My pals in Wax On have been in the studio with me making a full length album. These guys are awesome and Im loving the new tunes.  They’ve taken a step back from their punk and ska roots, while you can still hear those influences the new songs we’ve been working on are to my ears very mature and diverse.  This album is going to have something for everybody.  These dudes only have a few more days of overdubs before we move onto mixing!

Ive had the pleasure of being able to make an EP with the NOX over the past few months.  I first came across NOX when my band Snowhaus played with them a few years back.  Its been amazing to watch them grow as musicians and people and now working with them its all co ing full circle.  They are able to make a three piece sound huge.  All of their song have an insane amount of dynamics and they continue to impress me by how much control they have over their instruments. Cant wait to get this stuff into peoples ears!

Making progress on getting my new room set up at 37ft Productions.  I have all my gear wired in and I just installed some Philips Hue light bulbs to help set the vid=be during sessions.  Its been a crazy experience moving all my gear in and having the studio be busy all summer.  Ive been loving having my own space where I can leave things set up and patched for my workflow!

Spent the weekend of July 8th and 9th working as an A2 at the levitate music festival in Marshfield Massachusetts.  We had three stages of music with luke Ziggy Marley, Umphreys Mcgee, Dispatch, Deer Tick, Ripe, Trevor Hall, Lake Street Dive and so many more.  We were running an Avid SC48 and an Avid Profile at my stage.  Most of the headlining artists were carrying their own monitor and front of house consoles as well as microphones.  Theres something really fun about the rush you get from having to trouble shoot and changeover bands very fast.  It was a great weekend and I cant wait to be back next year!

Gear Review #1

Im absolutely in love with these Audio-technica M40x headphones.  Ive had them for about a year now and use them everyday and they are still in great shape.  They sound amazing and aren't hyped in the low end like other over ear headphones i’ve used in the past.  I check every mix on them, even when i’m at my own studio working on my Dynaudios or Neumman speakers.  I cant even count the number of times i’ve been able to figure out and fix a problem with my mix by popping these bad boys on.  For the price they cant be beat I suggest everyone check them out!

Spent last week recording the Rough Cuts to tape! Had a blast with these guys. They have the perfect garage punk sound that compliments tape really well, they had a great understanding of the analog recording process and were just all around awesome dudes! Stay tuned for these songs, I started mixing yesterday and this stuff is fire!

Made some progress with Tony Savarino and Tom West last night working in Tony's new album. Guitar and organ came out great! Set these guys up so they could play together and couldn't have been happier with the results. Great musicians and great songs make great albums!

Gear Reviews

Over the next few months i’m going to be posting some gear reviews of gear that I use and enjoy.  I realize I get to use a lot of really great gear everyday in the studio, and it would be nice to reflect on the things that worked and didn’t work every session.  This is mostly a way for me to reflect but it will probably be pretty entertaining for my fellow gear nerds.

Picked up a few new pieces of gear for the new studio. First a 1970s Slingerland drum set. I'm not a drummer but drums are my favourite thing to record, I've loved the instrument my entire life. These drums have been re wrapped with a snazzy sparkly blue finish, but they still sound awesome and vintage. The kick is huge and the toms don't disappoint. I had a great meeting today with a client who wants to have these drums on his upcoming album! Next up I picked up an apogee symphony Interface. I have 2 of the 8x8 cards in it so I have 16 channels of conversion. I was super impressed by how easy it was to set up with my existing pro tools system. As soon as I played some music through it I was immediately blown away by the quality of conversion this little box offers. The air was so clear and the low end is nice and present unlike some other converters in the same price range. I can't wait to record with this thing

Cut 2 songs today with Mike Levesque on drums and Mark Nigro on bass for producer Barry Marshalls upcoming release. I love working on consoles, especially this SSL with all the tasty outboard gear.

Had my good friend Yoel in today to lay down some tracks for a very cool project. Yoel played on a song for Anakdota for a new video. I had the pleasure of mixing the Anakdota album last year and to hear Yoel play on it today was very cool.

Couple shots from the Snowhaus session the other day. I was playing my trusty old reverend through a whole slew of pedals into an old fender bassman, we bridged the inputs to get some more body and it went through this beautiful fender closed back. Nathan was using a Diezel Einstein 100w through this mesa cab. We got huge sounds for a bunch of the new songs. I love combining a royer 121 with a beyerdynamic m201, I’ve been digging the a design 500 series mic pres on guitars, they have an awesome top end and midrange without being too muddy especially with distorted guitars.

Record release madness!

In all the craziness of the studio renovations I forgot to mention that two great albums I worked on were released last week.

Daisybones released their first album Gusto produced and mixed by my super cool talented boss Sean Mclaughlin with a bunch of overdubs done by myself and my good friend Steph Durwin. These dudes rock and im so happy for them, Check it out here!

https://daisybones.bandcamp.com/album/gusto

Next The Amy Incident released their first album also on the same day as Daisybones.  I produced, engineered, mixed and mastered this album.  I worked with members of The Amy Incident a few years back when I recorded and EP for Jump Start.  Im super happy for these guys and all the hard work they’ve put into this record Check it out here!

https://theamyincident.bandcamp.com/album/the-amy-incident

First single off Nico Rivers album is out! I had a blast making this record, we recorded the majority of it in a cabin in Plymouth Ma.  Id love to make more records in houses like we made this one.

The wiring for the new studio is going really well! I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a soldering iron, getting all the snake boxes and patch bays done so we’ll finish at the same time as the construction finishes up.  After the new studio is built and wired up ill start to get my new room, the current control room at the studio going.  In my new room i’ll have my Tascam console and a 24 track Otari tape machine as well as a 24 track pro tools rig.  Couldnt be more excited for this new chapter of my recording career!

My current mix bus. I usually change this up every few months but this has been a constant for me for the past 5 or 6. Love how the Vertigo and Maag work together to glue the mix together.  I usually start with them on and tweak the settings as i get deeper into the mix.  I find myself doing much  less additive EQ with the air band on.  

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