Creative Caffeine: Nashville Recording Studio

One of the sweetest sounding mics in history!  Available for your sessions at Creative Caffeine.

On the main floor of this no-expense-spared 2920 sq. ft. remodeled all-brick home in the historic district of East Nashville there are 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, an art gallery / sunroom, big open kitchen with stainless appliances and granite countertops, and a huge open living area with vaulted ceiling and wood-burning fireplace.

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John Lennon shows off new automated console. Sean sits by his side.

John Lennon (with son Sean) shows off the new automated mixing board at New York’s Hit-Factory, 1980. “It looks like he’s turning Sean on to the world of music,” says photographer Bob Gruen.

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Great Singers In the Studio and Behind the Scenes : Photos : Rolling Stone

Our good friend Dave Shipley(Foxwood Mastering), brought us about 12 more John Hartford 2″ tapes today for transfer into pro tools.  These are more tapes from the Aereoplane sessions as well as some later 80s sessions.  I am blown away by the sheer quantity of all of these recordings… “just keep the tape rolling”  was definitely the idea.

Originally I was excited to attend the music production lecture given by Darrin Vincent, long time Ricky Skaggs bandmate and member of IBMA winning group Dailey and Vincent. I want to be clear that Darrin is extremely talented as producer, musician, and an artist. Dailey and Vincent are very deserving of their recent awards.

Darrin made alot of good points against basement and bedroom studio recording, but I quickly became disapointed when he began talking recording formats.  He talked about how important they are and proceeded to list them… pro tools, nuendo, radar, etc… everything was mentioned but analog tape.  This is very surprising in the bluegrass genre and I immediately spoke up… “what about analog?”  He dismissed the notion like it was a long gone thing of the past and quickly moved on. Very disapointing!

This is very puzzling to me, being that Darrin’s longtime former band leader Ricky Skaggs records to analog tape.  Ricky, unpleased with the sound of digital recording, quit using certain Nashville studios when they switched to digital in the 90’s.  Ricky’s own studio now records to a 16 track analog machine and trasnfers into iZ Radar.

Darrin then spoke of producing the Cherryholmes band.  He mentioned that at times Jere Cherryholmes was not satisfied with the sound, asking why it didn’t sound like Ricky Skaggs’ album he brought in as a reference. Darrin explained that without the expensive guitars and such, it simply could not sound the same… which I suspect is only partially true.

Obviously it’s going to be hard to sound anywhere near as good as Cody Kilby,  but… considering that Ricky’s album would have been tracked to tape, this may have been much more of a factor that an inferior guitar.  Although I have been unsuccessful at finding out what recorder was actually used and I regret not asking Darrin at the time, I would guess that Jere Cherryholmes was missing that extra magic tape can add to your tracks… especially acoustic bluegrass tracks.  He was missing the warm tone and smooth dynamics that properly driven tape can give… not to mention the overall blend of instruments.

Contrary to popular belief,  tape is still available and some studios are still using it frequently and understand the benefits.  Combined with the new tools digital has given us creates one of the most powerful set of tools engineers have ever had.  Track in analog and mix in Pro Tools… The best of both worlds!  The difference is worth it.  Shocking in the bluegrass world to find a bass player who dismisses analog in front of a room of bluegrass industry professionals.

Creative Caffeine’s Telefunken U47… The U47 is perhaps the most legendary microphone in history.  Ours is completely original, pre-war tube and all… Sounds fantastic!!!

July has been a busy month for transferring old recordings to Pro Tools.  The sooner the better with these old tapes… if you wait too long they have to be baked due to excessive oxide shedding.  Creative Caffeine is one of the few studios setup to transfer 24 track analog tapes straight into Pro Tools HD with pristine Apogee converters.

Early this month John Mills transferred a number of 24 track tapes to Pro Tools for the highly respected John Anderson.  Chief engineer Collin Peterson has been working with Dave Shipley to transfer recordings for the Del McCoury Band, some of which may be featured on an upcoming release,  as well has some early recordings from John Hartford,  some of which featuring the Aereoplane band with Tut Taylor, Norman Blake, and Randy Scruggs!  Most of the McCoury tapes were 16 track 2″ recorded at Ricky Skaggs’ studio in Hendersonville. We were able to rent a 16 track head for our JH-24 and make that option available to clients at an extra charge.

After finishing up a 2 day experimental demonstration session showcasing the new Brandt “Previs” microphones we have much to talk about.  Vince from Brandt Audio Devices made the trip down from Michigan and arrived at 5:30am the day of tracking… YIKES!!! I don’t know how he stayed awake.

We started off with a jazz trio led by the incredibly talented pianist/vocalist/songwriter Kandace Springs.  Using only the previs mics, we were able to capture a very open, natural sound that lent itself very well to her style.

Let’s start with Kandace… we set her up on our Yamaha C-7 and placed 2 microphones on the piano, approx. 18-24 inches away, one on the highs and one towards the lower end.  This yielded a very open sound, but wasn’t quite giving us what we were looking for.  Vince (Brandt Audio Devices) insisted we move the primary pair closer and add an additional pair further out in the room.  While this ended up sounding OK for this session, I did not personally see any need for extra microphones and feel we could have adjusted the 2 mics for optimum sound.  While open and natural was the intent of this particular session, the sound of these mics on the piano is going to be a little too open if mixed with a heavier style rock or country track.   I personally love our Telefunken U47 and AKG 452 on our piano… but who wouldn’t?

Vocals too?  Yes.  We placed one of the Previs mics with the custom pop filter in front of Kandace and her voice sounded amazing!  Very clean and smooth.  She was probably about 6 inches from the mic during her performance.  There were no issues with boominess since it is an omni mic and there is no proximity effect.  Most people would shy away from using these for vocals… simply based on misconceptions.  Use them… you just may fall in love with the sound you get.  I was very impressed with the dynamics of her voice without using a compressor… lack of proximity effect and the omni pattern no doubt playing a significant role.

Drums… Oh yes!!!  The drums are where we’ve seen these mics really start to shine.  For more intimate sessions, use these on the entire kit.  The clarity heard from the drums when using these mics is very special.  We used 4 mics… a kick, snare, and 2 overhead/tom mics.  The sound was perfect for the laid back style of Kandace’s songs.

Although this technique would not be appropriate for louder rock or country styles, I have been using a pair of the Previs mics as overheads on such sessions and have been extremely impressed with the results, as pictured above for Jerry Beecher of the Eric Heatherly Band.  The clarity of the cymbals with minimal eq is remarkable.  We generally have a matched pair of Vintage Neumann U87s on overheads, just to give you an idea.  The Previs mics allow us to use those expensive mics elsewhere on our sessions without sacrificing the quality of our drum tones.  The Previs sounded great inside the kick drum, although I struggled to keep the gain low enough even with the 20db console pad engaged.  The kick was very full and present with great attack.

For the electric bass guitar, we placed a mic right in front of the bass amp and had no issues with distortion or spl handling.  Admittedly, the bass was my least favorite part of this recording.  It came across a little “weird” for my tastes.  The low and high frequencies are definitely there and the sound is very clear, but to me it just didn’t sound right.  I prefer recording bass with a DI generally.

Overall the song turned out very well… especially since we used only one kind of microphone for the entire session, which is basically unheard of in any professional environment.  Any home or professional studio will benefit from a pair of these… at $1000 a pair I don’t see how they can be passed up.  I’ve also put these on acoustic guitar and mandolin with great results and will continue finding new and interesting ways of using these great mics.   The omni pattern lets you get much closer to acoustic instruments without the boomy proximity effect of cardiod mics… all while sounding much more natural and realistic.

- Collin Peterson – Studio Manager / Chief Engineer – Creative Caffeine Studio

Specs from BrandtAudioDevices.com:
• Omni-directional
• Ultra fast “impulse response” for clearly defined transients.
• Flat 10hz – 20khz+ frequency response.
• Pure class A head amplifier ultra low noise high output design.
• SPL tested beyond 134db RMS.
• +48 volt phantom powered.
• Hand finished Bolivian Rosewood body.
• Clean look with Rosewood pressure fit mic holder (also fits common mic clips).
• Fitted metal pop-screen for the purest vocal recordings.
• Supplied 6″ ultra-flex gooseneck arm for critical placement
• Latched hand finished wooden storage box.
• Sold in consecutively serial numbered matched pairs.
• 3 year replacement warranty.

We are proud to have the Brandt “Previs” microphones available for sessions.  John Brandt has created a very unique wood microphone featuring an omni directional pickup pattern.  These mics are incredibly accurate and our first applications have been great when used on drums.

We look forward to putting these mics to the test and are planning to do some demonstration recordings within the next month.

The best part… These first 50 hand-made mics are being sold for  $1000/pair and include wooden shockmounts and carrying case… Incredible!  Contact us for more details or check out BrandtAudioDevices.com.

Upgrades at Creative Caffeine have commenced as we just installed an Apogee AD-16x and Rosetta 800 192, giving us 24 channels of Apogee analog to digital conversion at 24-bit 192kHz for our new Pro Tools HD2 Accel rig. Apogee makes some of the best converters in the business and we are anxious to get these up and running. We’ve been very fond of the radar 24 Nyquist converters we’ve been using for the past few years, so the Apogee units have pretty large shoes to fill. When combined with our analog tape machine, fabulous rooms, and vintage mic collection, we believe you’ll be hard pressed to find a better combo.