Tube on tube recording action separated by analog reality. I’m achieving serious tube tone in the studio today as I record the reverb speaker of this Guild Thunderbird.
Tube on Tube Action
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Tag Archives: Recording
Judi Lee Micro Documentary
Here’s a shitty soft-focus glimpse of a micro documentary that I have been editing for the past couple of days. The documentary is focused on local Muncie musician, Judi Lee. Judi came into my studio a few weeks ago to record a 5-song EP consisting of cover songs originally composed by Indiana bands that she had grown up listening to.
I am hoping to wrap up the editing process in the next couple of weeks. As soon as I am comfortable with it, I will upload it to vimeo and embed it in a blog post. I wish I had more time to devote to editing but I’m being stretched pretty thin between grad school, teaching, recording, and filming. Life is feeling pretty crazy at the moment.
Webcam Teenz Session
While most of you people were spending your Friday night out at the bars or sitting on the couch playing video games in your underwear, I was at home with a fever and what felt like the flu, recording the infamous Webcam Teenz. For those of you that are not in the know, the Webcam Teenz are a punk band in Muncie, Indiana. I’m sure that this information will immediately cause a discredit to those of you that are from either of the coasts. No one on the coasts seems to give two shits about music from Indiana. This is most unfortunate because there are a lot of awesome bands doing great things in this state.
The Webcam Teenz are a punky, surfy, and garagey band that pumps out a bunch of catchy tunes full of angst and humor. We recorded ten tracks in the midst of one of the craziest thunder storms in years. The lightning was so consistent it was like a strobe light. I’m fairly certain that none of the thunder made it to the final recordings but if it did it will just end up adding some extra character to the session. It’s a good thing that I am keen on saving throughout the sessions because there was one point where the storm knocked out the power. Just a minor setback to an otherwise flawless session. I can’t wait to get these songs mixed.
I’m going to get off here and get some sleep now. My day has been freakishly long being that I had a legal meeting at 9AM followed by teaching labs at Ball State from noon until 2 and, last but not least, I was recording from 3 until 11:30PM. I am thoroughly exhausted. Gnight.
Judi Lee Session
Tonight I had the pleasure of recording Judi Lee at my studio, Reber Recording. We recorded five songs in 6 hours. That’s pretty impressive considering that she played bass, guitar, drums, and then went back and did vocals with additional harmonies.
This particular session was about recording songs by five different bands from Indiana’s past. These songs were selected by Judi as a sort of tribute to the bands that she saw growing up in the local music scene. In addition to recording the songs, I also filmed the entire process to make a short documentary about the project. It is going to take me a little while to edit but once it’s done I will be sure and post it for all of you to view.
Thanks again to Judi Lee for being so cooperative with the processes involved in filming a session. Not everyone likes having a camera shoved in their face while they are trying to record.
That’s enough for now. I need to get to sleep. These long Fridays have a way of testing my endurance. This is Frank, signing off.
Teaching and Grad School
Starting tomorrow I will begin teaching at Ball State University as a graduate teaching assistant. That’s a fancy way of saying that I will be working at BSU as a teacher in exchange for a tuition waiver towards getting my masters degree in Digital Storytelling. Now, if you’re like most people on the planet, you are scratching your head and wondering what the hell Digital Storytelling is. This is one of the most commonly asked questions I get when I talk about my major. In a nutshell, it deals with telling any sort of story by means of digital technology. Yep. Your mind is blown. I get it.
Seriously though… It’s more about utilizing and exploiting various types of new technologies to tell stories in new and inventive ways. We also look at the impact that these new technologies have on the stories that are being told.
Now I had never really intended to go to graduate school. To be honest, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind until I had been contacted by one of my professors from my undergrad days stating that they were looking for people proficient in audio to help teach. Apparently they had an abundance of video instructors and not enough audio guys. I did a little bit of thinking and came to the conclusion that teaching could be a pretty sweet gig in terms of pay, benefits, and vacation time. Not to mention that it ties in directly with what I’ve already been doing for the better part of my existence on this planet.
The only downside is that I am going to have to cut back on my studio hours during the week and I’ll have to schedule the majority of my recording sessions on the weekends. Ah well, this is only temporary and the trade off is that I will be getting regular pay which is something that is not always customary with my line of studio work.
New Cameras!
I picked up a few GoPro HD HERO cameras to keep around the studio. Although their primary use will deal with providing interesting camera angles a new web series I am working on called 4-Wheels/16-tracks. I am hoping to use these to get some in-the-studio videos of different recording sessions so that I can edit them with the recorded music and then post them on the internet in some form or another. I am aware that these cameras were designed to be used in extreme environments but I will probably just use them to get shots I can’t get with other cameras.
I am planning to test them out for the first time this Friday with When, Not If at Doc’s Music Hall. It will be interesting to see how these cameras perform in a low light environment.