Frogville Studio build Santa Fe New Mexico 2009

[dabigfrog]

been a while since I posted an update. we been cleaning aLOT!. finally got Baird Banner to come do the final wiring of the input panels and to test all the wiring. we A ok!

wiring the input panels


baird putting on the shields and shrink before the final connection.


nathan moore is working on a virtual tour video he shot and is editing now.

[dabigfrog]

our buddy Nathan put together a "down home" studio commercial walkthru video of the new studio. aww its cute KaWaiiiiiiii. kind of a "we'll keep the light on for ya'" feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKwVuysEJBw

[dabigfrog]

now we are cookin' with gas!

bill palmer at work in the control room recording Garry Blackchild & the Kung Fu Grip. Working on the mic and amp collection bit by bit.

[amishsixstringe]

You slut! Looks great!

Neil

[dabigfrog]

Thanks!

a couple more pix..
Garry Blackchild in the vocal booth.
The Kung Fu Grip in the big room.
Shannon Mcnally making a special appearance on the new Stephanie Hatfield record.

[dabigfrog]

we are pretty much up and running and getting closer to being booked up solid which is good because we need the dough.. even a hippiefied version of a pro studio is quite expensive! We are loving the room. Learning to mic the room and getting stellar results no matter where we put 'em its a new pleasing thing. Here are some shots of our marathon session with troubadour Nathan Moore.. the sleight of hand musician.

we wanted to get clean and dirty and depth and grit and it was just Nathan and an acoustic guitar.. Laravee i think. Most mics we have ever had on one person!

the big room...34' x 26' x 17' wood ceilings.


nathan moore at noon



10pm overdubs, add harmonica, kazoo, response thru the copperfone


midnight


2am mixdown


we are starting work on studio b soon....stike

[Amaranthine]

I caught part of the Frogville Radio Hour the other day. Fantastic! There is some great music being recorded in this studio.

[dabigfrog]

One thing about doing all this in a destination art town is there is an environment that is very supportive of original art and artists. Santa Fe has been very good to us, very receptive. Hutton broadcasting and KBAC 98.1 fm invited us to showcase some of the "local" goings on from up here at the recording studio and what was happening on the Frogville label. So we do the FROGVILLE RADIO Show every Thursday at 7pm MST on KBAC. They stream it on the web Live at kbac.com. you can also listen to 9 or 10 archived shows at our website FROGVILLEplanet.com and also at our podcasting blog frogvilleradiohour

just good music!

Luckily there is an amazing pool of talent in New Mexico, some fantastic magical obscure geniuses and some famous musicians too!
I have been blessed with a great musician, songwriter, producer and engineer in Bill Palmer to run the house here at Frogville. We are training Jason Reed to be a full time engineer / assistant engineer, it has been difficult to find the right guy to fill Bill's shoes when he is on tour or too busy mixing and mastering to track a new project...but Jason fits the bill, no pun intended. I have been inviting all the local producers and engineers to come up for a tour and to plant the seed that this is THE room they want to be in for their next project... we are striving to be fully booked, all the time. everyone around here wants to come here, many just cannot afford it right now even on a sliding scale.

we got the best room in the southwest, but we are still light on gear. We really need PT HD3 +2 Lynx 16 ch ad/da before a bunch of bigger producers to want to come here and trust our system & converters... the heartbeat of the system, track here and then take their hard drive to the mixer. We want more pre's, comps, eQs, mics, instraments... just like every other slut, but gear is so much less important than the room and the vibe, gear can be rented in LA and brought to the session... no biggie.

Plus being a short plane ride or a 14 hour drive from LA.... I mean... Doesn't everyone want to get out of LA? Go some place, a destination location, soak up the vibe and let an environment inspire/alter / affect the project? stike


One of our bands the Strange just rocked the Wiskey a gogo last night! everyone said they hadn't seen anything like that in a long time there...so maybe its good we are creating a music scene in santa fe that IS different and not influenced so much by the scenes in NYC, LA or Nashville... kinda like the galapagos islands for musicians to evolve? naaah.. hell we are not reinventing the wheel here, just good songs, good music, good people and people seem to really like it something REAL about it.thumbsup

[dabigfrog]

hey its been a while - we been busy tryin to keep our mouth above the waves... we're still here and getting busier than ever.

I finally got down to seals in Albuquerque to get the OC 703 (or the johnsmanville equivalent) so we can build some panels. and you can see on the left a winter project of making skyline diffusors in blue.




more info coming as we build them.

on another note I scored a free 1960's altec 604D 15" speaker and after exhausting searches found a matching one ( the D are rare)
also scored a 60's jbl speaker cab set for 15" and just loaded them up!
still need to wire input jack and the crossovers and mount them in the back panel.





if they rock and sound good we might use these as our poor man's aupsbergers? spelling? if not I'll sell them, I saw pairs going for 3k (b,c,etc) while searching for a D. got the 1st one free, the 2nd cost 600 and the cabs cost me 400, so it cost me a grand to find out if these are the bomb or not... I will let you know.stike

[myles]

Just found this thread - what an amazing place! Northern NM is such a great area, you guys have done it proud.

[druhms]

I dig the paintings on the wall too. Keeps things alive.
JJ

[dabigfrog]

heres a quick tour of our facility during a horns session for terry diers.

YouTube - Frogville recording studio horns tour2.m4v

LMKWYT

let me know what you think?

[AnthonyRochester]

very cool

[mwest]

Love it

[dabigfrog]

we finally got around to building some sound panels for the RFZ around the CR. OC703 w/ pine frame wrapped in burlap.
also added some panels to the vocal booth. i finally found a way to use my old concert T shirts, so they became sonically useful and visually interesting.


control room left

control room right

panels in vocal booth

t shirts stuffed with OC703 panels!!!


will start working on studio B soon, more pix coming!

[dabigfrog]

2 of those shirts were from my first stones concert 1981 tattoo you tour at the cotton bowl in big D, fabulous t birds + zz top opened 14 yrs old... good times

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by dabigfrog

2 of those shirts were from my first stones concert 1981 tattoo you tour at the cotton bowl in big D, fabulous t birds + zz top opened 14 yrs old... good times

I pulled out an old box of concert Ts to show to my kids about a year ago. Some of them are pushing 40 years old and they have shrunk to the point that they would be snug on a 50 pound kid.

[dabigfrog]

frame them..... or sell them on ebay for 200 bucks a piece!


i saw somewhere a service that will sew them all into a quilt for a small fee.

[dabigfrog]

we finally built a shelf for our amp collection, it is nice to get them out of the pile in the corner.

more on studio b build out coming soon

[nicholassss]

The head, far right, first shelf on the bottom, what is it?

[dabigfrog]

1969 Univox model 1031... pretty rare, all tube, says 200 watts but I think its really 105 watts, they got in trouble for fudging on the numbers...
Japanese me thinks.

[dabigfrog]

been a while... update, we are working away trying to find a place for everything so we can start working on studio b for doing voice overs for film n tv... meanwhile...

we added shelves in the closet, we added the amp shelves and we just added a double shelf bunk guitar rack to the left of the amps... then we gathered all the amps together for a photo shoot for the new website.

i love the wall of amps, each a one or two trick pony, but if you get enough ponies hell you got a circus show.

[dabigfrog]

1 year ago we re-opened after finishing construction.. here is a session video tour from last week. tell me what you think?

[dabigfrog]

...well.... damn.....8 years of work to get to this point.... and no comments?

i've been watching these build threads for a few years and even when someone builds a closet sized home studio there are tons of excitement and posts....


i know this aint manifold or the bridge, but come on.....ok.....this is Frogville.

[metrognome]

Very cool man. Those drums sound gnarly in that room! I'm curious, did you leave the door between the main room and guitar/vocal room open for the keeper takes?

[Loud Neighbor]

great place. nice to see bands together tracking live... fantastic song to boot.

like those blonder tongue EQ's too.

Originally Posted by dabigfrog

1 year ago we re-opened after finishing construction.. here is a session video tour from last week. tell me what you think?

[AnthonyRochester]

oh yes I wached this video yesterday. looks like a great place to record!

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by metrognome

Very cool man. Those drums sound gnarly in that room!

You do realize that the drum sound you are hearing is the result of the AGC of the digital camera and not really the sound of the room?

BTW, I do love the look of the large rafters in the ceiling. I remember the photos of them being placed into position, and they do create a very stunning effect. Very organic!

[metrognome]

Originally Posted by Clueless

You do realize that the drum sound you are hearing is the result of the AGC of the digital camera and not really the sound of the room?

Yes indeed. I was mainly commenting on the liveliness of the room.

[greatgreatriver]

Originally Posted by dabigfrog

...well.... damn.....8 years of work to get to this point.... and no comments?

i've been watching these build threads for a few years and even when someone builds a closet sized home studio there are tons of excitement and posts....


i know this aint manifold or the bridge, but come on.....ok.....this is Frogville.

Brother!

I love your studio - it's one of my favorites here on GS. Your place look so creative and arty. I love the concrete floor and the rugs and paintings on the walls and overall vibe. I would love to hang out there and play music.

Bless! Keep it up - those images look fakkin great man!