birdcloudrecording-blog

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New gear and new projects

Picked up a few new toys:

-Antelope Orion 32 interface

32 inputs, 32 outputs. The new brains of the studio.

-Ampex MX-35 preamp/mixer

Front end of an Ampex tube tape machine modified to run as a 4 channel preamp and a 4 channel mixer. Famously used on “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea,” a record that I think is pretty good.

-Yamaha MSP5 monitors

Second opinion monitors. Accentuates things my Mackie HR824s don’t always catch.

CURRENTLY IN THE MIDST OF:-Engineering an EP for Red Foreman, aka former Bird Cloud intern Alex Baker-Mastering tracks by 33 On The Needle. The band recorded some tracks over 4 years ago but never finished them. We added some guitars, re-did some vocals, mixed the thing, and the finish line is near.-Mixing the debut EP from Necessities. New St. Louis band featuring members of some of my favorite STL bands ever (Bear Hive, Dots Not Feathers, and Volcanoes). Strange mathy indie rock that lands somewhere between Battles and Modest Mouse. They tracked live with the wonderful David Beeman at Native Sound, and now it’s mine to destroy.-Mixing a handful of songs for Bastard & The Crows, a dirty, bluesy, punky band that knocked out an entire EP in less than 2 days.

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New rates and other things

“Oh, I’m totally going to post more on here about things related to the studio this year.” We’ll see how that goes when the next post happens in August.

NEWS: We are raising our rates to $350/day and $40/hour.

The first session of 2017 was pretty stellar: My first favorite local band (Mu330) came in to record with a freelance engineer (Rick Johnson) who drove here from an exotic, foreign land (Grand Rapids, Michigan).

Set up earlier tonight for a full length record from fresh-faced math rock group Young Animals, to be recorded in the next few days.

We have a bunch of new equipment and plan on hoarding more throughout the year. Lots of things happening in the future. I’ll try to remember to talk about them on the internet.

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Blight Future - Love & Strategy

Love & Strategy by Blight Future

One of my favorite records I’ve worked on in my life. Politically charged, artistic post-punk made by dear friends.

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The worst part of falling behind on your studio website...

...is that it starts to feel impossible to catch up. But I’ll try.

This is crazy: Riverfront Times named Bird Cloud “Best Recording Studio” in its Best of 2015 issue. Here are the kind words:

Located 30 minutes east of St. Louis in Edwardsville, Bird Cloud Recording can be a bit of a trek for visitors. But with 2,000 square feet of studio space and an impressive collection of top-of-the-line equipment, it is well worth the trip. For competitive rates, clients receive access to a 1,500-square-foot tracking area, two isolation booths, a control room filled with couches and natural light, and all of the instruments, mics, amps and effects they could possibly need. Of course, the studio's greatest asset is its operator, Ryan Wasoba, who has been producing under the name Bird Cloud Recording since 2007. Wasoba (an occasional RFT contributor) will stop at nothing to make sure his clients leave with a product they can be proud of, and he'll even play on a track if circumstances call for it. It's no coincidence that eight of Wasoba's clients were nominated for RFT Music Awards this year, including LifeWithout and Hands and Feet, who took home awards for Post Hardcore and Electronic (Eclectic), respectively. 144A North Main Street, Edwardsville, Illinois. 314-518-5345, birdcloudrecording.tumblr.com.                         

Hooray!                  

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Foxing continues to be the world’s worst ska band.

#foxing #elenadesotophoto (at The Masquerade)

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Long post about “Wild Yonder” by Bear Hive

All In Real Time by Bear Hive

Bear Hive are one of my favorite bands I’ve ever worked with, and their record “All In Real Time” is easily in my top 5 records I’ve produced. It was in label purgatory for a while before the band sneakily put it on bandcamp in November. Here are some notes on the track “Wild Yonder,” my favorite from the album:

1. Chris Phillips was in a band called The Good Pyramid; their trumpet player played on Hunter Gatherer’s record (that band later regrouped into Foxing) and Chris got in touch with me about recording The Good Pyramid. That didn’t happen, but when Chris started his new band Bear Hive, he got in touch. “Wild Yonder” was the first track the band recorded with me, and I’d never heard a single note before we pressed record. Therefore, this is the first Bear Hive song I’ve ever heard.

2. “Wild Yonder” is one of 4 Bear Hive songs recorded at Bird Cloud’s second location (my house) back in 2011-ish that came out on an EP. When Bird Cloud moved into our third and current location (not in a house), we began working on the Bear Hive full length. By then, the band was playing “Wild Yonder” differently so we re-recorded it from the ground up. HOWEVER, there was something magical about the first recording that we could never capture. Part of it is in the drum sound, which relies on a room mic that was in the hallway of my house. The album version is a hodge-podge of the two different versions. The drums are from the original, BUT I went through the old take and pasted together the exact drum fills Nate Heininger played on the newer version. 

3. Lyrically and vocally, this is my favorite thing Chris Phillips has written. I mean, he’s probably written better and will write better, but you know, sentiments. I also really love the way he uses "Flatlander" as an insult.

4. We made a conscious decision to only use mechanical, non-digital reverbs on this record. The vocals on this song were mostly through the “Rite Of Spring Reverb,” which is just the reverb tank from a dumpster-redeemed mixer. I posted about that device here (with a sample of the vocals to “Wild Yonder!”). Elsewhere on the album you can hear an air-duct plate reverb (”Daze For Days”) and a slinky reverb (”Wigwam”).

5. I love me a good distorted bass. Thanks, Joel Burton.

6. I’m fully aware this track, and this record as a whole, has production quirks that could be potentially viewed as unprofessional, lo-fi, bad, whatever. I was a bit hesitant to post about this record, if only because posting something on your studio site has automatic salesman-type qualities to it, and this record seems representative of a former, less-informed production style of mine. I’ve gotten better as an engineer, producer, mixer, whatever. It can make it hard listening back to something that was done 4 years ago. But I am very proud of this record, and every attempt I made to clean it up, make it more hi-fi, whatever, during the mixing process last year just felt dishonest to the record. You have to break eggs to make an omelet, and sometimes you have to mess up the omelet and make scrambled eggs and throw some salsa in there, and it’s ugly but delicious. That’s about the best description of Bear Hive, and “All in Real Time” that I can muster.

7. With that said, thanks to Christian Schaeffer for reviewing “All In Real Time” for RFT, an untimely 5 months after its release. And another thanks for saying “Wasoba's production is as clear and precise as ever,“ even though clarity and precision are the last two adjectives I’d use.

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Put Clapton’s Choice strings on my Gibson LG-1 acoustic. Why does the pack say “Keep away from open windows?“

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Alex Cunningham - Kinesthetics

Alex Cunningham is a St. Louis avant-garde violinist. He recorded some improvisations at Bird Cloud a few months ago. It sounds like this:

and now Close/Far records is releasing the session on a tape that looks like this:

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There was an episode of The Adventures Of Pete & Pete named "A Hard Day's Pete" that I remember in great detail from my childhood. Little Pete walks past a band (Polaris, who also did the show's theme song) playing in a garage and he becomes obsessed with their song but never hears it again. He starts a band in order to recapture that feeling.

Growing up as a music obsessed kid in pre-Internet times, the episodes of TV shows in which characters formed bands always stuck with me. I have vivid memories of the Zack Attack episode of Saved By The Bell and that horrible "California Dreams" show. But "A Hard Day's Pete" is the one that I most related to because it dealt with a feeling, not with fame. Little Pete couldn't listen to that song again, so he had to make it happen for himself. This may be the origins of my personal interpretation of punk rock.

The reason I bring this up is that the Little Pete phenomenon happens to me from time to time. I'll hear a song, it affects me but I never find out what it is. I heard "Give Out" by Sharon Van Etten on KDHX while driving across the Poplar Street Bridge from Illinois into St. Louis. It was dark and slightly foggy and the lyric "You're the reason that I'll move to the city, you're why I'll need to leave" almost choked me up. 

I wasn't in the car when the DJ announced the song, and I had forgotten about the song until a few days ago, when I decided to check out Sharon Van Etten based on a suggestion by Josh Coll from Foxing. "Give Out" came on and I froze. I felt like Little Pete if he was able to stumble upon that band in that garage and listen to it over and over at will. It's stunning and dark and moody and kind of heavy in that way that Neil Young is heavy. This track might be old news at this point, but I can't think of anything else I'd rather listen to while laying under a scrappy Neve console with a light strapped to my head, plugging old school computer ribbons into old school computer connectors.

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LifeWithout - Uncertain Circles

This is a record that fell in my lap. I had recorded The Punchline Kids, who recommended me to their buddies in LifeWithout. We hit it off and made a record, and it was released earlier this week. Here's my jam, "Oleander:"

Uncertain Circles by LifeWithout

NOTES:

-The vocals were recorded live with the band, with Randy (singer) in an isolation room. Usually that leads to scratch tracks that are replaced later, but those first take vocals comprise a majority of what made it on the record.

-Brett (guitarist) and I are both tone nerds, so guitar tracking was 2 kids in the same candy store.

-The middle part of this song reminds me of the old, drugged-out, drunken Modest Mouse, which is always a good thing.

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A Brief History Of The Neve VR-60 being assembled at Bird Cloud

It's going to take a few weeks before this beast is running, but I've been doing some research and making some calls. I knew the console was at East End Recording Studios in Rochester before it was at Music Creek in STL, but I didn't know East End used to be called Dajhelon and was run by a dude named Devante Swing who produced, among many other things, parts of All Eyez On Me by Tupac. Before that, it was at Cherokee Studios in LA. I have yet to find out the details, but here are the names that have come up:

-Jodeci

-KC and JoJo

-Timbaland

-Missy Ellliot

-Dokken

-Michael Bolton

-Eddie Kramer

-Aaliyah

I will post information as I find it.

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Weird day over at Bird Cloud

hence the disassembled guts of a Neve VR-60 console preparing for a new home. #gettingreal

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BIRD CLOUD GEAR SPOTLIGHT VOL 2: Fender Bassman 2x15 cab

I've always wanted one of these oversized Fender silverface cabs. I also happened to need a bass cabinet, so this Bassman 2x15 is a welcome addition.

I always forget how large 15 inches of speaker really is:

BRAND: Fender

MODEL: V.T. Bassman 15"

YEAR: 1976 (or so I'm told)

ACQUIRED: In a Craigslist trade in exchange for a Sennheiser e609, Orban compressor, and Furman Compressor.

USEFUL FOR: The doom-metal band you keep almost starting.

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Bear Hive's "All In Real Time" is finally out!

After months of purgatory, Bear Hive have released their Bird Cloud-recorded "All In Real Time" album. I'll write something long and labored about it, but for now listen to it here: https://bearhive.bandcamp.com/

Also, here are the various ways this album has titled over the past 2 years:

All In Real Time

All In Good Time

Monuments

A Monument To Maintain

Behavier*

*(never actually a considered album title)

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Darin Gray, Tyler Damon, Life Without, The Gorge, the bank and nerd notes

I'm looking back at the past week at Bird Cloud and I'm lucky to have such a varied work load:

-Mixing a free improvisation record tracked here last week with Darin Gray (amazing weirdo bass player / dude in Tweedy who always wears a hat) and Tyler Damon (similarly amazing weirdo drummer / guy who looks as much like Jimmy Fallon as Conor from Foxing does). *see Nerd Notes 1-2

-Overdubs and mixing for Life Without, a shoegazey, surfy, hardcorey band from Roxana/Wood River area. *see Nerd Note 3

-Voiceover for a new employee training video for First Clover Leaf Bank. *see Nerd Notes 4-5

-Edits and light mixing for The Gorge, whose record is going to be a beast. *see Nerd Note 6

NERD NOTES:

1. Turns out that Electro Voice CB mic I nerded out about in my previous post is the perfect compliment to Tyler Damon's expansive drumming. He's very balanced and uses super-interesting textures (he owns more gongs than you), and the natural compression of that ceramic microphone makes him sound like an alien.

2. I cut my teeth doing piecemeal recordings, so full-on live sessions still intimidate me a little bit. It's hard to gauge your progress as an engineer sometimes, but the fact that I find myself doing less and less at the mix stage makes me feel like I'm making moves in the right direction.

3. Life Without did most of the vocals live in an iso booth during drum tracking. About 70% of the vocals on the finished product will be from those takes, and I think that's pretty awesome and, dare-I-say, punk rock.

4. My first professional voiceover session was awesome, and I want to do more. I was very lucky with the talent: the narrator was a bank employee with a drama degree. My only complaint is that I was secretly hoping the bank training video involved an ill-advised rap song that would potentially go viral. You can't win 'em all.

5. Thinking about getting into audiobook production.

6. I love the abstract way you have to communicate when dealing with complex music. "Does this part go juh-du-juh-du-juh juh or juh-du-juh-du-juh-du?"

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Target Market and rediscovering an Electro Voice 727 ceramic CB microphone

I'm helping a buddy put together an archive of St. Louis releases, and I revisited Up On The Moon by Target Market. This was one of the first for-real albums I recorded, and I hadn't listened to it in years for fear that the production would be embarrassing in hindsight. I was happily surprised, and listening to it reminded me of some tricks I haven't done in a while.

On the song "Lakes And Streams," for example, I tracked the vocal with 2 mics, the Audio Technica 4050 and an Electro Voice 727 that I bought at an antique mall for $20. The EV 727 is a ceramic, omnidirectional mic with a sweet distortion that you expect from a mic designed for CB radios.

This mic has been hanging out in a box unused for years, so I dug it up and used the same 4050/727 setup for a session last night:

The client - currently nameless but previously known as Blackwater Remedy and Mississippi Hangover - is a blues-rock band who always requests I make things sound "mid-fi," or simply tell me to "Do the Black Keys thing." This double mic setup was perfect for this use, and some sidechained compression allows for the 727 to take over and keep buildup of those nasally distorted frequencies down.

I stopped using the 727 because i couldn't get it to fit in the mix right. Anyone who checks out that Target Market song will probably agree. Of course, that wasn't the mic's fault, and now I'm inspired to try some other techniques I tried when I was getting my feet wet with the knowledge I have gained in the years since.

Oh, and "Highways" by Target Market is still a total jam.

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Transcript of text message conversation with Chris Walla

Me: Congrats! Weird Al just admitted in an interview that he loves Death Cab!

Chris: Then he'll love my parody project Regular Al.