Partial client list:
Ellison
Kristen Key
Dead Serious
Watson Park
Small Time Crooks
Sugar Spell It Out
Look Afraid
Come on Caboose
Carbon Copy Media
JT Woodruff/HH
Chakras
American Hardcore
The Culling Song
Joe Peragine
Landen Falls
Kill City
Triad
Cadence Farewell
Denial
Close to Home
Bulletproof Charm
Eatafetus Trio
A Decade to Die For
Curse the Girl
James Potts
Matt Lang (of Thrash Unreal)
Jesse Thomas
Matter of Fact
Moneytrees River
The Losing
Don't Fear The Sun
Eirene
Echo To Voltron
Right Side Cast
If the player does not automatically start, reload the page and wait. Sometimes there is congestion on the server!
..
Hi, my name is Mitch. I was the original drummer for Ellison. Now I record. The studio is in my basement (hence the name). It's roughly 1600 sq
ft, modestly treated and mostly open with a 6.5' x 6' vocal/isolation booth.
Rates & Terms Recording and Mixing: $20/hr. If you record on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday consecutively you can opt to do the 24 hrs for $400 special. I typically round in favor of the band (translate: round down) and don't charge for setup.
Payment must be made at the end of each session in the form of cash or check (payable to Mitch Wyatt) or money order or paypal. If you cannot pay at the end of the session or on a per session basis, then don't record here. I do not give refunds. If, however, you are unsatisfied with the recording process we can terminate the recording and I can give you the unfinished Pro Tools sessions. I have the right to terminate the recording at any time and give you the master files.
You're recording at my house in a family oriented neighborhood. Please respect this and use common sense.
Drums must end by 7pm due to the noise ordinance. It can go to 8 in the summer/early fall months.
Hours are Monday-Thursday 4:30-10pm.. Friday after noon, and Saturday anytime. Sunday noon to 10p.
Please park in the driveway. If you have a van and trailer, park on the side of the house (it's a corner lot).
FAQ What food joints are nearby?
Within a 5 mile radius there is: Taco Bell, Dragon China, Subway, Goldstar, Skyline, Richard's (Sounds Underground recommended!), Domino's, Lee's Chicken, McDonald's, Kroger
How much will it cost?
This just depends on how much time you are willing to
spend on your recording to get it perfect. I have had bands spend a day on 7
songs. This will get you demo quality. I have had bands spend 3 days on 4 songs
and end up with a fairly decent sounding recording. I have also had bands spend
months on full albums that sound impressive. If I had to guess as to what
the average is per song, I would say $100 to $120.
We've never recorded before. How do we do this?
There are basically two routes you can take. You can do it with a click or with out a click track. If you do it without a click track, The guitar player and possibly a vocalist will play with the drummer and we will record drums and scratch guitar. Then we will go back and do the overdubs. What sucks about this method is that if you have a break in the song where it is just guitar you will have no point of reference as there are no clicks. You also have to play the song all the way through on drums. What also sucks is that the editing is very limited. Since you are playing without a click and I do not have a time grid to go by, I can't make any time edits. Beat detecting is not an option. If you can play to a click, we will probably lay down a scratch guitar and maybe a scratch vocal if you need it. The drummer will then play to this scratch track(s) and click track. This method allows you to very easily punch in drums. It also allows you to beat detect the track if you opt to do this. Beat detective will put your drum tracks perfectly in time so it will sound more tight and not so loose. This is a process that takes about an hour to do per song. If you can play to the click and scratch track and you have the extra money, I would highly recommend this service. The hour or so I spend on getting the drums in time and sounding good will save you 3 hours in the long run.
How long have you been recording?
11 years. I started out on a nice 4 track, then bought a couple of ADATs (digital tape based recording), then moved to Pro Tools.
Can we bring our own engineer?
Not unless his name is David Bendeth or his last name ends in Lord-Alge.
How can we get the best quality?
Come here with an open mind! I can only provide sonic quality and to some extent tonal quality. You are responsible for performance quality. Put new strings on your gear. Put new heads on your drums. Pay attention to the pitch of your snare. High pitch does not equal crack! Learn your songs and practice. If you do 3 takes and all 3 are different, guess what? You don't know your parts. Practice to a metronome. Practice hitting the snare drum consistently.
Can our drummer use your drums?
Absolutely!! In fact, it's probably recommended. The kit is always in tune and has new or relatively new heads. It always sounds great. Please, do not tune my drums. Don't even think about it. Think about unicorns instead.
Do you take credit?
PayPal will work.
Did you go to school for
this or something?
No.
Preparation Tips: If you are on a budget it is much better to record 2 songs really well than
reocord 7 songs mediocre.
If you can, practice to a click/metronome before coming in. If you are
struggling, do it on a practice pad to start out. Figure out your tempos before
coming in. If you want to save a little money, record your scratch tracks before
coming in. If you want to save more money, record your midi tracks and
bring them in as .mid files.
Put new strings on your guitars. It makes a big difference. 11's
are preferred, unless you do an insane amount of bends or are a neoclassical
shredder. 11's sustain longer and stay in tune better than smaller guage guitar strings. Elixir strings sound like plastic when they are
recorded. That's because they're made of plastic.
A can of Fast Fret will help string squeeks on acoustic guitars.
This is a good video for snare tuning:
Intonate your guitars!!! Intonation usually changes with different guagese of strings and different tunings. If you are unfamiliar with this process, see this
video:
Facts: 98% of all revenue goes to the purchase of gear. 2% goes to maintenance type stuff...lightbulbs, drumheads and whatnot. I'm committed to constantly improving the sonic quality.
If I do not respond to your emails, it means I am not interested in working with your band. Don't take any offense to this; I have a full time job outside of recording. My time is limited.
I am booked at least a month out. Weekends are high demand, they fill up incredibly quick.
I can ride a unicycle.
I backup data religiously.
I am the fastest PT editor you have ever seen.
Gear
1 x Blue Kiwi (?)
1 x Royer R-121
2 x
Audio Technica 4033 (?)
2 x
AKG C1000s (?)
1 x
Shure SM57 (?)
1 x Shure SM81 (?)
1 x Shure SM58 (?)
1 x
Audix OM-5 (?)
1 x
Audix D6 (?)
1 x
Audix D4 (?)
1 x
Audix D2 (?)
1 x
Audix D3 (?)
1 x
Audix D1 (?)
1 x
Sennheiser e906 (?)
2 x Sennheiser 421 (?)
1 x
Shure SM7 (?)
Beyerdynamic M201 TG (?)
Apogee Rosetta 800 (?)
Digi 003 (?)
Presonus Monitor Station (?)
Great River ME1NV (?)
Toft AFC-2 (?)
Presonus Digimax (?)
API 550b & API Lunchbox
Empirical Labs EL8 (?)
Lexicon PCM42
LA2A
Ensoniq DP4
Framus Dragon Top (?)
Marshall 1960B 4 x 12 (?)
Vox AC30 CC2X
Custom built SJC kit. Dimensions are 18x22, 8x12, and 14x16 (?)
Snares: 7 x 14 built by yours truly (this is the snare on most the tracks), 6 x
14 50's Ludwig, and a 6 x 14 SJC snare.
Cymals: 14" A custom projection hats, 18" Z custom Med crash, 19" Z custom med crash, 21" A custom sweet ride
'95 Gibson Les Paul Studio
Fender P-Bass with Seymour Duncan quater pound pickups
M-Audio KeyRig midi controller (?)
Pro Tools LE 7.3.1
Music Production Toolkit (?)
Various Waves plug-ins including SSL bundle (?)
Vocalign (?)
Melodyne (?)
Native Instruments Komplete (?)
Dude. I'm gonna bring you a CD here in a few days. It looks sweet. Thanks again for everything. People should know, your work is phenomenal. Everyone needs to record at Sounds Underground!
Mitch!! Guess what?! YesFM, Toledo radio station, just contacted us and they want to play our music!! :) Because you're so amazing and made us sound good!! haha :)
Online Now!
.jpg)
