Posts Tagged ‘San Francisco’
Hey everyone,
We’re putting on a show next Wednesday night (July 21st) at the Milk Bar. Artists include LE VICE, TIM CARR, GEORGE COCHRANE, and DUDE HOUSE. Come have a beer with us and listen to some of our studio friends!
$5 at the door – show starts at 8pm.
Milk Bar
1840 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA
Over the last week I’ve been mixing a new record by Warbler (this project was tracked and is now being mixed at SQ). I’ve finished the first round of mixes for 6 songs and wanted to share a couple of them with our blog followers. Both have not been mastered and are not final mixes.
- John
Worry:
Skism:
This blog post was submitted by Phil Manley: musician (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Jonas Reinhardt), engineer (Mi Ami, French Miami), and general supporter of Hawaiian shirt day.
Just recently finished a new record with San Francisco power trio French Miami – my second record with the band and my first working at San Francisco’s Studio SQ. Formerly Take Root Studios, this place is a relic of the analog past. Beautifully crafted custom carpentry creates a mellow NorCal mood. The live room is nicely sized and has a well controlled sound. Not too washy or reverberant. The outer walls are lined with heavy velvet curtains which help absorb cymbal wash.
We set the amps in the lounge aimed at the record shelf. This worked for the weekend, but Monday morning the neighbor called to say that he couldn’t even think straight the bleed was so loud in his office. He was evicted a week later anyway.
It’s always exciting for me to work in a new studio. I’ve worked in several studios in SF, including Louder, Coast, Tiny Telephone, Closer, Hyde St., and primarily at Lucky Cat. Studio SQ is definitely among the nicer spots in a lot of ways. Studio SQ is well air conditioned (at times too air conditioned!) and well isolated from environmental noise. Also, the control room is well isolated from the live room. These sound like basic things in a recording studio, but are not always the available in some studios.
Then there’s the gear. The session started on a Trident 65 mixing console for monitoring the tracking session. By the time we got to mixing, the studio had installed an Otari Status console. Jay, the singer/baritone player in French Miami, insisted that we do the whole session to tape. So, we used the Studer A-827 2″ 24 track and mixed down to an Otari 1/4″ deck.
House engineer Justin skillfully handled the tape-op duties. This was such a treat. I rarely ever have an assistant. I felt like a real LA douche bag – just sitting on the couch telling people what to do. So luxurious.
Studio SQ’s mic closet features a bunch of new retro style mics. For the drums we went with a D112 and Beta 91 on the kick. On the snare we used a Beta 57 on top and KM84 on the bottom. On the hi hat we used a KM84. Toms were 421s. Overheads we used a M260 and M130 configured in M-S. Stereo room mics were two small diaphragm omni condenser mics place about 6 feet out from the kick drum and about 10 feet apart – forming a triangle with the third point being the drummer. We baffled these mics with a couple amps to help eliminate too much direct sound from the cymbals.
On Roland’s Top Hat guitar amp we used a Neumann U67 and a Royer 122. We noticed a strange vibration in Roland’s amp which Jeremy solved by disassembling the amp and retentioning the tube sockets. So awesome to have a tech on hand!!!
For Jay’s baritone/keys amp we used a 421 and a Neumann U89. It took some doing to get Jay’s keys and baritone to sound right through his amp set up. We wound up simplifying things by just plugging everything into the studio’s Ampeg V9 amp, which is basically an SVT with reverb, (which makes it even heavier than an SVT. URGH!)
Once we were all set up, basic tracking went really quickly. The band had just come off tour so they were well rehearsed and most songs were executed within three takes. (Always sounds better that way!) Overdubs and vocals followed. Jay wanted a roomy vocal sound so we used the U67 in omni through the Chandler TG2 preamp and the UA175 compressor. Jay did a lot of moving around in the live room while singing so I wound up constantly reworking the gain structure to optimize level.
Mixing took place a couple weeks later after the Studio SQ team had installed the Otari console. It took me a little while to wrap my head around the new console. It’s very sleek in an early 90′s kind of way. Sonically it’s very transparent sounding. It has very sophisticated signal routing capabilities. It’s a digitally controlled analog console. The best of both worlds! I didn’t get too into the automation functions. The session didn’t require it.
We mixed using an SSL EQ and and SSL style compressor across the stereo buss. Mixes were printed on 1/4″ Quantegy 499 using the Otari MTR12 2 track.
Sequencing took place a couple weeks later at my home studio on my Studer A810 and the record was mastered by Roger Seibel at SAE Mastering in Phoenix, Arizona.
The session was fun and effortless and I think the recording shows this. Looking forward to my next session at Studio SQ. Keep up the good work, boys.
- Phil
Oh, I forgot to mention my favorite part of the studio: it’s dog friendly!!!
Jay and Phil in SQ's control room
studio ears
Roland is tuning up
Penelope working the Otari