Crashing the Studio (part 2)

(Everyone was alright)

Look Who Crashed the Studio!

Artimus Pyle and CJ

Hey! It's Artimus Pyle, former drummer with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Artimus was in town to promote his brand new solo album, Artimus Venomus. He had just played a well received show at the Mercy Lounge the night before he and his crew stopped by the studio to say hello to a frequent Vibe 56 producer, Elisha Hoffman.

By pure chance, I had listened to a radio interview with Artimus the previous evening. He survived the infamous Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash back in 1977. Clearly, Artimus has had some amazing experiences, but appeared to be well grounded and a positive guy.

I took a group photo of everyone that dropped by the studio that day. I took several photos, and noticed that our intern, David Wilson, was struggling with his photogenic abilities.

You Can't Handle the Intern

David Wilson
Vibe 56 Studio Intern

Actually, handling the intern is negotiable.

David Wilson has joined us here at the studio as a full time intern for the summer. David was actually present the night the studio celebrated opening its doors for business. If I recall it correctly, he actually helped me carry a keg across the parking lot. Good times!

David has been a tremendous help to the studio and our clients. He's been around music for most of his life and played keyboards and clarinet in a band the first time I met him. It's a good thing to keep in mind in case you need the odd clarinet overdub.

Mr. Wilson, along with our house engineer, Scott Velazco, have become a one-two punch in our mission of recording excellence. Essentially, that means the studio is overstocked on positive vibe and Diet Coke.

If you'd like to find out more about David Wilson, you can do a simple Google search on him.

Pairing of a Pair

Event NS-10

The control room of the studio now has a pair of Yamaha NS-10s permanently located alongside our Event Studio Precision 8 speakers. The new NS-10s are being driven with a Hafler amplifier.

Although this addition certainly isn't earth-shattering, it has added greatly to the functionality of the control room. The NS-10 speakers provide a reliable alternative monitoring ability. Some of our clients never leave their personal monitors at home, and now it's easier than ever to swap them out, whether they are powered or not.

Console and Microphone Check

It's a continuous never-ending quest to make sure everything is functioning properly in any sized recording studio. I'm often reminded of the very first thing I learned in Audio 101, actually it's the THREE most important things in audio:

Signal Flow
Signal Flow
Signal Flow

Downtime is a scary word to any studio, but using it to make the studio a well oiled machine is a great way to turn downtime into a very productive day. The longest hours I've ever spent here at the studio were days when nothing was booked. It's a great time to tear stuff apart and put it back together again.

Rack
...knob your enemy

We recently ran into a rash of problems with our API mic-pres. We have a total of 12 channels of them. The op-amps inside of them were intermittently failing. Intermittent problems are perhaps the hardest to solve, especially in the midst of a busy studio schedule. When you finally get that narrow window of time to investigate the problem, you can't make it fail.

The "soundtrack" to the video above is me while I was testing one of our API mic-pres. There are well over 20 tracks layered on top of each other (not all of them made it to the final rough-mix of my silliness). The mic-pre in question didn't fail me once, there wasn't even a detectable hint of an issue that I could find. Yet, the very next day, in the middle of a full band tracking session it failed again. Sometimes I think these problems have their own personalities and will only show themselves while paying clients are in the building.

If I didn't know better, I'd be inclined to believe that the problematic API was showing off to a neighboring compressor. This may be a method of gear attempting to gain "rack-cred" and garner the respect and admiration of all the other gear in the rack.

We've thankfully gotten past our API issues, and have logged in some pretty heavy sessions since experiencing the intermittent politics of the democratic rack. Vote for us for your next recording session!

We extend our deepest sympathy to Jeffrey Steele and family

Jeffrey Steele and his wife Stephanie, lost their 13 year old son, Alex LeVasseur, in an ATV accident Sunday.

You are in our hearts and prayers throughout this difficult time.

A foundation in Alex's name has been set up through The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Donations may be sent to:
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
Attn: Lani
P. O. Box 440225
Nashville, TN 37244
Regarding: Alex LeVasseur

Or you can go online to www.cfmt.org.

As a father myself, I simply cannot grasp this immeasurable loss for the Steele family. There is nothing I can conjure up in my mind to bring rhyme or reason to this horrible tradgedy. I know I've certainly spent a little more quality time with my own son since hearing about the accident earlier this week. I think a lot of parents are giving their sons and daughters extra hugs this week.