ProSound News - August 2009 - (Page 20) [20] Amlen Launches Manhattan Sound Recording by Christopher Walsh NEW YORK, NY—David Amlen, veteran of the New York commercial recording industry, has launched Manhattan Sound Recording, a two-room studio suitably equipped for modern music and post production. Amlen opened Sound on Sound Recording, in New York, in 1987. Sound on Sound merged with New York-based Right Track Recording in 2005 to form Legacy Recording Studios, a partnership that has since dissolved (Legacy continues operation at Right Track’s original location). Amlen has also served as president, treasurer and board member of the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS) and has long been a voting member of The Recording Academy. Manhattan Sound Recording occupies space formerly housing the Manhattan Producers Alliance, a collective of audio professionals, which included production studios. The tracking space, iso booth and control rooms were significantly modified and newly equipped to best address Pro Tools-based production. To that end, each control room houses a Digidesign C|24, fully wired to a patch bay with 16 Focusrite preamps; Pro Tools|HD3 Accel Version 7.4 (version 8 is available upon request) with 24 in/out configuration; Avid Mojo video interface; and outboard equipment from the likes of Chandler, Millennia Media, Universal Audio, API, Avalon, Great River, GML and Empirical Labs. Floating monitors include Dynaudio BM15As, Genelec 8050s and Yamaha NS-10s; a Mackie HRS-120 subwoofer resides in Studio A, while Studio B includes a KRK V12S sub. Each Pro Tools rig is stocked with popular plug-ins including the Waves Diamond, Mercury and SSL bundles; Bomb Factory’s Fairchild, Moogerfooger, Pultec, Voce and JoeMeek bundles; the Cranesong Phoenix bundle; URS’s Everything EQ/Comp TDM Bundle; Eventide Anthology 2.0; the Sonnox Oxford bundle; and many more. Each control room also features an LCD TV, high-definition DirectTV and Sony Bluray players. Wi-Fi is available throughout the studio. “We set the rooms up,” says Amlen, “in a way that most other rooms are not: It’s plug-and-play, ready to go.” On foregoing a console in favor of the C|24, Amlen explains that “it was a tossup between this and the [Digidesign] D-Command, and the majority of the people I deal with—and [general manager] Matt [Carter] deals with on the music side— don’t like the D-Command. Guys in post don’t really care because they don’t really need the faders. So it was a matter of what made the most sense and what offered the best bang for the buck.” “You can do the bulk of your mix with the screen off,” says Carter, who started as a GA at Sound on Sound and served as studio manager at Legacy. “Which is kind of nice.” “That’s pretty cool,” Amlen adds. “All the quick keys, all the inserts, all the sends—everything comes up in a very logical way. Because we do a lot of keyboard stuff, we felt a bonus was having 16 Focusrite mic pres built into the desk—that doesn’t hurt in terms of allowing you to (continued on page 30) Araica Is On Board by Steve Harvey MIAMI, FL—Marcella Araica’s solid engineering chops and her constant search for fresh new sounds have made her a force to be reckoned with in R&B and pop. Tapped to work for Timbaland only months after starting an internship at The Hit Factory Miami (now Hit Factory Criteria), Araica has gone on to record and mix such hits as “Knock You Down” by Keri Hilson, featuring Kanye West and Ne-Yo; “Gimme More” by Britney Spears; “No Matter What” by T.I.; “They Way I Are” by Timbaland; “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado; “4 Minutes” by Madonna; “Sober” by Pink; and many others. Araica, who is currently working with Usher on his next project, favors traditional, old-school engineering over working “in the box,” especially when mixing. It’s not unusual for her mixes to spread across, say, all 96 inputs of a console. “I’m completely on the console,” she reveals. “If I can, I’ll use everything! I do a little bit in the box; I do use EQ plug-ins, like the URS from McDSP. But mainly everything is all out on the board.” The console of choice is an SSL 9000J, but a 4000 G Plus works too, she says: “I love that board. It was a different sound to it, real warm.” Araica graduated from Full Sail, which provided a good foundation, she allows: “A lot of the professors and instructors that were working there were either currently working in the business or had worked in the business.” But the real learning began when she was thrown in the deep end at the studio. “I didn’t really know how to use an SSL until I started working at The Hit Factory. You can’t SWEET MAJIC: Singer/songwriter Gavin DeGraw recorded an acoustic version of his single, “In Love with a Girl,” at Sweetwater Productions Studios in Fort Wayne, IN. The track is to be released on the upcoming Majic Miracle Music, Volume 4, a charity CD collaboration between music retailer Sweetwater Sound and Fort Wayne radio station WAJI Majic 95.1, with all the proceeds benefiting Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianpolis, IN. learn this out of a textbook. Everything is hands-on. You have to use your ears, and that’s something you can’t teach somebody.” In the genres of R&B and pop, the vocal is all-important. Araica will typically try several combinations of mic and signal chain when tracking. “There are four that I usually play around with, anything from a U 87 to a Sony C 800 to a C 12 or a Telefunken 251. The top three chains that I [ “You can’t learn this out of a textbook…You have to use your ears.” Marcella Araica ] usually like to use are a Martech MSS-10 into a CL1B, or sometimes I like to switch it to an API 512 into the CL1B. But I also like using the 1176 Black Face with the API. The other mic pre I like to use is the Neve 1084 or 1073.” She continues, “When the artist comes in, I let them know I’d like to try them on the mic. Most of them are cool about it; they want a great sound. I play around with it as fast as I can. Usually, I’ll put up two or three mics and I’ll have my assistant ready at the patchbay.” Whether or not Araica is mixing the project—and it’s not unusual for her to also collaborate on the writing—her approach to tracking is consistent: “The recording process is the most important. Whether I’m mixing or not, it’s going to be (continued on page 30) prosoundnews.com August 2009 http://www.prosoundnews.com Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ProSound News - August 2009 ProSound News - August 2009 Sound Business Contents Amlen Launches Manhattan Sound Recording Studio Showcase: Abbey Road Software Tech Tracks Penteo Does Tarantino HCS Upgrades to Hi-Def Field Reports: Product Profiles Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol Green Audio Conchords Tour Takes Flight Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney Centerstage Sound People Classifieds View From the Top Advertiser Index Company Index Music, etc ProSound News - August 2009 ProSound News - August 2009 - ProSound News - August 2009 (Page Cover1) ProSound News - August 2009 - ProSound News - August 2009 (Page Cover2) ProSound News - August 2009 - ProSound News - August 2009 (Page 3) ProSound News - August 2009 - ProSound News - August 2009 (Page 4) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Business (Page 5) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 6) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 7) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 8) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 9) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 10) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 11) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 12) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 13) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 14) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 15) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 16) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 17) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 18) ProSound News - August 2009 - Contents (Page 19) ProSound News - August 2009 - Amlen Launches Manhattan Sound Recording (Page 20) ProSound News - August 2009 - Amlen Launches Manhattan Sound Recording (Page 21) ProSound News - August 2009 - Studio Showcase: Abbey Road (Page 22) ProSound News - August 2009 - Studio Showcase: Abbey Road (Page 23) ProSound News - August 2009 - Studio Showcase: Abbey Road (Page 24) ProSound News - August 2009 - Studio Showcase: Abbey Road (Page 25) ProSound News - August 2009 - Software Tech (Page 26) ProSound News - August 2009 - Software Tech (Page 27) ProSound News - August 2009 - Tracks (Page 28) ProSound News - August 2009 - Tracks (Page 29) ProSound News - August 2009 - Tracks (Page 30) ProSound News - August 2009 - HCS Upgrades to Hi-Def (Page 31) ProSound News - August 2009 - HCS Upgrades to Hi-Def (Page 32) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 33) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 34) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 35) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 36) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 37) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 38) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound Innovations: IEEE 802.1 AVB Transfer Protocol (Page 39) ProSound News - August 2009 - Green Audio (Page 40) ProSound News - August 2009 - Green Audio (Page 41) ProSound News - August 2009 - Green Audio (Page 42) ProSound News - August 2009 - Conchords Tour Takes Flight (Page 43) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 44) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 45) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 46) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 47) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 48) ProSound News - August 2009 - Live Sound Showcase: Paul McCartney (Page 49) ProSound News - August 2009 - Centerstage (Page 50) ProSound News - August 2009 - Centerstage (Page 51) ProSound News - August 2009 - Centerstage (Page 52) ProSound News - August 2009 - Centerstage (Page 53) ProSound News - August 2009 - Sound People (Page 54) ProSound News - 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