Anyone in the technically creative field should be able to say that all their previous work is inferior to what they’re putting out now, otherwise, if you’re not getting better at your craft, you’re doing something wrong. This doesn’t apply to the music itself, just the production, as I still firmly believe that this EP, and the accompanying music video, were accidentally the best things our band ever created.
But I assumed I could give it a quick remaster and that the remaster would sound better than the original (we’re putting the vinyl back up on bandcamp), given that since 2011, I’ve learned a lot more about mastering. I was wrong. Sure I managed to sort out some of the low end gremlins that my HS80s never revealed, and tamed some of the harsh mids that stuck out on the physical pressing, but I couldn’t maintain the presence or the weight of the kick and snare, so I gave up and resorted to the original masters.
I didn’t beat myself up about it though, because the original master was done on my dbx Quantum, a now antiquated piece of digital mastering hardware (vastly superior to the TC Finaliser imho) that I struggled to sell when I decided to do it all in the box.
I never liked the limiter on the Quantum because how you were receiving the output dictated how hard you could hit it. S/PDIF sounded the best, while AES/EBU or Analog were either quieter or produced weird artifacts.
But I loved the multiband compression section. I used to wonder how anyone mastered loud, aggressive music without multiband. But also, since I was mastering with the mix project (but not necessarily out of it), I was mixing to the Quantum’s advantages, so trying to remaster from that original mix was an unfair comparison.
If anyone’s interested, these days my mastering chain usually consists of Ozone’s Maximiser, the UAD Massive Passive emulator and whatever compressor fits the bill (becoming increasingly fond of the Summit Audio TLA-100).

The Beat the Smart Kids EP that they recorded with me in the spring is out now. Do yourself a flavour and listen to some ska.

Inventors came by for a weekend in August and put down seven tracks with an efficiency and enthusiasm I haven’t seen in a while. Happy to keep their amps at moderate volumes, we managed to track the instrumentals live in the barn, and then bash out vocals and guitar overdubs the next day. All in time to drink crates of beer and watch youtube videos into the early hours. They let me organ all over it as well, which was added bonus. I believe the rest of the tracks are out next month.

These guys were the first full band to record at Chuck’s back in May. I recorded their full length at Wall to Wall (RIP) in Chicago a couple years ago, but I didn’t get to master it, and I felt like it lacked punch. Since I master a lot of the stuff I mix, I wasn’t used to mixing for a traditional mastering set up, and used to rely a lot on the limiter for implied heaviness, rather than the buss compressor. These days I’m getting better at that, and think I managed to redeem myself with this EP, even though I also got to master it.
Here’s a silly video of the title track, the kind of silly video only a ska band could get away with.

It’s out! Finally! I met Mole back in London when I recorded some piano for this album, the esteemed Louis Vause tinkling the ivories (and ebonies). In the back and forth of getting him the stems it became apparent that we had similar ears/work ethic so he eventually asked me to mix the album, and record what was left of it. Mole was the first person to record in what is now Chuck’s Vegetable Stand, even though it was only half built at the time, and this 21 song double album was a massive undertaking, especially given the extensive instrumentation on each song. Check it out on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nHG33l or Apple Music: https://apple.co/2Bi5tOr (to which I am now a convert) or even better, buy the gatefold vinyl at http://planetmole.com

Just because I have a studio now doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my mobile recording rig. Quite the opposite. I’m still doing occasional live recordings for Ho Etsu Taiko, and they had a very special concert this weekend featuring Suzuki Sensei, an expert in Edo Bayashi, an early form of Japanese drummming from which taiko was born. For the show I decided to have my MOTU 896HD upgraded with Black Lion Audio. They mod a lot of MOTU and Focusrite interfaces by replacing the op amp ICs. And I especially like the 896 for live recordings, because each XLR in has an XLR out, so you can easily route eight channels straight back out to use as live sound reinforcement.

So I got the 896 back from Black Lion the day before the show, but they hadn’t put a Black Lion sticker on it, like I’d seen on my friend Sarah’s Focusrite 18i20, so I thought I’d open it up to check they’d done anything. Sure enough, the five op-amp ICs (two inputs share an IC, and there’s one on the main outs) were now Burr-Brown OPA2134PAs. But upon screwing the lid back on I managed to catch one of the wires that runs from the power supply onto the motherboard, on the screw, and grounded it to the chassis. When I turned it on, it popped, smelled like burning and would give me nothing but 60 cycle hum on all channels.

Cursing my stupidity, I hastily arranged a different rig using my 828 (where’s my MOTU endorsement already?) and some separate preamps (the 828 still has the same routing, but only two mic ins). Luckily it was just the power supply that I’d fried, so I bought a broken 896 on ebay for $60 and switched them out. That’ll learn me.

I thought I’d wait until it was warm out before I attempted a barn session, but I got a forced air 60,000 BTU propane heater on clearance at Menards, so we got a kick start on the season. With the Audimute acoustic blankets I scored on Craigslist drying up the close mics, I put my C414 at the other end of the barn and ran it through my recently assembled DIYRecording CP5 preamp, smashing it with some ’15IPS tape saturation’ colour. Based on how it sounded when we bought the house (no insulation, just studs and OSB) I was kinda worried I’d dried the room up too much, but it’s actually a great sounding drum room, especially with 20ft of space above the kit. I also tried the room mic upstairs in the hayloft, but it sounded kinda weak. Have a listen to a clip below, with room, without room, just room (you’ll figure it out). I left the scratch guitars in for context. Not sure how well this wordpress hosted audio will work so here it is, first as a 12mb wav. and then as a 1mb mp3. Let me know how they stream.

Hi, I’m Ben. I record bands. I just built a recording studio in deepest darkest Antioch, Illinois (turn left at Six Flags). Until now I’ve never owned a studio, I’ve worked out of other studios, houses, and done a bunch of mobile recording. You can read all about that on my old recording blog gotmics.com until I stop paying to host it.