RECORDING

Yes, we have a lot of great gear.  Heaps of it is old and where appropriate, some of it is new. A lot of it, we’ve actually made ourselves – including our Pultec EQ, 1176s, LA2A and all our pre-amps.

Our system is based around the UAD ecosystem, using flagship models of their interfaces chained together.  We have a combined total of 28 mic preamps – 16 high-end outboard pres built in-house and 12 UAD preamps making use of their incredibly innovative Unison technology.

We use gear by Neve, API, SSL, Universal Audio, Millennia, Neumann, AKG, RCA, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Maton, Brady, Yamaha, Zildjian and plenty of others.  We have enough gear to make an album if you bring nothing in at all, or if you feel that your instruments aren’t up to studio standards.

We also use the Kemper Profiling Amplifier for most guitar tones these days.  Check it out online and you’ll see who’s using it and why they are.  It’s probably the coolest thing we’ve ever owned – and we own heaps of cool stuff!

It must be said that pretty much all studios have really good gear.  It may surprise you to learn, however, of the variance in results between studios.  Unfortunately this happens due to lack of regulation in our industry.

Great people make great records – not specific brands of equipment.

Listen to examples and do your research to make sure you get it done right the first time.   It can be an expensive lesson.

TIME

Like most other producers who seek to provide the best results for artists, we work to a click track.  If you are unsure of how you may perform to one, it’s not actually that difficult – you just have to be prepared to work with it.  

Get a metronome app for your smartphone and start practising along with the time.  You’ll soon find out whether you naturally speed up or slow down and quickly learn to rectify it!

Of course, many pieces of music require tempo changes or time signature changes and we can definitely accommodate for that – no matter the genre or complexity.

MULTI-TRACK

Pretty much all recordings these days are multi-tracked.  This means each instrument is recorded and analysed separately for the greatest control over its tone and place in the mix.  Some performances are tracked together (generally acoustic- based or string-based), but the bulk of what you hear in popular recorded music since the 70s is multi-tracked.  Be ready to put yourself under the microscope!  The results will be worth it.

The way it starts is usually with a “guide track” which includes a rhythm instrument and vocal part that the drummer plays along with to a click track.   This is, again, the most common way of working in studios.

SYSTEM

Because of our years of experience making records, we have developed streamlined systems in the studio to get the most information out of our clients before recording anything.  The recording and mixing systems are also run in a highly efficient way without cutting any corners.  This way we can keep costs down but keep our results high end.  All killer – no filler.

DIGITAL

We run Mac OS X and use Steinberg’s Cubase for composition, recording and mixing as it achieves all three processes to the highest standard intuitively and quickly.  We recommend that you use it if you are recording at home as it is very straight forward for a musician or artist to learn, but is very powerful and sounds excellent.

We have always found that Cubase is extremely stable which minimises any downtime when creativity is at its peak.