Edward "Smokey" Beach - Reel Big Fish / Suburban Legends Drummer

Ed from Suburban Legends Holding it down in the studio.

What is a day like, recording one of Southern California's busiest Ska drummers?  The human metronome.  Ed is one of the most highly coveted percussionists of the Western Hemisphere.  Not only is he extremely skilled, naturally gifted, and formally educated in drums, but duets his talent drumming with piano.  Debuting in San Diego as the drummer of local legends Lucky & Wild, Ed was soon offered a full time global touring gig with Orange County's Suburban Legends.  In 2014 Ed was offered a position with Reel Big Fish as drummer and has been touring 300 plus days a year.  When he is in San Diego, he teaches piano and drums.  He is also a superb studio musician and has played on countless records.  When he can devote his time he has been featured as the first chair and leading percussionist of several musicals and performance acts such as Cirque du Soleil.

Carson Ford Guitar Center Quarter Finalist

Carson Ford stopped into our studio a week after locking in the #3 spot in the Guitar Center National Drum Off competition.  Carson cruised into the studio to see what we had been up to, and we talked him into sound checking our session and laying down a few of his chops.  If you get a chance you have to watch his videos.

It's safe to say that huge things are coming his way, and we will be making an effort to show everyone interested plenty more of his videos of interesting covers and impromptu drum freestyles.  Give Carson some love on his Youtube page as well!

Links:

youtube.com
instagram.com

Kenroy Reed - "Dance Party" session

Today we had the pleasure of tracking vocals with Cayman Island native pop singer Kenroy Reed.  It was the first time we were able to use our new Rupert Neve Designs 511 Preamp in combination with our C414 AKG.  We showed up a little early to test out the signal flow and came to the conclusion that the best path was straight into the Rosetta for conversion. 

The Rupert Neve Lunchbox Setup

After a few hours of tracking we completed the all of the mains, doubles, harmonies, and extras.  The vocals have never sounded so great and we are looking forward to the next session to keep testing out all the possibilities of our new additions.  We will place some audio samples up later this week.

Village Park - So California session

We had our first recording session with a new San Diego group Village Park who are a new Indie/Alt band lead by singer/Guitarist Luca Irvin, lead guitarist Sam Mark, Drummer Saige Synodin, and KeyBoard/Producer Nico Fabito. The group has been playing and writing songs together since early 2016.

Their debut track; titled "So California" was previously recorded in member Nico's home studio. So the group came into the studio with a working session. After we exported the stems from their session into our Pro Tools session we setup a rough mix of the track to start the production process. We found a few parts that everyone decided to re-track to take advantage of the extra gear available in the studio. 

We started the session by re-tracking the guitars. After demoing all of the guitars in the studio; guitarist Sam Mark picked the American Stratocaster plugged in through a few pedals (Fulltone 2, Fulltone Supertrem) into the vox AC30 2x12. Miked up with a Shure sm57 and an AKG c414, this makes up the sound you hear on the record.

Vox AC30cc2 miked with Shure sm57 & AKG c414XLS

After guitars were done the group wanted to blend their existing systhesized bass tracks with some bass tracks with our Fender Marcus Miller.  After a few passes of tracking and some mixing the new bass tracks added an missing layer into their single.

Next, it was time to track the vocals. Setting up the AKG c414 for lead singer Luca Irvin in our vocal booth and dialing in the sound we were looking for we re-tracked the vocals for the song. Stopping along the way as new production ideas came to the band, and American Accuracy producer Maxwell Hobbs who provided a creative input to help the band with vocal harmonies, structuring their melodies, and adding production elements within the mix.

Pro Tools session for "So California"

Credits:

Village Park's "So California" was tracked in September 2016 at American Accuracy Recording by Morgan Taylor and Maxwell Hobbs.

Emily & Steve's Big Day

We had the pleasure to celebrate the marriage of Emily and Steve today.  We put together a few photos and a short video of the day for them to remember and watch the rest of their lives together.  Thanks for asking us to be part of it, and we wish you the very best!

Beautiful Wedding in sunny San Diego / La Jolla California

Beautiful Wedding in sunny San Diego / La Jolla California