Recording and Mixing at the Cribworks
Recording at the Cribworks
So...my wife Sarah Pierce and I, after living and recording for nearly 20 years in a cute little house in north central Austin, recently (August, 2014) moved. We now live on ten acres in the country outside of Liberty Hill, Texas...about thirty miles north of The Live Music Capital of the World.
When we moved into this new house, we knew that it would become the next, and hopefully even better, Cribworks Digital Audio. After nineteen years, countless improvements in room design and audio gear, and after nearly one hundred albums (many of which have achieved great critical as well as commercial success) later, The Cribworks Digital Audio was going out to the country.
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!'
My bottomline is to offer a most comfortable, creative, 'home' for anyone that I have the honor of working with...no matter what style. As a truly well known Austin artist says..."You make my instruments sound great and the coffee at the Crib is the very best in town!" Nothing more need be said! I am happy!!
Mixing at the Cribworks
I started doing this stuff far longer ago that I typically care to admit. Lets just say that by 1967, I was a young punk in a band with a top 20 record. Yikes!
From the very beginning, my favorite aspect of the entire process was the mix. I loved sitting in the back of the control room watching the engineer and the producer create beautiful 'paintings' from all these separate 'colors' that had been given. It was like magic.
Over the years I have gotten to work with some of the very best in the world (my career has been blessed for sure). I was never afraid to ask questions. I wanted to know what they did to make things sound so great. Thankfully, most were willing to take the time to explain both the techniques of recording - and - mixing. So, by the time I became involved with the engineering and ultimately the producing of music, I had been given a pretty good education. Now, many years later, digital technology is allowing me to do, once again, the stuff of dreams.
Even though analog recording is still, for me, the best. In my personal environment, there is no room for a Studer A800 (my all time favorite multi-track recorder) nor an analog 2 track. Plus, for many people, the cost of recording analog was/is seriously prohibitive. So, as this 'studio in my home' became more and more serious for me, I decided to ask those same people that had taught me so long ago what they felt was the best answer to the question 'To make my mixes the very best I can, what is the most analog sounding of all the digital software tied to the most accurate near field monitors available.' I wanted the best of both worlds. To accurately hear the warm, punchy bottom, solid midrange, and clear, smooth, high end of analog recording - and - the ease of edits and far lower noise floor of the digital medium. I think I've snagged it!
Now it's the spring, 2024, and I guess people are enjoying my work as I am receiving files from studios literally around the world. Some to have me or others perform on their projects. And, for the most part, to mix what is already recorded. They send files. I upload, listen, do roughs and send examples. We jabber, I go back to work, we jabber again and continue until it's right. A most gentle process. Needless to say, this is a dream come true.
So...my wife Sarah Pierce and I, after living and recording for nearly 20 years in a cute little house in north central Austin, recently (August, 2014) moved. We now live on ten acres in the country outside of Liberty Hill, Texas...about thirty miles north of The Live Music Capital of the World.
When we moved into this new house, we knew that it would become the next, and hopefully even better, Cribworks Digital Audio. After nineteen years, countless improvements in room design and audio gear, and after nearly one hundred albums (many of which have achieved great critical as well as commercial success) later, The Cribworks Digital Audio was going out to the country.
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!'
My bottomline is to offer a most comfortable, creative, 'home' for anyone that I have the honor of working with...no matter what style. As a truly well known Austin artist says..."You make my instruments sound great and the coffee at the Crib is the very best in town!" Nothing more need be said! I am happy!!
Mixing at the Cribworks
I started doing this stuff far longer ago that I typically care to admit. Lets just say that by 1967, I was a young punk in a band with a top 20 record. Yikes!
From the very beginning, my favorite aspect of the entire process was the mix. I loved sitting in the back of the control room watching the engineer and the producer create beautiful 'paintings' from all these separate 'colors' that had been given. It was like magic.
Over the years I have gotten to work with some of the very best in the world (my career has been blessed for sure). I was never afraid to ask questions. I wanted to know what they did to make things sound so great. Thankfully, most were willing to take the time to explain both the techniques of recording - and - mixing. So, by the time I became involved with the engineering and ultimately the producing of music, I had been given a pretty good education. Now, many years later, digital technology is allowing me to do, once again, the stuff of dreams.
Even though analog recording is still, for me, the best. In my personal environment, there is no room for a Studer A800 (my all time favorite multi-track recorder) nor an analog 2 track. Plus, for many people, the cost of recording analog was/is seriously prohibitive. So, as this 'studio in my home' became more and more serious for me, I decided to ask those same people that had taught me so long ago what they felt was the best answer to the question 'To make my mixes the very best I can, what is the most analog sounding of all the digital software tied to the most accurate near field monitors available.' I wanted the best of both worlds. To accurately hear the warm, punchy bottom, solid midrange, and clear, smooth, high end of analog recording - and - the ease of edits and far lower noise floor of the digital medium. I think I've snagged it!
Now it's the spring, 2024, and I guess people are enjoying my work as I am receiving files from studios literally around the world. Some to have me or others perform on their projects. And, for the most part, to mix what is already recorded. They send files. I upload, listen, do roughs and send examples. We jabber, I go back to work, we jabber again and continue until it's right. A most gentle process. Needless to say, this is a dream come true.
