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OUR FAVORITE GEARHEADS
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We wanted to use this space to introduce some of the people who make our insatiable gear lust tolerable. We could call them enablers, but let's try to be polite here folks!
Gear Pimps:
PK Pandey, GC Pro, New England: PK has long been one of Mooka's most trusted and preferred gear dealers. PK is always keeping us up-to-date on the latest hot gear, tracking down cool vintage items, and striking deals for us that truly make a difference for a studio operating in the reality of today's music business. A number of the products we're so excited by in this bulletin came to us through PK.
Dave Carlson, Music Biz, Santa Rosa: If you are looking for the weird, unusual, or hard to find in guitar amps this is the place to start. Besides the Reverberocket, our Alamo, Elektra, Magnetone, and Montgomery Ward amps came from Music Biz.
Manufacturers:
Bill Krinard, K & M Analog Designs: Besides building our lovely Two-Rock amplifiers, Bill provides invaluable services in working on vintage amplifiers and tracking down old tubes. We wrote about Bill and Two-Rock in our Dec `08 Newsletter.
Brian Zolner and Casey Dowdell, Bricasti Design: Brian and Casey express a definite excitement about their M7 reverb, and with good reason. Heck, we're excited about it, and we just use it. The best part about this excitement, though, is that they want to know how their end-users are interacting with their product, and help all of us get the most out of their reverb we can.
Tech-heads (the people who make the gear go):
In Memory of G. L. "Doc" Shaffer: Doc Shaffer was long a part of Prairie Sun's tech history, and worked on more tape machines, consoles, and outboard items here and elsewhere than anyone could count. Doc was one of those rare individuals who could fix a tape machine, trouble shoot a channel strip, and then sit down and engineer a session. Doc's last project for Prairie Sun was aiding in rebuilding the API sidecar. Mooka offered the following rememberances of how Doc Shaffer first came to Prairie Sun - and possibly saved the studio in the process:
Always striving to own the best gear, Mooka had just purchased his first English recording console: a Trident Series 80 that was found by an infamous gear broker for a steal of a price in London. Traditionaly, when a large format analogue console is shipped, it is mostly disassembled, for reasons that will soon become clear: the input and other modules are removed, separately packed, and the frame is carefully packed and reinforced. When Mooka's Series 80 arrived, it arrived in one piece in one crate, and even the legs were still on it! Mooka and crew removed the legs to get it into Studio B, commisioned the board, and got back to the business of making records. Or, ideally, that would have been the case.
Instead the board started exhibiting serious, though intermittent, tech issues. Today channel 7 doesn't work. Now it's channel 24. Now it's channel 1. With one tech commuting from San Francisco (and billing for travel time), Mooka now says he may have been only a few channel-failures-in-the-middle-of-a-session away from going out of business.
It was then Mooka got a phone call from one "Doc" Shaffer out of Colorado, who was a tech at Caribou Ranch. "I heard you're looking for a tech." Doc came into Studio B, put a Roger Miller tape on a cassette player, routed the output to one of the trouble channels on the board, which was working at the time, and hammered his fist on the module until the sound cut out!
Doc had a theory and a methodology that soon bore fruit: because the board had not been packed and shipped properly, the frame and the motherboard had been bent and shifted, in such ways that the connectors on various input modules could not seat properly and work 100% of the time.
So armed with ingenuity, a rubber mallet and his Roger Miller tape, Doc got under the board and hammered this and bent that, untill every module on that board seated properly and worked flawlessly, no matter how he banged on it with his fist. And that board, which seemed like such a disaster, gave Mooka years of faithful service, and continues to operate beautifully in Jack Blades' "Cock and Bottle" studio on his ranch on Taylor Mountain.
At Prairie Sun we credit Doc with introducing us to the phrase, "Do you want to be in the Audio Army or not? `Cause this is war?" As a tech, Doc fought this battle on the front lines!
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Greetings!
As we were finishing the April `09 edition of the Prairie Sun
Newsletter, founder/owner Mark "Mooka" Rennick realized we just had too
much cool gear-related news to talk about! So rather than take space
away from all the session news we wanted to write up, he decided it was
time to debut a mailing just for all his fellow GearHeads out there.
Enjoy! |
Radial Engineering and Primacoustic
We are very excited to announce our new relationship with Radial Engineering, which has brought a number of their exciting guitar-recording products to Prairie Sun. First we decided to cover the basics: a handful of J48 DIs and X-amp active re-ampers to help ensure we never run out of great-sounding DIs and reamps on big sessions. To make sure our DIs, amp sounds, and reamp sounds are phase-coherent, we also got a couple Phazer phase alignment boxes. But then we get into the fun stuff, like the JDV active, class A DI that absolutely kills on bass. Or how about a convenient way to send a guitar signal up to an amp up to 300 feet away on balanced cable (like, say, the tie lines between our studios): that's what the SGI is for. But the one that really gets Mooka's blood pumping has got to be the JD7. How about the ability to split your guitar signal to up to 7 amplifiers, with the ability to switch in a mute, ground lift, or polarity flip on each amp output? But you want to track the guitar live with the band, you say? Well, just make sure you record a DI of it, `cause the JD7 has reamping capability built right in (not to mention a DI out as well)! And like the JDV and the SGI, the JD7 features Radial's "Drag" control, which helps simulate the interaction between a guitar's pickups and an amplifiers front end.
Mooka was so excited by the JD7 that he quickly put it to work on an Abolitionists session, building a cathedral of guitar sound in Studio B: Vox AC30, `56 tweed Deluxe, both of his Two Rock amplifiers, a JCM900, an Ampeg Reverborocket, and a guitar Leslie. Phew! We're beginning to feel you'd be crazy not to record a DI any time you track electric guitar now! Because between these Radial products and Prairie Sun's extensive collection of vintage and comtemporary amplifiers, you've got an incredible tonal pallete right at your fingers, even long after your fingers have left the fretboard.
The new relationship with Radial has also brought an exciting new product from their Primacoustic division to Prairie Sun: the Recoil Stabilizer. If you've opened one of the audio mags in recent months, you may have seen the ads for the Recoils featuring testimonials from a dozen or so of the best in the business. Well, let me tell you, they are that good. Rather than go into detail, I instead suggest you hear the difference for yourself next time you're at Prairie Sun. Many of us have used NS-10s or similar nearfields sitting on top of a console meterbridge for years, and I think the difference you'll hear when you add the Recoils to the equation will make for many a fan.
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Instruments & Amplifiers
If you're familiar with our amp collection at Prairie Sun, you may have done a double take when reading the catalog of Mooka's "cathedral of guitar sound." Tweed Deluxe? BOTH Two Rock amps? Yes, we've been busy expanding our guitar amp offerings, with some particularly exciting additions. One is the aforementioned `56 Fender Deluxe, now available to rent. There's not much to say about this amp: you plug in, turn it up, and play. That's the sound. Another key sound from the canon of guitar tone missing from our arsenal up until recently was the Vox sound. No more: we now have an original `60's JMI AC30 with "Top Boost" available for rent, restored to stellar working condition by Chris Barnett in San Rafael. Chime!
From our friends Bill Krinard and Joe Mloganoski at K & M Analog Designs we have aquired a new Two-Rock amplifier, THE prototype of the brand new 10th Anniversary Limited Edition. A departure from past Two-Rock designs, the 10th Anniversary features two independent channels including a new lead channel design, a new reverb circuit design (with individual send and return controls for each channel), a footswitchable FET preamp boost, and "contour" tone controls on each channel. As Mooka says: "Oh My God!" Lastly on the amp front, through Dave Carlson at Music Biz in Santa Rosa Mooka came across a cool little number - an Ampeg Reverberocket, which has, in Mooka's ears, the best guitar amp reverb EVER. The Ampeg joins a growing assortment of small combos with wonderfully unique sounds, like the Magnetone, Electra, Alamo, and Champ, to name just a few!
On the guitar front, we all know that Mooka can only go so long before another instrument is added to the stable. This time around an " Ultra-Tone" electric built by luthier Bill Asher was the object of desire. This axe is just a stunning player, and features boutique "Brad Paisley" -style tele pickups made by Jason Lollar. Thanks to guitarist Eric McFadden, who first turned us on to Asher's work while recording the "Alektrophobia" record with Wally Ingram. Only one guitar you say? All the amp acquisitions don't whet your appetite? Well, you're in luck, `cause we've saved some really big news for last. As many of you know, Mooka takes great pride in the 1960's Baldwin 9ft Concert Grand that resides in Studio B. He is also all too aware that pianos, like all instruments, are living things and need lots of loving care. A little over a year ago this meant commissioning our piano tech, Robert Yambert to restring the Baldwin. This year, Mooka commissioned Robert, and his associate, Allen Werner, to take the process one step further by rebuilding the action. With all-knew hammers and a lot of fine-tuning, we can safely say that the results are brilliant! This Baldwin has always been an incredible sounding instrument, especially with the new strings; but now it can really hang with the best in terms of playability, and has won praise from our most discerning pianist friends. We know an instrument can be very personal, and unfortunately for
pianists, unlike other instrumentalists they don't usually have the
option of bringing their prefered axe to the studio. So if you want to know if the Baldwin is right for your piano recording, please visit us for a tour and spend some time playing it. You may just fall in love!
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Gear, Gear, & more Gear!
OK, so let's get the big news out of the way first: our vintage API 1604 sidecar has been rebuilt and now lives in Studio C! The API was shepherded through this process by techs Doc Schaffer and Jay Burrel. We can't even begin to describe how exciting it is to do basic tracks with 40 channels of Neve and API. Literally, we can't tell you, so you best come find out for yourself!
Here at Prairie Sun, we are always striving to stay a little ahead of the curve when it comes to seeking out and integrating exciting new gear into our work-flow. After the AES convention in San Francisco last year, that meant buying a Bricasti M7 digital reverb. But wouldn't you know it, once we started using the thing, and realized how damn popular it was going to be with engineers and producers working in our rooms, we had to buy a second. Ever interested in talking to the people behind the gear, Mooka sought out Brian Zolner and Casey Dowdell, founders of Bricasti and the men behind the M7. Both former Lexicon employees, Casey writes the algorithms that make the M7 do its thing, while Brian specializes in designing the presets that we've all been using. Mooka was especially interested to learn that Brian "models" real spaces for his presets the old-fashioned way - by using his ears and tweaking settings until he has a reverb that sounds right. Of course all this talk led to ideas, and soon we sent Brian audio samples of our live chambers and plate reverbs in action, and pretty quickly we had our own custom Bricasti presets modelling the Waits Room, Prairie Room, and Plates 1 & 2 stored in both M7s. Thank-you Brian! Rumor has it that these presets may even make it into the next M7 firmware update...
We've also got some new gear from Empirical Labs that's quickly made it into regular use here on the farm. Thanks to Gil Griffith at Wave Distribution we now have a pair each of the Lil FrEQ parametric EQs and the DerrEsser 500-series module de-essers. The Lil FrEQs sound great, and we've got to say, those DerrEssers may be one of the most functional devices added to our arsenal in quite a long while! You can imagine, then, how excited Mooka was to discover two MORE DerrEsser-style de-essers built into the Lil FrEQs. |
The Mic Locker
We have a confession to make. We have long liked to think of our mic locker as containing a pretty representative collection of vintage, modern, and boutique essentials for the high end studio. But behind this facade, we had a deep, dark secret: we had no vintage RCA ribbon! But please, before you judge us, know this: we have asked for forgiveness, and lo and behold, the gear gods smiled upon us, absolved us of our sins, and allowed an RCA 44 to suddenly drop into Mooka's lap.
Keeping with the ribbon theme, Mooka also added a few Cascade microphones to the locker, after meeting Cascade CEO Michael Chiriac at last year's AES convention. After successfully demoing a stereo pair of the highly affordable FATHEAD II mics with Lundahl transformers, which had amazing bottom end on electric guitars and kick drum, Mooka talked further with Michael and decided to buy a pair of the RCA-inspired C77s. Cascade is notable for their unique approach to manufacturing. The parts for the mics are produced in China, but the mics are assembled and tested in the US, the point being to bring a quality mic to a low price point. So far, we'd say the experiment is successful!
Finally, on the mic side of things we wanted to express our excitement in working with Kevin Ink to keep our vintage mics in top operating condition. Kevin has an impressive vintage collection of his own at his The Studio That Time Forgot, and has a deep knowledge of our vintage Neumanns and AKGs that we were ecstatic to find locally in the Bay Area! Thus far Kevin has been through a pair of our C12a tube mics, whose capsules are currently in Germany for re-skinning by another master, and we are very much looking forward to see how our new mic team can help us get the best service out of our favorite vintage beauties.
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Mooka's Notes:
To close off our GearHeads Newsletter, I
wanted to offer this quote I recently saw from a rather well-known
producer about Neve consoles, seeing as years ago I realized a dream in
owning one of these beautiful mixing desks (and then, of course, I had
to have two!):
"Neve consoles are the Rolls Royce of the
industry. You've got to do the right thing by your business. You've got
to buy the right console at the right price. When it comes down to it,
the Neve has the edge on any other." - Sir George Martin
Cheers,
Mark "Mooka" Rennick
Prairie Sun Recording |
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OUR FAVORITE GEARHEADS, Cont'd
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Tech-heads (the people who make the gear go):
Krieg
Wunderlich: Krieg has long been one of our first call techs for all
sorts of gear, and is our first-call man for the SSL and all of our
tape machines. Krieg is meticulous and systematic when it comes to
troubleshootind and repair, which makes him especially suited to going
through an ATR or Studer and bringing it up to speed (pun intended).
And when you see how smoothly the tape moves over those heads and hear
how steady your alignment is, you just have to smile!
Sean
Green: Sean has been working in Bay Area studios for many years, and in
recent years served as the lead tech at Ex'pression College in
Emeryville. We called on Sean recently to service one of our ailing EMT
140 echo plates, and give both a good tuning. He did just that, much to
the delight of our engineers. He has also recently become one of our
go-to-guys when we when need to call someone with a tech question about
our SSL.
Geoff Tanner: Geoff Tanner worked for Neve for 15 years during that company's heyday, and currently produces gear for his Aurora Audio
brand. Anytime we have a question related to any piece of gear in RAF
blue, Geoff is our man, and for good reason. Geoff was a key figure in
the rebuild of Studio B's Neve (legend has it, drawing out the relay
matrix from memory), and rebuilt Studio C's Neve personally. If you've
noticed a signature on our 33609, that's from the last time Geoff
serviced that unit. Why have Geoff autograph it, you ask? Because he
designed it, of course ;-)
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