I have been recently asked...a few times...to list what I use at my studio. I keep promising to do this and then life (sessions) get in the way and I totally forget. So...I'm taking an ear/brain break from doing some editing on the new, and I might add great, Sarah Pierce project. 

Anyway...this is what the Cribworks Digital Audio is currently all about.

It all starts with the physical space. And so...

From the very beginning, the focus has been on acoustic instruments and vocals though drum kits and Marshall amps have always been welcomed as well...'specially drums. Just sayin'...

Anyway, when we bought the house, the second floor was totally unfinished. Stud walls, sub floor, nothing. The upside, it was as big, in square footage, as our entire old house. Now, months and a ton of labor later, it is a studio in the fullest/purest sense of the word. A main cutting room 40'x25'. A control room 15'x25' and an isolation booth that is 15'x15'. The solid wood floor floats on machine rubber. All the walls are double. The glass between the control room and the cutting room, the isolation booth and the cutting room, and the isolation booth and the control room is all double...the glass itself is 'insulated' which means that each pane is actually two sheets that are sandwiched by a clear sheet of plastic...much like the safety glass in your car. Each pane then rests in a cradle of machine rubber. The air conditioning/heating is done with two Mitsubishi zone systems. Whisper quiet and amazingly efficient. Each grounded 'duplex' (wall outlet) in the cutting room is on it's own 30 amp breaker. In the control room there are an additional 6 dedicated circuits. Everything grounded to both cold water and earth, the AC is as quiet as it can get. We have done our very best to make it 'real!'

Once the construction was done, I brought in Nick Landis...engineer/acoustician from Terra Nova Digital Mastering. Armed with computer, reference mic, and 'tones' he 'shot' (computer analyzed) the rooms many times each. Once done he took the information, did his interpretation of what he saw, made recommendations re: acoustic treatment...how...what...where. I did what he suggested and it was/is amazing. No standing waves and a gentle natural decay. The control room amazingly accurate.
I cannot express my pleasure recording in my 'little' studio. 

So...on to the gear:

A Matt Silaski designed audio CPU. 64 bit. (6) 3.2 gig dual core processors. 16 gig RAM. (2) Terabyte internal drives. 2 UAD 2 Quad cards and a UAD 2 duo card. Matt is a master audio computer builder. In a test, at 24-96, a full compliment of tracks, and a ton of plug-in's, we were able to get this machine running up to about 15% CPU usage. Amazing. Knowing that I can record at the higher resolutions I prefer...my default is 24-96...and then bring my work to a world class mastering facility/engineer (Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Digital Audio), dump to 1/2" analog, and master from tape...at 24-96. I am one seriously happy guy! 

Anyway...

Nuendo V5.5.6 - audio recording, mix, post production software

RME Fireface 800 A/D convertors (3) 

John Oram designed 1974 Trident Flexi-Mix recording desk 

Mogami Gold and Platinum cable throughout

Monitors:
DynAudio BM6A powered near field studio monitors 
Audex Nile V passive 2 way near field studio monitors
KRK V4 near field studio monitors (mono 'soft')
Grado Labs/Alessandro Audio Music Series Pro head phones (2)

Amplifiers:
Stewart Class A (1000 watt)
Macintosh 250
QSC RMX 1400 
Alesis RA 100

Outboard microphone preamps:
Amek/Neve 9098 outboard mic pre/EQ (2)
Focusrite ISA 428 (4 channel)
API ' The Channel Strip'
TL Audio Stereo Classic (stereo tube microphone pre-amp/DI)
Focusrite Green(2)
Aphex Stereo Tubessence 
RME Fireface 800 (8 discrete balanced microphone inputs/'box' with class-A stage, separate activation of 48 V phantom power, and separate XLR/TRS inputs)

Outboard compressor/limiting amplifiers:
Manley Vari-Mu (stereo-tube)
TL Audio 2021 Valve Compressor (stereo-tube)
UA 1176
DBX 160XT
DBX160X
DBX 166XL (stereo)
Focusrite Green (2) 

Microphones:
Neumann: including vintage U87’s (2) and the TLM102 (stereo pair)
Pearlman hand built 'vintage' tube microphones: TM 2, TM 250, and TM 47
AKG: including vintage 414’s, TLII’s, 451's (2). D-12 and 'The Tube'
Senheisser: including 421’s and 441’s
Audio Technicia: including ATM 4060 tube and the AT 825-stereo
Earthworks: 30K mono pair
Audix: D2's 3’s, 4’s and D6
Audex: SCX-1 with -10db pads and hyper cardioid capsules( 3)
Røde: NT4 Stereo
PZM: 'dual mono'
Shure dynamic mics: various ’57’s, 58’s, and Beta 87’s

Full library of UAD plug-ins along with various Wave Platinum, Bluetooth, and native Nuendo plug-ins. 

Fibes drums (Merel proudly endorses © Fibes Drums, Austin, Texas)
20x16 kick
10x8, 12x10, 14x14 toms
various snares - including 5.5"x14" Craviotto 'solid' maple, first year 5"x14" Rogers 5 Line Dyna-Sonic, 5"x14" Nobel and Cooley, 4.5"x14" brass, maple Fibes, 5"x14" maple Ludwig, (2) Pearl 6"x14" Free Floating (with all the shells)
large cymbal collection
all appropriate hardware
Yamaha double chain pedal and DW 5000 high hat

...and more percussion instruments than I know what to do with...this is sorta what I do smile emoticon

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

Vox AC 4 C-1

Yamaha P90 electric piano/controller

Hammond B3 with Leslie (122 or 145) available upon request

Collings D1 acoustic guitar (Sitka top, mahogany body and neck, ebony fingerboard)

1988 Alvarez Yairi (hand made by Kazou Yairi - Adirondack top, rosewood body, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard)

Gretch Nashville Florintine electric guitar

Fender Jazz Bass (Mexican)

Michael Kelly Legacy Flame F-Style Mandolin (spruce top, hand carved flame maple back and sides, maple neck, rosewood finger board)

And so there ya have it. Thanks for asking. gimme a call and/or stop by. I love making new friends.

Peace,

M

The new Sarah Pierce recording...Barbed Wire. The Sarah Pierce Band with a very few select friends joining us. 

The new studio is working flawlessly. 

I am in awe of the musicians that are a part of her band...the newest member...Mike...now integral for nearly five years. 

Simple. Tight. Seriously well performed arrangements of great new songs. 

The plan is to have product available for prerelease for our performance at The Bugle Boy in LaGrange the first week of August. Lots of work to get done. I can do it.

http://www.sarahpierce.com

OK...so it's Memorial day and so I first want to give thanks to all the men and women that are fighting and still sadly dying in nasty places far from home. To you all, I pray for a safe return to family and friends. YOU are a true blessing to us all. THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU GIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO...because it's Memorial day - and - because I told you that I would - todays blog will be about a man that very few of you have heard of and, as musicians, need to honor as one of the true musical heros of the later half of the 20th century and even more importantly a man that has pretty well guaranteed that quality music will carry on well into the future as a mentor, teacher, and gentle spirit for young men and women to follow. 

First is a eulogy written by a lady in New Orleans and then a short thing that I wrote.

_____________________________________________________________

May 8, 2007


New Orleans Clarinetist Batiste Dies

By MARY FOSTER - AP

NEW ORLEANS (May 8) -- Clarinetist Alvin Batiste, who toured with Ray Charles, recorded with Branford Marsalis and taught pianist Henry Butler, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack. He was in his 70s.

Batiste died only hours before he was to perform with Harry Connick Jr. and Marsalis at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, festival officials said.

Marsalis' record label released Batiste's latest CD, "Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste," just a few weeks ago. Marsalis also played on the album.

Batiste, a jazz clarinetist, was considered one of the founders of the modern jazz scene in New Orleans. While his exact age was not immediately known, festival officials said he was born in New Orleans in 1932.

Batiste also wrote for and toured with Billy Cobham and Cannonball Adderley.

A longtime teacher at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he created the Batiste Jazz Institute - one of the first programs of its kind in the nation - and taught jazz at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

His students included Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Kent Jordan, Michael Ward, Herlin Riley, Charlie Singleton, Woodie Douglas and others.

"He was not only a teacher, he was my father away from home," Butler said. "He taught us about music, the history of music and the business of music. The ones who had the benefit of learning from him are better musicians and better people today."

Batiste toured with Charles in 1958, but remained largely unknown to the general population until he recorded with Clarinet Summit in the 1980s. The quartet also included John Carter, David Murray, and Jimmy Hamilton.

Batiste recorded an album, "Bayou Magic" in 1988, and made the 1993 album "Late." "Songs, Words and Messages, Connections" appeared in 1999.

The show at the jazz tent of the festival - "Marsalis Music honors Alvin Batiste & Bob French" - went on as planned. "The show will go on," festival spokesman Matthew Goldman said.

_____________________________________________________________

So, as most of you know, I am, first of all, a player. I've done this my entire life. For those that have had the dubious pleasure of working with me, you know that I am a total JERK!! My expectation is to work with people that are willing to put in every bit as much energy as me in all that we do together. I do not expect more...simply equal effort. This includes all aspects of what we do...including rehearsal (which in Austin is weirdly not something that most people are willing to consider - a subject for another blog). Rehearsal being an integral part of my musical experience from the first time I picked up a violin at age four (mercifully, this one didn't last too very long)!

Anyway, aside from playing with the great Sarah Pierce and my work as a producer and engineer, I production manage music festivals. One of them is Fest For All in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Over the past few years, I have worked with a ton of really great musicians/singers/songwriters. Of them all, I had the incredible honor of twice introducing Mr. Alvin Batiste to the audience. I am writing to share my last moment with him (early May, 2007) and the gift he gave me...and all of us. 

When he was done with a most astounding set of music, having shared the stage with a band of absolute 'monsters'  - the oldest of which was only seventeen, I helped him off the stage, told him how honored I was to be able to see him perform yet again, and thanked him for all that he had done. He smiled that huge smile, took my hand and said, "No, thank you, sir, for helping me! Your work today was perfect" He complimented me??? He called me 'sir!' This impeccably dressed, articulate, elegant icon of all that is great in jazz in the later half of the Twentieth Century, calling a most scruffy looking stage manager 'sir?' Then, he turned away and called his band together: 

"If you all could be available, I would really like to get together and rehearse a little before we perform tomorrow (the tribute dedicated to him at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival). "Lets see if we can make it just a little better!"

This was a seventy-five year old man. A living legend. Still playing as well as he ever played...and the last thing I heard him say was "Lets see if we can make it just a little better!" Alvin Batiste had nothing to prove. He had done 'his thing' to a level way above that which most of us can even imagine. He finished his gig. He could go home with his wife of 53 years, Edith Chatters Batiste, and relax before performing for his tribute the next day. Easy as pie. Instead, he wanted to get his band together and rehearse. 

The next day as I was driving to the festival site, I got a call from a good friend. He told me that during the night, Alvin Batiste had passed. 

I will carry his words with me for the rest of my life. To aspire to his level of commitment to excellence. To feel his level of passion for his craft. To be willing to share it all with whomever had 'the dream.' I never knew Alvin Batiste.  I never had the honor of studying with him....I met the man only twice. Yet in a couple sentences overheard, he did more to reinforce all that I have been taught, all that I have known, all that I have believed in my 58 year love affair with my music than any other single person. 

As the great Henry Butler said...

"The ones who had the benefit of learning from him are better musicians and better people today."

I guess maybe I actually did have a chance to study with Mr. Batiste. I will aspire to become just a little better.

Thank you and God bless you Mr. Alvin Batiste. 

I said Ann Wilson, in my previous tome, regarding her basically rocking my world with her guitar playing. My bad. I meant Nancy Wilson. Sorry!!!! 

So yesterday I took the time to watch a little of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony for 2013. I tuned in a little late and got there just in time to watch Heart's induction. It made me especially happy since a very old friend, Howard Leese, had performed with them from the beginning through the mid-nineties. I have to admit that I was a little reticent to watch them perform...after all...we have all gotten a little longer in tooth and sadly some of those honored in the past have been diminished by age. It took Ann Wilson about three seconds into the intro of Crazy On You to let me know that all was alive and well as the original band, including a now white haired Howard Leese, absolutely ROCKED. They were truly great. 

After Heart came a most amazing moment with the induction of one of the legends of contemporary music of the twentieth century...Mr Quincy Jones. 

In his acceptance speech, he spoke eloquently of his life in music, shared humorous anecdotes, and then ended with the words that motivate me to write this blog today. He spoke of the indigenous musical art forms of America - jazz, blues, R & B, and how they are slowly but surely being forgotten. The magic of these styles being lost to the new music being favored today...with the rest of the world knowing about and honoring, far more than we, the indigenous music of America! Sitting listening to him speak and having traveled as extensively as I have, I knew that what he was saying was, sadly, very true.

Shortly thereafter the show took a moment to honor some of those that passed in 2012. A face would appear on the giant screens. A name would be announced and there would occasionally be a smattering of applause to honor one person or another. This tribute definitely allowed me to reflect on my life. Both the wondrous experiences I have realized and the ultimate mortality we all will face one day. In those twenty minutes I was reminded of just how indifferent we have become to the history of an integral aspect of our lives...music. How the roots of all that we love are being forgotten. That the true pioneers of all that we have today are virtually unknown, and that without their sacrifice (and trust me when I say that, on some very deep and personal level, they all gave far more than they got), none of us that have chosen music as our chosen journey would be doing what we do today simply because neither the inspiration nor the technology that allows us to do this thing would exist. I said a word of thanks to them all, got up, and did that other thing that i truly love to do...I cooked dinner. Then...

...later last night came the Billboard Awards with it’s crowning moment when Justin Beber took the stage to receive his  Milestone Award (after also taking top male artist and top social artist). 

"I'm 19 years old. I think I'm doing a pretty good job. And basically, from my heart, I just really want to say it should really be about the music. This is not a gimmick. I'm an artist and I should be taken seriously, and all this other bullshit should not be spoken of." 

There were cheers. There were boos. I shook my head and thought about Quincy Jones (27 Grammy’s awarded out of 79 nominations) and how it took him THIRTY years to be inducted. I thought about some of those that had been chosen over him for so many years before. I thought about the list of people that had passed in 2012 and how I had known some of them. I thought about Heart and their nearly four decades of kicking serious ass. Of how they had not lost one step and just how proud of them I felt. I thought about all the people famous and not that have dedicated their lives to their musical craft. HARD work with no guarantee other than the satisfaction of knowing that they had just played their very best...and it was prety damn good...where ever that might be. And...I though about Justin Beber and how he would soon surely join the iconic MR.QUINCY JONES in the pantheon of musical greats...The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

OK...cool. I got up and went in our kitchen, poured myself another glass of wine, and relaxed in the quiet of my little control room for a few minutes. When I was done I went back to bed, read for a while, finally shut off the light, thought one last time about Ann Wilson hitting those huge fucking notes in the chorus of Crazy On You, smiled, and went to sleep.

See ya soon to tell a story of a great man and how he showed me that the future of music is still very alive.

Have fun...just remember to tune first :)

M

A quick question: I know that I am supposed to be blogging every day. However, I have found that with my studio schedule, by the time my recording day is done, I am not always ready to sit down and jabber. However, every morning, over my first cup of coffee, I do sit and rant on facebook. 

Sometimes this includes music and honestly most times my thoughts go other places. I think I do this to 'cleanse' before the gentle (musical) part of my day begins. Anyway...

My question is this. Is it your opinion that I reserve this blog spot simply for music related things - or - do I come here in the morning, have my way with whatever is on my mind, and then post from here to facebook and Twitter? My ultimate goal with this blog is to join in dialogue with others about 'things,' 

Let me know, please, what you think. As well, if you have something to say, have at it...my sincere invitation! I am not here to censor.  I am here to communicate. 

Oh yeah, thanks for all the likes. Please share with friends. The more the merrier. 

See ya tomorrow.

Peace,

M

OK...

Being that this is my first blog and I have no idea how to let people know that I have actually written it, I will keep it short, carry on like all is known, and then hope for the best. Or, better yet, get in touch with my wondrous webmaster, Brad Leese, at  www.austinmediaslingers.com, and he will lead me into the light. 

Anyway, here we go!!! You can file this one under pet peeves!!!

I know... know...this is my first blog and so keep it about peace, love, and pineapple upside down cake! I get it and I promise that I will be a positive critter for the most part as time goes on. However, as this is both a subject that is 'dear to my heart' and that I am currently 'enjoying' yet again, I am going to throw a handful at the wall, and see just what sticks. So...

How many of you are musicians? And, of those that said yes, how many are working musicians/bands that are independent and so spend an appreciable amount of time trying to book gigs? And, of those, how many experience the wonderous NO RESPONSE to either polite emails or phone messages...even after it is formally requested that you communicate with the agency, venue, talent buyer, whomever? AND OF THOSE, how many of you does this totally disrespectful non-response truly piss of??? 

I know that there must be comprehensive thoughts as to the why this is seemingly so common and what, ultimately, to do about it. I have some. I look forward to yours.

Now, I have to set up for a session and then a rehearsal and so I will leave this as a question open for discussion. If I can figure out how to get this out there into the real world, and you actually see it and have a thought, please share it. 

Remember, I have the 'mute' button and so try your best to keep it civil...I am the son of a fisherman and so occasional explitives are accepted. 

OK...wish me luck and i'll 'see' y'all again tomorrow.  

Peace,

M