ProAudio Review - September 2008 - (Page 58)

Single Slice by Strother Bullins “Chatter & Buzz” featuring Micropixie | pc muñoz SINGLE: “Chatter & Buzz” featuring Micropixie ALBUM: pc muñoz’s Grab Bag (Talking House Records) DATES: Recorded and mixed from Thanksgiving of 2006 to mid-2008 at Talking House Studios in San Francisco PRODUCER: pc muñoz ENGINEER: Justin Lieberman and Willie Samuels MIXER: Justin Lieberman MASTERING ENGINEER: Willie Samuels at Talking House Studios OTHER PROJECTS: Artist/Producer/Musician pc muñoz has worked alongside TS Leach, Elephone, Ingrid Chavez, and Joan Jeanrenaud, among others. STUDIO CONSOLES: Solid State Logic 9000K (Studio A) and Digidesign D-Command ICON (Studio B) STUDIO MONITORS: Genelec 8050A and 1035B main monitors STUDIO WORKSTATION: Digidesign Pro Tools|HD VOCAL MICROPHONE: Neumann M 149 VOCAL MICROPHONE PRE-AMP: Martech MSS-10 SELECT VOCAL PROCESSING: Neve 33609 compressor PRODUCER’S DIARY ly spoken word jams featuring sounds you haven’t heard in some time, if ever. Strother Bullins is a music and pro audio industry writer based in North Carolina. Experimental songwriter pc muñoz — one of six producers that make up the whole of Talking House Productions in San Francisco —recently released the trippy pc muñoz’s Grab Bag, a record of most- For the interestingly catchy “Chatter and Buzz” featuring female vocalist Micropixie, muñoz finally finished the track after leaving it alone for quite some time. “I originally had a whole other vocal where I sang the whole thing,” he recalls. “I think that’s why I had left it on the shelf. I wasn’t quite happy with it all. Upon revisiting it, I had the drummer (Adam Goodhue) come in and play on it along with some bass and freaky guitar. I then had Micropixie come in and add her vocal.” The track was built from a unique base; a hypnotic, alternating two-note figure on the marimbula, “a bass calimba,” explains muñoz. Its earthy-yet-electronic feel developed from there. “It gives the track an atonal quality, making it a sort of keyless funk. From there, I added a cajon drum — steady fours to give it backbeat — and ride cymbal. The instrument that sounds like a marimba is a tongue drum, a Mayan instrument. Then, through parts of the song, I hit this plank, a piece of wood, with random knocks and sounds. Finally, the synthesizer is a Roland from the ‘80s, which I tweaked out; in mixing, Justin tweaked it even further. It ended up being the hook, but I had added it just for texture.” For muñoz’s distinctive voice, engineer employed a Neumann M 149 with a Martech MSS-10 microphone pre-amp and vintage Neve 33609 compressor serving as a signal chain straight to Pro Tools|HD. “The Neumann M 149 works really well for the kind of speak-singing that I do and the timbre of my voice,” explains muñoz. “There’s a certain inflection that I want to capture in speak-singing; that mic does a really good job of capturing it, and we’ve been very consistent in using it.” 58 | ProAudio Review | September 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.proaudioreview.com

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ProAudio Review - September 2008 Contents Publisher’s Page: It's A Hard Drive World Broadcast News and New Products Lawo mc256 Digital Production Console Studio News and New Products Earthworks PM40 Piano Mic System Onkyo Professional PR-SC885 HDMI 1.3a Surround Sound Processor Developments and Trends: Instrument Microphones Benchmark Media DAC1 Pre Focal Twin6 Be Studio Reference Monitors Cascade FAT HEAD II Blumlein Package Studio Projects CS5 Microphone M-Audio Pulsar II Small-Diaphragm Condenser Live News and New Products JBL MRX512M Live Monitor QSC: Behind The Scenes Contracting News and New Products Primacoustic Broadway Professional Acoustic Solutions Buyer's Guide: Contracting Amplifiers/Mixers Buyer's Guide: Contracting Speakers Single Slice: pc muñoz "Chatter & Buzz"

ProAudio Review - September 2008

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