Corb Lund Joins the Cavalry

Corb Lund's new album, Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, dropped earlier this week. The entire project was tracked here at the studio. What's especially cool listening to these songs is the authentic atmosphere they have. It's usually very difficult to hear the details of the room that a particular instrument is recorded in. By the time a project gets through the mastering process countless EQ tweeks, compression, and added reverb have dramatically altered the perceptive "size" of the room in which the recording was made. This recording is so stripped down, clear and concise that I can almost count how many floorboards there are in the drum just by listening to these tracks.

Actually, no, I totally can't do that. There are 63 rows of floorboards in our drum room. I had to count them by hand.

Here's a link to the video for 'I Wanna Be In The Cavalry', which is the first single off the album.

Just Passing Through

Hole Some
...cable expressway is open.

One detail regarding the studio that has always seemed to fall to the bottom of the priority list has been adding pass-throughs in the walls between the major rooms. After accidentally turning that priority list upside down, we were able to knock out this now top-priority project with much help from our handyman friend, BJ Haycraft. Don't call BJ a handyman to his face though, or he may punch you in yours.

In total, we have four new pass-through holes throughout the studio. It is now possible to string a microphone or speaker cable from any of our individual tracking rooms to another without going through a doorway.

Sadly, no sledgehammers were needed for this project.

Koffee is King

Behold This Shrine to Caffinated Beverages
...also makes decaf, I'm told.

If only I'd gotten a dime for every time a session player made reference to the fact that a recording studio is only as good as it's coffee maker, we could have bought three of these months ago!

Seriously...we now have the Koffee King...and that's no typo. That is specifically what the machine has asked us to refer to it as. We are all merely pawns in its presence.

No one here is particularly nervous, it's just the newness of the readily-accessible, drinkable java that has us pacing up and down the hall. Productivity has increased 10-fold around here. In fact, I typed this entire post in less than 10 seconds.

Boss Hoge

Adam Beard, CJ Sorg, Will Hoge
...during mix session of live Will Hoge tracks.

Who doesn't love Will Hoge? I think, primarily, it would be people that haven't absorbed his music.

Adam Beard sat down in our control room and massaged some live tracks for a forthcoming release. Adam, if you didn't know, is also the bass player in Will's band. If I were in Adam's shoes I'd probably produce a mix that would appropriately be titled, The BASS GUITAR and Will Hoge. Lucky for everyone though, that Adam seems like a pretty balanced guy.

Will and Adam were gracious enough to pose for a picture with me, but my proper digital camera was NOT gracious enough to have a charged battery. iPhone camera to the rescue!