In the studio this week is a up & coming artist named is Brenna Durnin. Producing her is Dave Hillis he has a long list of 1990’s Seattle “grunge” artist under his belt and was really a pleasure to assist and watch work. While Dave was Producing, Jason Lackie was engineering and I was running around setting up three recording stations and running here and there to make sure the studio was supplied / stocked with goodies. I won’t bore you with which store(s) I ran to, to make sure everybody was happy. The one day I really needed an intern but you can’t win them all.

Station One, Vocals: Dave asked for a little less “room sound” and a bit more isolation but wanted to use the live loom. So I took some portable office walls and created a few deflection panels to record a less roomy sound on the vocals. I set up two mic’s for vocals but in the end only used the AKG C12-VR and ran it through the Manley SLAM for the mic pre and used a late 1960’s Altec 436C compessor.

Station Two; Guitars: The electric guitars tracks that we recorded where foundational tones that consisted off swells, fuzz & feedback. I set Dave up with a custom Telecaster, 1963 Fender Blackface, custom made Fuzz box and a purple Budda Wah. I mic’ed the speaker with a Gefell M-300 ( Inside, the microphone is split into two zones. The M3 capsule features a 16mm 24-karat gold evaporated diaphragm with Mylar (PE) substrate which provides an excellent balance between articulation, high impulse response and a warm natural frequency curve. The smaller capsule has the benefit of reduced membrane distortion, resulting in a more linear response as sound pressure levels are increased. ) The clean block chords where played by Jason Lackie with our 1974 Custom “red-wine” Les Paul also through the Fender Deluxe. While Jason was laying down the guitar parts I sat in the engineer chair pushing knobs while Dave was dialing in the Neve channel strip.

Station Two, Acoustic Guitar: I have two lap-steel guitars so we set Dave up with the acoustic lap-steel in an open tuning.

Station Three, Cymbals: Dave requested some percussion sounds for this recording and requested cymbals, so I went over to my buddy Steve Smith shop, the Seattle Drum School and as usual he once again helped me out at a moments notice.. Steve really has the best drum school around, I encourage anybody looking for lessons to call The Seattle Drum School. The cymbals we used was a 20″ DARK ride and a 10″ splash using both felt mallets and sticks. No cow bell this session but we added just a bit of tambourine. We set up a matched pair of Josephson C42MP microphones in the X-Y position as a close overhead. ( Both mics are positioned in the same location above the cymbals, but criss crossed so that each is pointing down to the opposite side of the kit. This provides a very wide stereo image. )

Well it has really been busy around here finishing up several albums up at once. You can see who is recording their latest release at Fastback Records. While we are completing various musical styles such as R&B, Blues, Hard Rock & Punk. This summer looks very good for the Seattle music scene as we continue to record with various artist that are working hard to get there music to the public. One of the bands that we are working with is Polly O’ Keary and The Rhythm Method. We tracked both Acoustic and electric the other night and here is what we accomplished.

Electric Guitar: We used both a Strat & PRS and ran them through a 1963 Blackface Fender Deluxe. The front mic was a Lomo 191A19 set back about 7 inches off-axis from the speaker. As history is passed down from several pieces of gear at Fastback this Lomo is said to once have been owned by Joe Satriani who used it on several of his albums. This mic was refurbished by Manley Labs. This mic looks like a Shure 57 but acts and sounds like a Neumann large diaphragm mic because of the tube located in the mic itself. When we want a little darker sound like a Manley Gold Reference or a Neumann U47 we use this mic a lot because it can fit in tighter spots. For the room mic, we set a Cole 4040 Ribbon Mic about 6-ish feet back and angled it looking at the floor to catch the reflections off of the hardwoods. The cool thing about the Cole 4040 is that it has an internal shock-mount so it does weight a bit heavier than a RCA or Cole 4038.

Acoustic Guitar: This was truly an “old school” style of recording, we used a 1940 Martin 0017 guitar with very old & well used strings mic’ed with a RCA 77DX ribbon mic on cardioid pattern.

Here is another studio quote from the punk band Dictionhead that just finished tracking,mixing and mastering their full-length release.  This album has not even sat on the shelf for a day because the band is off and running on a full tour.. Best of luck to you guys! ( Sorry Mike I had to edit it a little for my mother’s sake ).

We at Dicktionhead are concerned with putting out good music…Which is why I (Mike) chose to spend thousands of my student financial aid on recording at Fastback Studios in Seattle. Under Jason Lackie and Mark Naron, our album is coming along quite well. We have all of the songs recorded, well, all but 1 (I need to finish vocals) and we should be releasing “Because The Scene Could Suck Less” in the coming weeks with a tour to follow. Personally, I’m very excited, and can’t wait to finish this (FCC - Censored) thing so I can worry about something…Anything else….Like rent. Some songs are up now on our Myspace and all are mastered. I hope you enjoy. we love you dearly.

Well, here is a band that had all the musical elements in place with upbeat blues shuffles, grawling female vocals that haven’t been heard since the days of Duffy Bishop or Janis Joplin, attacking guitar solos, foundational Hammond B-3 tones, stacked horns & midnight harps howls. Lots of instrumentation so we pulled out the big vintage microphone guns and warmed up the tube compressors for these sessions and created what I think is a very solid record that any Memphis studio would be grinning ear to ear on. Here is a quote provided by Mr. Tom Boyle.
Becki Sue & her Big Rockin’ Daddies! recently finished a new cd, titled Big City Blues, that was recorded and mixed at Fastback Studios in Seattle, WA..

From the beginning of our very first basic track session to the end of the final mixdown session, it was apparent that both studio manager, Mark Naron, and our engineer, Jason Lackie were interested in providing the type of environment that would allow us to be creative and relaxed. They were always willing to go the extra mile to make sure our needs were met so that all we had to be concerned with was playin’ the music.

The studio features vintage tube gear that was state-of-the-art in the 1950’s and ’60’s (very important to blues bands like Becki Sue & her Big Rockin’ Daddies!) coupled with modern recording equipment, giving clients of Fastback the best of both worlds when it comes to sound, ambience and the overall quality of the recorded music.

Jason is a great engineer and, while he is barely in his 30’s, he has an old school approach to recording, preferring just the right microphone and it’s placement in the room in order to create natural sounds rather than a “we’ll fix it in the mix” type attitude. He also is a master editor and knows how to use modern equipment to enhance vintage ideas.

We highly recommend Fastback Studios to anyone interested in a top notch recording experience from beginning to end!

Tom Boyle… guitarist/producer for Becki Sue & her Big Rockin’ Daddies!

Well it has been very busy around here this last month and one of our latest projects is working with a singer/songwriter Gino Scarpino. Gino has a lot to offer with his new release combining thoughtful lyrical content with catchy musical hooks. In the producer’s chair is Seattle’s own music veteran Jon Auer who heads up The Posies. Jon as a producer really takes the time to listen & craft each section of the track making sure the pieces fit together, it is really quite nice to see someone like minded to take the time to ensure each step of the recording process. Engineering is Jason Lackie who bring great mic’ing techniques to the session.

First of all I want to say thanks to all the folks reading our blog’s.  At this time we are averaging about 200 new visits a day, Wow - that tells me that we are adding good things to the recording / music community.  Hopefully you get an insight on how & what we do with tips on how to record.   So what’s going on with us for the rest of 2007, well we will continue to offer great studio recording at affordable rates.   We have added a new large ISO booth, mastering facility with vintage and new analog mastering equipment and we are starting recording classes for the beginner & intermediate engineer that wants a real hands on learning experience on how to record.  Once again thanks to all the folks that enjoy these blog’s.  I will continue to search out cool info on gear and regular updates on who’s doing what around the studio.