I just wanted to share with everyone the cool vibes from our last studio sponsored gig at Espresso Joe's (your friendly neighborhood coffee shop in Keyport, NJ).  I left that night feeling prrrreettty good about the performances, the audience response, and the overall good times had by all.

 

 We had three very  impressive acoustic performances that evening from Michelle Coyle, Ray Bally, and Brother Terry.  It was standing room only at Espresso Joe's and Michelle blew us away with a set of covers and originals.  Hoots and hollers from the crowd after a kick A## version of "Me and Bobby McGee" along with two very cool original songs (that we will be recording soon).

 

Ray Bally didn't disappoint, performing cuts off his new cd almost nonstop.  He took a break long enough to invite me up to play guitar on "Will you kiss me" (great tune!).  Ray left us wanting more, but members of the audience were able to get promo CD copies of some of his new material.

 

Brother Terry rocked it up by rattling off songs from his previous CD's along with some very cool renditions of unreleased material.  His wife and children (along with some friends) also came up to help sing on three songs.  More good responses from the crowd, leaving with CD's in hand and looking forward to his upcoming new release.

 

Stay tuned for videos and podcasts of the show on iTunes, MySpace, and YouTube!

 

 

 

 

 

One of the great recording features at Firedog that sets us apart from the competition is the ability for the musicians to customize their headphone mix.  We are using a powerful system from Hear Technologies called the Hear Back Personal Monitor Mixer System.
A quote from the Hear Technologies website best describes the gear.
 
"A basic Hear Back system consists of a Hub and personal Mixers connected using standard CAT5E cables. A single Hub supplies signal and power to a maximum of eight Mixers."
 
Some of the features include, excellent audio fidelity, a built in Limiter on each mixer for hearing protection, local control of up to ten channels of audio (8 inputs plus an Aux input), Mic stand mounting, and high power - low distortion headphone amplifiers.
 
Utilizing the Digidesign 192 I/O's outputs, our engineer's can send up to 8 separate audio channels to the headphone distribution system.   The volumes of these individual channels are then controlled via the mixers in the live rooms.  Hence, each mixer can have their own customized mix from the control room.  Let's just say that for some reason the vocalist only wants to hear himself and the guitar track or the drummer wants the click track blaring in his headphones along with the bass, its all possible and at their fingertips.
 
Here's an example of a standard setup:

Channel 1 and 2 (stereo channel on the mixer) - Control room talkback and monitoring.

Channel 3 and 4 - stereo drum tracks

Channel 5 - Bass

Channel 6 - Guitar

Channel 7 - Keyboards

Channel 8 - Vocals

Lee Nadel (session and touring bassist currently on tour with Matt White) stopped down for some sessions with us at Firedog and his quote says it all.

"The most important thing on a session is that everyone feels comfortable.   The ability to put individual tracks on separate channels says a lot about the quality of the studio and session.  To be able to separate and control the levels of the scratches can be the difference between a quick and easy session, and an all day struggle."

 
This piece of gear gives the performers an edge and a comfort level when recording at Firedog and we are proud to offer it to them.  Check out the Hear Technologies site for more information on their products and a review from Pro Sound News Magazine and next time you are in the studio ask for your customized headphone mix!
 
TD