February 20, 2010
I'm here in Vancouver at the moment with Laurie Anderson. We debuted a new show of hers here during the Olympics and although we haven't had much time to take in any events, it's definitely exciting around town with all the festivities going on. It's also a beautiful city and the weather turned out to be beautiful while we were here.
For those of you who are familiar with Laurie's work, you know that she's always been a pioneer of technology not only in sound but with lighting and video as well. Her new show, Delusion, is chock full of treats for the ears, eyes, and soul (boy, I sound like a newspaper critic!). She's running a relatively customized MIDI rig with Logic Studio and Mainstage at the heart of it. A Macbook Pro drives the rig from stage. I'm doing archive recordings each night with an Mbox and a Macbook Pro. And then, I'm also running a few sound cues from my FOH mix position on yet, another Macbook Pro. Two tricked out Mac Pro towers handle the video flawlessly. It's like an add for the power of Apple!
There has been a lot of tech time leading up to this first run of shows and I'm happy to say, there have been very positive reviews so far. After this, we head to Williams College in Williamstown, MA on 2/26-27 and then onto Paris, London, California, Sweden, Sydney and back to NY later in the year.
All this road work has made it tricky trying to plan classes so something I've been experimenting with is conducting on-line "webinars" (as mentioned in the last post below). I get quite a few requests for Pro Tools tutoring from people who can't always travel to me and vice-versa so this seems like a perfect solution. It will be live and interactive with participants able to "raise their hands" and ask questions. If you're interested in something like this, please drop me a line and I'll add you to the list so you'll have a heads-up as to when the fist one will be. It looks like later in March will be what we're looking at.
While in Vancouver, I extended an invitation to the guys over at Inside Home Recording, another great resource for the home recordist, which is based here in town. I'm happy to say that one of the hosts of the podcast, Dave Chick, made it out to the show with his wife. It was very nice meeting him and chatting for a minute. Thanks for coming Dave!
That's about it for now Stay tuned...
Dave
January 31st, 2010
Hey everyone. Just touching base with all of you. I've been busy with a whole bunch of different work the past couple of months. Quite a bit of hauling my Pro Tools rig around to do multi tracks of the live shows I've been mixing. Two days of shows and recording with Ethel at the World Financial Center in NYC just before Christmas (that's where I am in the photo above. The funny guy in the back is Ralph Farris, violist with Ethel). Always a blast to work with them. Then just in the past few weeks, I did a project with Ginny Hawker, a great traditional country singer with an excellent backing band including former members of Donna the Buffalo. We setup shop in the bass player's (Jed Greenberg) house and dubbed it Shelbark Studios, after the name of the farm that his house is on. It was a great three days of recording and Jed and I will be mixing and editing in the next couple of weeks. I also did a week's worth of work with composer/producer Hahn Rowe at The Kitchen in NY. I engineered a record with Hahn about 22 years ago with a band called Hugo Largo. We lost touch but were recently reunited through another work acquaintance and I'm happy to say we have more things lined up. His shows went really well and my trusty Pro Tools system was on hand yet again to track it.
In the past couple of months, I've come on board (pun intended) as Front of House mixer for Laurie Anderson. She is debuting a new show in a couple of weeks in Vancouver during Olympic time. After that, there will be some European dates and a few US dates as well. It's an honor to be working with here and for those of you familiar with her work, you know that she's always on the cutting edge of technology, both audio and video.
This week, 2/3, I'll be mixing a show presented by the United Nations at Carnegie's Zankel Recital Hall in NYC with Maya Beiser, one of my long term "regular's". Maya's new record, Provenance, is being released through Koch Records in the next few weeks. I engineered and mixed a few of the tracks on it.
On the educational side of things, I'm still running workshops in and around the Woodstock area and I'm also experimenting with conducting some Webinars. I would be using conferencing software that would allow participants to view my screen, ask real time questions, either through chat, VoIP, or even telephone. I can even take over other user's screen to show examples or troubleshoot their rigs. I think it will be a very exciting addition to what I offer. Drop me an email if you're interested in signing up and I'll put you on the list.
The last thing I would like to mention is that I was a guest on the MyMac.com podcast. It's one of the longest running podcasts out there and is, obviously, Macintosh centered. It was a blast and if you like, you can check it out here. I'm still really trying to get it together to start a podcast of my own, it's just a matter of time right now.
That about covers it for now. I'll write from Vancouver and give you an update then...
DC
November 21, 2009
Well, it's been another busy Fall. I mixed a bunch of interesting projects at Bard College's Fisher Center in October including two nights with the amazing Terry Riley for New Albion Records. I hauled along my Pro Tools rig and did a multitrack recording that may or may not be released, it's yet to be seen, but there were really some great notes being played. At the moment, I'm at the tail end of a week long run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Wally Cordona. Wally is a choreographer with whom I'm done a lot of sound design work in the past five years or so. Phil Kline is the composer on the production, as he has been for all of them and he and I also do a lot of work together. He has a new record out that I did with him, also with my portable Pro Tools rig, in a church in NYC with a six-piece choir and Ethel, the string quartet I tour with. Check it out here. I'll also be doing a couple of concerts with Ethel in December and again, hauling my PT rig along to make a live record with them. It will be at the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center.
Through all of the running around, I've been getting a little bit of work done in my new space, Area52, here and there and it's starting to turn into a cozy little space. I've done a couple of tracking sessions there and a handful of mixes as well, thanks to my good friend John Yates for repairing one of my Meyer HD-1 monitors. Thanks JY! I'm also getting it ready for the next 2-day class coming up on 1/8-9 of next year. I'm extremely excited about doing my workshops out of the new room. I'm sure all of you will be too!
That's about it for now. Stay tuned for more updates!
August 20, 2009
I guess a Blog is something that you update on a regular, if not daily, if not many times and day basis so I'm not sure if 4 months between entries constitutes a "Blog" but hey...
The exciting news for me these days is that I now have a new space on the campus of Markertek where I have setup an office, a maintenance shop, and studio and over the next couple of months, I will have a small classroom setup for my labs and classes. In the past, I would conduct my workshops at local studios and colleges, as in the one coming up on September 25th and 26th at SUNY Ulster. Now in addition to these locations, I'll have a central base, allowing me to conduct my popular classes on a more regular basis. Stay tuned for photos.
I've also been building a new website called AREA52sound, since my new "media center" has been christened "AREA 52". The site is still in its infancy but check it out and sign up for updates.
Other than that, the summer was filled with a bunch of shows at Bard College in their Spiegel Tent where I was mixing FOH for a number of great artists including a solo show with Natalie Merchant. Always a good time over there. I also have some good recording projects coming up as well as designing some new classes, based on feedback I have received.
That's it for now. Check back soon and thanks for reading!
Dave
April 28, 2009
Well, it's been a while since I've updated my website and I've been spending the last few days doing just that. I'm happy to say that it hasn't been for a lack of business, it's actually because I've been TOO busy with recording and live mixing. I've had some great travels recently to Taiwan where I was touring with Maya Beiser and then with String Quartet, Ethel to Australia (including a stop at the Sydney Opera House!) on down to Tasmania. They were great trips and the concerts were excellent. In the recording world, I updated my Pro Tools rig with the new version 8, which I really like so far and I'm still poking around to see what's new in it. I've also purchased one of the new Macbook Pro Unibody laptops which I run my Pro Tools LE system on with extraordinary results. After all these years, I still find the process of recording, especially digital recording, magical. The way you can put a microphone in front of a singer or instrument, capture a sound, have it get turned into 1's and 0's, then come out of a set of speakers sounding like it does. That's one of the feelings I like to bring to my classes. All to often we tend to get extremely jaded with technology these days. I feel it's important to keep some wonder and awe in the face of our growing tech advances. I hear many of my colleagues say that the "magic is gone" in the studio. I say that it's only gone if you opened the door for it to leave. There is still plenty of magic to be had. Remember that!
Lately, I've been listening to an huge amount of Podcasts. I LOVE listening to them while I drive, specifically the ones about Macs and all the geekiness that goes along with them. In listening to some of these, I really want to try my hand at my own Podcast. The actual recording part will of course, be easy. It's the content and my delivery of it that I'll need to work on. However, what I would like to do is get a trial or two posted for you to listen to and get your feedback on them. It will basically include tips and lessons, news about products and some music reviews. I look forward to doing this, I just need to get moving on it. I'll keep you updated.
That's about it for now. Please feel free to visit my Guest Book and leave feedback or comments.
