dbstudios-shanghai.com

In the old days (good or bad it’s all a matter of perspective) in addition to the house monitors (which would always include (and somebody please tell me why!!!) the inevitable Yamaha NS 10s) we would run any final mixes through a small set of radio speakers… why you may ask… well cos it was, and to a certain extent is, a place where a great deal of music is still consumed.

But nowadays there is a new standard (or to be more precise format) the MP3 and it’s why at #dbstudios we always “switch” all our final mixes at some stage into MP3 format and have a good listen… initially on our Harman/Kardon Sound Sticks II and then via i-tunes on our coveted nanochromatic using the standard suppy earphones, cos that is how the vast majority of music, at least for now is consumed.

You know it makes sense

#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.

When recording more is often less… in that you can decide not to use a track at the mixdown stage but you can’t (other than by digitally cloning) whip up a track out of thin air if it wasn’t recorded… well at the recording stage.

So that’s why at dbstudios you’ll often see us multi-miking in situations where many engineers may save themselves time and energy by using just one source microphone. Above is the way we miked Sam Hooper’s Fender Deluxe Reverb for his rhythm tracks.

An M-Audio Luna over the cone edge (which we later digitally cloned and panned to -33 and a Shure 57 which we later dropped through an Eleven LE vintage amp simulator and panned to +33). The resultant clean, rich, warm sound can be heard on Sam’s forthcoming album recorded at #dbstudios where the “only limit is your imagination”.

Studios are highly software driven these days and defined by the interfaces: Protools/Logic/Reason/Ableton etc. and the plug-ins (equivalent to the hardware racks we used to slaver over in analogue studios) they support; but there is still no substitute for good old fashioned bits of kit and dbstudios is no exception; so thought we’d shoot you a shot or two of our China built UFO in-house jazz drum kit that has been played and much appreciated by lots of Shanghai’s top drummers… Ronnie… Gilbert… Yam… Yan and this weekend Sam Hooper’s Akiro.

PS a big thanks going out to Yam who helped me reskin it this week… cos it sounds just the business… at dbstudios where the “only limit is your imagination”.

PPS you fancy yourself as the next Ringo Starr then come learn with dbstudio’s resident drummer Ronnie Williams: 

www.myspace.com/ronniewilliamsdrums
einnorsdrums@yahoo.com

Any studio buffs will have heard the term but in case you’re not sure we can glean the following from Wikipedia…

A sound baffle is a construction or device which reduces the strength (level) of airborne. Sound baffles are a fundamental tool of noise mitigation, the practice of minimizing noise pollution or reverberation. An important type of sound baffle is the noise barrier constructed along highways to reduce sound levels at properties in the vicinity. Sound baffles are also applied to walls and ceilings in building interiors to absorb sound energy and thus lessen reverberation.

But used incorrectly they can produce more problems than they “mitigate” and if you’re interested be sure to explore…

http://tinyurl.com/cacvg3

Thanks to a great question from sxsyfly (see “comedy of errors…”) I thought we’d give a little attention to kick/bass drum microphones.

Above is a shot of the Shure 57 we used to capture Sara Routh’s foot stomping on Big Yellow Taxi… in this instance it’s a robust “dynamic” microphone with what we could call a good “bass response”… the following diagram will reveal all:

So as you can see… different instruments occupy different frequency zones… so with something like a “foot stomp” or a kick drum… you want a microphone that responds well in the lower frequency ranges and in this instance something that is quite robust cos it may get a kick or two!!!

As you can imagine there is a huge debate as to what the best microphone for the kick drum application is… if you are interested check out:

http://tinyurl.com/an46pw

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…

What a day… if it wasn’t one malfunctioning lead it was a cellophane covered 9V or ear-splitting Chinese fire-crackers… but when we sat back and listened to what we had laid down damn it sounded good & I thought you might appreciate a quick after-hours shot to see how we rigged Sara’s guitar.

Check out a pair of Lunas, a Sputnik (used on Madonna’s last album) matched Pulsar IIs and a sneaky bass drum mike to catch that stomping foot… as the great man himself said… “all’s well that ends well”!!!

www.coolminiornot.com

For those of you old enough to know that quattro doesn’t just refer to a kick-arse Audi then you’ll remember the bass-toting mini-dynamo that was Suzi Quattro (if not go check her out at www.suziquattro.com) for those of you less advanced in years and fortunate enough to be in Shanghai go check out Anna Lisa Hughes at the Cotton Club’s (1416 huai hai zhong lu/fuxing lu 6437 7110) legendary Tuesday night open mike cos you’re in for a treat and a reminder of just how cool it is when a chick (excuse me all feministas) picks up a bass and more to the point can really play and sing (in Spanish) and speak to the audience in Chinese… damn!!!

Cantautora/Bajista – that’s a singer songwriter and bass player to you & I – she has lived in Chile and has a father living in Nicaragua and is Greg’s niece; more to the point she’s going to be recording at dbstudios so watch this space… or preview some of her tracks at:

www.myspace.com/annalisavozybajo

For those of you not lucky enough to make it down to Jose Herrera & Beili Xu’s CD launch party at JZ last Monday (19th January) here you go… a preview of the album cover (cos i know you will go and buy one – available at JZ Shanghai and all sorts of dodgy pirate outfits all over the city!!!) and some You Tube links to whet your appetite:

Broken glass YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWpI7tyPog
Funky Cold Weather part 2 You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLFlGxjUhZY
FCW part 1 YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q41rS1j9H1o