Dot's January 2006 Coast-To-Coast California Trip Adventure Blog



While Ronan's blogging away and currently at Saint Claire Recording working with his engineer buddy Ron Bennet recording the "nice little group" that Ronan's assembled for his solo CD - with Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Mike Keneally - I've got enough going on and coming up that I thought a Dot blog was in order. A lot of this is going to intersect with what Ronan's doing since I'll be joining him out in LA to record the second leg of his solo CD with Terry Bozzio with a little help from The Listening Sessions. I'll also be popping in for a guest spot at the Home Recording Boot Camp on January 23rd - 27th, 2006 in LA right after NAMM.

I'll be at NAMM the last couple of days and reporting on some of that for Studio Reviews Magazine.

And I'll be at any number of places in LA and visiting with a cast of characters along the way....

So, on with the blog.....!

The Listening Sessions Meets Bozzio

There's a section of the TLS website for Session 11, The Listening Sessions Meets Bozzio.

TLS and I - and a bunch of cool manufacturers with a bunch of cool products - are going to join Ronan and Terry Bozzio to mic up and record Terry's new drum kit and Ronan's guitar rig - and whatever else Ronan's got in store for his in-progress solo album. No small task. Stay tuned.

Tell Terri the top tom tom, second second from the left, needs to be tuned up 1/2 a cent.

Have fun out there, man!

..

quote:

Originally posted by Dot:
There's a section of the TLS website for Session 11, The Listening Sessions Meets Bozzio.

TLS and Dot - and a bunch of cool manufacturers with a bunch of cool products - are going to join Ronan and Terry Bozzio to mic up and record Terry's new drum kit and Ronan's guitar rig - and whatever else Ronan's got in store for his solo album. No small task. Stay tuned.

Dang..... you'll need a 48 channel sub-mixer for his drum set..!

Dan, I admire your full time recording and music career. It must be tons of fun. Bozzio's kit is dumfounding. As an aside, if I could get anybody to record drums with me I'd pick Levon Helm. Just what I like I guess.

quote:

Originally posted by Madguitrst:
Tell Terri the top tom tom, second second from the left, needs to be tuned up 1/2 a cent.

Have fun out there, man!

I beg to differ. It needs to down 1/2 a cent!

quote:

Originally posted by Darius:
Dan, I admire your full time recording and music career. It must be tons of fun. Bozzio's kit is dumfounding. As an aside, if I could get anybody to record drums with me I'd pick Levon Helm. Just what I like I guess.

What you might find interesting is that Bozzio is not someone who overplays. Rather, his drums are like notes.

I've never met him but he is one of those guys who has been around, is well respected, and is a great musician that is well respected in music circles.

My all time favorite drummer is Bill Bruford, the ultimate in when and what to play and not play.

I wouldn't kick either of them out of my place.....well, unless they got drunk and unruly and wanted to cut some vocals.....just like evry other drummer

quote:

shortyprs corrected:
I beg to differ. It needs to down 1/2 a cent!

Well then, maybe it's in tune afterall!

Getting The Gear In Gear

One of the very cool things that's come out of writing reviews and articles, and starting The Listening Sessions, is that I've developed good relationships with a lot of designers and manufacturers in the last few years. When Ronan and I began talking about doing something together for his solo album we came up the approach - on an engineering level - of miking Terry Bozzio's drum kit with two types of opposing/complementary sonic flavaz: On one side, rich, thick colors and textures, and the other side - transparency and detailed resolution. After I got off the phone with Ronan I started calling around to some of the people I knew who could help us with this approach. Most of the phone calls lasted about two minutes..."Hi, this is Dan. We're doing a TLS thing...blah..blah..Bozzio...blah...drums..." The replies I got were quick, "Sure, tell us what you need and where to send it."

Within very little time I had manufacturers lined up with enough gear for the project.

The preamps were easy.

First, the rich color and textures. Ronan had already been talking with Peter Montessi at A-Designs Audio. I've known Peter since TLS started. In fact our "projects" have sort of grown together. The MP-1 was one of the early "discoveries" that TLS made, and I reviewed it back in March 2003, when the, then, relatively unknown A-Designs completely floored us - a room full of engineers and musicians - with their tube preamp offering. We got the word out about the little company from West Hills, CA making great gear. And they keep knocking out more great gear, and we keep getting the word out.

The other side of the preamp coin was transparency. And I had to look no further than the Millennia HV-3D - which has been the main reference preamplifier for microphone testing since the early days of TLS when we were stunned at the resolution, detail and imagery of Millennia in preamp comparison sessions. It served us well on the recording of The Listening Sessions Meets JAZZOOO project that resulted in the much-acclaimed CD, Two Days In November. John La Grou, of Millennia Media, was also the Mastering Engineer on the CD. Not bad company...

The Microphone Preamplifiers

A-Designs Pacifica
A-Designs MP-1A
A-Designs P-1
A-Designs EM-Red
A-Designs EM-Silver
A-Designs EM-Blue
A-Designs 1 REDDI tube DI

Millennia Media HV-3D (8 channels)

Preamps covered. On to the mics...

Mic Check. Ah, One, Two...Sibilance....SSSSSSibilance.... Mic Check...

Again, going for two sonic camps, I first made a call to the king of all transparent mic companies, DPA Microphones. The combination of DPA mics and Millennia preamps are the leading industry standard for critical recordings. I've known Bruce Myers, head of DPA North America, for a few years, and have had a lot of good conversations and have used quite a few of the DPA mics. Also my 8+ years of living in Denmark during some of the '80's and most of the 90's gave me a lot of opportunity to run into and use Brüel & Kjaer microphones (B&K;), who's pro audio division later became DPA.

When I mentioned DPA to Ronan, he said he'd like a pair of 4011's and then maybe let Bruce come up with some suggestions. I'd used the Compact DPA's - the 4052 omni's and 4021 cardioid's - and suggested to Ronan we get some Compact DPA's, as their small size would allow for more placement possibilities on Bozzio's kit. Evidently Bruce Myers is going to send a truckload of DPA's...

Then it was color and texture time. Ribbon mics came up early in my conversations with Ronan about mic choices. I called Fraser Jones of Independent Audio - the US distributor of a lot of cool gear. I first met Fraser when I went to hunt down a US connection for the DACS Clarity MicAmp, which I found stunning and reviewed in May 2003. TLS has been conducting ribbon mic A/B sessions since this summer, and when ribbon mics came up, I piped in the suggestion that I thought Coles would be the way to go. I called Fraser and quickly got IA onboard with Coles. And also from my using 40+ pairs of pencil mics I asked Fraser about including Pearl Microphones, which are made in Sweden and use a unique rectangular dual membrane condenser capsule in some of their microphones. The CC22 cardioid and CO22 omni particularly impressed me with their detail and beautiful airy quality.

After that I rang Dave Pearlman of Pearlman Microphones. A big, thick, 47ish mic was in order. I'd been using his TM-1 tube since last year and had contributed some suggestions to him on tonal tweaks. Dave and I have yacked a lot on the phone about all kinds of shit. Dave said he'd love to get us some mics, but he's backordered already. Hey, nothing like success. I happened to have a TM-1 in my studio that I was to have sent back to get the new "mods". So, a few days ago I Three-Day-Select UPS'ed the TM-1 to Dave. He'll mod it and send it to Ronan's studio all in time for the fun.

I also called John Peluso. We're down. He's gonna send some mics. Not sure what yet. Wanting to at least get some 22 251's. John and Dave have been some of the recent Keebler-elf boutique success stories this last year. It's been exciting and rewarding to be involved with both of them on the level of product development and tweaks, and to have used various versions of their products along the way, and have some of my feedback to them turn into real-world changes.

So, with all that, it looks like we're pretty cool for mics. And I guess I could get more gear, but the fact is when you're eating and you become full - you stop eating. There's a lot of other people and companies with great products, but I've gotta stop somewhere. We'll invite them on the next TLS adventure project.

The Microphones
With as much info as I have available. Will update....

http://www.dpamicrophones.com/
(No sense linking individually. The DPA site kicks all deep links back to the homepage for some reason. The Danes are so damn serious about everything. )

DPA 4006's
DPA 4011's
DPA 4091's
DPA 4021's
DPA 4052's
Other DPA's TBA

Coles 4038's
Coles 4040's

Pearl CC22
Pearl CO22

Pearlman TM-1

Peluso Mics TBA

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We've got more than enough gear firepower to pull this off.

Mic Stands: The Afterthought

So, I lined up all the mics and pres in a few calls during the middle of December. So, here we are - and I leave for LA this Saturday. Ronan's been traveling and in session.... ya' know.. busy. So, I was sitting here earlier today thinking about setting up the 20+ preamps and 20+ mics we've rounded up - and how we might use this on that, and maybe put these over here...

And then it hits me. "Oh, shit!" I bet we're gonna need some mic stands!! ARGHHHHHHHH.

I email and PM Ronan. No response. He's busy, remember. I email Liz Redwing, his manager. "Liz, could you ask Ronan how he's fixed for mic stands. I get an email back a little while later:

quote:

Dan, YES !!, Ronan would love to get some extra mic stands, esp booms.

Thx !!
L

OK, I'm on it. But...er...um, I know lots of people who make audio gear. I don't really know anyone who makes accessories. Those aren't really the circles I run in. And during all the years I've recorded in studios - except maybe for Atlas - I never even really noticed the names of the mic stand companies. I went out to my mic stands and look at the brands. I called one of them - big corporation. I left a message... "This is Dan Richards with....blah..blah..TLS project....blah..blah...DPA, Coles, Millennia, Bozzio...drums...." When I hung up the phone I felt like a real dick. That's not the way to make things happen. Didn't get my call returned today either.

I'm also thinkin' their stands actually kind of suck anyway - and not really worthy of a $5K pair of serious Danish DPA microphones. Screw 'em. Almost all mic stands are shitty in some way or another - and certainly mic stands under $50. Nobody really thinks about mic stands. They're an afterthought.

I also think......hey... this is a pretty happenin' project here..... and why should I settle for a bunch of crap stands. I started looking around on the web for something good - some serious mic stands. Then I remembered Latch Lake and their micKing stands. I'd seen some prototypes a couple of years ago at AES in NYC. I'd seen them written about in forums for a long time, and knew they'd been working to get rolling into final production. I wondered what was up....

Let's Get Serious - Like the Danes



I got on the Latch Lake website. These mofo's ain't cheap! I called and asked for the owner, Jeff Roberts. "Hi, Jeff. This is Dan Richards with...blah...blah...TLS...and we're.... drums...reviews...CD....Bozzio....DPA.....blah..blah...."

Jeff stops me and asks, "Hey, are you Dot?"

Ah! hahaa.... Online fame pays off again!

So we talk. I tell him I'm basically up shit creek without a mic stand, and that I honestly hadn't even thought about it until today. And Ronan hadn't either. Well, Jeff's been thinking about mic stands - evidently for over 6 years and ran through $100K in research trying to figure out a way to build a better mouse trap. He's in front of his computer while we're talking, and I point him to the TLS website to get a look at the kind of drum kit we're going to be working with. Well, that must have gotten his attention. And the more I talked with Jeff, the more I realized that the job of the perfect mic stand for this project could only be handled by Latch Lake. For the same reason that I wanted to get some DPA Compact mics - to make an easier time of what could be some tricky mic placements - I could see that micKing stands could help us in ways I hadn't even thought of - with tight clusters of stands and mics, and multiple mics booming out in all directions from a single stand.

Jeff gets my # and says he'll consult with his cohorts, and they'd have a look at the pic of the Bozzio kit, and see what they can do and call me back.

Jeff calls back about an hour later. I'm thinkin we might get a stand or two out of him.... At $750 bucks a pop + $75 bucks per boom... you do the math...

Me...being the guy who hadn't been thinking about mic stands....asked Jeff, "So, what'a think?" Jeff...being the guy who has been thinking about mic stands very seriously for a long long time....says, "We're gonna send you out 5 micKing stands and around 25 booms of various sizes."

Well...........I've had a lot of people and companies send me a lot of very expensive gear to check out and review. This was the first time I raised my eyebrows in total, utter, speechless, shocked surprise.

Jeff Roberts is on the case! Jeff is my hero!

http://www.latchlakemusic.com/

And, of course, this recording project will serve as my hardcore, down-and-dirty "in the trenches" review of Latch Lake micKing mic stands for Studio Reviews.

I am SO enjoying this site right now!

Great stuff Dan

way way cool stuff.....

not as fun as being there, but the next best thing.

thanks dot!

What about cables?


sl

quote:

Originally posted by snow lizard:
What about cables?


sl

Great looking stands and very cool for Jeff I am sure too!

Thanks DOT. By you giving us little updates, we kind of all feel like this is "our" little project too. Not that we have any say in the results, but its like watching a child grow.

JD

Go jeff--great story. Dot, I'm in a studio in mexico getting ready to record my group Mo' Ritmo tomorrow. I cannot believe how shitty and ineffective most mic stands are, not to mention the clips with screws that often won't tighten enough to be useful without stripping themselves. SOMEONE should create a line of reasonably priced stands that do not completely suck or take up a quarter of an acre of real estate just to capture the sound of a snare.

i ordered the SOMBRA stereo mic bar that got high reviews, and it broke the first day. it also happened to my guitarist when he ordered it. Emails to Sombra's address were ingnored.

Anyway, have fun! I'm continuing to employ the techniques and philosophies you showed me at our sessions for Jazzooo.

quote:

I cannot believe how shitty and ineffective most mic stands are, not to mention the clips with screws that often won't tighten enough to be useful without stripping themselves. SOMEONE should create a line of reasonably priced stands that do not completely suck or take up a quarter of an acre of real estate just to capture the sound of a snare.

Seriously. I agree that most mic stands suck, but it shouldn't take $100,000 in R&D; and a price tag of $750 to figure out how to make a functional stand. It makes me question the intelligence of the designer, and the consumer.

Hey Dan, if you need an assistant let me know.
I'll fly out and bring some gadgets....and won't acceptman payment no matter how uch you try to force it on me .

Seriously man, if you need a set of hands, I can set my schedule and show up.........just saying.

PS, I won't try to detune Terri's drums when he isn't looking....promise!

quote:

Originally posted by Dot:
Mic Stands: The Afterthought
And, of course, this recording project will serve as my hardcore, down-and-dirty "in the trenches" review of Latch Lake micKing mic stands for Studio Reviews.

I've got a Latch Lake Xtra Boom...that thing held a Peluso 2247LE at nearly full extension with EASE. And they are great guys to work with...we ordedred the Xtra Boom from Mercenary, but had Latch Lake courier it up to our studio, as they are something like 30 miles south of us. Great product and handy for stuff like rack toms, when you don't necessarily want to set up two whole boom stands for your C4's...

quote:

Originally posted by Contrast Recording:

Seriously. I agree that most mic stands suck, but it shouldn't take $100,000 in R&D; and a price tag of $750 to figure out how to make a functional stand. It makes me question the intelligence of the designer, and the consumer.

Let's say you're the designer. You want a part made out of cast iron. Ductile, for the weight. Not that white stuff that cracks in half when you look at it.

The raw casting just for the base of your new mic stand might cost more from the U.S. foundry than a couple or three off-shore mic stands commonly found at Banjo Center or wherever...

It's not even properly machined, cleaned up and painted yet. It's just a ductile casting. Before you can even have a casting, you need to have a pattern. The pattern is not an expense you'd have on every stand, it's an R&D; thing. It's the shape of the base of the stand used to make the sand molds. It gets made by a patternmaker, a very rare type of skilled tradesperson.

We're not talking about custom made clamps, jam nuts or boom clutches here. Just a pattern. A block of wood.

Any idea what those things cost?


sl