Prosound News - April 2008 - (Page 38)

[38] Cash (who is married to Leventhal), Michelle Branch, and Branch’s short-lived side project, the Wreckers. This production team, along with Shawn Pelton, Conrad Korsch and Brian Mitchell, also record and perform as the band Mojo Mancini. Artists, say the NY Noise principals, appreciate the homey vibe of their facility, along with the comfort and discretion its unassuming exterior and surroundings assure. “Nobody expects it to be here,” says DePofi. “Outside the place, you have no idea what’s in here.” “Artists are very comfortable coming in,” Bishop adds. “It’s so low-key that there’s nobody here to hassle them. It’s really private for them when they’re here.” That vibe is complemented inside, where natural light streams in from a skylight, an enormous fish tank sits in a wall between the studio and lounge, and instruments—both the kind typically found in a recording studio and African gear DePofi brought home from a (very) remote project—occupy many corners and walls. The studio’s Mackie 32x8 console, says Bishop, is “essentially used as a bench now. Its sole use is for monitoring during the actual recording, and is our workaround for any time lag within the digital input system. We have a Neve 8816 summing mixer—we did a shootout, a blind listening test with about a half-dozen different top-of-the-line boxes, and the Neve pretty consistently came out at the top of everyone’s list.” The Cubase- and Nuendo-based DAWs are complemented by high-end preamps, outboard gear, converters and plug-ins by Daking, Drawmer, Apogee, Neve, Empirical Labs and Universal Audio, among others. Also helping to keep the NY Noise music-production schedule full is Kahne, who comes upstairs for tracking sessions that won’t fit into the iso booth (roomy, as iso booths go) in his production room. Kahne, who found the space at NY Noise through a mutual friend, relocated from Los Angeles and his personal studio at Henson Recording Studios when he came to New York to produce the Strokes’ First Impressions of Earth. “I had kept my apartment [in New York], so I was staying here while I was working with them,” Kahne explains, “and it went on for a long time. Then I met Regina Spektor and really wanted to work with her. When I found out she would work with me, I found this space, got a piano in here and started putting the room together.” For Kahne, who has brought artists including Paul McCartney (for Memory Almost Full and other projects) and Matisyahu (upcoming release) to his studio within NY Noise, the arrangement is beneficial both to himself and the artists with whom he works. “I don’t like working in my house, especially in New York,” he says. “I had a house in L.A. that had a house in the back, and I had a studio in it, and I didn’t even like that. But I like having my own place, if I can. For one thing, it’s cheaper for the artists, because I can charge less than I would have to pay if I went to another room. I like having all my own gear. I hook it all up myself, run and maintain it, so it works in kind of a different way.” Working primarily in Nuendo, Kahne surrounds himself with an extensive collection of vintage outboard equipment, including World War II-era Federal limiters and Motown EQs along with recent, topshelf processing gear by manufacturers including Chandler, Thermionic Culture and Neve, all in stereo pairs. An abundance of Violet microphones are also scattered throughout the space. “It’s been two-and-a-half years or so,” says Bishop of Kahne’s residency, “and has been a very interesting addition. He’s got an eclectic clientele; it’s been a good fit.” To maintain a healthy flow of business, Bishop and DePofi are harnessing the unique aspects of NY Noise. Initial results are positive, they report. “We’ve been trying, as much as a bunch of musician knuckleheads can put it together, to redirect what we’re doing in the advertising world,” DePofi confides. “Since we are working with more artists these days, and it is a quicker payout and pays bigger money, hour for hour, than working with artists, we’ve been trying to get the artist to do spots for some of these advertisements that are a little more crafted than redone. If you want a Michelle Branch song, for example, why not have Michelle re-sing it and craft it for your spot? To a degree, it’s starting to work.” NY Noise www.nynoise.com NY Noise (continued from page 27) “And the record labels,” DePofi adds, “are totally behind that” because, says Bishop, “they don’t have anything else to sell.” The ascension of music recording projects, concurrent with the decline in advertising, is due in part to producer John Leventhal. DePofi and Leventhal, the former explains, have co-produced numerous artists, including Joan Osborne, Roseanne psn April 2008 http://www.filmmakersdestination.com http://www.nynoise.com http://www.filmmakersdestination.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Prosound News - April 2008

Prosound News - April 2008 Sound Business Contents Sound Retail Mojo’s Working at NY Noise Studio Showcase: Jungle Room Studios Software Tech Tracks Sessions Nomad Takes Root TCB at NYC’s JSM SoundScreen White Space Turning Gray Audio for Video and Broadcast Field Reports:Sony PCM-D50 Linear PCM Recorder; Holophone H4 SuperMINI Surround Microphone Sound Innovations: Earthworks Audio PianoMic System Frozen Liquid Live Sound Showcase: Jill Scott Centerstage Soundcheck Sound People View From the Top Product Spotlight Advertiser Index Company Index Classifieds Music, Etc.

Prosound News - April 2008

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