just do drums. It’s a very versatile space, and as long as your mics are in phase, you’ll sound good. There’s really no crappy-sounding place in here. For the Cinematic record, there’s just something wonderful happening between the songs and the room sound. They match beautifully.

It feels that way. What do you think about the “open concept” (studio in the round) format here?
I’ve been on two Tape Op Conference panels with other people talking about open concept studios, so I’ve thought a lot about it. And of course the most famous reference is Lanois. The number one benefit of it is being able to speak face-to-face with the people you’re working with and not through a talkback system. The alienation of a talkback system is apparent as soon as it’s taken away. It’s so nice to pull off the headphones and talk to the person you’re speaking to.

The drawback is there’s no room for bullshit. Everyone has to be reverent to the music happening. You can’t rattle your keys, text your boyfriend, read Vogue – a lot of what normally happens in the control room can’t happen here. So if you’re not into being reverent, you have to go into the back room where there are no speakers. You’re either in or out.

I didn’t realize I was paying so much attention to what was coming out of the speakers – instead of to the musicians – until I started working in an open studio. It’s a positive for me, but not for everyone – my friend Joel Hamilton jokingly calls us a bunch of hippies that like to sit in the same room together, and he’s kind of got a point as it can be pretty touchy-feely. But the other most obvious benefit is the amount of space I have. We have one of the biggest control rooms in NYC, because we have all this space, and when we’re tracking we can subdivide it any way we want.

If we’d had a separate control room, we’d be like a lot of little studios, but instead we’re like a good midsize studio here. For a facility our size, we have a really big control room and a really big live room. They just happen to be the same space – it’s an incredible way to take advantage of small spaces.

That makes sense. What guides the gear choices here?
First and foremost, we have pairs of everything in the studio: Coles 4038’s, Royer 121’s, RCA BK 5As, Beyer M 160’s, Shure SM7’s, Elux 251s, 87s, 84s, 441s…a pair of everything. The point being that we are really ready to put up a pair of anything on any source, so we are really versatile when recording drums. We can get any flavor stereo overhead and room sound we want.

We used to have a mishmash of preamps, and then came to realize really quickly that we love API, and miss the glue/consistency of having the same preamps working off of a console. So we have 16 of the API 512s. We do have other pres – the Chandler, a pair of original 1073 Neves racked up by Brent Averil…but we have far fewer flavors then we used to, and we love it. We’re thrilled to have the same preamp on everything, because when you bring up the faders it all sits together tonally. We went through the “We could have a little of everything phase” and grew out of it.

We have a lot of really interesting compressors, and a lot of really standard standbys. We have two Purple MC77s, two 1176s, and a pair of DBX 160’s that used to belong to Johnny Cash! We have a pair of Distressors. Where we deviate is the API 2500 – I mix through that 2500 almost exclusively. I have one in my studio in Brooklyn, The Farm, and I have one here that’s always strapped onto my two buss. It reminds me not to over compress and to cascade from the individual channel compressors into that bus compressor. I work with it on all the time, so I know where I’m going to land compression-wise when it comes time to mix.

And there are other non-standard compressors here. We just got the Airfield Audio Liminator Two, which is a beautiful piece of kit, and this Gyrotek Varimu Tube Compressor is stunning – handmade in Denmark. So we have a lot of neat flavors on the compression side, and again, everything is stereo. We have two of everything, so you can run any pair of mics through any pair of pres/compressors.

Do you also mix here, or at The Farm?
I used to mix here, and then I had to mix back at my place because of a scheduling thing – this was like in 2006. So I recorded a record for Rachel Z., which featured Tony Levin, and other great musicians, and due to scheduling and some technical issues I ended up with mixes done on the console here at Mavericks, some summed in Pro Tools here, and some mixed in my room in Brooklyn. When we got to mastering, there were definitely differences – and the analog summed mixes were way better – but my mixes done at home were sounding really good. They were right up there. It was weird: I went to the news stand across the street from my Brooklyn apartment and saw that Rachel’s record was charting in Billboard, then I looked up at my window where my mix room is and said, “Wow, a new era.” So I did what everyone else did: I put together a mix room.

And now my studio, The Farm in Fort Greene, is a serious mixing situation. I have a lot of outboard gear, the Crane Song HEDD which I’m using to print my mixes off a Studer A-80 1/2” machine; a fully acoustically treated room. It’s pretty ideal and I’m doing pretty much all of my mixing there. That allows me to work within the budgets that are coming my way, allowing me to offer better deals to my clients and make a living at it.

That said, mixing here at Mavericks is a wonderful experience. We’ve got the Studer two-track, the center section of the Neotek, which is modified by Purple Audio, sounds wonderful. That console is like the mid-size luxury touring sedan with a badass racing engine in it.

We hear you’re putting together an interesting new console for The Farm. What was the concept, and how is it coming together?
The concept is to have an API Legacy console built from their amazing 7600 channel strips, which each have a 550A EQ, 225L compressor and 212L preamp along with four busses, four aux sends and infinite routing possibilities.

I realized after working on the big Vision console up at NYU’s Clive Davis school and then, days after, tracking at Mavericks with all API 512 preamps that API was a sound I could very happily commit to. But I couldn’t afford, nor did I really need, nor did I want to maintain, a full-on Legacy or Vision console.

The API 7600’s all connect to the 7800 Master Module to form a true, discrete Legacy console with as many channels you want or can afford. So I bought a pair of 7600s to try on a mix session and within about three minutes I knew I’d found my channels, and when I summed through the 7800 Master Module, I knew I’d found my console. Problem was I had to get it built.

Francois Chambard of UM Project in Greenpoint came on board, and our goal was to defy the look and feel of traditional consoles – which to my eye look like either Cold War-era military equipment, a dentist’s office, or some leather bound thing you’d expect Ron Burgundy to tell you he mixed his jazz flute on. I’m a really visual guy, and none of those inspire me, nor did I really want to spend the rest of my career behind one.

Instead we found a great blend between Francois’s sense of modern design and my own fascination with the landscape, architecture and design of Iceland. It’s going to look really different, yet it has the ergonomics of my favorite consoles all bundled together with space for over twenty-four channels, eventually. I couldn’t be happier, and Francois is a bad-ass designer. There’ll be racks and diffusors to match, I’m sure.

Sounds amaaaazing. Switching gears, let’s talk about the NYC recording scene. How would you describe what’s happening here?

There is an incredible energy around making records in NYC right now. Specifically in Brooklyn, there’s an incredibly good, positive foundation of recording happening.

Five years ago we were in distress a little bit, we were watching the big studios close. Now Avatar is still there, Sear Sound is still there – Walter RIP – they’re booked solid. Magic Shop is still there. These amazing rooms that really held close to their missions are still operating and they’re there for us to go in and use as needed. The new era is here, and we’re all relaxing into it.

The market crash happened in 2008, which was a grim year for everyone, but we got used to it. Now it’s a community of people making records. I see NYC as a place that adapted swiftly to a new model, and everyone’s got a room with an increasing amount of gear in it. Between the bigger studio and your own space, records are being made wonderfully that way. There are fewer places to get an orchestra recorded, but a hell of a lot of places for an acoustic guitar overdub!

The big loss is community. That’s not an original thought, but I do miss the community of being with a lot of people doing what you do. Writing for Tape Op helps, being on Facebook helps – when you have status updates, you feel like you’re in a conversation. I find I have to make an effort to find people who do what I do. It’s an effort, but it’s worth it.

So there’s a lot of obstacles to overcome, but musically I think NYC is bringing together the sophistication of indie, jazz and “new” classical music with the street levelness of the rock scene – now it’s almost the norm to have a string quartet on your record. I like seeing those worlds coming together. Maybe because no one can make a living at it anymore, we’ll all play on each other’s records! That cross-pollination is really exciting: Grizzly Bear and Arcade Fire used a lot of NYC string players on their last records, and you can feel a new kind of sound emerging nationally that has a particular stamp on it that, to my ears, says “Brooklyn.”

You’re from Buffalo originally, right? How did you work your way up as an engineer in the NYC studio scene?
I’m very much a self-taught guy. I had a bit of experience working at Trackmasters in Buffalo, now called Inner Machine and owned by the Goo Goo Dolls. It’s an amazing room, designed by John Storyk, and the Goo Goo Dolls are currently packing it with amazing gear. That studio is absolutely iconic in Buffalo’s music scene, and my first time in there I was playing keyboards in my highschool jazz band. We were badass that year, and then all the great players went off to college. It’s funny, I heard that recording recently and thought, “whoh, that’s amazing.”

Anyways, that first experience in a real studio had me hooked, and I soon after got a four-track and had at it. But where I really learned was in the DIY hardcore scene of the late ‘80’s. I did a record at Trackmasters in 1989 with my band RedDog7, then helped some friends make records there. I was kind of producing, but I had no idea that’s what I was doing. We made some seriously good sounding records, actually, and I was obsessed with getting good sounds – I knew guitars, amps, drums, cymbals, strings and even obsessed over sticks and picks. My head was way up in it from an early age, and I was thinking from the player to the instrument to the mic, which I now know is the right way to think.

Then we had a band house for a while, and and then this whole basement situation with the Mackie board and DAT machines. We made deals and acquired gear, recording, doing live sound and playing gigs, and then running this little DIY studio. That’s where I really cut my teeth as a recording guy, struggling to get a decent sound outside of Trackmasters. Over time in Buffalo I had the chance to become a bigger fish in a small pond, which is a nurturing environment, but that pond got too small. It was time to move on, so I came to NYC.

What’s your take on producing? You seem to have a studied approach to that role.
My philosophy of producing is that I try not to carry around any pre-ordained philosophy, but instead to generate a philosophy for the project in collaboration with the artist. I call that “guiding principles” – a very intentional guiding philosophy I try to lock in on and externalize for the project, in case we get lost.

For example, I’m doing a children’s record with the Brooklyn-based artist Shelley Kay, and we have two guiding principles. One is, “Fuck Romper Room”, and the other is “Playful Minimalism.” Fuck-Romper-Room is easy – that means that whenever we’re getting into the mamby-pamby kindergarten shit, hit the red STOP button. And “Playful Minimalism” means that when we’re confronted with a decision we ask: Is it playful? It is minimalist? Those two words show us the choice to make. Between two drum patterns for example, if one is more minimalist, that’s typically the one to go with, and the result comes back closer to our original artistic intentions to keep the production clean.

Another artist that I’m working with, the guiding principle is “Sincere Otherworldliness.” I’m putting him through the paces as a songwriter. He’s been struggling to get his sincerity out, and the otherworldliness is an outwardly-stated goal of his to create a sonic world that’s very different from reality, another world one can enter into. To bring those two together is difficult – if you’re too sincere, you can’t get it spacey and amazing, but if you’re too otherworldly, you can miss being right there with the listener, making it sincere. These principles are meant to be challenging.

In production it’s very hard to stop saying, “I like that, I don’t like that.” If that’s going on in the conversation, you’ll never get to the heart of the matter. If you get past “I like that, I don’t like that” and closer to stating what you want to achieve, something like a guiding principle starts to open up, and you have much more productive conversations about what’s happening.

In my work, that’s the best thing I can give to their project: an open, comfortable dialogue about things, but with structure instead of just being completely wide open. One of the functions of the producer is to help the artist specify what they’re doing, and not be all over the place. Not everyone is making their fifth record and bringing all that experience to the table. A lot of people are making their first or second, and I have to be intentional about my role, because if I don’t we get sloppy.

How did you get to be like that as a producer? It sounds like you’ve evolved in that role, just as an artist does with their music.
It’s not a new idea to find artistic growth as a producer, I don’t think. I have to attribute my own growth partly to Bob Power, one of my mentors. He always says it’s about getting to a place where you’re letting the music make decisions, and I know exactly what he means. That idea inspired me to ask, “Well, how do you get to that place?” Like most great ideas, it’s not complex, but it can be a real bugger to achieve. There are so many things that can get in the way, like ego, fear, imagined or real audiences, commercial pressure, well disguised self-sabotage tendencies – basically anything external to the actual crafts of writing, performing and recording music. For me, to get to that place where the music is speaking clearly requires a pretty intentional approach to how I talk about the work being done, and that’s where the guiding principles idea kind of came from.

More and more of us producers are doing the A&R job of developing artists and their material. If we don’t have record labels, who will do all the development work? It turns out to be the record producer in a lot of cases. It’s a big part of the job. So if I can obsess about a compressor as an engineer, I hope I can also obsess about the dialogue that’s going to shape decisions about the album as a producer. That’s been a big area of growth for me, to enter into dialogue about the work with more and more clarity. It’s really fucking hard work, but when it pays off it’s amazing. I even read books about collaborating, about creativity – whatever I can get my hands on that I think might help. Right now it’s where I’m focusing my professional growth.

That sounds like amazing guidance to be able to provide throughout the process…
Yes, although I should also state that all of that development of the guiding principles, and doing the artist and material development, happens long before we hit record. It’s like pre-pre-production. It goes on long before I’m getting things ready for the actual recording date. It’s more of trying to figure out what the vision of the artist is, and helping them shape it. I’ll say it again, it’s not easy. It’s not the easy path of just saying “I like this, I don’t like that.”

The other thing is the kind of music I’m working on can call for this kind of approach. I’ve more recently committed as a mixer/engineer/producer to this specific vibe within modern rock music that I call post-Pink Floyd. Don’t take that term too literally, but one day someone asked that inevitable question “what kind of music do you work on” and I just said it – “post-Pink Floyd.” What I meant by it is this thread of really innovative, beautiful, spacious, compassionate music.

Pink Floyd had incredible empathy, beautiful spaces, beautiful sounds, and brought in influences of jazz and classical without doing them overly in the music. The ideas they brought in were so involved in empathy – it wasn’t, “Let’s go shake our butts and hump each other and party all night long.” Instead, they were dealing more directly with the human condition, and I just wind up working with a lot of artists who seem to have somewhat similar goals lyrically and thematically. So it’s not really about Pink Floyd in particular, but if I had to point to a moment in rock history where this compassionate, open, spacious music began, I’d say “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Cinematic Orchestra exemplifies it. Radiohead and Sigur Ros exemplify it. Elbow’s got it. Peter Gabriel’s work with Lanois has it. In fact, Lanois seems to get it out of people in general – he got it out of Dylan, perhaps for the first time. I work with a lot of artist who seem to want to work towards the aesthetic that are embodied by those examples, even if those records aren’t particular influences. Cinematic Orchestra is an honor to work with, because I feel that they’re harmonically, musically, thematically within that realm. I think they’re masters of space and compassion, and I think the record they’re making is going to blow people away. But that post-Pink Floyd thing comes in a lot of flavors. In American bands I’d include The National, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Wilco does it do a degree, and especially Band of Horses. The Loom, whose record I produced, fits under that umbrella for me, even thought they sound nothing like these other bands, really. Again, it’s not really a particular sound, but a set of harmonic and thematic threads that run through the music.

It’s a hard and awful thing to have to put into the limitations of language something you feel and know so intuitively, but I guess that’s the exact challenge I’m putting on the artists I work with when trying to get positive dialogue happening about projects. In a way, post-Pink Floyd is my own kind of guiding priciple as I try to intentionally steer my career in a specific direction. I should probably work harder on clarifying that!

That sounds like an expansive genre to hang your hat on – what else is on the Post-Pink Floyd horizon for you?
I’m currently producing two records that are definitely going to carry some of that vibe. One is with Austin Donohue, who is writing some amazingly beautiful stuff, really finding his themes. He’s the Sincere Otherworldliness guy. The other is with Diana Hickman, who I think is writing some of the most innovative material I’ve heard in a while – like Joni Mitchell and Bjork go SCUBA diving together and surface with a record. Both of them are working their asses off, doing a ton of development work with me. Those will get done this winter.

I’ve also become inspired by Iceland as a place for music and making records. It’s a very sparsely populated, lovely place that just doesn’t go to war or pollute very much, and their landscape and relative remoteness lends itself to music that is really quite unique. When people settled Iceland, they didn’t colonize anybody, and it just doesn’t have this scarred past which so many other places rife with conflict have. It’s quieter. You can feel that lack of conflict and that quiet, and a sense of expansiveness in much of the music there, even when it’s erupting like a volcano.

At least that’s what my tired NYC ears hear. I just went back there in October to the Airwaves Music Festival in Reykjavik and saw amazing bands every night. I’m talking to one in particular about working together, and I really hope it starts to happen for me over there. I’m very interested in putting my foot on that other piece of land.

– Interview by Janice Brown and David Weiss

The Good Listeners Bring “Don’t Quit Your Daydream” To Woodstock

WOODSTOCK, NY: Couple weeks back, we had the opportunity to attend one of Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles up at his studio, “The Barn,” in the woods of Woodstock, NY. It was the weekend of the Woodstock Film Festival, and Don’t Quit Your Daydream, a documentary about LA-based duo The Good Listeners, was a featured film making its East Coast premiere.

Helm, legendary drummer for The Band, invited The Good Listeners to open the Ramble on Saturday night and they fit right in, bringing the rowdy, music-loving audience to their feet with tunes from the Don’t Quit Your Daydream album.

The story of The Good Listeners and the making of their latest record is an odyssey wherein band-mates Nathan Khyber and Clark Stiles pack up all their instruments and studio equipment, jump in an RV, and head out on a month-long, cross-country trip stopping to record a song-a-day in 10 different locations.

The Good Listeners make a kind of alt-pop music that fuses acoustic and electric indie roots-rock sounds with experimental studio sonics. Both are multi-instrumentalists, but Khyber is the singer/songwriter and Stiles is the producer who builds their sonic world, a pastiche of live playing and looped guitars, sampled sounds, pedal FX and analog synths. If David Byrne and Brian Eno hopped in an RV with some choice equipment, and gave themselves similar restrictions, the result might not be so far off from Don’t Quit Your Daydream.

The key to The Good Listeners’ sound is spontaneity, and they’ve been inventive about how to enforce that in their recordings. Their first record, Ojai, was made from scratch in ten days in a home studio in Ojai, CA; their second, Crane Point Lodge, was written and recorded over a month in a lodge in the Adirondacks; and their third album, Don’t Quit Your Daydream, was recorded on the road in ten non-studio locations around the country with a collaborator in each port. This is the process documented in the film.

“We approach each record as a blank canvas,” says Khyber. As for Don’t Quit Your Daydream, in particular, he shares, “We really didn’t have a game plan starting out. We write the songs in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way — very quickly and on a daily basis. But one thing we did plan in taking it out on the road was to get some local flavors and indigenous styles on the recording.”

Stops along the Don’t Quit Your Daydream trail included “The Integratron” dome out in the Mojave desert where they teamed up with musician/songwriter Bingo Richey, a Bayou Swamp Tour boat in Louisiana where they hooked up with Cajun musical tour-guide Ron Black Guidry, and a horse barn in Louisville where they met up with friend and actor/musician Adrian Grenier.

On the East Coast, they tracked songs at the Paul Green School of Rock in Philly with teenage rocker Gina Gleason and on a Brooklyn rooftop with college athlete and musician Christian Strekely. In each location, they wrote and recorded a song in one day with their collaborators, totally from scratch.

Lyrically, the album channels a kind of peripatetic spirit, and a longing for connection that’s literally being played out in the production process as the guys find a way to connect creatively to people whom (in most cases) they’ve never met. Even with the diverse locations and flavors, there’s a real cohesiveness to the sound of the record overall; it’s both real and cinematic in how it documents what happened in that location, on that day, the songs building like stanzas in a modern-day epic poem.

“A lot of that is Clark’s doing,” says Khyber of the album’s cohesive sound. “He’s a really good producer. And our process is organic in that a lot of what we do is based around the hiccups that we stumble across, and artifacts that are left over in the looping process.”

Tracking A Record Cross-Country

Stiles had been working as a producer in Los Angeles, engineering records for The Dandy Warhols and Pink Martini among others, when he and Khyber formed The Good Listeners. He’d been burning out on producing with other bands, and decided it was time to retire from the studio grind.

“I found myself working on other records thinking about how great it would be to be putting as much effort into my own records,” says Stiles. “So I found new ways to make money and let my work be my work and let music be fun. Nathan and I have a really strong skill-set and it’s so nice to be doing it for ourselves.” As a result, this band has the benefit of a fine-tuned production process, conceptualized by a skilled recording engineer.

“We subscribe to the point of view, based on our experience, that the things that you don’t deliberate on, the unintended things, are the best,” says Stiles. “We like to let things happen, and unfold and the accidents are greatly welcome because the most exciting thing about music is when it’s unpredictable and you can’t think your way into unpredictable, it just has to happen.”

To make Don’t Quit Your Daydream, the guys and their roadie musician buddies unpacked and setup a full-fledged studio in each location. “We arrange all of our gear in such a way that we can just bounce around to the different stations and not have to think too much about making special patches for anything we might want to do,” says Khyber.

And it’s an impressive assemblage of musical equipment they carted around. “We have a mishmash of gear we’ve been collecting since the 80s,” Stiles notes. “I have some old Neumann microphones, an awesome drum set from the 80s, we’ve got a Rhodes and a Wurlitzer, but then we’re also using Pro Tools and we have a new Moog. We hang onto gear we love and buy a few new things every time we make a record.

“For pre-amps, I have some APIs, GMLs and Manleys. I don’t use any outboard compression — we basically record everything flat, I go straight from the mic pre to the Apogee converter into Pro Tools and the majority of what we do in Pro Tools is really just hi-pass filtering, very little EQ’ing. I try to keep everything as natural sounding as possible. It’s nice because then we like to mix in miscellaneous sounds and we have a lot more fun trying to get the sound in the room as opposed to over-tweaking in Pro Tools.”

The production of a song is about capturing the new environments, nuances, musical and lyrical gems of each day. “We want the outside noises to leak into the music a bit, so that we feel like we’re wrangling the sound more than creating it in a lot of cases.”

In this way the method of production becomes an intrinsic aspect of the band’s identity, their sound. “It really works for us,” Khyber allows.

“It’s really refreshing for both Clark as a producer and musician and for me as a writer to kind of do this so quickly that we’re not second-guessing ourselves to a degree and belaboring something when your gut instinct is typically the right move anyway.

So a lot of the record is first passes, first vocal takes. I think the process has enabled us to keep it fresh and fresh sounding.”

And Stiles mixes as they go. “It shouldn’t take that long to write, record and mix a song and that’s kind of our theory,” says Stiles. “If you listen to our end of day mix as opposed to the album versions, they’re not that far off. I typically mix while I record and we’re editing while we’re writing; we’re doing all the work that day.”

The Journey Is The Destination

At the end of the month-long trip from Los Angeles to NYC, The Good Listeners had an album, amazing footage for their documentary and a great, human story to tell. “I think what we learned through making this record is that we actually have something to share,” says Stiles.

“We’ve spent years developing our skills and craftsmanship and that is something that’s really nice to go out and share with other musicians. We learned a lot from our collaborators and we tried to give something back to them as well.”

As for the fans, well, the DVD + CD experience of Don’t Quit Your Daydream is super-engaging. Watch the movie, listen to the finished record, and you feel you’ve traveled the road with them and you’re that much more connected to their songs. Or at a film-screening event, hear them live and it completes the journey.

“I think it’s quite nice to see the genesis of the songs and then see them come to fruition on stage,” says Khyber…as in The Midnight Ramble, a perfect epilogue for those who caught the film. And it was a high point for the band.

“It was very intimidating, we were actually kind of terrified,” says Khyber. “We’re certainly no hacks, but we also don’t feel we’re virtuoso instrumentalists. And there we were playing in a room with guys like the musical director for Bob Dylan’s band!

“But it went over quite well and people did really seem to enjoy it. And you always have to remind yourself that, at the end of the day, you’ve written these songs and if you’re able to perform them and people are into it then you’ve done your job!”

For more on The Good Listeners and Don’t Quit Your Daydream, visit www.thegoodlisteners.com and www.dontquityourdaydream.com. Download the movie and album on iTunes!

Northern Lights Expands Audio Division, Opens Storyk-Designed 5.1 Surround Sound Suite

Northern Lights recently opened a new 5.1 surround sound audio room, designed by John Storyk of the Walter Storyk Design Group. The suite represents a continuing expansion of Northern Lights’ audio division, which is currently home of sound mixer/designers and composers Ted Gannon and Damon Trotta.

Business has been expanding for Northern Lights, which was formed in 1995 by co-owners David Gioiella and Mark Littman, and serves a diverse clientele including commercial, promo, show open and feature film work. With sound mixer/designer/composer Damon Trotta joining Northern Lights in ’09, the partners decided a high-end 5.1 mixing suite would position them for more technically demanding/higher profile work.

“I have wanted a John Storyk-designed room for as long as I’ve been in the business,” Trotta says. “David and Mark went the extra nine yards to make this studio as comfortable as possible.

We’re outfitted with Millennia mic pre’s, Neumann U89‘s, Empirical Labs Distressors, Dolby 160A, Focal 5.1 monitoring, Dorrough metering, Pro Tools HD and Logic Pro 9. Driving a top-of-line room definitely impacts on my creative thinking, And,” he adds, “our clients have been extremely complimentary. This investment will pay dividends for Northern Lights for years to come.”

With a staff of 25 editors and artists, Northern Lights designs, creates, edits, mixes and finishes a wide range of projects including commercial campaigns for brands such as General Mills, Wyeth, Pepperidge Farm, and Novartis, and promos and interstitials for clients like USA Network, Food Network, Nickelodeon, VH1, Versus, and BET.  The firm’s Mr. Wonderful motion graphic division did the new show open for Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, and was in competition at the first-ever SXSW Festival Title Sequence category.  Northen Lights offers three audio mixing studios, six editing suites, two Smoke suites and a Flame suite.

Northern Lights is located on W. 27th Street. For more information, visit http://www.nlpedit.com/

John Agnello: Dinosaur Jr. & Sonic Youth Producer On New Indie Rock Sounds, Classic Techniques

JERSEY CITY: In 1979, a Brooklyn teenager and avid record collector named John Agnello landed an internship at one of Manhattan’s most prominent music studios. Thanks to some hard work and genuine affability it wasn’t long before he found himself assisting on major releases from contemporary heavyweights like Aerosmith, Cyndi Lauper and Twisted Sister.

It’s an unexpected beginning for a Producer most known for his involvement with classic Indie Rock darlings, many of whose records still pepper the favorites lists of young fans. Success on early releases with Dinosaur Jr, Screaming Trees and Buffalo Tom made way for work with The Breeders, Sonic Youth, The Hold Steady and Nada Surf.

We grabbed a quick bite with John near his Jersey City home between sessions with Kurt Vile at Williamsburg’s Headgear Recording Studio.

Looking through your early discography, we see you listed as an assistant on some pretty mainstream releases. It’s interesting to see your credit list take a left turn in the early 90s toward more bold and unique artists, branded back then as “Alternative Rock.” It looks like you’ve never turned back. I’d like you to take us through that journey a little. How did you get your start?

I started assisting at the Record Plant in ’82, and started engineering in ’84. I was engineering for a long time, all through the 80s and into the early 90s. It took a while to really get considered to produce records. And with good reason! (laughs) I wasn’t really a “Producer” at first.

What changed? Were there any seminal records that acted as a turning point for you?

The first Dinosaur Jr. record was a really great experience. I was credited as an engineer, and I wouldn’t say I was a “producer” on those records. But I definitely helped J. [Mascis] get to a different sonic level. When we worked on together, Dinosaur Jr. records started to sound like classic records, not just gnarly discs with great songs covered in “Ka-Kssshhhhh” (makes sound effect of gnarly midrangey goodness). Once those records were doing really well and A&R guys noticed what I was starting to contribute to the process, things began to change.

How does your approach as a producer differ from that of your engineering days? Is there a learning curve?

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about what a producer can do, and pushed the envelope a lot more. When I started producing, it was in the middle of this Indie/Alternative Rock explosion. Things were really open.  What a producer had to do was create a vibe, get the bands to perform, and let them do their thing. You might help with an arrangement here or there, but that was it. Bands were being signed because somebody somewhere liked them.

The attitude was: if a band like Spacehog or Nada Surf or Jawbox hit the charts, great! And if they didn’t… they didn’t. In that way it was a totally different world.

Today, I spend a lot more time in rehearsals with bands really working through arrangements and giving them actual direction. Things these days are so much tighter. There are so many records coming out, indie-wise at least, and it’s so much more competitive because everyone posts their songs online.

For an unknown band to have a chance of getting noticed, it’s really important for the record to be concise and bring out the best of what they do. Sometimes we’ve got to leave out all the extra filler that makes listeners go: “Boring!” Attention spans have gotten to be…miniature.

So do you find yourself working more as a musical gatekeeper than you would have in the past?

Absolutely. I’m in pre-production rehearsal with bands right now, and you have to bring these things up: ”The song’s too long, let’s cut the chorus here in half here,” or “The key’s not right for your voice, let’s try modulating there.” When you’re making good suggestions, bands are really receptive. And it’s fun too. You feel like you’re even more a part of the band and a part of the record. It’s great to notice: “Hey the verse… It’s really this song’s chorus, isn’t it? Let’s build around that.”

Let’s face it: anyone can be an engineer these days. That’s no slight against the guys who are great engineers, because there are some really good ones. The point is: Any one of these bands *could* stay at home and make their own record. These days just being an engineer isn’t enough to separate yourself from everyone else out there. You’ve got to bring something else to the table.

So here you are being hired for your ability to filter and to make perceptive musical choices… but you didn’t even start out as a musician?

No, not at all!

How did that happen? Did you become a player as things wet along?

I didn’t. That’s another thing that’s interesting to think about: when I first started assisting, I really had no concept of pitch. I was just a kid who loved listening to records. I wasn’t a musician, I wasn’t trained. I had to learn to listen and understand what pitch was and to focus on it. It’s just another one of those things that you learn to do well through repetition.

You’ve done a lot of work with promising bands as they’re discovering their sound. But you’ve worked with established artists as well. The last two Sonic Youth records you’ve worked on have featured some really masterful sounds.

Considering how long they’ve been around and how long I’ve been around, it’s been really great to finally work with them. It made me feel really good about my station in life, to be able to make two really wonderful records with a band I’ve always loved.

Sonic Youth are a band known to have a lot of vision and often share production credit on their records. How is your role different with a band like that?

Oh, they know what they’re doing. A big difference between working with a Thurston Moore or a J Mascis and all the other bands we’re talking about, is that you don’t need to tell either of those guys anything about songwriting (laughs). What’s the point?! What a band like Sonic Youth really requires is that we’re on time delivering the record, and I can help keep them on track while they have so many other projects going on.

Rather Ripped in particular made some waves for helping put the band back on the map after some rare time away from critical acclaim. That album took a distinctly punchy and muscular sonic direction compared of their prior records. The guitars in particular command an unusual amount of power and clarity. Can you tell us anything about your approach there?

Rather Ripped (2006) and The Eternal (2009) both have Lee on the left and Thurston on the right. That’s how they stand on stage. I just love the clarity of stereo. It’s great to hear each dude doing their part, and it’s really cool to hear that in headphones, especially when one part steps out a bit from either side.

Definitely. It leaves a lot of room for power in the drums too. I hear that kind of spread on one of your newest releases as well. Dead Confederate’s Sugar came out this past month, and in some places the guitars are also really wide, but much more textured and layered sounding.

They have a cool sound. I joke that’s almost like “Freedom Grunge.” You know? Like Freedom Rock + Grunge, with some shoegaze mixed in. It combines a lot of things I like.

I’ve heard you tend to use the same mics a lot on guitars: a classic combination of [Shure] SM57, [Neumann] U87 and [Sennheiser] 421 mixed together. Is that true of those two records, even though they have such different sounds?

Yeah, a lot of it comes from the amp, and the player. That’s the first place to change things. If there’s something that ties those sounds together it’s that I really like my guitars close-miked, even if they have a lot of effects on them. If your amp is really blowing and you have the mic right on it, that’s where you get a lot of intensity. If you start to move it back, sure you can get some more air and some room maybe, but you sacrifice that intensity.

When you use a blend of mics like that, which mics are you listening to in the control? What about the players?

I’m old school. I’ll blend them together and print it to tape or to Pro Tools. If I’ve got a great sound that’s moving me, I don’t want to have to think about how I got it ever again. When I’m producing, I want to shut up the Engineer-guy in my head as much as possible so the Producer-guy can take the wheel. Sometimes I’ll even print my snare top and bottom on one track.

What about kick drums? Some of your records have a powerful-yet-organic sound you don’t hear a lot these days.

I think both those Sonic Youth records and a lot of the Dino stuff is a double-headed kick drum, no hole. It’s really hit-or-miss though. If you put a mic up on either side and it sounds good, you’ll have an amazing sound. If it doesn’t, you could struggle with mics and anything else for hours and you’ll never get there.

What else are you excited about? I hear you’re in the studio with Kurt Vile now, making a record for Matador.

He’s great. Really quirky, unique stuff while also being classic and beautiful. My daughter Bella is in love with him and sings his songs in the car all the time!

Have the digital and home studio revolutions changed the way you work much?

Not a lot in my niche. Every once in a while I’ll get a record to mix that was recorded by a new band at home. You wouldn’t get projects like that years ago. And sure, I use Pro Tools and edit digitally, but other than that, I pretty much work the same way.

I feel like you can’t make the same record all the time, and each album should be unique, but I use the same tools a lot.  I pick my favorite studios like Water Music, Headgear and Magic Shop because they have tape machines that work and the monitoring is great. It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but I’ve been using the same stereo bus compressor for almost 24 years! (Laughs.)

— Justin Colletti

For more on John Agnello, visit his website at www.johnagnello.com and follow him on Twitter @John_Agnello.

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 and Blue Note Records.

That’s Voiceover: One-Day Seminar For Aspiring Voiceover Artists 9/22

Ever thought about doing voice-over work but didn’t know where to start? Well there’s a one-day seminar happening next week, 9/22, right here in NYC that will provide an inside look at what it takes to make a career as a voiceover artist.

Co-sponsored by Neumann and Push Creative, “That’s Voiceover” will feature presentations from celebrities in the voiceover industry, including Joan Baker, Joe Cipriano and Alan Kalter (voice of Late Show with David Letterman). In addition to covering voiceover acting, the seminar will also cover associated work such as writing, producing, directing and other roles.

The seminar will feature plenty of audience interaction, including targeted Q&As and real-life audition scenarios. Additionally, Push Creative will present “The Audition Spotlight,” providing a chance for attendees to book an actual voiceover job.

In conjunction with Dale Pro Audio, Neumann will be offering each attendee a special discount on its TLM 102 Large-Diaphragm Studio Condenser microphone.

For more information and tickets, visit www.thatsvoiceover.com. Tickets are $115; purchase yours HERE. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to The Alzheimer’s Association.

Full Coordinates:

That’s Voiceover
Wednesday, September 22
6PM
The Times Center
242 West 41st St., New York, NY 10018
http://thatsvoiceover.com/

An Interview With NYC Taper: New York’s Live Music Archivist

LOWER MANHATTAN: We meet Dan Lynch aka NYC Taper downtown near City Hall at lunchtime. This is Dan Lynch by day — a criminal defense and civil rights attorney with offices near the city courthouses. By night, his scenery changes a bit. The very next night, for example, he’ll be recording MGMT at Radio City Music Hall.

On the scene since ’07, NYC Taper is a beloved resource amongst indie rock bloggers like Brooklyn Vegan, Large Hearted Boy and Pitchfork and music fans worldwide. The intrepid recordist, Lynch and his four-track recorder and mic array capture an estimated 150 shows a year, capturing some of the best (mostly indie-rock) shows going down in our fair city. Through his website — www.nyctaper.com — he then provides show reviews, streaming recorded highlights and the entire concert as a free download.

Did you hear that Spoon played Cake Shop in the middle of the day this week? NYC Taper was there. Did you, like us, regretfully miss the Rocks Off Concert Cruise with Built To Spill a couple weeks back? Worry not, NYC Taper was on board. And when you just can’t swing a super-late-weeknight at Monster Island Basement, tune into NYC Taper — he may have you covered.

A sampling of NYC Taper’s summer ’10 recordings include Deerhunter and Real Estate at Pier 54, Franz Nicolay in Backyard Brunch Sessions, The National at Terminal Five, Flaming Lips at Central Park Summerstage and Holly Miranda at Vivo in Vino.

When Lynch or one of his three contributing tapers post the recordings, mixed in their respective home studios, they include the full recording details, i.e. Built To Spill on Rocks Off Concert Cruise: “This set was recorded with the Neumann microphones pointed at the stacks from about twenty feet, and mixed with feed from the soundboard. Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Sound Forge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac.”

Stream “Carry The Zero,” and we guarantee you’ll want the whole recording — it’s completely exhilarating. You feel like you’re there, getting swept away and out to sea, singing along with all the enraptured fans. And always chief among them is Lynch, who does this purely for the love of it — really, read all about it here:

Where did the concept for NYC Taper come from, and how long have you been recording live shows?

The site started in May of ’07. But, I’ve been recording concerts for a couple decades, though never with this regularity or at this quality. There are actually a few of my nineties recordings on the site. [i.e. Black ’47 @ Paddy Reilly’s in ’96]. I’ve also been collecting music since the late 70s and going to concerts in the city since I was a kid, growing up on Long Island.

Prior to starting the site, I’d been recording shows and posting them up on whatever Bit Torrent site, and it just seemed like there was nothing to it. And then one day someone took one of my recordings and posted it on their blog, without giving any credit. Plus, they’d down-sampled it to MP3 at a really crappy bit rate, and it sounded awful. And I just thought why don’t I do this? Why don’t I set up my own blog?

Tell us about how you got started…

For the first two or three months, I didn’t really have a vision for where it was going. It was just about putting up recordings and having that control over where and how they be posted. But then, about three weeks after I started the site, I recorded Dinosaur Jr. and that was big. And then Wilco at Hammerstein Ballroom and — wow — I was getting all these hits!

Those were both bands that allow fans to record their shows. But ultimately, I began reaching out to get permission to record bands and building my contacts there. And the big switch was when I started to realize that it’s not all that rewarding to record bands that everyone already knows. I love Wilco and I’ll go see them whenever they’re in NYC and record the show, and it gets big traffic for the site, but it’s more rewarding to find the band nobody really knows and help them get out there, and then see them playing bigger and bigger venues and feel like you had a part in that.

Awesome. And so it really took off. Why do you think it was the right time for something like this?

Well, there are two different ways to record a concert. There’s what I do — actually getting the artist’s permission and recording with high-quality equipment to produce something everyone can be proud of. And then there’s the other subculture of fans bringing in their tiny recorders and tiny clip-on microphones and recording concerts. Some of those sound okay but most sound pretty thin.

This whole subculture has helped me in some ways because artists accept the concept that whenever they play out, people can’t really be stopped from recording the show. And if you can’t stop people from recording, then you — the artist — want to turn that into something you can control. They know I do good work, so it makes sense for them to give me the access and I’ll go in and do it right.

What criteria do you have when deciding which shows to record?

Well, I don’t go to see stuff I don’t like. NYC Taper is also a live music blog, giving people information, links and generally a good review — creating a buzz around music I think deserves it. In some cases, my recordings have given bands more exposure, which has led to more success. And that is my ultimate goal with this.

People reach out to me all the time now, and sometimes the bands are really good. So it’s definitely ballooned. There’s also a social element to it — I put on a CMJ show every year and an anniversary show every May. I’m not trying to be a concert promoter, but it’s just something I can do now because I have this vehicle to promote and all these artist and venue contacts.

Did you start out thinking about NYC Taper as something you might build into a business?

No, it’s not a business. I’m not making any money and I don’t want to make any money. I also don’t want to lose my shirt though. I’ve invested a lot of money into equipment, tickets and travel, etc. but occasionally people donate some money. I was able to pay for about half of the server fees last year with donations. I also get a lot of invites and get on a lot of guest lists.

And as far as the actual recording — how do you typically set up? Do you have different configurations or methods?

It depends on the venue. I generally like venues that are going to let me plug into the soundboard any way that I can. And then I’ve got the 4-track recorder so I’m going to put two high-end mics somewhere in a good spot in the room. I’ll get 4 channels, and then mix it down however it needs to be mixed down.

I’m using the Edirol R-44 recorder. It’s really small, which is great. I have external battery power, an 8GB SD card and I can get about 4 hours of music in 4 channels at 24/48. And then I’ll pull it into the computer, and I’m using Sound Forge to edit and mix.

OK, and where do you like to place the microphones, using a recent show as an example.

Sure, I was just at The Rock Shop in Brooklyn, and I set up the microphone pole right in front of the soundboard, and then I set up my recorder and took a line out from the board. At the Rock Shop that’s literally 20 feet from the stage and so I used my Neumanns.

But it really depends — I record in so many different venues in the city. I’d only been to the Rock Shop like twice, but it’s easy. Other venues aren’t as easy — I might have to run extra cable and figure out a different setup. A lot of it is haphazard too, so I’m going in there and figuring out what I need to do right away. And I want it to be quick in and out because I’m doing 150 shows a year.

What’s the biggest venue you’ll record in?

I was in Terminal 5 for The National the end of July. In a lot of the big rooms, you can’t get a board feed unless you pay for it. Sometimes it’s $200 or more. One place asked me for $3,000! In those cases, I’ll just run mics in the room. So a lot of the recordings are just that — mics in the room. And if that’s what it is, I’m doing four mics to a four-track recorder.

Where have you gotten the best results? What’s the best room in NYC?

The best room, sound quality wise, is probably Bowery Ballroom, where I don’t get a sound board feed very often, but I have a couple times in cases where the bands went out of their way to talk to the sound guy on my behalf. But the sound in that room is so good that just running four mics from the balcony sometimes produces amazing recordings.

And how exactly to you place the microphones in that case, where you’re capturing the room, no board feed?

A pair of Neumann KM-150s, which are the hyper-cardioids, are pointing straight into the stacks, and a pair of DPA 4021s are going out (sideways) to get a rounder feel. They’re cardioids too, but they have a wider spectrum. All four are mounted on a microphone pole.

Ooh, I also really like the Bell House — the setup is really good for me there. The board is raised and I get to be up there too, so I’m raised above the crowd with a straight line at the stacks. I’ve had a board feed there a bunch of times, and the people working are always good.

What about a DIY-type venue, like Monster Island Basement?

Todd rents a small system for these shows and there are limitations, but I’ve been really happy with some of these recordings, like the Akron/Family show there in July.

And what about post-production? What’s your philosophy about the end product?

I want it to sound as close to the experience as possible. I do not normalize. I don’t want a wall of sound. If you look at my wave files, I want life and breathing room in between the peaks. I want it to have some natural dynamics.

So, I’m pretty conservative in the field in terms of recording. I don’t want peaks because I know when something peaks out and brickwalls then I can’t even use it. When I go back to mix — let’s say it’s a four channel and I’ve got soundboard and audience — the audience is going to be pretty basic. I’m just going to bring it up to 0.1 on the peaks. A lot of times I’ll get heavy drumbeats or claps that I’ll have to soften but I want most of it to be in that range — the real peaks at like 0.1.

And then on the board, it depends because a lot of boards are vocal heavy or keyboard heavy, so I’ll have to figure out the percentages of what I want to do. If the board is well-balanced, and the audience is loud, it’s going to be 75% board; if the board is poorly balanced and the audience is really nice and clean, it’ll be 75% audience.

You go to more shows than anyone I know — which have been your favorites this year?

My favorite show so far this year was Holly Miranda at Vivo In Vino. This happens one Sunday a month, they bring in an artist and team them up with a boutique winery at In Vino in the East Village. She was solo for this show. It was like she was playing in someone’s living room. I also saw her at Bowery Ballroom in May and that was one of the better shows I’ve seen this year as well.

And are you available for hire?

Yeah, I do a few shows here and there. But it’s not that much fun for me necessarily. If I’m going just to make some extra money, and the band doesn’t do much for me and I wouldn’t record them otherwise, then it’s like a job. And I have a job — I don’t need another one. (laughs) But it’s nice to get paid to go out to a show and sometimes you make good contacts with the venues and sound guys.

NYC Taper has caught on fast — what do you think that says about the market for live concert recordings?

The fact is that there are other people and companies doing this because fans want these recordings. That company Aderra records concerts to flash drives and there’s another site called PlayedLastNight. But I like to think I’m doing more than just recording these shows. There’s the social element as well.

You see yourself as more of a blogger and recordist.

Exactly. And in that sense, it gives people more of a feel of the experience. And if they don’t agree, they can comment! I’ve also become, in some ways, kind of a tastemaker by choosing to record bands that I think are good. I get comments on the site where people say ‘I loved this recording and band — I went out and bought the CD. Or, I’m glad you recorded this because this band didn’t come to my town. That’s the goal — when that happens, I really feel like I’ve done something good.

Indeed, and on the tastemaker tip, tell us about some of the artists you’re excited about right now!

Well, I’ve been plugging Sharon Van Etten for a couple years now. She’s headlining Mercury Lounge in October. I also like Common Prayer (led by Jason Russo of Hopewell), who played Rock Shop this week. I really like their album. I’ve always been a fan of The Loom, and they have a new album that’s really good. And I think Diamond Rings is going to hit it big pretty soon.

I’ll do my CMJ Show on Thursday at Cake Shop and we’ll have like nine bands, including Unicycle Loves You, Keepaway, ArpLine. Every band is a band I believe in.

Cool! And where do you go from here? Do you have plans to build out the site in any way?

One of the things I want to start doing is streaming. My first streaming show is going to be a venue that’s reopening and it’s going to be a pretty big deal. That may not happen for a few months.

I also want to get more people involved in the site. Right now, it’s three regular tapers. Down the road, I want it to be 20 people, so we’re doing one or two shows a night. I want it to be like Brooklyn Vegan, with their photo coverage, but for recording. I can only do so much, I need to get some other people involved.

I also want to redesign the site — and I’ve been looking for a white knight for a server. It’d be awesome to have a humongous server — everything could become more comprehensive and I could expand the reach, so more people know who I am and what the site is all about!

Visit the NYC Taper site at http://www.nyctaper.com and check out the huge archive of shows, including Spoon at Cake Shop on Monday afternoon. It’s already up! And follow NYC Taper on Twitter @nyctaper.

Studio Sweet Spot: Sundlaugin * Mosfellsbaer, Iceland

Facility Name: Sundlaugin Studio

Website: www.sundlaugin.com

Location: Mosfellsbaer, Iceland

How to Get Here from NYC: JFK to Keflavik Airport, then 40 minutes drive towards Reykjavik.

Where You Can Stay Once You Get Here: Hotel Laxnes, five minute walk from the studio. Or any hotel in downtown Reykjavik which is a 15-minute drive from the studio.

Neighborhood Advantages: Sundlaugin is literally one of the last houses before you hit the countryside. Quiet and green area with beautiful walks all around. A river runs three meters from the sweet spot in the control room. Outside, though.

Date of Birth: 2000

Facility Focus: Very well suited for live tracking as we have a fairly big main recording room with high ceilings and four other rooms/booths, as well as a great collection of microphones. Great for mixing also; Neve desk, nice outboard and loads of plug-ins.

Clients/Credits: Sigur Rós, Jónsi, Damien Rice, the Album Leaf, amiina, Mugison, Seabear, múm, Ólöf Arnalds, Skúli Sverris, Pétur Ben and many other foreign as well as Icelandic bands.

Key Personnel: Birgir Jon Birgisson, engineer/manager/owner; Kjartan Sveinsson, producer/owner

System Highlights: Neve V0 desk; ProTools HD2; Otari MTR90 mkII w/Dolby SR; Manley, Neve, Empirical Labs, Lexicon, AMS, Alan Smart, Shadow Hills outboard; Neumann, RCA, AEA, AKG, Coles, Sennheiser, Melodium mics

Distinguishing Characteristics: Loads of natural light, especially in the control rooms which is a rare treat in a studio — makes it a lot easier to spend long hours working. Five separate rooms to record in, four of which you’d fit in a full drum kit. Each with different characteristics.

The building is on fire, you only have time to grab ONE thing to save, what is it? Neumann U47 valve microphone

Rave Reviews: The vibes in and around the studio; we have a pond and a river just outside the control room with a view of a field and even a small forest which is a rare sight in our fair country.

Having such a nice environment makes everyone feel at ease which makes the process so much more enjoyable. Drummers also love the main room.

Most Memorable Session Ever: Super Mama Djombo; a 14-piece band from Guinea-Bissau. They taught me it’s not the gear you use but how you use what you have.

Session You’d Like to Forget: That one involves bad notes and Melodyne for six days straight.

Dream Session: The band would be Tom Waits, Dolly Parton, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Dave Grohl and Davíð Þór Jónsson.

– Biggir Jon Birgisson, Engineer/Manager, Sundlaugin

Beat 360: Much More than Just a Music Studio for Mark Saunders

HELL’S KITCHEN: Dig Art Deco? Most definitely, and we could always do worse than to be in the majestic polychromed lobby of The Film Center Building on Ninth Avenue – especially if we’re visiting Beat360.

Evolution is the solution at this extra-comfy facility founded by the busy English music producer Mark Saunders in 1997. He was in town then to produce Cyndi Lauper’s Sisters of Avalon, and never really left. With a production/mixing/programming discography that includes The Cure, Neneh Cherry, Shiny Toy Guns, David Byrne, Tricky, and A-Ha, Manhattan has been more than happy to take him.

The addition of Ollie Hammett as Director came in 2007, and Beat360 has grown out beyond just being a great place to track and mix. Today, this flexible sound concern takes on everything that touches artists and producers – management, synch, publishing, distribution and more. Corporate clients have been attracted too, including Nike, Reebok, L’Oreal, Chevy, Motorola and Microsoft.

With all that going on, they seem as eager as any of us to see what’s next, as Hammett made abundantly clear in a recent convo.

What kind of group are you and Mark working with at Beat360?
It’s essentially just the two of us, and we have a pool of assistants who help with the day-to-day running of projects. As a small team we cover as much as we can in-house and for larger projects we outsource to additional engineers as and when needed.

Mark came up in the industry as an engineer, producer and mixer. Recently he has been establishing a name for himself as an exceptional co-writer working with artists/writers such as Teddy Geiger, Cathy Dennis and PNAU (production duo behind Empire Of The Sun).

My time is equally split between studio work as an engineer/mixer and project management/business development. Projects I’ve worked on include Idris Elba’s High Class problems v1 (engineer/mixed), The Sounds’ Crossing the Rubicon (engineer), A-Ha’s upcoming Farewell single (engineer & additional production), and So So Glos‘ self-titled debut album (mix engineer).

That’s a small but diversified and accomplished core team. From there, how would you explain Beat360 as a business today? Is it a recording facility? Mix facility? Producer/songwriter haven? All of the above, or is it something else entirely?
I would say we’re all of the above. We market ourselves as a “full service music and audio solutions company.” It was originally established as a private recording, production and mixing facility for Mark’s projects. We now work with a whole array of different clients – bands, brands, digital interactive agencies, management companies, record labels — less and less — and independent artists more and more.

While diversifying, it’s really important for us to continue to try and bridge the artist development gap we now see in the music industry, so I think this is something that’s integral to everything we do. We’re always looking for opportunities for the artists we work with through our network of contacts and relationships.

I’ve had a couple visits to your studio HQ in the landmark Film Center Building, and it seems like a very productive place to work. Can you fill us in on the design philosophy, plus the hardware and software goodies?

Beat360 is a 2000 sq. ft. facility with two mix/production suites, one live room, a kitchen, lounge and chill out area. Our philosophy is for artists/clients to feel as comfortable and creative as possible.

Our main production/suite is a hybrid system – no mixing board in sight. The main DAW is an Apple Quad Core/Logic/Apogee symphony system with X series converters, and a Mackie Control. We have a Dangerous 2-Bus summer and a selection of outboard gear that can be integrated into Logic sessions as insert plugins. We both use Pro Tools but prefer Logic so we have a Pro Tools LE system for converting projects that come to us in that format.

We have software, hardware and musical instrument toys in serious supply. See the full list here. But here’s a taste: Logic 9, Waves Platinum v7 bundles, Sonnox plugins, Arturia Collection, a Ludwig 1968 Drumkit, Soundelux U95S, Neumann U67 (1960’s), Telefunken SM2 stereo (1960’s), Urei 1176, Manley ELOP leveling amp/compressor, Night Nt3 mastering EQ, Telefunken V72 (2 channels) racked by Dave Marquette, John Hardy M-1 (4 channels), Neve 33122 (2 channels), Neve 33115 (2 channels) and API 312 (5 channels) racked by Brent Averill.

Ooooo, tasty. So what niche does Beat360 fill in the NYC spectrum of facilities? And globally for that matter, since you’re doing international services like FTP mixing.
I would characterize our studio as a full-service professional recording, production and mixing facility. In addition to the hiring the studio and services out to NYC clients, we also offer remote mixing and mastering solutions for independent artists all over the world through www.beat360-master-mixing.com.

Clients upload sessions to our server and we mix/master the tracks working closely with them on revisions to make sure they’re 100% happy with the end results. More than just an online service, it’s an artist development vehicle. A number of these artists we have gone on to help find management, legal representation, sync placements, TV show appearances, etc…

Our niche is that we are centrally-NYC-located with a great-sized space by today’s standards, have a diverse client base and work with both high-profile established clients, as well as helping to build the careers of indie artists.

I think that sounds like a real indication of where “music companies” are going. The model is comprehensive but light on its feet. But would you say you’ve been high-profile or under the radar? Is this by accident, by design, or a little bit of both?

I would say we’re in the process of establishing ourselves. As of September, I will be managing a small producer/writer management division of a new international music group, rocketmusic.com. The starting roster in the US is Mark Saunders, Dan Romer and a couple of others to be determined — if you’re the next Quincy Jones feel free to get in touch! This exciting new venture will be integrally linked to BEAT360 and will no doubt help to put us more on the radar. I think the next few years should see our business become a more visible part of the New York studio facility and music production landscape.

Ambitious – we LIKE. Can you tell us a few projects you’ve got in the hopper right now?

We have been working with phenomenal talent Teddy Geiger for the last few months, Mark is producing his new album. I can’t tell you how excited I get when I hear his work. It reminds me why I followed a career in music. He really is a prodigious talent.

Mark is in the process of mixing music in surround sound for a forthcoming Luc Besson film. We’re beginning production of French singer/songwriter Emilie Gassin’s debut E.P this month. We’ve been recording Idris Elba’s features for several UK artists including Ty and recent XL signing Giggs. Also, we’ve been producing/recording audio assets for a multinational brand website.

That sounds like a solid spread. Would you agree you have to be a constant innovator in this business today?
Yes, I think you have to be creative with how you approach business and you have to pay attention to the market forces/technological advances that affect us all and try to stay one step ahead. Technology aside I think there’s something to be said for consistency: If you do something consistently really well, people will hopefully pay attention.

I’m a big believer in good old-fashioned customer service, the value of genuine win-win relationships and being proactive.

Aye! On the growth tip, how do you strive to publicize/promote Beat360, and successfully diversify your revenue streams?
A lot of our business is word of mouth and referrals. Luckily we get to work with some very cool talent that automatically creates visibility and awareness for what we’re doing in the right circles.

We promote our facility and services through various mediums, the obvious ones being Google/Facebook and relevant local business and directory listings. We normally attend events such as SXSW, NMS, Billboard and CMJ helping us keep up-to-date, hearing great new music and building relationships with potential partners and clients.

What or who is keeping you motivated right now?

I’m inspired that the music industry — as unstable and tough as it is seems to be – is moving towards a more transparent place where there is less room for monopolies. It’s more about passionate people doing stuff really well and building authentic relationships around it.

I’m inspired by independent artists doing it for themselves without record label backing. April Smith just made an awesome album independently and has had several significant TV placements after raising $13,000 through Kickstarter.com, and Jenny Owen Youngs has raised over $30,000 through the same platform to record her next album. Wow!!

I’m inspired by tech companies such as Pandora, Echospin and SoundExchange who create great digital services and platforms for artists and fans alike.

Some key influences for me are entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, and Chris Blackwell who have managed to enrich lives through brilliant music and art-based ventures. Thought-provoking writers/bloggers such as Chris Anderson, Seth Godin and Bob Lefsetz help me get perspective and try to stay on top of what’s relevant to the ever-changing business we’re in.

How would you characterize the overall studio scene in NYC today? What’s making you determined to be a part of it?
It’s difficult for me to characterize the scene in NYC today, actually, but it’s certainly great to see a website like SonicScoop helping to build a community around the facilities and professionals who work in them. I just try to stay in the loop with people, companies, technologies and music that excites me.

Thanks for those props, Ollie! Last off, what makes Beat360 an only-in NYC story?
I think we’re probably one of the only 100%-British-run music studios in NYC – I could be wrong! — and as you would expect we make a killer cuppa tea!

The advantages of being in NYC surrounded by so much talent, ambition and competition is that it drives us to constantly better ourselves. The main disadvantage is that there are not enough hours in the day to stay on top of any reasonably sized to-do list.

We know how you feel, OLD CHAP.

– David Weiss

Vinyl Revival: Paul Gold’s Salt Mastering

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN: Most New Yorkers involved in releasing 12″ records have likely heard of Salt Mastering‘s Paul Gold, a go-to-guy who’s arguably become Brooklyn’s first name in mastering for vinyl.

Paul has carved a distinct niche in the otherwise crowded, mid-price mastering market by building a reputation for reliably cutting great lacquers for local artists and vinyl-heavy labels including Thrill Jockey, Secretly Canadian, DFA, Social Registry, Sub Pop, Domino and Mexican Summer.

When we approached him for an interview, Gold invited us to catch up with him during a rare scheduled break between projects. I quickly learned that dropping by during his weeklong “vacation” would mean finding him elbow-deep in mid-century Neumann parts, flanked by his tenacious twin terriers Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt as he tweaked Salt’s prized Columbia mastering console.

In the early 2000s, as digital downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing continued to transform the music industry, Gold saw a future for himself in a more tangible medium: the vinyl disc. This vision seems to have paid off, as the allure of superior sound quality, collector’s value and sheer style continues to attract new converts and repeat clients.

Gold says that many artists see a pragmatic draw as well: “A lot of bands tell me that their fans only really want to buy vinyl at shows. They have trouble selling CDs, so it’s been a better bet at the merch table; at least in the indie circles I travel.”

Read all about Paul Gold’s rise to the top of the vinyl revival here:

From what I understand, you weren’t always “the vinyl guy.” How did that come about?

When I first got started, I was mastering for a CD broker. You know, a thousand CDs for $999 or whatever it was. I could see that there was no future in that for me.

I always kind of thought that ‘real mastering engineers cut lacquers’. When I first realized I had to get out on my own, I only had a certain amount of money to get started. I figured I could either buy a quarter of a mastering studio, maybe a really good EQ and a really good compressor, or I could buy a lathe. I thought ‘Well, that’s a pretty unique thing, and it’s not something everybody does’. I thought that initially my limited funds were better spent [on the lathe] than on a fancy pair of speakers.

From here, that choice seems to have panned out pretty well.

Sure. I’m pretty busy now, but it took a long time. There’s definitely a learning curve. For the first 2-3 years it felt like every time I cut a lacquer I lost money. It’s a pretty high-stakes game because the parts are very expensive; the physical media is very expensive. So, if you start blowing lacquers, all of a sudden you’re not making any money.

I’m curious to hear what that learning curve was like. Some compare running a lathe to playing an instrument.

Well, before I got my first lathe I really wanted to get into disc cutting, so I called around [to other mastering studios] and nobody wanted to give me the time of day. And then, when I finally went out and got my very first lathe, it didn’t work! I had never had experience on it, so I had to first figure out how to make it work, and then figure out how to operate it!

So you do a lot of restoration and maintenance yourself to this day?

Yeah, I do all the work on it myself. I was also lucky to have spent a lot of time with Al Grundy, who imported the first Neumann lathe to the U.S. back in 1957. He knows everything there is to know about these things. He deals in lathes: buys them, sells, restores, all that. I’ve spent a lot of time with him, just hanging out, helping fix them and learning about them. I do all the work myself, but I’ve had a lot of intellectual help.

Eventually, I got it up and running, but really it took years to get it really suped up. When I upgraded to my next lathe it was a bit easier to get it together. Now it’s really tight, and I can basically fix it before it breaks. You can sort of feel when something’s not right, like on an instrument. I just know before even pulling up a meter.

So once that expertise crystallized, things started to pick up more?

Yeah, basically as soon as I was ready and started Salt, I got busy really quick. It was more sudden than gradual. This is the first time I’ve had my own place. Having a home base where I can be the boss made a big, big difference.

I’ve been mastering for over 15 years now. When I moved in I had the lathe for over 6 years, and I accumulated enough experience on that that I was really ready to have things run smoothly. It was a combination of having enough experience and also being able to do things the way I wanted to them.

These days are you doing more mastering or more cutting lacquers?

My business is just about in thirds: A third of it is mastering only, a third is mastering and cutting lacquers and another third is just lacquers.

Is your role any different when you’re mastering for a digital format as opposed to mastering for vinyl?

No. Whenever I quote a job, I say the mastering is good for both. If they’re unsure of whether they want to do vinyl, it doesn’t matter. The master is always good for both, unless there’s something very strange like a weird stereo bass that will not cut well. In those cases I might do two versions, but it’s very rare.

No mastering interview is ever complete without at least briefly touching on the “volume wars.” Do you have a stance there?

I’m not one of the vocal ones. Sure, it’s not the best thing in the world for audio quality, but people like things loud! People have always liked things loud. Generally, when clients ask me about it, I tell them I’ll make it as loud as I can make it without making it sound bad, and then if you really want it louder, let me know and I’ll do it! (Laughs) That’s my standpoint. At the end of the day, it’s their record, not mine, and the final choice is theirs.

Do you ever get things that are too loud to cut well?

The level per-se doesn’t prevent cutting. Distortion does. If it’s loud and peak-limited but sounds clean, it’ll cut fine. No problem. A bigger problem would be something that’s low in level but sounds distorted. That won’t cut well.

That may be surprising to some: A loud digital master doesn’t necessarily mean a loud vinyl disc.

The level on the disc is set by how long the program is. Assuming we’re trying to get it as loud as possible, there are technical aspects that can prevent that: extreme sibilance or sharp hi-hats could prevent it from being cut as loud as it could be. The digital volume has no effect on the output level of the disc, when you take all that into account. If a 50-minute CD is converted to 25 minutes a side, it’s going to be low in level no matter how hot the mastering was.

Salt’s “shaker” logo is a pretty memorable one. Can you tell us something about where the name came from?

The first name I wanted was “Master Supply,” but of course a plumbing company already had that one (laughs). Then I thought: Intercontinental Ballistic Mastering! But, I couldn’t get ICBM-dot-anything on the web. Sticking with the nuclear theme, I thought of the SALT II treaty during the Carter administration, and then I realizedit was a great analogy for mastering, you know? Salt: it makes everything taste better but you’re not supposed to notice it.

For more on Paul Gold and Salt Mastering, visit http://www.saltmastering.com.

In-Session: Phil Palazzolo With Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — We recently caught up with Brooklyn-based producer/engineer Phil Palazzolo who’s been working on the new Nicole Atkins record. “I think this is her time,” he says of the New Jersey songstress and her new material. “She’s definitely due.”

The same could be said of Palazzolo. He’s been in-the-trenches working with bands for over a decade — producing, engineering, playing guitar/bass, touring, mixing FOH, etc — most notably engineering on Radio 4’s Gotham, Stealing of a Nation and Enemies Like This. And over the last few years, his star’s been rising.

He produced/engineered on The New Pornographers Challengers and A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty, and has been working through a whirlwind of back-to-back projects ever since, with Neko Case, Okkervil River, The Bogmen, Bird of Youth, Ted Leo and the new New Pornographers.

Early in 2010, Palazzolo started sessions with the newly formed Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea at Seaside Lounge Recording in Park Slope to make the full-length follow-up her ’07 debut LP, Neptune City. Atkins has a new band in the Black Sea, a new producer in Palazzolo, and a new sound is emerging. Read all about it:

So, how did you and Nicole Atkins come to work together?
About two years ago, she sang with a choir that backed up Feist on David Letterman. A.C. Newman from The New Pornographers was also part of that choir and got to talking to Nicole Atkins and had her come sing on the sessions for what would become his solo album, which I produced. Then, I played guitar in the A.C. Newman band and Nicole came and did backup vocals live, so I got to know her even better.
We’ve been talking about working together for a while now. She got a ton of songs together, and called me saying she wanted to get going right away. I’d just finished the Ted Leo record, and was just wrapping up mixes for the next New Pornographers record, so it was perfect timing to do the record in January and February.

How’d you get started and where are you working?
We did a week of pre-production in Seaside Lounge’s B Room. Pre-production involved finding the strongest parts of the songs and bringing them out. Sometimes that meant changing the feel and the pace of things. Then we started on basic tracks in Seaside’s A room. We just finished four days of basics and actually got to some overdubs and vocals. It’s starting to really sound like a record — we’re in that exciting phase where you can really hear it coming together.

Her last record was really lush and orchestrated, and kind of dark/melancholy. How does this record compare to that, and what would you say she’s trying to accomplish in the studio?
After getting a chance to live with her other record, I thought — yes, it is lush and it’s beautiful, but it’s also a bit disjointed. It kind of feels like it took two years to make, maybe with a little too much time passing between sessions. The new record is a little bit more fun in spots. There are some lighter and more upbeat numbers that she didn’t really have on the last record. I really want to showcase what she can do beyond the brooding Dusty Springfield-revamp type of sound.

So, is it more of a band record?
Yes, I’d say so. And she has a new band. Most of the guys are from New Jersey and play together in this other band [Sikamor Rooney]. They’re hometown guys and they’ve all known each other for a long time, whereas her other record was largely session players. Working with session players can be awesome, and we’re definitely going to bring in guests for specialty parts, but on the whole, there’s a real band making up the foundation.

So how would you say you’re working with her to realize the sound / direction for this album. Are you trying different things to figure out what it is?
Well, first I tried to get a sense of what she didn’t like about the last record and the recording experience overall. And then I listened to the songs, which were largely just fairly simple demos, some of them were actually produced in a way that sounded like a band, but not exactly what she was after.
In listening to the demos, I tried to find what I thought would tie them together and how to make them feel more like a whole record rather than a year and a half’s worth of writing and demoing in different places.

Is there anything different or noteworthy about how you’re recording any of the elements — vocals, drums, etc…?
Well, I’m using a lot of different approaches, song by song. I think it’s so easy to make someone like her sound incredible that sometimes you just have to have the balls to say ‘I’m going to put this through a bullhorn.” No matter what you do, she’s this incredible singer, and it doesn’t always have to be pretty. There are moments on this record where her vocal will be totally brash, like Karen O, but she’s still this amazing singer underneath and it sounds really cool.

So, you’re gritting up the sound a bit, cool. And how have you been recording her vocals?
We’ve recorded her in the booth on some songs, but on others, I plan on using the big live room space a lot more. On some tracks, you’ll picture a girl standing on a stage in a huge room when you hear her vocal.
So far I’ve been using what I call the Motown mic on her, which is a Neumann KM 86. In the first few years of Motown’s existence, they only owned KM86s because Berry Gordy got a deal on them, so everything you hear — drums, bass, vocals, guitars, strings, etc… — all were recorded with the same type of microphone.

Sidenote: All of Motown’s KM86s are now at Avatar. When they dismantled the first facility and built the “real Motown studio,” the guy who built Power Station bought everything from Motown and stored it until he built Power Station. He also faithfully recreated (in dimensions and materials) the Motown studio in one of their upstairs rooms.

That’s awesome, I didn’t realize they had all the original Motown mics. Now, will you produce this entire record at Seaside? Or will you go elsewhere for mixing?
We’ll do all the recording at Seaside and then I think we’ll mix at The Carriage House in Stamford, CT. That place has a great history [The Pixies’ Doolittle was made there] and the SSL (4048 E/G) is a great mix disk. Plus, you live there for the duration, so you’re not chained to a console thinking of all the work you have to get done in the next 10 hours, because you’re not leaving. You have time to walk away and come back with fresh ears. That’s really helpful.
If I was working in a comparably-equipped room in NYC, it would be very expensive and so we’d be pressed for time. In the last few months, I mixed The New Pornographers and the Ted Leo records at The Carriage House.

Check out Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea at http://www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins and Phil Palazzolo at http://www.myspace.com/drywallofsound.

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