Recordings From Studio Jonny

Miracle Beard - Oct 16, 2009 - Vol. 1

2009-10-22T08:59:00.006-04:00

So last Friday seven people crammed into the studio for a long overdue session of Miracle Beard. For those out of the loop, Miracle Beard is the all-singing, all-dancing, radical post-rock collective which has members dispersed to all corners of the planet and infiltrated in all levels of government, industry, and religion. At least that's what I heard.

Anyway, I set up a bunch of mics, got some rough levels, pressed record, and let the evening flow. Even with the occasional stop in recording during longer breaks, I still have a 3 hour and 21 minute file to dig through. Here's the first batch of tracks from the evening:

Wifi Lady
Baby, Bring It Back
My Baby's Going To The New School
Track 9
Track 10
Brass Tacks
Goodbye Summer
Ice Queen Lady
Mid-90's Technology

Enjoy!

Single of the Month - June

2009-06-17T09:23:00.003-04:00

To be honest, I've been tinkering with this song since early May, so really it should be the previous single of the month. However, after not touching it for a few weeks (yet always thinking about it) I decided I should at least put together a rough mix so I can hear it on a few different systems. So here it is:

Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold

Julia kindly came over for an evening last month and added her vocals which make the song so much better, and also help the story of the song come through. We both singing about the same person, but from different perspectives, and Julia really nailed the "beyond the grave" vibe I was hoping for.

I think there are still some pieces to add to the song, and it needs a better mix, but for now I'll just let it be.

Care and Feeding of Your Korg Stage Echo - Part 1

2009-06-05T12:05:00.005-04:00

About a month ago I sold my car as I hardly ever used it, and frankly, it was costing me more per month in parking, insurance, and occasional repair bills (mostly from things rusting up from lack of use) than it was worth. 12 years of car ownership had some good times, but also a hell of a lot of break downs, let downs, and general hassles. It feels good to be free.

Anyway, high on my "To Get" list for the studio for a long time has been a tape echo. Tape echo is an old effect, dating back to the 1940's, which by using multiple play heads and a long loop of tape, creates the illusion of space in a recording. A little bit of tape echo sounds like a reverberant tiled room, while at the other extreme you can get echoes and repeats building on top of each other, feeding back, and in general being really trippy. Lots of use in dub, as you might imagine, but having a tape echo was a bog standard studio feature for decades until analog and then digital delay effects units became more established and affordable.

There are still a few new tape echo units being produced, but the glory days were the 1970's when Roland created their Space Echo (I still regret not grabbing one about five years ago for 1/2 the price of what they sell for now). The lesser known entry into the tape echo wars was Korg with their Stage Echo models (manuals here) which came out in the late 1970's.

I have a great appreciation for the 1970's Korg design of their synths and other equipment.

There some thing about the colour, knobs, and general aesthetics that appeals to me, and the Stage Echo fits right in. So using some of the proceeds from the car sale I bought one.

New Projects

2009-03-25T19:18:00.008-04:00

Here's what's new and exciting at Commonwealth Studios:

1. Jon F and I have embarked on an ambitious quest to do a proper recording of the 15 or so songs that he's written over the last few years. After doing a demo session of his tunes in November, we've now started serious work on three of them. Here they are in draft form:

Fairwind Blues

Station to Station

It Don't Break My Heart

2. Julia Chan was long rumoured to have a killer voice, yet it wasn't until Beau played a recording she made of Wicked Game that I really noticed (all those karaoke sessions in the past were not ideal listening environments). She came over to the studio last week to make some higher fidelity recordings, which I think came out really well. Enjoy.

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Recent Readings

2009-01-28T09:58:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been over a year since I've made any posts to this cursed blog, so I'm vowing to get back on track. I've decided to use it to review recent music related books I've consumed, as well as continue to post about my music and recording activities.

In the last few months I've read the following:

In Search of the Blues by Marybeth Hamilton which is an interesting take on the usual story of where the blues came from, who played them, and why they matter. While the usual cast of characters are in here (Robert Johnson, Son House, Leadbelly, etc.) the book is really about the mostly white men who sought out the old, unloved jazz and blues performers and recordings and exposed them to new audiences.

John and Alan Lomax are perhaps the most well known of this group, thanks to their field recordings for the Library of Congress in the 1930's and 40's. For me, however, the most fascinating part of this book is the chapter on the eccentric and overlooked James McKune. A recluse living in a Brooklyn YMCA from the 1940's onward, he had an incredible focus on what he considered "quality", narrowing his collection to a few boxes of 78's:

If a record did not thrill him, he would not buy it (or if he had, inadvertently, he would not keep it long), even if it came recommended by the few collectors whose taste he respected. Owning a complete set of an artist's recordings, collecting master numbers in sequence, acquiring unissued pressings simply for their obscurity: such motives might compel other collectors, but none
appealed to him. What he was after were magical sounds, by their nature rare and elusive. He prided himself on tolerating no junk.

What I find interesting about poor James (who's naked body was found bound and gagged in a flophouse in 1971) is that he was drawn to the same ominous, alien, freaky, dark and dirty style of blues that I find so appealing. I'm talking about stuff like Charlie Patton's Some These Days I'll Be Gone.

I'm currently reading (on and off) The Rest Is Noise. More to come.

Great Anecdote

2007-10-01T14:30:00.001-04:00

From Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock & Roll by Rich Cohen:

Magic Dick of the J Geils band met the Muddy Waters band in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, trying to act cool, he took aside [piano player] Otis Spann and showed him a cube of hashish. Thanks, said Spann, and popped the entire cube in his mouth. A few days later, Magic Dick asked Spann how he had liked the drug. Spann said, "I didn't know where I was for a long time."

The rest of the book is also worth a read, and it inspired me to tackle Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. Even after 30 years, it is still an excellent history of the blues. Get on it!

Recording Plans and Other Updates

2007-06-06T11:35:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to get back into making some recording after taking a few weeks off. The current tune was inspired by a mic that I've always wanted (and now I have two): the ElectroVoice 664. They came out in the 1950's as a pretty standard vocal mic for PAs and live events, but they also have a place in many studio recordings. They work well on drums, guitar, even vocals, much like a Shure 57, but about 100 times cooler looking. Plus they weigh a ton, which always means quality. Or something. Did I mention they're cheap and plentiful?

There are a few downsides if you're thinking about picking one up. Firstly, the connector is not a standard XLR, but rather a 4-pin Cannon connector. If possible, make sure a cable comes with the mic, or you're looking at about $50 for a replacement. One cable I have allows the Cannon connector to split open, so you can change the pin connections from Hi-Z (for plugging in to an amp - think harmonica) to Lo-Z (for plugging into a mic pre-amp or mixer). The other cable is not so adjustable, so I still need to do some work on it.

The other downside is the frequency response, which gets a little hairy at the low end. There is another EV model called the 666 (!) which apparently is great on bass or kick drums, but they are rarer and much more expensive. The two 664's I have averaged $50 each, while a 666 will be closer to $200.

Anyway, the track I'm finishing off uses the 664 on almost every instrument. I'll post a sample soon.

Yes, More PEPCO

2007-05-29T09:46:00.000-04:00

Well, the Paul amp seems to be behaving so far: no blown tubes or smouldering resistors. It does have a strange habit of going dead silent (instead of the usual faint hiss of a live amp) after about 10 seconds if there's no signal. As soon as a note is played or the patch cord touched, it springs back to life. This isn't normal behaviour, so I'll have to do some more probing.

I also plan to tune up the Pine amp this weekend with new parts, as well as start work on my "amp from parts" project. Here's a few pics of the Pine:

This is the cabinet, with the groovy mac-tack covering and "white noise" grill cloth. Not sure if the handle is original. Looks a little odd.

The chassis, showing (from left to right) sockets for the 5Y3GT rectifier, 6V6 power tube, 12AX7 tremolo circuit, and 2 6AV6 pre-amp tubes. Note the empty socket hole, as the same chassis was used by PEPCO for a number of different configurations.

And finally, the control panel for the amp. Four inputs: enough for the whole band!

PEPCO Care and Maintenance

2007-05-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

It's been such a long time since I used this space to write about the goings on in my studio. My deepest apologies to all you spambots and diehards.

I did finally finish off a four song EP in March, called A Small Collection of Songs for a Small Selection of Friends and released by my "band" Yes With a Capital S. Ask me and I'll give you a copy.

But I'm here today to talk about amplifiers, in particular 1960's Canadian made tube amps. About 12 years ago I bought a small tube amp made by Pine Electronics of Montreal at a flea market in Kingston for $40. It has two 8" speakers, a nasty tremolo feature, suave cabinet styling, and dates from 1965/66. The tube setup is a little weird: 2 6AV6s for the pre-amp, 1 12AX7 for the tremolo, 1 6V6 power tube, and a 5Y3GT rectifier. Class A operation, maybe 7 watts of power. In recent months I've been preparing to build my own tube amp from parts, but I thought it'd be good practice to work on an existing amp and bring it back to life. So I opened up the Pine (aka PEPCO - Pine Electronic Products Company), made a note of parts needing replacement, and placed a big order with a tube specialty place in the States.

In the meantime, there was a listing on Craig's List of a dead PEPCO tube amp called The Paul, which I bought last weekend for $100. Here it is:

Now, this is the same circuit and tubes as the little Pine, but with two 12" speakers in a much bigger cabinet. The previous owner had bought it from Capsule Music on Queen St., and many of the parts had been updated, and new tubes added. The new tubes surprised me, as dead or dying tubes are often the cause of poorly functioning amps. The 6V6 wasn't lighting up, so I replaced it with a new 6V6 I had, and ta-da! it worked. At least for a little while. After about 90 minutes of playing, the tube went south. Obviously there was a bigger problem with the amp. So I opened it up again:

I started checking the resistors and capacitors on the 6V6 and found that the screen resistor on the tube looked toasted and in fact read "open" (i.e. busted) instead of the 470K value it should have been, when I checked it with a multimeter. Without getting too technical, the screen resistor affects how the tube operates: the higher the value of the resistor, the more restricted the tube is, preventing runaway current draw and failure. There's a lot of audio mojo and voodoo around the ideal value for this resistor. Fender amps with a similar circuit, like the Champ, use a low value like 470 ohm, while Marshalls use a higher value 2.2K ohm resistor. In this amp's case, the failed resistor was a very high value and was too undersized for the wattage and heat in this usage (perhaps incorrectly replaced, but hard to say - I've never found a PEPCO schematic). When the resistor failed, the tube ran flat out at max power with no resistance on the screen, and failed after a few minutes. A properly running tube should be good for years. So, I replaced the resistor with a 1.5K, 2 watt resistor, put in a new 6V6 and so far, so good. My parts for the Pine arrived this week, so I also have a range of low value, 5 watt power resistors to try out as well.

So how does it sound? Pretty good, me thinks. I tried it with guitar, and it gets quite loud and distorted when cranked, but it also dawned on me that this amp was designed for bass use, perhaps as a cheap Canadian tribute to the Vox amps that Paul McCartney was using in The Beatles at the time. Plugging in my P-bass got a nice solid tone. 7 watts is not a lot of power, but two efficient 12" speakers can move some decent air, and it sounds loud enough for my studio use. Rock on.

Weekend Two: Enter Sourpuss

2006-12-10T14:51:00.000-05:00

So the weekend after I recorded Nadja, I recorded Sourpuss, who are really great. Even if I am related to Rene. This is Magnolia.

Both these sessions were recorded on to an Alesis HD24, which has been a huge step up from my 1/4" Fostex 8 track. The time to go from "everything off" to "ready to roll" is now a few seconds, instead of the few minutes it took to load and locate tracks on tape. It really makes sitting down for a few minutes to mix a track no longer seem like a hassle.

I've been busy recording my own stuff on to the new set up as well. Having access to 16 tracks of recording, which is only limited by my 16 channel board, is such a huge lift from the old recorder. Bouncing down of mixing to 2 track and then back in was always disappointing, I found. With 16 tracks I can do just about anything I might want to have in a recording of my own music.

Doing something productive...

2006-11-27T11:41:00.000-05:00

On November 5th I loaded my car with gear, instruments, and of course the fine duo known as Nadja and spent a day making some test recordings up at Roseville Studios. The results are heavy, man, heavy. Here's a taste, a mere excerpt, from the track Mutagen.

Hot Update

2006-08-14T14:19:00.000-04:00

"Dude, it's totally mid-August. Did you see July?" Bits and pieces. But I did record this by the Happy Tiger Association:"Dub Be Good To Me" LL drums, HD keys, JD bass, LL and HD vocals. Took an afternoon, sounds pretty good, too bad we didn't write it.

Summertime

2006-06-19T21:23:00.000-04:00

A June afternoon in a basement studio can yield this sort of tune. The JBJs with "Feasby Track One" Rough mix, with guide guitar tracks.

I've Got Mono!

2006-05-20T14:32:00.000-04:00

Monoaural music reproduction, that is. For the last few weeks I've been turned on to the joys of mono recordings and mono playback, thanks in part to finally cleaning up and hooking up a mono tube hi-fi that I've had kicking around for years:

I have it running into a single Weber PA speaker from the 70's which sounds pretty damn good to my ears. Since so much of the classic rocksteady, ska, and reggae recordings were done in mono, you really don't get a proper feel for the mix playing back through a stereo set-up. Even cooler is tracking down mono rock tracks, since that was the studio standard until the late 60's (one anecdote being that the Beatles put their attention and effort into the mono mix of their songs, not really caring how the stereo mix was handled). The reissue of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society has two complete versions of the album, one a stereo and one a mono mix. The mono mix has more punch, more directness, more presence.

One amp. One speaker. Cool.

51 Seconds Of Music

2006-04-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

Here's a start to finish song from my studio, recorded to the eight track with overdubs and a final mix. Miracle Beard with "Platinum City."

New Toy

2006-04-27T19:29:00.000-04:00

For the last while I've been questing to get the dub bass sound, which is super deep, muted, and health-threatening. From scouring various sites, the prescription for dub bass is: a) finger or thumb playing over the neck pickup or high end of the fret board, b) flatwound strings, and c) no treble tone. The extra secret ingredient (which admitedly was not around during the glory days of the 70's) is the DOD FX25 Envelope Filter effect pedal pictured here.

I bought one off eBay last week and tried it out last night. The pedal is basically an auto-wah, so when using it with guitar it sounds like a wah-wah being worked at various rates. The sensitivity adjusts how hard you have to play for the effect to kick in, and the range is the money setting. At various points you can get all treble, all bass, throaty wah, freakout, or a combination of everything. Not bad.

Plugging in a bass was a whole different thang. I'm guessing that the circuit isn't designed for the lower frequencies of bass, so the wah-wah effect is minimal. However what it does do is drop the tone and octave of the bass notes through the damn floor. Single notes plucked with the most gentle of fingers were producing tones that vibrated bits and pieces all over the studio. At minimal volume it was more feeling than hearing. I can't wait to try it out at a proper volume through a nice big 15" speaker. Awesome power means awesome responsibility.

Finally, some progress.

2006-04-19T19:57:00.000-04:00

Right, so here's a one-take performance by Lesley LaRocque on drums and vocals, HD on keys, and me on guitar. I like to call it "I'm Real". Think what a little bit of practice could sound like! Recorded live to minidisc on March 6, 2006.

Music y'all

2006-04-13T20:49:00.000-04:00

OK, here's the first recording to be posted. It's Miracle Beard with their number one smash hit, "I Got The Shakes". AGP, Beau, and Jonny D. Recorded live to minidisc on September 17, 2005.

Reggae Nerdism

2006-04-12T09:50:00.000-04:00

In doing some more research on the who, where, and how of classic 1970's reggae recordings, I was looking for more information on a recording engineer named Sid Bucknor. Sid was very in demand at the time in Kingston to capture the sound, and worked regularly out of Dynamic Sounds and Channel One before moving to the UK. One source claims that he played a part in 70% of the albums from '67 to '75, which is a hell of a lot of records.

In trying to find info on Sid, I came across Roots Archives which is an amazing undertaking: 3,901 reggae albums indexed by artist, producer, studio, backing band, labels, recording staff, etc. etc. And the winner for most prolific studio is: Channel One with 936 (!!!) albums. Good lord.

Inspirations

2006-04-07T18:23:00.000-04:00

In the last 7 days I've been reading "Young, Gifted and Black: The Story of Trojan Records" The book is 30% history of the company (who started it, who bought it, where the offices were located, how it declined, who owns it now), 20% history of the music and musicians of the time, and 50% discography of almost every Trojan and Trojan sub-label release. It comes with a CD and I also picked up Kung-Fu!: Reggae Vs. The Martial Arts, which is a 2004 Trojan release. So I've been listening to, and reading about, a lot of reggae.

There are some absolutely amazing sounds on these albums and from this style of music. I want to re-create massive bass, murky piano, slap-back shrill guitar, and clip-clop drums. And the cool thing is that the studios of late 1960's/early 1970's Kingston were not complex. With affordable current (or last 20 years) gear, I hope I can recreate the recording process and grab that sound. Of course the musicianship is impossible to re-create.

The picture is of Lee Perry's Black Ark studio.

The First Of Many

2006-04-05T10:47:00.000-04:00

Hey Kids:

The plan for this blog is to post recordings done at my studio with a variety of fine, fine people. Look for tracks from Miracle Beard, Aidan Baker, Cox and Kuntz, 19/20, and many others.

My studio is very much in the TapeOp vein, with a love for classic analog sounds and a hatred of audio snobbery. The basic studio setup is:

* StudioMaster Mixdown 16-8-16 console
* Fostex Model 80 1/4" 8 track

More later....