Surrounded

I am about to get into mixing an entire surround record, with stereo fold-downs of everything.
   It is a live show, and the players are amazing. Its a great show, lots of energy. This is going to be a fun one. Stubbs 2.

clocking madness

So today I got the DIGI SYNC I/O happening at Studio G.
   I did some wiring yoga behind the racks with Francisco, and we moved the Antelope 10M and Trinity to make room for the DIGI sync.
   The SYNC is now distributing clock that starts at a rubidium core, atomic clock source, which is divide down from 10MHZ to our sample rate, and also provides a speed/cal reference for the house SMPTE generation in the SYNC. wow. yeah. anyway... so its all up and running and creating LTC for the UPTOWN  moving faders in my Neve console.
  It is really cool to finally have a solid "house sync" to keep everything syncronized and on the same clock source digitally, but also to have solid LTC/SMPTE/VTC at every device that wants it. there is even MTC available from the same device, all deriving it main speed/cal info from the atomic clock, in theory.
More tile in the chamber tomorrow, with some more plexiglass sealing up some places where we are losing reflections.  Also starting to catalog ALL the gear at studio G for a massive website overhaul that is way overdue.

Chamber rage

Printed the chamber on the Secret Chiefs 3 stuff I was tracking. It sounds bananas.
  I cant wait to be mixing some more stuff just so I can use it on EVERYTHING. ;)

   Happily looking at Ducati upgrades now. Some carbon fiber here... new racing tank, new carbon side panels, new tail chop... should be looking good soon.

The failure of technology...

"Here lies the difference between the automaton and all tools requiring continuous handling; its purpose is automatic and uninterrupted mechanical functioning. We are surrounded by an automatism toward which all branches of technology are developing. The greater part of our production tools work automatically. Our transport is automatized in the form of the ubiquitous railways, ships, motor cars, airplanes, elevators, and so on. Our light, water , and heating systems function automatically.
There are vending and food serving automatons, all of them designed for the task of repetitious performance with mechanical uniformity, just as a phonograph record repeats the same piece over and over. It is exactly this automatism that gives its peculiar stamp to our civilization and sets it apart from other eras. It is automatism by which our technology achieves its growing "perfection." Its signature is the independent and unchanging repetition of its apparatus."
-Friedrich Georg Junger
"the failure of technology (perfection without purpose)"
written in the summer of 1939.

This book has become my manifesto for all things engineering , audio, production, and art.. in the summer of 2010. 

Mixing a couple of the songs we did in Africa. Chad Clark will be mastering them at Silver Sonya mastering in DC. I am really excited to hear the end result of this. This will be for the first 2 singles from the forthcoming record, as yet untitled.... It features the whole TRIAD crew, but the primary vocal on the first single is by Nomvula Nkosi. Remember her name...

Got the mics set up in the chamber. It is really sounding incredible. More tile going in after the weekend, but really just for brightening the space to make it have a more useable S/N. its already good, but it could be a bit better I think, with more tile and slightly more shiny stuff around the room. Its a very diffuse, but dense sound right now. Quite good, very even decay. its the perfect snare and vocal chamber, so I am not going to change too much, but just enough to extend the useable decay a half a second, hopefully, so that the noise floor is well below when placing the returns in a mix however we want... it sounded awesome today on a mix tony was doing. On the snare, and the vocal...

Chamber tile!!!

Got some of the random, super cheap , industrial glazed tile laid down in the chamber today. 

  The sound changed, for the better, but not as much as I thought it would. The high gloss paint actually made more of a positive difference to the sound of the space. I guess it was more square footage, but the tile is... um.... tile, so I thought it would sound brighter and slappier right away. It DOES, however, even out the verb tail quite a bit. The overall RT-60 in there is probably about 1.25 useable because of the ambient noise floor of being in NYC at all. The overall RT-60 of the room is probably about 1.5 seconds, which is what I was going for in the first place. If I can, I am going to shoot for closer to 2 seconds, with 1.5 useable. I also put a giant piece of bank security glass that some one gave me to hopefully knock down a little flutter echo in the corner. You can see it leaning in the corner. It weighs a lot, as it is about 5 feet but 1 foot by 3/4" glass. crazy heavy. Anyway, that helped a little, but then the tile really got things to move right. The tile is going to stay as randomized as you see in the picture, but with more tile laid in on top of this layer. So we wind up with a shiny, diffuse, crazy bunch of variation in the floor. The super glazed subway tile will lay on top of this shiny, but textured tile. It should be really surreal in there soon. even more than now. The 15" Mackie speaker is up on its stand firing into one of the walls that is super shiny, and all wired up. Tomorrow morning we will get some sounds happening down there. All the wire is done on the chamber end, just have to crimp a bunch of DL pins onto the other end of the snake and get it on the patch bay... then I can REALLY start to hear what needs to be done in the way of tuning and further construction/painting/tile/stuff....

DT3 IV, completely.

Finished up with Dub Trio for our 4th record together. There are some sounds on this new one that people will simply not know how the hell we made them. Some really fun ones. Modular trickery, multi buss pedal level freak out glitch trickery....
 Tricking the robots.

Dub Trio

Almost done with the newest Dub Trio record.
   We finish up over the next couple of days.
Then its back to finishing the now-famous-and-just-about-to-be-a-reality studio G chamber...

Matt and myles sealing up any gaps in the high gloss paint. 

The chamber really started to sound like a chamber around this time. 

There are a bunch of mechanical "helpers" that will be installed next week.... Sheet metal and springs. 

Possible clear coating of certain surfaces, and some crazy plexiglass chunks....

The next step after getting the walls painted with high gloss outdoor paint, is to get the floors, which seem to be in a permanent state of wetness these days (global warming?) covered in some sealed flagstone and some awesome surplus industrial shiny tiles. I am buying the odds and ends at a couple of tile places, like the stuff they dont have enough to do a whole bathroom, you know? The super shiny subway tile type stuff, but in sick colors like industrial green and brown. I am really excited for that step because I wont have to stand in disgusting slime the whole time I am working down there. 

    PHASE 946: after the foor, we will add the super thin, plate-verb steel sheeting that will be suspended by springs and turnbuckles between the 2x4 uprights (you can see one of them in this picture) to extend the verb time by hopefully a bunch. Clearly the metal will be a bunch of Db down from the room decay, but I am hoping it will add a nice tail on percussive sounds like snare. Already, the clap sound down there is starting to inspire.... Special thanks to Francisco Botero, Miles Turney and Matt Labozza for helping out down in that smelly hole today. Its going to be legendary. :)

Also, I ordered the Speakers for down there today, and the SDC microphones. They will be here next week. I am using some crazy inexpensive stuff: the mackie "THUMP" speaker, and some samson small diaphragm condensers. It is so nasty down there, that I dont want to send anything to snazzy to the dungeon just yet. If the SDC's suck, I will re-evaluate later.

Walls are starting to get glossy and extend the verb tails...

After this pic, I started sealing cracks with some crazy masonry sealer stuff that is like 

plaster/mortar that is used to fix things like chimneys. I cant remember what it was called. I think the fumes down there are making me slightly slow (er).

Around this time, I started to feel like we were getting somewhere. Even when we would just talk, we could hear that sealing up all these porous surfaces was starting to liven up the space. The space already sounded really cool, which was why we got rolling on this in the first place, but to seal up the crusty old brick was crucial if we are going to hit my goal of a 1.5-2 second decay time in here. 

I thought I was totally NOT going to hit that goal until around the time this picture was taken. We just kind of clapped around the room a little after getting more of the walls fully coated and there was a nice .85 decay.... super encouraging.

You can see two crucial details here over Francisco's shoulder:

The wall is insanely porous in places, and there is a bunch of standing water in the hallway leading to this creepy chamber off of the main building under the sidewalks of williamsburg, Brooklyn, next to the subway stairs...

We really had to use a TON of this really expensive paint to get the walls to be glossy....

Chamber project painting

So we got to painting the totally SICK walls down under studio G. We rolled the totally way too expensive high gloss outdoor latex onto the crusty old walls and watched it flake off of the old brick and mortar, so we swept the walls off and scraped and then went back with rollers and then went back with brushes to really get the walls sealed up. 

Gone Chambering

Francisco and I as we got started to make this crazy basement/vault room into a chamber underneath the live room at Studio G Brooklyn. You can see some sick metal stuff that was put up a million years ago that we are getting ready to rip down. It was NASTY stuff. like rusty razorblades hanging from the walls. 

Fortunate

Feeling fortunate. Home. Healthy.
    Update on the Africa recordings coming up soon!

got through

got through to the program director mentioned below. all is well!
       going to debut the single on that radio station ASAP for some hometown support in Nkomazi for the crew!!!
   I am working my ass off for those peeps. gladly.

Minutes

Stay tuned for a more in depth report on cell phone minutes, or "air
time" and how it is used as currency in certain areas of Africa.

Radio Nkomazi

Siboniso Hadebe
Program Manager
Ligwalagwala FM


Your email bounced. If anyone reads this from there, let him know I emailed, and it bounced. 
         I look forward to talking to you about the record!!!! you will be crucial in helping this thing get some local love and support, so thank you for taking the time to meet with Colani, and listening to the stuff. 
    I should have something for you very soon to debut!!! Lets have a hit in Nkomazi!
thanks man. 

Continuing

I am continuing to work on the record that was started in nkomazi... It feels really good to open up these tracks when i have a second and hear those voices again.
    I hope to see all of those guys and girls soon. I really wound up liking everyone a lot, and we all got along well and worked well together.
            I hope to have some final mixes of the tracks that were fully completed at the school hall or in the huts.... soon. I will have a minute to work on this stuff soon.
       Glad.

nothing

Nothing could have prepared me for the depth and range of emotions that I felt while I was in Africa.
   It would take me days or months to write the words that would be required to describe all of it.
I am working on getting some of the videos posted, so they can speak for themselves. The interviews outside the school, as audio, should be posted soon as well. Please check back, so you can hear some of these amazing people, in their own words, and to get a better sense of why I would walk away from certain days of recording with tears in my eyes, and a new sense of purpose and resolve in my heart... along with the sounds made by amazing artists still swirling in my ears and brain.
           you will be hearing some of these sounds soon, on this blog.
Check back.
-Joel

Why dont I have her books?!?

http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/

Why dont we ALL have her books?!?

Home and at Avatar

At avatar studios. up in the C room. "Scary monsters" was recorded in this room, as was "lets dance" and "like a virgin".... so many others....

Now that room has recorded the Parkington sisters and it is going to be an amazing record. 

It is amazing to be back. 

Firearm check in

At Johannesburg airport.

Black cat

Snacks

Emt

paradox

The way I have ben describing the nkomazi region is that it is a place filled with paradoxes, like a place where heads and tails are on the same side of the coin, however impossible that sounds here in NYC, it makes perfect sense there in Nkomazi.
      The good and the bad coexist there effortlessly, and forces I once would have thought of as "opposing" seem to sit next to each other in the shade on a hot day while people are sold over the border, children die, people sing and smile and work and fight and hug and drive and live all at the same time....

realization on day 1

This was on day one. I had just met everyone, and they were doing group warmups... I knew this was going to be amazing right then and there, like right when this picture was taken, and it is. The people, the record.. everything about the project: amazing. 

Talking 2

More talking about recording.... as always. and clowning around... always, also.

Talking, as always, about what we will do next

Me and Tshepo and Colani talking about recording. 

license plate detail.

Another LUNCH shot

Another shot of the daily lunch. No "cutlery" or "serviettes", just Pork braai, a loaf of bread, and "pop" [or "pap" pronounced "pop" anyway]  which is the grits meets polenta meets corn much cakes served on the brown bag in this picture. It looked like this every day and it was delicious. really. the crew also had grape fanta which seemed to be a real treat because nobody buys soda drinks like that there. 

School yard

Just a random view of the school yard. looking from the door of the hall I was in.

Bongani

Bongani waiting between takes. His LOW voice is incredibly striking. 

playback

listening to some of the stuff I had programmed around the vocal takes. Headphones only, so it was one at a time to experience the ruff mix in stereo. 

Main voc

This microphone got really worked. Every single main vocal was recorded with it, and now it lives in langeloop, mpumalanga, nkomazi, South Africa. with such amazing voices, this microphone totally rocked for us. 

the crew at the store

The crew at the store that assembled when we showed up. They were psyched to get their pictures taken. This was in block B or C. Way out of "town" and very, very rural.

random view

Zoom 2

This is how we set up one of the Zoom H4n recorders each day:

Duct taped to a school chair in 4 channel mode with 2 SDC mics and the built in mics rolling ALL day at 16/44.1. it worked really well with a 16gb SD card we had 12 hours of recording time at that resolution. 

remote control cars

These kids were playing with these amazing cars that a guy makes in the village. They are made out of coat hanger wire type metal.. like welding rod. they have cans cut for wheels, and a piece of the metal comes up to the kids hand and they can steer with it. thats the "remote control" part. They had set up a course to drive the cars through here. I got one of the cars, and its coming in may with someone who is coming back to the states...

Homemade Peri peri

Tshepo brought me a baby wipes container with his amazing Peri Peri sauce in it. I ate a bunch of it at the village where we were staying, but there was no way of getting that back in the country.... such a bummer. 

Next time I am going to DHL myself a barrel of the stuff......

Braai

Some nice breads, and some salad (which was really rare), along with the Braai. oh, and my "appletiser" which is like martinelli's sparkling cider. 

Getting online

This is how I was updating the blog in Africa. a Vodafone USB 3G stick. There was like one specific place I had to sit to get reception with it. 

me and the crew again

At the listening party. The whole crew. 

Francisco and Braai

Francisco and the African BBQ, or "Braai."

Crocodile river

As you enter Kruger park. Over the Crocodile river.

High Accident zone

These signs were like every 10km. 

Language ATM

Air Time (minutes)

This concept has still been making my mind explode: "air time", which is what the locals call "minutes" for the cell phones there. Air time is used as CURRENCY there, very much so. The same way we use a debit card instead of cash, people use cell phone minutes to get things as varied as lunch, a blow job, drugs, or any number of things like gasoline or whatever.
     When my laptop drive died, I lost about 7 pages of interviews and notes on the subject, collected over the course of my time in the Nkomazi region. Some of the key facts: for a very minimal amount of cell phone minutes, which with Vodafone/Vodacom having a monopoly on things in southern africa, you can get almost anything. 7 to 10 Rand worth of minutes would probably get you a blow job. 7 rand is ONE dollar. One. Dollar.
     Air time is easily gifted between phones there, as there is a specific way to give your friends, or anyone with a phone number, more minutes from your phone. Thats how it works. There is no such thing as a monthly plan, and when I told someone that I simply had unlimited minutes for a plan that included 4 phones, he just looked at me like I said I had 10 million dollars in every pocket in every pair of pants I have ever owned.
     Air time moves across borders effortlessly, is not specific to your phone, only your SIM card and even that can be retrieved by having a voucher, or basically a receipt of the transaction in cash that shows you purchased X amount of minutes. With no stable bank system and the liability of having cash on hand, this starts to all make sense. Much like carrying a credit card/ check card rather than cash.
    I will be pursuing this concept much more, but I just wanted to quickly post about it today. it is really amazing to me,no matter how much I "get it" it just feels SO random and slightly future-primitive-meets-mad-max or any other crazy vision of a bleak future type thing.... paying with "air time" for drugs... its like a bad sci - fi movie sentiment that is actually happening and very normal to people in South Africa.

Map

Google map of the region

Notice that Swaziland and Mozambique are less than 20mi away in either direction.





View Larger Map

beauty

Kruger park. Super beautiful scenarios around every corner. 

Rhino buns

Driving around Kruger park, saw some Rhino bunz.

Driving on road

Me and Tshepo

Me and Tshepo at the school in Block B or C.

School again

houses

Some houses out in block B or C...

Rental car listen

Some of the most fun moments were during the impromptu listening parties of ruff mixes in the rental car... all 7 of the ccrew would pile in the car and we would crank it up. The rental car was the best reference we had at any given time. I was making the ruff mixes in francisco's headphones that I dont really know or iPod earbuds, which i know okay but they are , um, not my optimum scenario for monitoring during a mix. 

Tshepo and Bongani when we were recording "Brother, my Brother" one of the really beautiful acapella songs. this was reinforcing the bass vocal track with a double. 

School

Just a view at the school where we did most of our recording.

pictures of pipes

At the Samora Machel memorial at the mozambique border. Taking pictures and listening to the amazing sound of this "wind organ."

The best chips (fries)

The best Chips I ever had were made with this machine behind Tshepo's tuck shop. 

He also makes his own PeriPeri sauce... I am craving that sauce right now!!! tshepo, if you read this, for real I will pay to DHL some to me!!!

elegance

Tuck shop view

Got game

I got myself some game. Yeah.