We read pornography.
Well, not exactly. A few days ago, our friends at Fed Ex dropped off what we now consider one of the greatest literary treasures of modern times: Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew’s “Recording the Beatles“.
Compiled from over 10 years of research, “Recording the Beatles” meticulously maps out the equipment and techniques used to record John, Paul, George, and Ringo in some of our era’s most celebrated recordings. Providing not only a look into the Fab Four’s recording process, this book also delves into the history of Abbey Road Studios, EMI, Neumann, and about every other company, individual, and organization involved in the process.
Microphone placement for recording drums on the White Album? Detailed. Microphones used for recording the vocals and piano in Hey Jude? They’re in there as well. Compression and overdub techniques? Explained channel for channel, song for song.
This book is really a treasure. And, while it isn’t cheap, we consider it a valued investment for any recordist and die-hard Beatles fan. Thanks Ryan. Thanks Brian. And thanks to everyone who contributed their time, notes, and recollections to this collection. It is simply amazing.
We didn’t know harmoniums could fit down chimneys.
The truth is, they probably don’t. However, we witnessed a holiday miracle when a local acquaintance stopped by to ask if we could help find a good home for his harmonium. Honestly, we answered so enthusiastically that it was sort of embarrassing.
That said, we couldn’t be happier. Harmoniums are truly gorgeous sounding instruments. This particular model, thought to be about 70 years old, was made by the Estey company. But wait- isn’t Estey renowned for making pump organs? Could this really be a pump organ and not a harmonium?
Not likely. Harmoniums and pump organs are very similar instruments and yes, the Estey Organ Company, from Battleboro, Vermont, made an astounding 500,000 portable pump organs between the late 1800s and mid-1900s. Apparently, a main distinction between harmoniums and pump organs corresponds to the use of a pressure versus a vacuum bellows. And, since this instrument utilizes both pressure bellows and two complete sets of reeds for complex multi-octave tonal sounds, we’re told on good authority that we indeed have a harmonium.
Regardless of pedigree, we’re really excited and we’ve already used this fine keyboard on two separate occasions this week.
The world of pump organs is actually quite broad and enthralling and encompasses instruments of all sizes and shapes. Our gratitude goes out to the Estey Organ Museum, Estey Organ, and the Reed Organ Society for the wealth of information they have compiled.
Matter of fact, we’re thinking of attending the Reed Society’s annual Organ Fest this this fall.
Yep, there’s a reed organ festival…
www.molineorganfest.com
a rolling stone gathers no moss.
Chips and capacitors have been ordered for the Omni with an expected arrival date of December 28th.
So what do you do until THEN?
Sure, there are paying clients to attend to, but what about after your clients LEAVE? For us, the answer was clear- start working on another restoration job. The new culprit? Our battered Wurlitzer 140B. That’s right, we have an early Wurlitzer 140B- the venerable wood version that preceded the 200A.
Or at least, we thought we did…
With the help of Vintage Vibe and several other online resources, we’ve downloaded the schematics for the 140B. Note: the amplifier in our Wurlitzer is clearly marked 140B. However, upon further research (and the careful removal of several panels), none of the wiring within our Wurli matches the 140B. Actually, we now believe that wehave a 145 body, with a 140B amplifier. Sound complicated? It was, we were stumped.
But, at last, we’ve made some progress. We’ve stripped all the wiring throughout the whole instrument, and we’re starting to rebuild all of the electronics bit by bit. We think this is pretty exciting. First, Wurlitzers are really cool. Second, the early 112s (tube versions) and 140s sound really amazing- rounder, warmer, and more metallic than their later and more popular 200 series siblings. Think Ray Charles’s “What I Say” for the seminar Wurlitzer 140 tone…
Right now, this poor piano is a mess. But, give us a week and we think we’ll have something really special. Cross your fingers for us.
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like they used to…
Work has begun on our Omni. As we feared, this will be a bit of a haul to bring back to full working order, but we’ve already sussed many of the problems, replaced a chip or two, and several of the string voices (the violins and cellos especially) sound amazing with a gorgeous synthetic LFO derived vibrato.
We’ve discovered that ARP Omni’s are rather complicated beasts and unbelievably (at least on our model, the Omni 2) they have capacitors connected to EVERY NOTE. Yep. Every note. Four and a half octaves. So, we’ve placed an order for 50-some capacitors. Thankfully, with a parts order like that, the total cost with shipping is only about $11.38.
We’ll keep you posted.
The ARP Omni is cool.
Something new wandered into the shop today- an ARP Omni 2. We’re kind of excited. Omnis, a string based vintage synthesizer, were used heavily by the Cars, Joy Division, Tangerine Dream, New Order, and countless others.
Full disclosure, this little guy is going to need some work. Scratchy pots, a fuzzy output, and some strange static suggest that we’re going to have to dig in deep on this one. That said, when it is up and running, we’re going to have the lushest and most gooey string sounds imaginable. Mmmmmmmmmm.
This sort of challenge is just the type nerdology that really gets us going. Its sad but true.
Giggity-giggity, giggity, goo. Samples and Sound Sets will be forthcoming.
Yep, we were snowed in.
Sure enough, Team NoWare was snowed in over the weekend and we had to cancel a few sessions. That’s our car.
We we disappointed? Of course, but these past few days away created a much needed break to spend time with family. And by that we mean watch lots of television.
And it made us wish we had $20,000. Why? Well, just before Snowmaggedon struck, a new technology firm named Prima Cinema announced movies-on-demand the same day they hit theaters. Exactly. Opening night, in your home. No more going to the Mall of America at midnight with throngs of teenagers to see Harry Potter (don’t you dare judge us). With Prima Cinema, the movies come to you. Except the system costs $20,000. Oh, and an additional $500 per screening.
Does that sound a bit too steep for your budget? Ours too, but it only proves that the technologies are being developed and implemented that will allow true multi-platform streaming of all our content. So even with a deflated Metrodome, our spirits are high.
That said, the roads are still pretty dicey around here (and the traffic is brutal), so be careful everyone.
Old man winter can be cruel.
Even as we await the impending snow-mageddon (or snownami as others have suggested), Old Man Winter can still be cruel. In the middle of an inspiring piano recording, we noticed that the upright we were using was going slightly out of tune due to the seismic temperature changes we’ve been witnessing here in the Twin Cities.
So, we’ve decided to do something rather rash- we’re going to attempt to tune the piano ourselves. Yep, this is one of those ideas that is either totally brilliant or totally destined to fail. As Nigel Tufnel once pointed out, “there’s a fine line between stupid and clever”.
We’ve never tuned a piano before so we’re going to dance on that knife edge tonight. Wish us luck.
And of course, please be cautious of the aforementioned “Storm of the Century”. It could be a doozy. Or, it might be a dusting. Either way, drive responsibly this weekend…
We miss you John.
John, your music has been an inspiration to us and millions more. Thank you.
Imagine indeed…
Facebook sees the future.
A few weeks back, Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. We just finally got around to watching the video, and found it pretty interesting. When pressed regarding future monetization strategies Facebook might utilize in the future, Zuckerberg responded with a very leading suggestion:
“Anything that involves content or specific expertise in an area – games, music, movies, TV, news, anything in media, anything e-commerce, any of this stuff. Over the next five years, those verticals are going to be completely re-thought. There are going to be some really good businesses built. Our view is that we should play a role in helping to re-form and re-think all those industries, and we’ll get value proportional to what we put in.”
In response to this statement, Silicon Alley Insider led with a headline that suggested, “Mark Zuckerberg And An Army Of Insurgent Entrepreneurs Just Declared War On The TV, Music, News, And Movie Industries”.
We think that might be a little extreme.
All in all, Mark is right. Socialization (or social recommendations) does add tremendous value to content. We get into something because our friends recommend it (not because an editor of a specific rag or print outlet gave it a certain number of “stars”).
Facebook likely will play a role in reshaping how media is promoted. But, so will Twitter, and Ping, and blogs, and Apps, and…
Overall, quite a few economic models will likely be rethought over the next few years. And, the music industry will certainly be part of that process (it already is). That said, as we’ve maintained before, we think the net benefits will be positive. We’ve never had the opportunity as creatives to tap into a community of 500,000,000 people like Facebook (half of whom visit the site daily), a community of 200,000,000 like Twitter, or develop an App with 100,000,000 potential mobile customers.
We’re excited. To create, and to share. Check out the video, it was worth the time…
Go buy a Mastotron.
Seriously.
The Mastotron is a new pedal from Zvex that arrived in our office under the auspices of a birthday present (if someone has a birthday, buy them gear that YOU want to use).
Its seriously amazing. Line level distortion, tone shaping, pulse width modulation, and a sub-boost. Rhodes, Wurli, bass, analog synths, this seem seems to make anything fatter and meaner. Or weirder.
We’ve put it through its paces over the last few hours and the verdict stands- we think there’s another few years of unadulterated fuzz fun yet to expore. Suddenly, a new must-have.
Check out the demo video and the rest of the Zvex line at Zvex.com
Mmmmmm, effects pedals…
keep looking »
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