Hey Hey!
EARS meets this month at Matt Feddermann's Phase Recording Studios in Highland Park. Parking is plentiful.
We'll begin with some food and drink at 7:30. In discussing the meeting with Matt, he indicated that he's not really so into a night of "look at my place and how great my staff and I are!" as much as he's into sharing and learning from others. How perfectly EARS! He's encouraging us to bring toys (mics/pres/etc.) and/or projects we're working on. Basically, we're talking about a chance to swap stories, show off a piece of gear we've picked up (or even made!) that's really worth mentioning, and listen to some of the things we've been working on. Frankly, we've been thinking EARS should be like this more often.
But let me also assure you that this plan is not due to the lack of an interesting studio to check out. In this climate of so many closings, Matt's studio is busting at the seams. In five years Phase has gone from a one studio, one man operation to their main Studio A, Studio B, a VO studio, three editing suites, renting space for a Chicago location from Wall To Wall and having 5 engineers (soon to be 6) working full time. He's also the production director for am XM talk radio channel for doctors. My business is based around “corporate audio” in addition to recording bands.
Google Maps Directions
From the city:
Take 94 west until it turns into Route 41. Continue on to route 41 north to Deerfield Rd. WEST
At the top of the off ramp, stay to the right and get back on the on ramp for 41 south. Stay to the left and halfway down the onramp there is an Off ramp that takes you over to “Old Skokie Rd.”
Take a left on old skokie Rd. Take Old Skokie Rd. south about a mile. Phase Studios is on the right hand side on the second floor of the “Wine Discount Center.”
FYI. Old Skokie Rd. is a frontage road to Route 41. The directions will make sense once you get here.
If lost, the studio phone is 847-831-5424
So come on out and bring a story, a piece of gear, a record you're working on, or just at least yourself and we'll have a little EARS fun on Tuesday courtesy of Matt and Phase Recording Studios.
-KJH
Recap/Appreciation File
EARS MEETING AT STEREOPHONIC STUDIOS 5-27-08
This month’s meeting was held at Marshall Terry’s Stereophonic Studios on Chicago’s near northwest side at what was once was an office / warehouse that was built around 1900. Marshall’s been at the studio since last December and began tracking clients around late-February/early-March. The space is huge--a 1400 square foot cube-shaped room with 22 foot ceilings--and has exposed brick on three sides and a cement floor. Needless to say, the room’s reverberant. There’s a large walled-off area above the control room adjacent to the live room that he wants to use at some point as a reverb chamber. Marshall uses this enormous room to track all the musicians live and therefore uses gobos extensively. He’s constructed his gobos from insulation by Specialty Products & Insulation which is to the spec of Owens Corning 703, but at less than a dollar per square foot.
Marshall gave quite the demonstration on room nodes, an issue anyone would definitely need to address in a giant box-shaped room. He used flags on mic stands to demonstrate where the nodes would occur and at which frequencies. The graph of plot points he created in Excel further illustrated the locations and frequencies where sound waves would cancel out and create a null. He explained that in his room, there’s about a 3-6 dB attenuation at these nodes. They’re spaced out relative to the distance from the walls and the wavelength. If you were to draw a square representing the room’s floor plan, and then draw 4 ‘V’s rotated 90 degrees around the center of the room, you’d have a basic representation of the plot graph. Anywhere on the ‘V’s would indicate a node and would generally be a place to avoid putting a microphone or instrument.
Stereophonic uses a lot of ribbon and tube mics into a Sound Workshop 1280 console that was designed by former API engineers, and records to Cubase using a Layla 8 input / 8 output converter. Marshall treats the DAW basically as a tape machine, only doing recording and editing in the box. Outboard gear is limited to compressors, which fits right in with Marshall’s minimalist philosophy, where working with constraints in place stimulates creativity. Marshall has a unique monitoring setup that has JBL 4311B monitors powered by a McIntosh MA-5100 amp. He also showed us an interesting mod for a Chinese condenser mic. He replaced the ceramic cap that couples the capsule to the electronics with an Aura Cap. He claims that it doesn’t change the frequency response of the mic at all, but does wonders to open up the sound. It’s about a $50 mod.
A very special thanks to Marshall Terry for his hospitality and to his lovely girlfriend who bakes one helluva cupcake.
-Chris Cwiak
Secretary, EARS
Suggestions Welcome!
There are endless good reasons to band together here as EARS. It can be whatever we want it to be. If you have any ideas for the EARdrum, our website, or future meetings, please email me. We still have a lot of great meeting plans lining up for the year, some website plans, and a lot of good fresh energy and hopes for a more vibrant, participatory EARS, so of course we're very interested in your input on everything EARS. Please! :) - KJH
Archives
Our Archives are again up to date. Check out the website for that and more EARS info. Also, I'd like to complete our files with the pre-2001 EARdrums. By my calculations we're missing the first 16 years! (Now minus that first one.) I know Timothy Powell has a year or so on his Metro-Mobile website but that still leaves a lot missing. If you happen to have your old paper copies or files you could get to me, I would love to get them online for posterity. Let me know. - KJH
A note about our Website
I've noticed that it doesn't automatically update in some web browsers. If you're looking for something (such as the latest EARdrum) and it looks like old info, try reloading the page. I'll see what I can do about it, but it seems it would take a full redo to get it in a format that did this automatically for us.
Dues!
Thanks to all who support EARS through paying their dues. Just as a reminder, they're due yearly by the October meeting and this is a prerequisite for voting and joining us for the Holiday Party and BBQ in August (and occasionally things like the Grammy Party), but they're always welcome. Dues checks (or cash, but no credit cards) for $25.00 can be made out to EARS and given to any of our officers or sent to the following address:
Engineering and Recording Society of Chicago, C/O Eric Roth, Treasurer, PO Box 98, Highland Park, IL 60035-0098 - KJH
A (few) (more) word(s) from the Prez...
or “Thanks for your patience!”
Well, first I'd like to point out that I'm pulling this together at the end of September. This has been an incredibly busy season and I've just not been able to keep up on the EARdrums. I'm bringing it all up to date now and hope to keep up from here on, but I do apologize for any inconvenience.
I'd like to add a couple points to Chris's typically excellent notes recap. One is that it was exceptionally interesting to hear about Marshall's background. His dad, George Terry was a session player at Criteria, became Clapton' sright hand man, and assisted Tom Dowd. He also has some serious connections with MCI. Another is that it was a very cool night on a different level, just by nature of the mix of people who showed up, old and new faces, seasoned veterans and new players in the game. A perfect example was Harry (MF) Brotman sharing an amazing command of an Orban compressor that Marshall was using and loving but unaware of what was going on under the hood. Oh, and those cupcakes... they were decorated with the Stereophonic logo. Nice touch. Chris mentioned some mic mods that Marshall talked about. He's put some audio files up on his website that were basically identically recorded before and after these simple upgrades of capacitors. Download them here and give 'em a listen . Thanks for a great night, Marshall! -KJH
For one glorious weekend in June I headed down to PotLuckCon, formerly TapeOpCon, and this year back again in New Orleans. It was amazing. The main panels, the breakouts/workshops, the exhibitors, and even the entertainment in the evenings were all just phenomenal, but of course, it's the people who really make it. No where else have I found such a unique group of like-minded lovers of music and recording. From simple enthusiasts to my heros in gear design, engineering/producing, and all points in-between. I reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and learned plenty. The food in New Orleans was, of course, a highlight, as was the music. Calexico and Bonerama at Tipitina's was just a phenomenal night.
Well, I've got to move on to July, August, and September. See ya 'round,
At your service,
Kerry J Haps
