My first all A Designs sessions (rcm & Bozzio trio albums)

[RCM - Ronan]

I am not sure, but I think I might have just done the first all A Designs recordings. Actually its not done yet, but it will be all A designs once I finish the overdubs. I am working on my own album as an artists. I did the first half of the album at a gorgeous studio in Kentucky, but I am doing the second half at my modest commercial studio in LA. I am doing guitar & drum duets with Terry Bozzio (and his monster drum set) and having recorded Terry before I knew he would max out my set up. So I hit up Peter over at A Designs to bring some mic pres over. Also Dot from the listening sessions engineered with me and lined up a bunch of cool mics.

With A Designs stuff already in my rack and Peter bringing over a couple racks of pres, I was able to try doing the whole thing with A Designs pres (10 pacificals, 6 "500 series"and one MP1). It seemed like a pretty cool idea since I wanted a really big colored sound. All the transformer based pres totally did the trick. We were playing loud as hell with a lot of distortion and I wanted the sound to be fat and larger than life. I knew all the pres well enough to know this would be no problem. I have barely had time to check out the tracks since I spent most of the time in the live room with a guitar around my neck. I will try and post some clips in a couple weeks when I get some time to dig into the tracks.

But the real interesting part came later. The day after I was done with my own project I shifted over to recording the new album for Terry Bozzio's jazz trio and took off my guitarist hat and focused on the engineering. I was actually a little nervous about my set up. I knew the Quad8 style pres would be cool for my barbarian music, but not so sure about a really subtle Jazz thing with a lot of space. I really like Peter, but I was not about to compromise a recording date with one of the most prestigious drummers on the planet for any reason. I had a rack of Millennia and Nightpro mic pres (which I know well and love love for jazz) lined up in case the Pacificas were not up to the task. I am happy to say that the Millennia were able to stay in their cases and never get plugged in. I did end up using 4 channels of D&R mic pres to handle a couple extra tom mics on the trio recordings and two night pro line amps to handle level control from 2 A Designs REDDI DIs, but everything else was A Designs. I am not involved with overdubs for the Bozzio trio sessions.

I was actually pretty blown away! (and so was the trio). the tracks had all the body I was expecting, but still had a ton of space, depth and detail. I could not have been happier and I have a feeling EQ will be almost non existent when it comes time to mix. My live room is pretty bright and I was using a lot DPA mics and I was able get all the air I was looking for without things getting harsh or splashy. It was without a doubt the best sounding stuff I have ever recorded in my studio. Great musicians have a lot to do with that, but I get lots of A list players in my room.

Peter and A Designs get enough good things said about them on GS, so I do not need to pimp for him, but I was really stunned at how well these pres that I knew would be great for rock worked for the jazz sessions and I thought it worth mentioning. I will try and get clips happening soon.

If any one is intersted there are some pics of all the sessions so far here
******//www.venetowest.com/albumgallery1/

[Solunaris]

damn, must be nice recording the best.

[Teacher]

Why didn't you try the MP1 for your Jazz session? Never used the pacificas and never recorded jazz but I'd think it would do well. Very Smooth deep spacious sound.

[Matt Grondin]

Holy shit, is that Tony Levin playing with you guys!!!!!!!! He's my favorite bassist of all time, hands down. I want to play with Tony sometime :( Anyway, I haven't really checked anything else out yet, but when I saw that first picture, I almost shit myself. Terry Bozzio is an excellent drummer, but not really my style. I come from more of a Bonham four-five piece setup that's all about groove instead of chops. I do absolutely love that stuff Tony Levin laid down with Manu Katsche on the Peter Gabriel recordings. Can't wait to check it all out. Later.

p.s. All the money in the world wouldn't make me take that drum tech-ing job! (Even though I don't know shit about drums) It would be like tuning an 80 string guitar.

[mixerguy]

All around awesome! Nice pics too!! thumbsup

[Duardo]

Let us know when these recordings are available and where we can buy them.

Slightly off-topic, but the finish on Terry's drums is gorgeous.

-Duardo

[RCM - Ronan]

Originally Posted by Teacher

Why didn't you try the MP1 for your Jazz session? Never used the pacificas and never recorded jazz but I'd think it would do well. Very Smooth deep spacious sound.

We did use one channel of MP1, but I wanted to try the Pacificas for my own project and then wanted to see how they would work on a jazz project. We used the MP1 on a Coles ribbon mics behind Terry that sounded really cool

Originally Posted by dobby12

Holy shit, is that Tony Levin playing with you guys!!!!!!!! He's my favorite bassist of all time, hands down. I want to play with Tony sometime :

Yeah, that's Tony. He's my fave bassist of all time as well. I have been lucky enough to do quite a few albums with him, but this was the first time working on my own album.

[Matt Grondin]

When are we going to hear some of that music you recorded? I want to hear your playing being a guitarist myself Check out my stuf at the Inca Maya link down below too if you get bored. Good luck. I'm sure it sounds great.

[picksail]

Ronan, I so regret not being able to make it down. Damn, I'm so jealous. Looks like Keneally showed as well.

BTW, that Grunge pedal is unbelievably useable.

[pan60]

Originally Posted by rcm

Peter and A Designs get enough good things said about them on GS, so I do not need to pimp for him,

sound very cool Ronan
i do not mind being a pimp for Peter at all.
when it aint right i let the would know about it, i rase hell!
so i don't mind pimping a bit when someone gets it right!
as well you know Peter is also a great guy.

arrrr. i need more money!

[jbuntz]

I've been using the Pacifica a ton. Lots of guitars with it, one side will mic the amp, the other side is the DI for the reamp send (radial x-amp) and you can control the gain the the red knob which is really cool thing to do in the control room (with an amp set up upstairs). I've used the REDDI for the send as well. I think it pairs up with the 121 a bit better than the Neves (1066's) do. Lots of gain, low noise, clean top and big sound. The MP2 is still one of my favorite bass DI's. It also matches up well with them SM7b on vocals. I've also been using the ATTY for padding a condensor on the bottom snare.

[Midlandmorgan]

We use the ADesigns card stuff here all the time....from jazz drums to vocals to delicate guitars, whatever...the EMSilver is a great DI for bass...anything we throw at the P1 and EM Silver just simply sounds great...

One thing I have noticed: I apply much less EQ and compression to tracks done through the ADesigns stuff..if at all...

We have been commissioned to track youth orchestras for some upcoming international competitions...no processing allowed (has to be a great sounding representation of an actual performance, no production, no editing, etc...) You know our ADesigns stuff will be used for these...(if you've ever been involved with these types of competitions, you know that the sound quality is almost as important as the performance....that's why we are going with ADesigns on this...)

Back to topic: Man, what an opportunity! To record that bunch of players, with that gear...please let us know when this goes public.

FWIW: Peter is only one of four people I really trust in this biz, gear maker or not. We've had discussions over the phone several times in which I asked about specific applications, etc....and he gives me the straight info, regardless of whether it involves his products or not...

[RCM - Ronan]

Originally Posted by dobby12

When are we going to hear some of that music you recorded? I want to hear your playing being a guitarist myself

Sad to say it will be a few months. I gotta get back to my day job (making records for other people) and fit my own stuff in between other sessions. I am going to do a fair amount of guitar orchestration on the stuff and some vocals as well.

My studio band rocks. So as long as I do not screw it up things will be cool.

[EngineEars]

It's cool to see engineer Ron Bennett in those pics, I went to school with that guy. Congrats! And thanks for the Langevin's!

[Peter Montessi]

Originally Posted by picksail

Ronan, I so regret not being able to make it down. Damn, I'm so jealous. Looks like Keneally showed as well.

BTW, that Grunge pedal is unbelievably useable.

Picksail,

I'm so sorry about that...........I was sick as a dog after NAMM this year (well after every year)!
For some unknown reason I seem to catch every germ in the house at NAMM Shows.
That's why I couldn't get ya.........I left a message for you on your phone explaining the whole thing........sorry Picksail
It was hard enough for me to drag myself down with the equipment as it was.
But no regrets at all..............I got to hear some of the tracks the other day!

I can't wait for the CD to come out............so Ronan, please make this happen asap!

Thanks for everything,
Peter Montessi
A Designs Audio
www.adesignsaudio.com

[severe]

Wow!

Thats some real sh*t right there. Until I read the rest of the posts, I was thinking "Is that Tony Levin too?...Nah, cant be".

Thanks for the informative post and the links to the pics. Would love to hear the end result.