dbstudios-shanghai.com

She’s young, beautiful and abundantly talented (and sxsfly – I’m not talking about you!!!) of mixed Han and Mongolian Ancestry, playing gu zheng, matouqin (Mongolian horse head fiddle) whilst singing in four languages (Mandarin, Sanskrit, Tibetan and her own personally invented language) Sa Ding Ding is the future of world music and when in 2008 we heard she was winning the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award for the Asia-Pacific region we knew we couldn’t be far wrong.

So when at dbstudios we get a call asking if we have a spare two hours to record gu zheng for her next single we find ourselves (in spite of a completely overbooked diary) magic-ing an extra two hours into the day; a Sputnik a pair of Pulsars and away we went.

Zhang Yi (who is already an acclaimed pipa player and no stranger to dbstudios) made three flawless takes and before you could say Holy Himalayas the tracks were being Rapid Shared (www.rapidshare.com) to Beijing and from there Universal Studios London.

Learn more at:

http://www.sadingding.co.uk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa_Ding_Ding

db studios (with all our purist analogue/high brow musical pretensions… who am i kidding!!!) has finally acquiesced and the DJs are rolling in thick and fast to do their mixes… well what does it take?!?

Aside from our standard studio rig… the macs… the project mix i/o… protools 8 (and ozone 4 mastering plug-ins) not much!!! A pair of Pioneer CDJ’s that fit your budget a decent submixer (a DJM 2/400) is just great and then that all important connection a pair of high quality RCA/jack leads.

These were not that easy to come by and i ended up getting my man james (see blogroll: sunnytone) to make me up a set; the net result… (dj danes was the first through the doors – hailing from Barcelona he produced a heady mix of house trance and techno)… blistering.

Then all you need to understand is normalisation the media you are mastering to and hey presto… mix-tastic!!!

http://thirdshift.nu/portfolio

Talk to any band leader and am afraid you’ll hear the same old cliche… things ain’t what they used to be… guys not rehearsed up… not knowing the changes… the hooks… the bridges… whatever it may be… you get the picture; well after yesterday’s dbstudios’ session I’m afraid I experienced very little that would persuade me otherwise.

We were “hohnered” (no prizes for her instrument of choice) to welcome Marion Campbell all the way from Stirling Scotland; now at 81 you might expect there to be a few glitches a few lapses of memory a few forgotten chord changes, but indeed nothing could be further from the truth; she laid down well over two hours of music played pretty well back-to-back ranging from Irish folk to Scottish ballads with even 45 minutes of modern tunes thrown in, with out a single sheet of music or chord prompt in sight… just wonderful!!!

A big thanks to Nick Watson (who many of you from Shanghai will indeed know) for bringing Marion (who is indeed his maternal auntie) to our attention and he’ll be the man to contact for the three album boxed set when all the material is finally mixed and mastered.

All studio buffs wondering how we recorded… well because of time constraints were we obliged to mike externally… a pair of Lunas (essentially one for each hand – the left hand mike (assuming a right handed player must have a good bass response) and a pair of overheard Pulsars to fill things out; more details check out:

http://tinyurl.com/cyjv8a

http://tinyurl.com/cdtw8o

Anyone living in Shanghai and hasn’t heard of Carlton J Smith then we can presume one thing… you don’t get out much!!!

And that would pretty well much apply to anywhere on the international music scene cos this cat’s a brother and a known brother… when you’re getting called “Soul Brother Number New” by none other than Alan Leeds (road manager for James Brown/Prince) then you know the man is packing; and along with his red hot band the “Mighty Magnificents” Joey Mahone (drums), Luke Kessel (bass), Menace (guitar), Joel Lindberg (keys) & the delightful Anne Evenou (lead/BVs) he’s recording his next drop at dbstudios.

We’ll keep you posted… meanwhile check out some of his previous tunes at:

http://www.myspace.com/trubeatproductions

#dbstudios is getting ready to welcome Anna Hughes’s Tricycle to the studio… and believe me if you haven’t heard of them yet… you’ll be downloading them to your sweaty little i-pods as fast as your firewire will allow before the summer’s over.

Comprised of Anna Hughes on bass and vocals (see ’nuff said) Gilbert Kuppusami on djembe & vocals (no stranger to #dbstudios having been involved with a host of projects including the Jimi Graham trio and most recently Lions of Puxi) and Gauthier Roubichou on all things vocal & percussion (also of Lions of Puxi) these cats are taking Shanghai by storm.

A heady Sade-esque (and I don’t use UK’s greatest soul voice of the 80′s name lightly) Latin American influenced djembe driven cocktail these guys in the right hands (and that would me!!!) could really go far… watch this space for updates.

www.alivenotdead.com/scottdodd

Things just keep getting better as we move into phase 2 of recording Sara Routh’s new project Sitting On My Window… as we are joined today by outstanding acoustic bassist Scott Dodd (pictured above)… violinist “extraordinaire” Peng Fei and my man Yam (Pranayam Aquino) on all things percussive…

“the only limitation is your imagination…”

MC DiAMOND was with us at the studio today… he’s a diamond say no more…

Lot’s of ideas on the table we see where we go with them

That would be along with legendary Blues man Sam Hooper…

www.samhooper.com

and Maxime Lenik of LOgO fame…

PS almost forgot to mention my man James who provides all the lovely gear you’ll see at: 

http://dbstudios-shanghai.com/?page_id=2

www.sunnytone.com

OK time to rest!!!

Well it’s been a busy one & i mean a busy one… from starting work on Sara Routh’s album to hosting Snoop’s promoter (though damn we had fun!!!) to putting B6 & Alec Haavik (watch this space) together there’s been no time to tweak a treble let alone boost a bass…

Some new equipment (just somes 57s/a new Audio Matrix splitter and a pile of new cables) with my sound insulation man Eric here on February 7th. means the new live room is just a few decibels away from being ready to launch!!!

For those of you who havn’t listened to B6′s latest album (Post Haze)… do so immediately!!!

You can check him out at:

http://www.myspace.com/b6music

Shanghai’s primetime state-of-the-art digital studio… driven by 3 macs… protools 8 and a host of m-audio peripherals… with a concrete floored drum booth and a 55m2 live room (offering up to 24 simultaneous ins) “the only limitation is your imagination…”

sara routh at a recent session…

http://www.myspace.com/lasongbird

Here it’s late so it just remains to say… “Happy Birthday” to my mum and then hit the hay!!!

PS just got some good press so can’t grumble… 

http://tinyurl.com/8b3d23

“the only limitation is your imagination…”