Adding to the amp collection is a late 60's Fender Super Reverb in head format, as well as a custom 1x12 speaker cabinet that I built.  The control room has a newly rebuilt power amp for the big tower speakers and another Trinity channel strip added to the preamp list.  Today we started tracking a new Soda Pope album, which kicked off on the right foot.   That will continue for a while, but also starting work on an album with sci-fi surf rockers, The Electra Kings at the end of this month.  Next month will continue those projects, while picking up a double album by Martin, the poet, the comedian, the legend.   

This is an album I produced for the band, Gills.  Actually, I wore a number of hats on this... Recording Engineer, Record Producer, Mixing Engineer, Vocal coach, even bassist on "Tornado."  It is to say the very least that I'm super proud of this album and the people involved.  Check out this great unbiased 3rd party album review from Sleeping Bag Studios:  ​http://sleepingbagstudios.ca/gills-shadows-of-the-moon/

I've been posting about this on the studio facebook page and on instagram.  Picked up a mint 1978 Fender Pro Reverb, which I then recapped, retubed, and modded with a switch to toggle to the older black face model.  I also picked up a super cool T-Rex Replicator, which is a tape echo with tap tempo.  Sounds amazing!  

This is an album of solo flute music, and not of the classical silver flute style.  These are Native American style wooden flutes played with loads of delay and reverb to create a sonic landscape conducive to relaxation, meditation, or just pure enjoyment.  There are other musical elements on this record, such as light hand percussion, bells, spoken word, and other sound effects.  Available on iTunes, Spotify, and on CD for $10 if you ask me to get one for you!  Well worth the listen!
Recorded and Mastered at LBA Studios by yours truly.  

This is a Lightning Boy Audio product commercial, which was recorded at the studio last week using just 5 microphones total.  I produced the audio.  Bryan Wray did the video production.  Sean McVay performed on it.  Sean composed a rough idea of the song the night before the session.  When he arrived we spent about 6-7hrs recording the song (audio and video).  The next day I did the editing, re-amping of bass, mixing, and mastering all in a 7 hour stretch.  Its the quickest I ever saw an entire production go from idea to completion.  

Guitars and bass ran through the Lightning Boy II pedal.  If it wasn't obvious from the video, Sean played all the instruments.  He brought one guitar (the sparkly one) and his amp head (modded vintage Fender twin-reverb-ish).  We used both of those for the rhythm guitar parts.  The rest of the instruments and amps used were LBA's.  The Rhythm guitar part was tracked with his guitar and amp head, as I said, but using my 4x12 cab with Weber Legacy ceramic speakers.  I had a single Royer 121 on the cab.  We had the CH2 Sidecar Module connected to the Lightning Boy II for the Rhythm guitar.  When the drums kick in all the knobs are turned up 100% on both the CH2 and the Lightning Boy II.  I Then asked Sean to use my modded SG for the lead parts because it has a coil tap switch for the neck pickup (Duncan Pearly Gates).  Single coil for the lead into my crazy monster amp head which powered a Celestion Alnico Blue 1x12 open back cab.  Vintage Shure SM57 Unidyne III on the cab.  For the lead part I had Sean disconnect the CH2 and use the Lightning Boy II on its own because it gives you a more raw sound with a touch more gain.  He had the knob set max.  Drums were recorded on the house kit out in the entry hall, which has never been done before - although, I have always wanted to do that.  Just 2 microphones on drums.  Pearlman TM-1 vacuum tube large condenser mic in omni for overheads/room.  EV 868 on kick.  Bass guitar was recorded direct with the LBII & CH2 and reamped later through the Ampeg B-15-N with a Sennheiser 421.  The bass track starts off with the Lightning Boy II bypassed.  The pedal is turned on during the bass solo section so you can get an idea of what it does to the sound of the bass. 

​I used the Lightning Boy Audio Trinity channel strip to record almost all the sources.  I recorded bass DI through the Trinity, but the re-amped mic went through an A-designs Pacifica.  The Drum room mic was the Trinity preamp.  The kick was the Pacifica.  Guitars were all tracked through the Trinity.  For lead guitar I turned on the "turbo" switch on Trinity.  That gives a slight bit of extra balls to the sound.

Mixing was done entirely with analog gear and mixed on the LBA Trinity vacuum tube mixing board. I put a slight bit of plate reverb on the lead guitar using LBA's stereo analog plate reverb.  I ran the lead guitar through the LBA Big Boy vacuum tube optical compressor to smooth out the bite a little bit in the tone of the guitar.  Rhythm guitars went through the Flux Bender for some EQ.  Lead guitar had no EQ.  I have another mono tube EQ I built ages ago called the TEQ-1, which is what the Flux Bender is based on.  I sent the kick drum through that EQ and then to an Aphex analog gate.  The bass had no EQ, but was a mix between the DI track and the Amplified track.  I blended those to get the best balance of tone I could muster.  I sent the overhead drum track through another passive EQ I built called the Arque Equalizer.  That EQ is a crazy beast.  I had an stereo SSL style bus compressor strapped to the output of the tube mixer in parallel for a little 1dB mix bus parallel compression.  All in all I'd say the mixing was fairly simplistic.  

Mastering was done using 2 plug-ins (Massey L2007 Limiter x2) and the LBA Flux Bender Equalizer.  I'm not exactly sure if I used that same stereo bus compressor after the Flux Bender.  I often do that when Mastering for a dB or two of limiting from that.  It was probably connected.  That's it!    

Mark your calendars!  Saturday, October 8th 6PM-10PM at LBA.  If you have recorded at LBA in the past or if you're a customer who's purchased LBA gear, you're invited to come hang out for an evening of fun, music, food and drinks at LBA.  Gear will be set up for demoing, music will be playing through the new control room sound system, games in the lounge, and lots more!  Stay tuned for updates on www.facebook.com/lbastudios.

If you've been following along on facebook, I've been raving about this thing for the past 24 hours.  Its amazing.  Today I was able to compare the sound of the G&L LB-100 Bass to that of the Fender American Standard Precision Bass I recently purchased and returned. I recorded the G&L on a song that already had the P-Bass recorded on it. Exact same bass line. Thanks to my detailed session notes I was able to route the bass through the exact same gear and settings. The P-Bass sounds good on its own, with a noticeable beefiness in the lows and a vintage sounding mid range. The G&L on the other hand, makes the P-Bass sound like a cheap instrument. The sound of the G&L LB-100 is extremely balanced across the frequency spectrum. It has the Beefy lows of the P-Bass, but it has so much more. The mid frequency range on the LB-100 is far more revealing and forward focused. It cuts through the mix very effectively. However, it is not over the top or honkey... its very well balanced and made me realize the P-Bass is lacking mid frequency clarity (and actually missing some mids). The LB-100 also has an extended high frequency response that the P-Bass does not have. To note, the highs can be reduced to any level with the tone knob. One thing that really stood out to me like a beacon in the night was the balance of volume between notes. The P-Bass was nowhere near as well balanced sounding as the LB-100. All in all I would have to say the LB-100 is the best bass I ever recorded. It gets a 10, so I would have to then rate an American Standard Precision bass at a 7. ​

Lots of photos coming soon!  Photo shoot of the studio is scheduled for this coming Wednesday.  Its the same location, but with a new look, a new sound, and a lot of new and very awesome equipment.  The main focus was on a complete rebuild of the control room from the ground up.  I felt this room had to be the best because that's where all the judgement calls on sound are made.  The whole process of gutting and rebuilding the room took almost 2 months and many thousands of dollars.  Its hard to sum everything up in a short blog, but I'll do my best at coving some of the biggest improvements.  First is a new and very mighty hand-built one-of-a-kind vacuum tube powered mixing board.  Its class A, ultra low noise, and very clean sounding.  Next would be the massive Pendragon tower speakers from Tekton Design.  Those behemoths weigh in at 90 lbs. each and stand a whopping 4'6.5" tall.  Impressive sound is an understatement.  There's actually a bunch of new gear in the control room, but the photos will tell a lot more to the story when they come next week.  On the other end of the studio are some really awesome new keys (or actually really old).  A pristine 1970's Kimble baby grand piano sits front and center in the piano room, surrounded by classic instruments from the 1960's.  There's the 1960's Wurlitzer electric piano, which is a recent add (vacuum tube powered), and the old faithful Hammond Organ (also vacuum tube powered), the pair of Leslie rotating speaker cabs (tubes!), and the Ampeg B-15-N (more tubes).  A lot more fills the space, so check back in about a week for photo updates!  Exciting times my friends :) 

I decided variety is important, so I sold off 3 of my Celestion G12 Alnico Blue speakers.  The one remaining Alnico Blue went into my 1x12 cab.  The 4x12 cab has now been loaded with Weber speakers.   Ted Weber's Legacy 12" ceramic speakers, tuned to 55Hz for better low note definition and smoother highs than the classic Marshall speaker.  That 4x12 cab is 2" taller than a standard 4x12, so paired with those deeper speakers it should have some serious power in the low end. Looking forward to recording the new 4x12.