Feb/100
In the beginning, there was a Church…
After almost 9 months of hard labour, we finally got to sign the official ownership transfer papers from the group managing the church. This was February 11th. Therefore, the real work begins now (and for the past two weeks!) The validation and formalization of the transaction also comes to prove the certainty of our ongoing project, which apparently caught the ear of medias. Good for us, we can sure use the coverage! So this week was a great week! After a full page in ”La Pige”, ”Le Progrès”, printed at over 120 000 copies last sunday, pulled out our story for the front page. The article is an amazing all-colour two pager that very well describes our plans towards the establishment of the studio amongst the biggest. Turned on by the article, Valérie Fortin asked us for an interview on behalf of V Télé who will broadcast two minute of footage, shot earlier this week. Don’t miss it, it will be on the air this week-end on the 5:30 news. Finally, “Le Journal de Montréal” took the best bits from Daniel Côté’s article in Le Progrès to make a half-page with a photo. We are very happy to see that every one is so enthusiastic concerning the whole concept… Now wait till it’s finalized, you’ll be amazed! This is only the ”big-inning”…
Our front page in Le Progrès, printed at over 120 000 copies.
Sep/090
About our graphic department…
One brilliant idea we came up with is starting a graphic department… We really like to do EVERYTHING on the projects that steps inside our facilities (no, not these facilities) and are very proud of this newly developed graphic department. So, just like parents do with their proud children, we’ve decide to post their latest work on the fridge! Here’s what they did last week… Click on an artwork and watch it as it grows!
Kudos to festiville.com and worstalbumcovers.org for their amazing findings!
Sep/091
More ReGroove & Pictures…
Here’s that song that I think was the most successfully recorded out of our incredibly primitive recording chain, constituating a very unorthodox signal path… It’s also my favorite song from the album, sort of a Zorn-esque kind of vibe, introduced by a Free-Jazz improvisation. Don’t get to frighten by it, an actual ”real” song is beginning around 2:15! This is a one-taker, mixed live, straight to 2-tracks… Without further due, here’s How it sounds:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Now here’s some pictures of the church from the outside. Yes, the B&W thing is very artsy, I know… But considering the lameness of the capture instrument, I had no choice but to photoshop them into a decent format, which is Black and White…
More picts to be coming soon for you gear sluts… Enjoy!
Aug/091
The ReGroove Quartet Test Recording…
So! After a long time dealing with township issues, we finally found the time to have some fun and get our old gear out together for the recording of our friends from the ReGroove Quartet before getting into the big construction work. This is a recording that should test our current acoustical potential, just for the heck of it, and see what we could do with the bit of gear we had from our previous home studio… Everyone is being recorded all together, and very few overdubs will be considered (some solos and other glittering such as shakers etc…). Considering the incredible liveliness of our uncorrected raw room, we decided to go with only dynamic mics, which is not something we did a lot in studio, but that has its purpose here, and definitely got me totally turned on once we listened to the unprocessed result. The setup goes like this:
Drum : a Royer SF12 overhead and a crappy speaker cone for the kick (which is freaking us out how good it balances!)
Guitar: GenzBenz amp into a 67′ Fender twin 12” miked with an SM57 in a remote room.
Sax: Sennheiser MD421 as a direct intake and a Cad Trion 7000 as a room mic.
Bass: Ampeg DI into a nice empirical labs FATSO, setup with the transformer coupled output.
Rhodes: into the Fender Blues Jr. miked with a AKG D-25 in a remote room.
Now here’s how it sounds unprocessed, straight out of the take… So no reverb add-ons, no mastering whatsoever:
Épisode Bleue – Take from 08-14-09
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
As you can see in the picture, this is a freaking garage set up, but sounds very fine for something without dynamic mixing, laid straight down to 2 tracks, conforming to the good ol’ 1952 standards… We’re recording where there should be the floating control room, hopefully, no more than 6 months from now. All the surfaces of the ceiling will be covered in a flexible thick fabric structure that will enable us to achieve any acoustical conditions from a 5 seconds tail reverb to the ultimate studio dryness, with enough space to record a big ensemble. The back of the church will be separated in half to house the rest area and individual bedrooms for bands who stay.
View from the bell tower
View of the temporary work space from the mezzanine
The holy Rhodes, 8 O'clock sun.
Fender Blues Jr. in the baptizer
AKG D-25 on the Blues Jr.
Royer SF-12 & paper cone on the drum set
Ti-Guy on Sax & defragmenting Louis
Jul/090
The first mass… (La première messe)
Finally, I was able to master the art of MySQL and all the other web crap caca doo enabling me to write this message! Well I guess this is sort of an intro to our blog… So here’s how it goes:
First, the purpose of this blog is to post some tips on recording and post some new gear that either caught our attention or just that we know of. From those vanished away in the forgotten realm of vintage to the brand-spanking-new, straight out of the box piece of gear that just came out on the market, we won’t have rules… Just passion, that will clearly leak on you. Because we all are, gearsluts, weather it’s assumed or not… We sure assume it!
We’ll also post the progress of the transformation of a newly acquired church into a completely awsomely wicked ass-whipping recording studio, hence the name “The Recording Church”. No need to mention that this is also a way to promote our services and prove our competence, hoping you will read a post, see a picture, visite our web site and happily book a week or two! No seriously, I think we’ve got a pretty unique concept, that proudly merges a quality recording session with an unforgettable human and travel experience. You need to go to the web site to understand the concept… ya ya… now!
- Greg and Louis, Recording Church owners and engineers.
Bon! J’ai finalement passé au travers des débilitudes MySQL et autres merdes de programmation qui me permettent d’écrire ce message! J’imagine qu’il serais donc pertinent d’introduire notre blogue… alors, voilà!
Le but premier de ce blogue est de donner des trucs et des anecdotes sur nos techniques d’enregistrement ainsi que d’écrire des revues sur l’équipement qui a attiré notre attention… Des vieux dinosaures sortis des boules à mittes au chef d’oeuvres technologiques qui sentent encore le neuf, nous n’aurons pas de filtre autre que notre passion pour l’équipement en ce qui à trait de nos choix de revues. Car avoué ou non, nous avons tous un côté ”pute à gear” qui sommeille en nous… Dans notre cas, il est bien réveillé!
Ensuite, nous passerons par ce blogue pour vous tenir à jour sur le développement de la conversion d’une église en studio d’enregistrement haut de gamme; d’où le nom ”L’église d’enregistrement”. Pas besoin de mentionner que ce blogue promeut aussi nos services ainsi que de vous prouvé nos compétences, en espérant qu’un jour vous allez tomber sur un article, voir une photo, visiter note site web et joyeusement nous réserver une ou deux semaines pour votre session! Non, mais sans blague, je crois que nous tenons un concept assez unique qui marie une qualité d’enregistrement incomparable avec une expérience humaine de voyage que vous n’oublierez pas! Il faut aller visiter le site web pour bien saisir le concept… oui oui… maintenant!
- Greg et Louis, Propriétaires et ingénieurs de l’église d’enregistrement.
P.S. Nous allons essayer de traduire le plus possible nos articles pour notre clientèle francophone… Il reste que parfois, le temps est un obstacle! On vous promet un gros effort en français!