The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Tell us about the last time you felt truly, completely and utterly discouraged. How did you manage to get through it? Did you manage to get through it?

- Keith

Not sure I can say much here...

Around this time last year I entered into a partnership with another engineer who I had known for several years... we spent a year firming up the details and I moved out to the midwest in December '06. Not even two months into it, before the paint even dried he folded like a four year old.

I lost over $20k out of pocket and went into my family for even more money... Moved across the country twice inside 60 days. Defaulted on an apartment lease... had liqudated some key pieces of gear like the Trident desk on the front of my website... The whole bit.

I'm still getting through it... mentally & otherwise.

Litigation sucks.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Haha, I was looking for 'controversial' stuff. Feel free to change names to protect the innocent...

Hey, this is a great Well. Lots to learn for the recording player...

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Haha, I was looking for 'controversial' stuff. Feel free to change names to protect the innocent...

Hey, this is a great Well. Lots to learn for the recording player...

Controversial eh?

I can do that... so long as it doesn't get me banned!

Ok...

Someone asked about awkard moments & Grits inquired on "interesting studio practices..."

I was recording this band. This average band you've never heard of and would never care to...

Got through basics... we're setting up to do vocals. They've been in the studio for, I dunno, three days maybe?

The singer is a girl. Young girl...has some natural ability and is fairly attractive in a way... but kinda dirty lol. We have a scratch vocal, but it's gotta be redone. I set her up in the booth... get two mics up so I can pick one that suits her voice best, go into the control room & patch it all together... bring up the fader and there's a lotta noise on both channels. Horrible sounds.

Unusable.

I start patching stuff around... this micamp... that compressor. Still lots of noise. I figure it's a bad cable from the mic to the patch panel or maybe even the mic...

Walk out, open the door to the booth...

And I hear the noise... the buzz!

It's in the room!!!

WTF is that?!?

I ask her...

Turns out she had a vibe going...

Helps her to "relax" while singing!!!!

BUWAHAHAHAHAHA

:18::18::18:

No. I didn't hook up with her...

 

[Curly]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

I guess it helped her hit the high notes.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Controversial eh?

I can do that... so long as it doesn't get me banned!

Ok...

Someone asked about awkard moments & Grits inquired on "interesting studio practices..."

I was recording this band. This average band you've never heard of and would never care to...

Got through basics... we're setting up to do vocals. They've been in the studio for, I dunno, three days maybe?

The singer is a girl. Young girl...has some natural ability and is fairly attractive in a way... but kinda dirty lol. We have a scratch vocal, but it's gotta be redone. I set her up in the booth... get two mics up so I can pick one that suits her voice best, go into the control room & patch it all together... bring up the fader and there's a lotta noise on both channels. Horrible sounds.

Unusable.

I start patching stuff around... this micamp... that compressor. Still lots of noise. I figure it's a bad cable from the mic to the patch panel or maybe even the mic...

Walk out, open the door to the booth...

And I hear the noise... the buzz!

It's in the room!!!

WTF is that?!?

I ask her...

Turns out she had a vibe going...

Helps her to "relax" while singing!!!!

BUWAHAHAHAHAHA

:18::18::18:

No. I didn't hook up with her...

Haha, awesome!

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Come on dudes...

I know ya'll gotta have MORE questions!

I've traveled the states, met, worked & partied with many an infamous musician, built a couple three "nice" studios and destroyed more guitars in the sake of "modding" then I have fingers...

Ask me anything...

I double triple dog dare ya!

 

[B Bent]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Did you inhale?

 

[LesStrat]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

What is your take on Jamie Lynn's boyfriend dumping her and denying his fatherhood?

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

I double triple dog dare ya!

What's your favorite scene in A Christmas Story?

 

[d1dsj]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Hey Moose, some cool questions and responses here. So here's my questions:-
Who's the nastiest, most arrogant and biggest @ss you've worked with?
Is their anyone you've refused to work with? If yes... why?
Who would you most like to work with?
So you've travelled, where is your all time favorite place to chill out?
What do you drive?

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Did you inhale?

Always!

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Do you always have a really solid idea in your head when you start to mix, or do you screw around and experiment sometimes?

What is the most difficult instrument to record, in your opinion?

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

What is your take on Jamie Lynn's boyfriend dumping her and denying his fatherhood?

That's the 16 y/o Spears kid right?

I don't really keep up with celebrity gossip, nor watch a lot of TV outside of the Discovery & History channels, Adult Swim and recently... I got hooked on Flavor of Love and 'I Love NY'

Tragic... I know.

heh heh

That whole family is pretty whack.

Maybe, probably it's all the mothers fault. At least from the outside, she seems like a fairly controlling person... pushing her kids to be "stars" and basically running their lives for them. No wonder they've rebelled and consciously, or maybe unconsciously tanking their respective careers. I also wonder why you never hear about their father in any of these news stories... Are they divorced? Is he dead??? Beats the krap outta me!

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

What's your favorite scene in A Christmas Story?

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen it!

Christmas cartoons are the best though... The Grinch & all the Who's in Whoville... Opus the Penguin and a Wish for Wings that worked... Charlie Brown, Frosty...

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Well, as you asked...

When I asked for 'controversial', I was think less 'vibrator in vocal booth' (great story, though), and more 'dirty tricks/personnel replacement used to make a record sound good'

For example, i know of a successful local band that have a rep for being kickass live, but when they hit the studio, they literally record the guitars one chord at a time...

 

[daemon barbeque]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Hey Moose great Well bro!:fing2:

What is the biggest "artist behaviour" that turns you nutts and brings you to beat the crap out of him/her ,quit the session ,kick him/her out of the studio ,the combination of the three or some more brutal/horror movie based actions?
A true story with some extra hot "spice" on it could make me really happy heheh

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

I'm playing hooky on a mix right now... heh heh

Do you always have a really solid idea in your head when you start to mix, or do you screw around and experiment sometimes?

It sort of depends... but usually yeah, I have a decent idea of where I think it should go and try to get it to that point. If it's something I've tracked it's usually easier to get it there and I'll print/shape the tones during tracking with the finished thing in mind. IE; compress, EQ etc.

There's always some degree of experimentation & messing around in either case... And like a lot of good mixers I've got no problems pulling down the faders and starting again if things just aren't gelling...

If you've spent 17 hours inside the DAW tweaking stuff then you've lost perspective. Mixing is about balances...

What is the most difficult instrument to record, in your opinion?

The basic "rock" instruments aren't much of a challenge for me anymore... so probably horns & strings.

Aside from that, I'd say maybe bass with regards to compression & EQ... probably phase as well... But it's also the easiest instrument to bury inside a mix if it's less then steller.

Drums define the top & bottom frequency range of any recording and the overall sound. If the drums sound bad then it doesn't matter how good anything else is...

None if it is rocket science!

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Hey Moose, some cool questions and responses here. So here's my questions:-
Who's the nastiest, most arrogant and biggest @ss you've worked with?

Hmmm... quite possibly Harley Flanagan on that Cro-Mag/Harley's War EP from '01 or '02. I could say a lot of things here... that whole thing was a salvage job. Really bad sounds coming in... It was supposed to be released on Equal Vision, they funded it. Why wasn't it released on EV??? Don't think I'll get into it publicly... but suffice to say, he squandered away the $10k they gave him which should've been MORE then enough.

My favorite moment... when he owed me a few grand after mixing, I paid off the Brooklyn studio we had been using and he tried to steal the tapes. After that he was threating to sick his lawyer on me and sending bizzare emails saying he was gonna kick my ass. Go ahead dude, I've got 'yer signature here on the invoices!

In the end, I got paid, and he got his tapes. And I didn't get a credit. Not that I care... sounded kinda bad, but it did before it ever reached my hands.

Wu-Tang clan around '97 was another wunderful experience. I was on staff at the studio and quit a few weeks in... I haven't worked on hip-hop since.

Is their anyone you've refused to work with? If yes... why?

Not really! Well... Eric Johnson came though my old club a couple of times and I never took those gigs. We had a great rig, all Meyer stuff, 3-way split... separate transformer on the roof for stage/audio power... but there was this wicked & random buzz that we could never trace down and drove guys with single coils CRAZY. I didn't want to be "that" guy!!!

Who would you most like to work with?

Alive or dead? Alive..? I ran monitors for Chris Robinson once but I'd love to make a Black Crowes record. Maybe Metallica but have 'em kick ass instead of shins like they are now... Trey Anastasio and/or Phish would be rad too. I have been to The Barn...

So you've travelled, where is your all time favorite place to chill out?

There's a lotta great places. Montreal is always a blast... I love Phoenix AZ too. Almost moved there at one point... Anywhere in New England is a great retreat... Maine, VT, etc. It's nice to get away from everything civilized and "unplug" once in a while.

edit - one of the worst places I've ever been stuck was Woodstock, VA.

What do you drive?

An '05 Mazda 6, 4 cylinder with about 46,000 miles! Bought it new too... well, leased anyway...

 

[LesStrat]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Did I miss this question?

Would you/have you sold out?

 

[J Moose]

Re: The Well ~ Lucky #13. Cavefish spills all

Did I miss this question?

Would you/have you sold out?

I've already sold out!

Just waiting for the check...