I recently designed and built a new 2 channel microphone preamplifier (mic preamp) with a great sounding EQ on each channel.  When these elements are combined its called a channel strip.  The name comes from the fact that it is literally a channel right out of a mixing board, but mounted in a rack mount enclosure.  This new box is called Trinity and I consider this my greatest engineering achievement in electronics to date.  Its wildly impressive sounding and offers a lot of beneficial features for not only recording, but also for mixing.  I got the chance to try Trinity out when I was mixing the EP "Will the Moon" for the Gills recently.  I'll have one of the songs from this EP uploaded to this site on the 29th of this month.  During the mixing process of the EP, Trinity got a back seat job, serving as the Plate Reverb output amplifier.  I used the onboard EQ on Trinity to dial in the perfect balance of treble and bass from the reverb to best suit the mix.  It was truly impressive hearing what Trinity did for the reverb... far surpassing previous options.  It made the reverb sound EPICALLY HUGE!  Let me fast forward a bit... Reverb is not its intended application - its recording microphones.  I wanted more of these things ASAP, since it sounds so much better than anything I've heard before (I own some well regarded high dollar mic preamps).  I've been hustling and made some things happen.  Parts are ordered and I'll start assembling the second Trinity for LBA Studios in the next month.  My goal is to build a total of 8 Trinity's for LBA Studios (16 channels) and then build a Master module for connecting them all together - for mixing.  That's right, a 16 channel vacuum tube powered hand-made mixing board!!!  

Check out the Examples page of this site on or after August 29th to hear the hot new sounds coming out of LBA Studios.              

Just finished mixing an EP for the Gills, which I also produced.  The Mix was a total joy to work on since almost everything sounded really good to begin with.  The bass was an issue to mix since the instruments tone control was turned down all the way on the recording.  In the future I'll have to ask dudes to keep their control turned up all the way unless its some sort of creative tool to be manipulated during a song.  I was able to get it to sound great in the end, but it was a lot of extra work.  Another issue was the harmony vocals being to lack-luster/dull sounding.  This was because I recorded them using a prototype mic preamp that was still in development.  Thankfully, the Flux Bender saved the day.  That piece of equipment can turn a nugget of crap into a nugget of gold... in a manner of speaking.  Its pretty amazing really and what it did for those vocals is nothing shy of a miracle.  It made a dull lifeless recording sound spectacular.  Another piece of equipment which really transforms sounds is the Transient designer, which is a brand new piece added to the collection at LBA Studios.  I got it just in time for Mixing this project and used it on kick, snare, toms, bass, acoustic guitar, and rhythm electric guitar.  This is something that many engineers love and use regularly on drums to make them sound really punchy.  I was expecting that.  What I wasn't expecting is what it can do for electric guitar.  It made the clean electric guitar parts sound sparkling and articulated in a way that reminded me of Nashville recordings.  I'm very impressed by this box.  Its one of just a few things I didn't build for the studio.  Definitely want another one!  I really had a lot of new toys for Mixing on this project.  Sometime mid-mix I completed my prototype stereo channel strip, which was used to record harmony vocals before it had been completed.  In the mix context it was used at the output amplifier for my plate reverb.  The reverb on this mix is big time upgraded over any mix I ever did.  Not just because of my preamp, "Trinity" but also because it had a massively upgraded driver amp as well.  I modified my monster guitar amp, "Gravitone Nucleus" to accept a line level input for connecting between the mixing board and the plate reverb.  This gave me a really elaborate pre-reverb EQ.  "Trinity" has a nice bass/treble passive EQ as well and that was at the reverbs output stage.  The two sets of equalizers were used to sculpt the reverbs tone into a place that sat abso-freaking-lutely perfectly into the mix.  This mix might actually be my best to date and I have to say its a lot to do with all the cool toys, but more to do with really hard work.  Stay tuned for some audio, which I hope to have on this site in the next few weeks.