Another Year Over...

Christmas Cards
Happy New Year!

Writing an entry for a business blog can be a tricky thing. It's difficult to express true sentiment without it coming off as a sales pitch. Regardless of anyone's feelings, at the end of the day, Vibe 56 is a business that needs paying clients to survive. We've worked hard to earn our place in such a musically historic city. The studio has just passed the three-year mark of it's existence on Nashville's Music Row, and we're thankful to have built-up a reputation for solid tracking sessions in such a short time-span.

We're very much looking forward to 2009 and continuing to play our part in Nashville's music community. We're thankful for the successes we've had, and excited about what lies ahead.

So what's the pitch? The fact that there is no catch. We're here for the right reasons, and hope you will be too.

Happy New Year from all of us at Vibe 56!

Call 615-321-3056 to schedule a studio tour.

Mary Barrett Session

During the final week of October, Vibe 56 had the opportunity to host a very special recording session with artist Mary Barrett. The session consisted of eight full days of tracking and overdubs with some of Nashville's finest session players, and of course Mary herself.

The premise of the session was daunting. Mary had been diagnosed with Carcino-Sarcoma, which is a rare form of cancer and known to be life-threatening. She had been given less than six months to live. Mary was determined to finish recording one more album project.

We are saddened to learn that Mary Barrett passed away during the evening of November 10th.

Producer Joel Wild helped Mary set-up a YouTube account and posted video diaries each day that documented how the project was progressing. The videos are presented below. For more information about Mary Barrett you can visit Mary's website.

Even Diabetics Love Sweet Dynamite Dynaudio Monitors!

Dynaudio Monitors
New pair of BM15Ps in the house!

For anyone monitoring for any changes here at the studio, we're very happy to announce that we've acquired some new monitors! The control room now features Dynaudio BM15P monitors for your playback pleasure.

I've made a point to ask the wide-spectrum of engineers that have come through our facility their opinion of what monitors work for them. Nearly everyone had a different answer of course. Dynaudios were consistently mentioned on most engineer's short lists for ideal monitoring choices.

It would appear then, that the studio is a Democracy. Please vote for Vibe 56 for your next recording project!

Thrownin' Down on the Upright

Thrownin' Down on the Upright Piano
...soundtrack of my life.

The studio has acquired a second piano! In addition to our all white Yahmaha C3 baby grand, we now have a Thos. Goggan and Bro. upright piano.

Tony Harrell, one of the co-owners of the studio, arranged to have this ridiculously beautiful upright delivered to us earlier this week. It has a few battle scars from many years of service. I'm not exactly sure how old it is, but it appears older than I am, which is getting increasingly more difficult to say.

With regards to keyboarded instruments living here at the studio, I think we're doing pretty good. Along with the two pianos in our aptly-named piano room, there is also a Wurlitzer, a B-2 with leslie cabinet, a Rhodes, and even a Mellotron available to every client that comes through our doors.

Now we need to get this thing tuned. I'm off to call a soon-to-be-unhappy piano tuner. Our new upright needs some extra love after traveling to its new home.

Music Video Shot At Vibe 56 Studio!

Vibe 56 exists within a house that was built in 1911. Much of the original beautiful woodwork is still here. It served as the backdrop for a video shot here earlier this year.

Megan McCulloch Li not only shot the video here at the studio, but also recorded the song "Blood in the Water" here as well.

This also serves as proof that we record music other than country. In fact, we've had several rock, gospel and bluegrass projects come through our recording space. We're always excited to take on any recording project that takes advantage of our recording space. That natural presence easily comes through on the tracks recorded here.

Full disclosure: Megan McCulloch Li is the daughter of Paul McCulloch, who is one of the owners of Vibe 56.

More information about Megan is available on her website: meganharp.com.

Music Row Photos From Above

Next to the UA Tower
Vibe 56 sits one property away from the 'Artists Building'.

What is most commonly referred to as the UA Tower, the nine-story hexagonal building on Nashville's Music Row, has served as a landmark for us when explaining the location of Vibe 56. There is only one property between the studio and the iconic building.

The building itself was erected in 1973, the same year I was born. I love hearing the stories from folks who worked in one of the many recording studios, radio stations and publishing offices that once occupied the tower.

Newly renamed as the 'Artists Building', it has sat vacant since a 2005 fire that occurred a few weeks before Vibe 56 was born. The building has since been completely gutted from the inside and work is currently underway to transform it's interior as a mix of residential and commercial spaces.

I recently had the opportunity to take some photos of the studio and the rest of music row from the top floor of the tower. Borrowing from an often-used phrase here on Music Row, the view from the top is amazing.

The studio from above:


Looking North:


The GAC building and some Curb buildings, located West and East (respectively) from the tower:


Finally, a couple of photos facing South:


One bonus photo with "Secret Sound" in the foreground, but don't tell anybody:

Engineer By Fire

Engineer By Fire
...figuring it all out.

The Music Industry Glossary defines an intern as this:

Intern
An intern is usually a student studying to eventually become employed in the music industry. In the recording field, they are usually allowed to sit in, and observe recording sessions for the sake of learning the trade. Their responsibilities include anything that nobody else cares to do, including, but not limited to, making and serving coffee, answering doors and phones, scrubbing toilets and cleaning up barf from a highly toxic lead singer.

Tim Brennan, currently one of Vibe 56's interns, has already been "thrown into the fire" a couple of times. Lucky for us that Tim appears to be fire retarded, but sincerely capable with audio related subjects.

The Return of the Yo-Yo of Trust

Yo-Yo of Trust 2
...feel the trust.

Here we have intern Jeff Baker experiencing the business-end of the yo-yo of trust. Thrusting out the trustworthiness would be house engineer, Scott Velazco.

It's my hope that uploading videos such as this might actually diminish the number of telemarketers calling to offer insurance plans. Would you want to insure this kind of activity? I didn't think so. Please stop calling.

Red, White and Blue

Rob Gervia in the Booth

On the whole, summertime is usually a little slower with regards to booking sessions here at the studio. Typically we'll use this period to reach out to independent artists and bands that have a need for a killer-sounding recordings, but may not have previous experience in a professional recording studio.

Vibe 56 was honored to host a session for Sargent Rob Gervia, which took place (appropriately) just before the 4th of July holiday.

Rob is currently serving his country as a member of the United States Army.

During his short leave between deployments, Rob traveled to Nashville to record vocals on some tracks that we had prepared in advance of his arrival. We worked with Mary Jo Burden, Rob's manager, to record the instrumental bed tracks that he later came in and recorded vocals to.

As the summer progresses, our business will get back into the swing of things. Rob Gervia is already back to serving his country as I write this. Helping Rob achieve his dream of recording in a Nashville recording studio has helped put a lot of our daily worries into perspective.

Thanks to Rob Gervia (and Mary Jo Burden) for giving us the opportunity to serve someone who is serving for our entire country.

The song was debuted during the Fourth of July celebration at Fort Lee, Va. At the event over 200 copies of the song were given away to the military, family and friends who were there in attendance. His brief stay while at Fort Lee is helping to shape his future in ways he never could have imagined.

For more information about Rob, visit his Myspace page at:
myspace.com/robgervia

A Matter of Trust, Yo!

Yo-yo of Trust

Vibe 56 is proud to have earned the trust of many talented music professionals here in Nashville. Staying consistent with what we deliver can only be accomplished with the help of some key folks that are dedicated to serving up only the highest quality of themselves.

As Ben Folds sang, "If you can't trust, you can't be trusted." It's important to have trust between the folks you work with.

Here's a short video clip of an exercise we refer to as "The Yo-yo of Trust". Scott Velazco, Vibe 56's head engineer, introduces producer/engineer David Wilson to the business-end of the yo-yo of trust.

We ARE Going to Talk About Fight Club...and Pro Tools

Fader-aide

Technology is fun...and scary. Major updates to our fundamental system are always a little stressful, but I understand a little stress is actually healthy. We're all very healthy after successfully upgrading to Pro Tools 7.4cs5 earlier this week.

As a former studio technician myself, there is a real feeling of confidence when knowing that all technical aspects of the studio are at 100%.

The most troubling technical issue we've faced recently was having to intermittently "fight" with the faders on our ICON D-Command console. The software upgrade and the included firmware upgrades have directly addressed our fader fighting issues.

Special thanks to Gil Gowing and Mike Ziemba from Digidesign for their help in putting our fader fighting days behind us.

(...and thanks to breezy421 for the photo of our console!)

Gantt-O-Rama II

Jason Gantt returned to Vibe 56 with Chris Ayer for a full week of tracking earlier this month. Jason is handy with a fader and a knob, and not too shabby with a camera either.

Last time Jason was tracking here, he put together a cool photo collage that included the front inside of the studio. You can view it here. This time around, Jason put together a couple of photo collages inside our control room.

The Montgomery Gentry Entry

Revival Chorus
...from Montgomery Gentry's newest release.

Last February Blake Chancey was in the studio recording the last bits and pieces for Montgomery Gentry's Back When I Knew It All. Interestingly enough, the stuff that was recorded here ended up becoming the intro to the entire album, which was released today. Gordon Mote played our Hammond organ and did the vocal of the preacher.

Every preacher needs a congregation right? Blake Chancey invited our neighbors from SESAC to come on over and congregate to tape. I even ended up being part of the congregation myself.

My free copy of the album still hasn't shown up at the studio, but I did find this video interview on YouTube featuring the The Big Revival:

[UPDATE]
I just became aware of this video footage that was shot during the recording of the congregation voices. This either makes more or less sense in the context of this post:

Jason Gantt-o-Rama

Recording engineer Jason Gantt assembled this photo collage during a recent tracking session. I made him promise to send me the results of his photo experiment. He's cool like that.

Spring Robbins in the Studio

Greg Morrow
...pre-cymbolism

Pictured above (l to r):
Kenny Greenberg, Greg Morrow, Corey Robbins, Dennis Robbins, Michael Rhodes, Larry Byrom, Mills Logan, Tony Harrell, and Scott Velazco.

Not bad for a session band, eh?

Lucky for Nashville that the Transformers are fictional. If all of these guys were to assemble into one giant human robot, it would be the ultimate one man band.

Dennis Robbins and his son Corey were the catalyst for assembling this group of Nashville A-list studio session players. It was a special treat to have Larry Byrom from Steppenwolf playing acoustic guitar on the tracking session.

I was finally able to get a shot of Greg Morrow sitting behind what is actually his drum kit. His vintage Gretsch kit lives here at the studio and is available for anyone booking a tracking session here. It is however, still a BYOC* affair for the time being.

* BYOC = Bring Your Own Cymbals

iPhone X-ray

Here's Vibe 56's house engineer, Scott Velazco, showing off his new iPhone. It's bigger than mine, and sadly it's not the first time I've made that statement.

Vibe 56 on Google Streetview

View Larger Map
As most savvy Nashvillians(?) already know, Google's fleet of camera cars came through town last fall. The maps are now up and fully functional. Here's a view of the front of the studio from 17th, also known as Music Square West.

Digidesign Interviews at Vibe 56

Scott Velazco is pretty...
...good at what he does.

Some folks from Digidesign dropped by the studio to interview us about our D-Command ICON console. Technically, the D-Command is a tactile work surface, but that sounds a bit pretentious.

The studio's house engineer, Scott Velazco, and I were both interviewed separately. This was definitely the most professional interview I'd ever done. They applied lots of make-up on my bald head because you could see all the camera equipment reflected off of it.

After I stumbled through my interview, Scott sat down, had some make-up applied, and proceeded to relinquish the most eloquent interview ever.

Hopefully, with some editing-wizardry, they'll be able to use the one or two coherent sentences that I spoke. I can't say I'm looking forward to seeing any of the finished product when it'll make it's debut at the upcoming Mix Nashville event taking place here in Nashville on May 20-21. I'm told our interview footage will also be seen on Digidesign's own Digi TV feature.

Vibe 56 was the first studio to install the D-Command console in the Nashville area. Since the D-Command is designed by Digidesign, it works seamlessly with ProTools, and the many different engineers that have worked here can work between the console and the keyboard/mouse, using either to drive a session along at their own comfort level.

Many thanks to Anthony Gordon and his crew for taking the time and energy to get our opinions on film. Hopefully the shine from my head didn't do any permanent damage to their equipment.

To see more photos from the interview click here.

Here's a video of our D-Command in action:

Muriel Anderson Concert Recap

David Wilson, Muriel Anderson, CJ Sorg

A couple of weeks ago the studio hosted a private concert for guitarist Muriel Anderson. We'd never really done anything like this before, so it was extra-awesome that the whole thing went off amazingly well. Muriel, accompanied by her percussionist Cathy Chalmers, put on a performance that really took advantage of the studio's intimate atmosphere.

Even though we are a recording studio, we didn't make an overly technical recording of the event. In fact, we employed the K.I.S.S.S. method of "Keep It Simply Stereo Seriously". It's a technical industry-term. So, if you've ever wondered what our drum room sounds like with a guitarist, percussionist, and a small crowd in it, I have just the MP3 for you!

Listen to Muriel Anderson impressively pick her way through a medley of Stevie Wonder's "Superstitious" and the Beatles' "Day Tripper":

Muriel Anderson - Superstitious / Day Tripper

Also, if you want to check out some songs tracked here at the studio, visit our MySpace page.

Dark and Stormy NIGHT!

Vibe 56 Studio
...on a dark and stormy night.

A few folks have contacted us with photos of in and out of the studio during their own sessions. That's awesome!

Here are a couple of photos taken by Stephen Hunton. He was taking photos during a session with Molten Lava. Check out his pics of the band at the studio.

More photos taken by Stephen Hunton are available on his Flickr site. His awesome photos make me wish I had a nicer camera...and talent.

It Was A Dark and Stormy YIKES!

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the last tornado that touched down in Nashville and did some pretty major damage to the east side of town. Conditions looked ripe just last week for a repeat performance. It should be noted that Vibe 56 has an awesome cellar for protection from damaging storms. Just one more reason to bring your next recording and/or mixing project here.

I shot this photo from the parking lot of the studio as the storm rolled in. We were in full tracking mode at the time. Luckily we were rocking out enough to overpower the blaring tornado sirens that were blaring across Nashville. It wasn't until earlier today that I noticed shirtless neighbor dude possibly relieving himself in the far left bottom corner of the photo. When I inevitably write a song about Nashville's music row, I will attempt to make a reference to this in the lyrics.

Picture Yourself Here

We've been extremely fortunate to have hosted so many sessions in our short lifespan. This month the studio turns the 'small' three-O, measured in months, not years. The studio's new MySpace page features three slideshows of pictures of the studio itself, and some of the folks that have tracked or mixed their recording projects with us. I have skillfully copied and pasted the code to share them with you here:

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Super Chick Takes Super Photos During Superchick Sessions

I found these quite by accident the other day. A Flickr user calling herself Breezy421 has uploaded a staggering amount of awesome photos taken during a 2-day tracking session for Superchick's latest project.

I take a lot of photos myself, but not like these. I'm simply blown away by the beauty and quality of these in-session photos. The 214 photos that were uploaded are divided between the two days of the session, and you can see them all here:
DAY 1 and DAY 2

If you've taken any photos during a session here, we'd love to see them! Simply email photos to us at vibe[at]vibe56.com.

Vibe 57

Here's a pic of the new studio!

Happy April Fool's Day!

New MySpace: Please Make A Note Of It

The studio has created a brand new MySpace account! Please come and visit our new MySpace page located at: myspace.com/vibe56recordingstudio.

We're changing over to a new music profile to better interact with our friends. Please check out our new MySpace site, and add the studio to your friends list.

In the meantime, we'll be sprucing up the new site and thinking of clever ways to celebrate our 56,000th MySpace friend. Currently, the top choice on our brainstorming list is to set fire to a Pontiac Vibe and race it down Nashville's Music Row. We'll see.

There's Snow Business!

Falling Awning Snow
...snowy vibe.

It's beginning to look a lot like...Canada? The North Pole?

Often talked about, but seldom seen in these parts is snow. The same can be said about socks with sandals. This isn't sandal weather, it more like Ugg weather, as in the boots.

We are distinctly rocking on the inside, while someone keeps flipping the snow switch on or off throughout the day today. I sincerely wanted to build a snowman songwriter holding a snow demo CD, but everyone would have just nervously smiled and walked in the opposite direction.