Recording - June 2010 - 64

By submitting a Readers’ Tapes entry you automatically grant permission to Music Maker Publications to feature your submission here, on our website, and in our SPOTLIGHT e-newsletter. We might need to shorten entries for editorial reasons. By listing your name with the submitted work, MMP does not imply any assignment of rights to the submitted work. We can neither guarantee publication of a review nor engage in correspondence about individual submissions. Media can be submitted physically (as in an actual recording through the mail) or online at our website. For online submissions, please go to www.recordingmag.com and click on Readers’ Tapes, then select “Submit Your Recording” and fill in the requested information. We accept MP3 and AAC files of up to 5 MB size. File bitrate is up to you but we strongly recommend a minimum of 128 kbps; note that the higher the bitrate, the shorter the song that will fit in the 5 MB limit. You’re free to submit an excerpt of a longer song if that helps! Send physical submissions to: Readers’ Tapes c/o Recording Magazine, 5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO 80301. Please be sure to include: a) a CD, CD-R, cassette, DAT, or MiniDisc with only one song preferably no longer than 3:30 in length (or tell us which track you want reviewed); b) a credit list (who did what); c) a list of equipment used. Remember that CD-Rs with unevenly applied paper labels, smudges, or scratches won’t play back reliably. PLEASE state which part of your contact info we can publish (address, phone, and/or email)—if you don’t tell us precisely, we won’t print anything at all.

arrangements in a good many of the submissions that we receive. As the wise man once said, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.” Now before you start sending the scorching emails, when we mean dedicated producers, we are not implying that Sacha was not heart and soul into his project. He and many, many other multi-hat wearers among you are as passionate and dedicated as the day is long. The difficulty is in the separation. Can producer Sacha honestly reign in keyboardist Sacha, bassist Sacha, drummer Sacha, etc., etc...? There was a time when record companies assigned a producer to every project with this very goal in mind, but those days are no longer for most of us. In our multitasking environment we’re expected to do it all, and be good at it, too. With this in mind we would like to suggest that Sacha and the gang go back and revisit their mix wearing only producers’ hats for the moment. Are those drums really as loud as ones in commercial releases of similar styles, and what of the troika of guitars, keys and horns? Do they really serve the song by being so omnipresent? Our two cents would be to turn up the snare and kick, and either pick and choose specific areas to feature the three melody instruments, or at bare minimum, initiate some creative panning in order for each to have a voice.
Summary: Decisions, decisions...
Contact: Sacha Petulli, sacha@thepacificrims.net.

Sacha Petulli / The Pacific R.I.M.S.
Equipment: Mac G5 running Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4, MAudio ProjectMix I/O control surface, M-Audio DMP3 mic preamp, ART Tube MP preamp, M-Audio Sputnik tube mic, Korg M50 Workstation, M-Audio StudioPro 3 and BX5A Studiophile monitors, Yamaha saxophones, Ibanez bass, Godin electric guitar, Yamaha 12-string guitar.

Shawn Everette
Equipment: PC with Presonus FirePod and M-Audio Delta 44 running Emagic Logic Audio Platinum and Native Instruments Battery drum plug-in; two TASCAM TMD-1000 digital mixers used as control surfaces; Blue Blueberry mic, Avalon M5 preamp; Event Precision 6 passive monitors, Samson Servo 150 amp; Yamaha Motif Rack, M-Audio Keystation Pro 88 controller.

Music: “Summer Time” is a male vocal rock tune with a hefty dose of psychedelia. Regan Heinrichs wrote the tune and handled the lead and backing vocals along with the rhythm guitar. Ian Green played the lead guitar and Michel Petulli contributed additional percussion while Sacha took care of the recording duties, along with the sax, keyboards, bass and drums. Recording: Groovy, man! Sacha and friends have got quite the trippy little number going here, but unfortunately the whole scene does not quite mesh. On an individual basis most of the instruments seem well recorded, and several, including the thick electric guitar leads and the saxes, are pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the drums are underwhelming due to their distant placement in the sound field, and the ultra-busy arrangement with multiple horns, keyboards and guitars occupying the same space and similar frequency ranges gets distracting in pretty short order to our ears. Suggestions: We have spent a fair amount of time/space recently discussing song arrangements and arranging techniques, not only in Readers’ Tapes, but in our Spotlight features as well. Other concerns such as frequency masking, panning and balance are some of the most frequently discussed topics in this column, and there’s good reason for it. Today’s increased track counts and lack of dedicated producers seem to have led to a decrease in pre-production, as well as a preponderance of overpopulated
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Music: “Paradox” is a male vocal R&B/Soul tune. Shawn Everette Rogers wrote, performed, programmed and recorded the track. The production was shared between Shawn Rogers and Shawn Smith. Recording: Nicely done, Shawn(s)! We hear a well-composed “message” tune that stays focused throughout. The rhythm is basic but effective, although we would have liked to have heard a bit more low-end information from the synth bass. The vocals are recorded cleanly with only a tiny bit of spittiness in the upper frequency range. Perhaps our only real complaint is that through our monitors, the vocals seem a tad too out front of the music bed, ditto the “broken glass” ending. Suggestions: As a rule we are very in favor of intelligible vocals in “message” type songs—after all, what’s the point if you can’t make out the lyric? That said, we would suggest that Shawn consider a bit of rebalancing with his mix. Adding a few dB of low end and subtracting a few dB of vocal volume would probably help the mix to translate better over a variety of speaker/monitor systems. As for the ending, while we understand the need for impact, a little less volume would still do the job since that sound source could be too jarring on some systems.
Summary: A solid message and track.
Contact: Shawn Everette, shawneverette22@hotmail.com.

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Recording - June 2010

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