Prosound News - April 2008 - (Page 44)

[44] At night, well, that’s another matter, says Elk, who landed at JSM after 10 years recording and touring with quirky indiepop band, The Mommyheads. Fellow staffer Neil Jason has been an in-demand session bass player for decades, recording with KISS, Mick Jagger and numerous others; John Sneider has played trumpet with many of the jazz greats as well as his own bands. Between them, staff members have hundreds of gold and platinum records to their credits. “Everybody here is from bands or production or solo careers, they still play gigs. This is just a day job; you could be working at Kinko’s or doing music for television. And you can pop your head in and do a couple of sessions; most of the major professional guys in New York realize this,” comments Elk. Each composer’s room is set up to their taste. In Elk’s case that includes Pro Tools. “In terms of plug-ins, I’ve got the Waves bundle—I’m a big fan—and the studios have those, too. The new EQs for Pro Tools are great, they’re simple and don’t take up a lot of RTAS. [Metric Halo’s] ChannelStrip has been a mainstay. You slap that on a drum bus or the main bus, and it sounds great.” But Elk also loves hardware: “Each keyboard and guitar is going through its own Neve or API into its own UA compressor or RCA BA6A. Everything has its own line that hits the sweet spot. We have a ton of Neumann mics. I have an M49, and I use a Lawson mic.” In the studio there are also different drum recording configurations, he reveals. “My drum setup is the Alan Parsons Dark Side of the Moon with the Coles on the overheads. We have another drum set that’s more modern. We still use Auratone monitors, and [Yamaha] NS10s, we use Mackies as well as Genelecs. We try to cover all listening scenarios.” ChannelStrip is the go-to plug-in in the mix rooms, according to chief engineer Hoover Le and engineer Tovi Rodriguez. “We don’t have that much time to mix because there’s such a high volume of music here, so we use the go-to things,” says Le. “I find ChannelStrip to be a very good tool. Most of our work is advertising, and with that we need quick recalls, endless revisions, so it’s all in the box. But when I’m mixing through the console I still use ChannelStrip, just to get a good starting point. From there, everything else is just easier.” Le especially favors the Kick 01 preset: “I put that on every kick drum, and it just sounds great, no matter what the kick drum sounds like.” “I’ve had success using the trumpet setting on sax, and using drum settings on mixes,” shares Rodriguez. “I like to use them for vocals all the time, for special effects, for degrading vocal sounds and making them sound weird and unconventional. I try to not get stuck into using the same setting for the same thing all the time.” The SSL console has also been getting quite the workout of late thanks to a new online band promotion venture, Woozyfly. “We do live simulcasts, videos to the web, so it’s sort of a media center, a place to connect for bands,” explains Elk. “We just did our 100th band live in the studio. At least in New York it’s been a huge success.” For the many on-staff musicians, whether still gigging or retired from the road, working at JSM certainly keeps them in touch with the music business. “Labels pander to get their artists exposure and licensing deals, so they go to places like JSM and licensing houses,” Elk points out. “So we do meet label people—the cool ones! It’s an interesting facet to the music industry.” Metric Halo www.mhlabs.com JSM www.jsmmusic.com JSM Music (continued from page 41) for it, or they’ll have a brief and they’ll be writing to that, or they’ll be writing the whole thing for the client.” JSM’s extensive client list includes Chevy, Ford, Pepsi, Avon, Michelin, Popeye’s, Kay Jewelers and Macy’s, to name but a few. The company also maintains an office in Detroit to cater to its automotive clients. Nomad (continued from page 41) Record in Nashville It's as easy as 123 www.naprs.org pieces. “Creating percussive background scores for live performances at my home studio, the DM2000 is a great-sounding mixer and helps to streamline my projects,” he reports. Levesque Sr. has had Yamaha digital consoles at the heart of his studio Nomad Post’s father and son team of since the DMC1000 was first available. Mike Levesque Jr. (left) and Mike He records his extensive collections of Levesque Sr. has been using Yamaha guitars and vintage sound modules us- digital consoles for over a decade. ing MOTU Digital Performer together with fered his son his first step up onto the auMackie HR824 and Genelec 5.1 monitors, dio career ladder, in 1994, with a job at and a variety of outboard equipment. Nutmeg Music, which Levesque Sr. opened He has been providing original music in 1975. “Naturally, growing up with my and sound design since the early 1970s father, Mike Levesque Sr., a significant presand boasts a radio and television commer- ence in the industry, had a tremendous incial client list that includes Mercedes, Fox- fluence on me,” says the younger woods, Restasis, Aquafresh, the Financial Levesque. “Initially, I pursued other educaTimes, Halls, Trident, Microsoft, Panasonic, tional interests after graduating high Toyota and IBM. He has worked on numer- school, but in college I decided to be an auous children’s videos and CDs, for Sesame dio engineer. Now I can’t imagine myself Street, Smithsonian Institute, Golden doing anything else.” Books and Walt Disney, and his scoring —Steve Harvey credits include the “Rainmaker” episode Nomad Post for Robert DeNiro’s TV anthology, Tribeca. www.nomadpost.com It’s no surprise, then, that his father provided the initial inspiration for Levesque Jr. Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems to get into the audio business. He also of- www.yamahaca.com prosoundnews.com April 2008 http://www.mhlabs.com http://www.rbdg.com http://www.jsmmusic.com http://www.rbdg.com http://www.naprs.org http://www.nomadpost.com http://www.naprs.org http://www.yamahaca.com http://prosoundnews.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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