Crafted Recordings

I did some remote recording at Occupy Wall Street on Oct 22 when I was there. There were some drummers playing, and I got much of a talk about student loan debt refusal. Download the mp3 directly, or play it in the player below. Enjoy.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of doing sound at a show in Unity, Maine. Among the performers was 1476, a band from Massachusetts that had a fantastic sound. The main thrust of the day was to do front of house sound for the show, but I also did a quick and dirty multitrack recording as well.

1476 played a great set, and contacted me afterwards wanting to get a copy of the gig. I listened, did some tweaking and a quick and dirty mix, and sent the set off to them. It was a great performance, they are a duo of an acoustic guitar/singer and a drummer and have a very full sound, good songs with great arrangements and a singer I believe (I’m notoriously picky about singers… heh).

Everything ended up working out well enough that they had the set pressed to CD, and gave a copy away with the first round of orders for their new EP. I just got my copy of it today, and it’s cool!

Here’s a sound sample, a track called “When The Curtain Falls”:

From all outside appearances, the outside of the studio is…. finished! Of course there is a ton of work left to do, but definite progress is being made. Feels good.

As a reminder, here’s what I began with:

And here’s what it looks like now, after a year and a half of (very) part-time work:

From a different angle, including where the side door used to be:

And a closeup of the new front door, with the trimwork installed:

And finally, a view from inside, showing the new door install with the framing:

The new siding on the outside is much lighter in color than the rest of the siding, but once it ages for a year or so it will be a much closer match. You can already see the shed, which was installed last year, looks very close to the garage.

This is very exciting, lots of visible progress.

Next steps: real electricity into the garage. Need to get the trench dug before the ground freezes. Also, I have to “beef up” the outer shell, especially on the side that faces the house. This step will be the first step that does not follow conventional construction techniques and instead uses techniques specifically designed for stopping sound. I’ll be sure to document this carefully!

Once the beefup is done, it will be time to insulate the garage.

Had some help today, and got the framing (almost) finished for the front door:

I made a mistake somewhere in the framing, visible in the above pic. Can you spot it? Just have to fix that mistake (quick), then lock down the framing, do the trim work, remove the garage door, install the front door, then I’m done with this step.

Well, after half a year off from the studio build, I’m back at it. Several factors contributed to this, not the least of which is that we seriously contemplated moving. But, we’ve decided to stay put, which means the studio build is back on.

Next step was to remove the side door. Did that today. I still need to put the trim work up, but here is what it looks like from the outside:

On the left is the trash bin I had to build a while back (can’t store trash in the studio). In the middle you can see the now-plugged doorway, and on the right is the door I removed. I will most likely re-use this door for the outside of the studio (outer leaf). It will be beefed up a bit for security.

From the inside, the old doorway now looks like this:

That’s the doorway, with new framing and a new cut piece of siding, toward the right where the side door used to be. You can still see the open garage door; that’s next.

Next step: remove the garage door, frame up the opening, install the side door in its place, and then finally put more siding in place to cover it up. Once this is done, it will be time to beef up and insulate the outer shell. Also, need to get electricity into the garage before winter hits. Not much time left!

Managed to finish up just in time for a beautiful sunset through my woods:

Finally, I am moving forward on the actual studio build itself. I just ordered materials for the last bit of construction “around” the studio (a small trashcan bin-shelter type thing) as well as the first few sheets of drywall to “beef up” the outer layer of the structure.

A few observations: time and finances have necessitated a simplification of this build. It’s not going to be as elaborate as I’d first envisioned for several reasons, including the fact that we are kicking around the idea of moving.

More to follow….

Here are 2 sound samples from the Gin Mill Julep demo sessions.

First is an instrumental called Metsakukkia (Finnish for “forest flower”):

Second is a medley of some of their vocal songs:

I recently recorded Gin Mill Julep, an old-time folk trio (mandolin, upright bass, and accordion, all 3 sing). We got space in an old church building in Buxton right on the Saco river. It was a great sounding space. The recording was old-school style, live performance, no overdubs.

Still working on the mixes, but I’ll have an audio sample up soon.

 The doors are installed (thanks for the help, Alfred!). I’m now moving stuff in, and very soon will have a clean slate in the garage. :-)

I’ll have more tabula rasa pictures of the garage soon….

Storage shelves are built, and the last piece of siding is on (top left of pic):

The shelves are standard JWL wicked-solid functional shelves. Ready to hold stuff.

Next: build the doors. I have 4 old barn hinges (thanks Yo and Matt!), 2 of which aren’t flexible at the moment (rusted shut). I need to spend some time with them before I can use them for the doors.