R     E      C      O      R      D      I      N      G

Multi Track recording, live and isolation

Capturing the source of your creation is the most important part of the transduction process.

• Room and isolation create ambient sound or lack there of to create a space or intimacy in the sound.
• Once all of the takes capture your best performance or collection of performances, we combine them.
• Mixing takes on the foundation of the sound as it hits the speakers, it also is the opportunity to create sonic imagery with effects and mixing techniques.
• Mastering follows mixing and brings out all the hard work of mixing so your creation sounds the best it can across all systems, from the highest quality, audiophile grade speakers to the lowest powered single use airplane ear buds.. a highly technical and artful process!

Recording can be "live", "track by track" or a mix of the two. Sometimes you only need to add a track to previously recorded material, in which case we record the new audio and mix it back in to the original. In other cases, we're starting from scratch with preproduction sessions where the material is rehearsed for a short period of time with some throw-away recording, just to refresh. Once we're refreshed on our material, we plan the flow of the session and then begin. Sometimes, preproduction isn't necessary at all! Artists can come in and start recording immediately. My shortest session was 35 minutes and only 1 take.

There are some price/quality trade offs when choosing your recording plan:

• Live recording is cheaper, has more color and character but requires expert level musicianship or at the very least a very tight control over the materials dynamics.
• Track by track recording has the most pristine, isolated capture of signal so all color and character can be added later. This is more time consuming and therefore more expensive.

Sometimes artists look for a particular 'live' sound or 'room' sound in which the recording aspect becomes part of the creative process. This can also be expensive if not planned for or too much experimentation drains the clock. Its wise to bring a few reference records to your engineer so they can cut out a lot of guess work.