These guys booked under the name Oboephobic but by the time they got here for tracking, they’d decided to change their name to No Viable Option. Kinda liked Oboephobic… Instead of a bassist they have a bass clarinet (NOT an oboe …) which gave them a pretty cool sound. I got a chance to hang out with these guys during their session and really enjoyed it great vibe from these guys! Looking forward to hearing the mixes! Chris Gibbs was their engineer and he flew from the Bay area to do this project. His first time in Soundhouse, but he picked everything up quickly and had an adventurous attitude that I think got him some good sounds.
Pictures to follow!
Author: mike
I helped Fisk get set up but couldn’t stick around to hear any recording…. really interested to hear what came of the session. I ran into Nick at Grumpy D’s and he told me they were doing horn overdubs at Fisk’s….. intriguing!
Let’s Get Lost brought Producer Steve Fisk in to record a new album.
Everyone in the band is a keyboard player (ah, no, they don’t all play at the same time – they also play things like guitars, drums and bass) and they are credited with being the first to record in the hammond M2 in YEARS … I just got it fixed!
A couple weeks ago, Beautiful Lies recorded the basic tracks for their new album. Two things about that session of interest to me (well, three, actually. The third is that I neglected to ask for payment at the end of the session and today Zach emailed me to make sure they had paid! AWESOME!) are the way things got mic’ed. Mr. Fisk put a pair of U87’s on the drums and instead of an “overhead” mic arrangement, used a front/right, back/left (audience perspective) (see previous post for a pic). The other: Two amps were used simultaneously for the guitar, separated by a gobo. Steve requested an AKG 414 in the room just in case he wanted some ambience, but he and Jack decided it wouldn’t be useful, UNTIL they discovered that the signals they were getting from each amp/track were out of phase, then they went in and put the 414 on a figure 8 pattern for a possible mid/side track. Not sure if it was used…
Anyway, the day after they were done, I cleaned up and proceeded to tear apart the Control Room. I took EVERYTHING out with the exception of the wires and the Trident 80B in preparation for the installation of a new carpet. We carefully labeled each connection and reconnecting things was a breeze, with only a couple things reconnected wrong. Carpet went in, although due to someone’s mislabeling or something it arrived late and shifted the install date FOUR DAYS. It looks good, though!
Notice the big Tannoy’s are higher, too!
This weekend Steve was in Soundhouse recording basic tracks for the Beautiful Lies, from Portland. I got a chance to hang out and help get things set up for a few hours on Saturday morning. What a nice bunch of folks!
They requested some of the studio gear including our Slingerland kit from the 60’s.
But they brought some cool stuff too, like these basses –
Hmmm. Dunno, looks fun to me ….
Brandon’s got the Double Kick and some killin’ drum sounds goin’ on. Big Drums. LOUD Drums. I like loud drums.
Jack was in the studio last night with Valis using one of the pieces of unique gear he’s collected – the Accutronics Reverb Tank spring reverb!
I wonder what song they were mixing …?
Yep, the Screaming Trees were in Soundhouse having Mr. Endino mix some unreleased songs. An appropriate choice, I’d say.
They’re songs recorded after their last album, Dust that never got released, the unreleased album was recorded in 1998-99 and is finally coming out on August 2nd, on Barrett Martins Label.
Looking forward to it!
-mike
Jack says the RE-20 stopped being able to handle the LOUDNESS emanating from the wall o amplifiers that Black Tusk was using to put sonics down for an album. I will investigate tomorrow and get it fixed.
The dbx 160 is getting repaired – it sounds great and all of the circuitry for the signal is good, but I got a new meter for it. I checked the voltage going to the meter and found it was almost twice what should be there – no wonder the meter failed!
Just got the Lexicon 200 reverb unit back … sounds good! Glad to have it back in the rack!
That’s about it. I double checked some patch bay connections yesterday and didn’t really turn up anything we didn’t already know about – except that the 7720 compressor had a loose solder joint. Jack fixed it immediately. A GREAT guy to have on your team! Once we compile the list, I’ll get the tech back in to make everything 100%.
– mike
