The entire weekend saw some cool moments go down. I have alot of respect for Storyville and Bob. I felt that respect back in spades as well!
I'll be the first guy to admit it was eye opening as far as certain things that Storyville does for tracking drums vs what I do for tracking drums. I'm a mono all day guy and Matt is much better versed at stereo drum miking than I am. Because of what Matt taught me I definitely will be trying stereo drums more often.
I also appreciated the openness that Story showed me when I would make some of my oddball suggestions for tracking Philadelphia Slick's stuff. One situation in particular involved when I recommended running the band's keyboardist through a vintage Fender Vibrolux. This amp (like the actual physical unit we had) was used on Chubby Checker's "Twist." It had that vintage Jensen speaker in there and sounded FABULOUS on keys, from grand piano to Rhodes. We miked it up with our Taho mic (U67 inspired) on the front of the amp and put our tube pencil condenser the Daschund on overhead. Absolutely gorgeous and lush, when blended with the DI it was absolutely mind blowing how good the keyboard sounded. Taking the keyboard mics out was an instant letdown, so in they stayed!
Now in this particular situation I was well out of bounds, I was a visitor, a sales rep at that and despite my engineering experience, it wasn't my place to call shots on another person's work. But Matt (Story) and I became instant friends and besides wanting to make a good impression on the Studio E staff, I wanted Philly Slick (a band I have a ton of love for!) to have great sounding recordings. So this 3 day session turned into a collaborative effort as much as it was a mic demo
I remember coming back from dinner my last day in Philly (Tony Lukes!!) and seeing the lowly ART Tubepac patched into one of the kick mic channels. Story and I had a friendly running debate during my stay about compression during tracking. I love it, do it all the time, advocate for it. I would put a sign on my front yard if it wasn't for city zoning rules lol.
Well long story short, here was yet again another one of my intrusions at work. Previously I patched the Tubepac on room mic (Mutt) while Story was on dinner break (very sneaky indeed
) and that little compressor became an instant stun gun toy that we were completely in love with. It gets pretty effin warm too!LOL.
Story is actually a pretty humble dude and unlike some younger guys who like to flatly shoot down outside suggestions, it was cool to see him putting something to use that obviously worked to the client's benefit, regardless of how it reads on paper. Philly Slick benefited because of Story's vision and willingness to try things to obtain the perfect tone. AMEN!
Again my undying thanks to Bob, Matt and Joe for helping us to make this happen.
Story I miss you already dude. You're definitely not a weekend friend. Call me whenever. Tell my boy Rick the bartender I said much love!
Peace
Illumination