I was asked to produce a record for a very well known band there called "Diva Gash."
They are an awesome, modern, kind of 80's funk/rock band that really is a lot of fun to listen to. Think of Talking heads meets pauls boutique era beasties, with a little daft punk thrown in at the edges sometimes.
Anyway, they are a great band that is hard to describe because they play music to have fun to, without making me cringe like that description normally would. They are HUGE in Colombia, and they are very talented people.
here is one of their video's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1mMG98pMmo
So ANYWAY,
I was asked if I would produce their new record, and if I would come to Bogota to track it with them.
I said "hell yes" because I have never been to Bogota and I was totally excited to go.
Working out a place to do the recording proved to be interesting, as I wanted a console of some sort, rather than just an ITB situation. I knew there had to be a mixer of some kind somewhere in Bogota, and I told them i didnt care what it was, at all.
Long story short:
We load into the studio that had been chosen based on my criteria:
Mixer of some sort.
Protools HD rig.
Medium size room for drums.
Some microphones.
This was my tech rider for a place where I did not know how much i could ask for beyond that. Turns out I was right.
There was a decent size studio, with an HD rig, wired totally weird to a mackie 32x8 mixer. TOTALLY weird. Like the first 16 channels were normalled to the inputs of a PTHD 96i converter, and there were only 10 outputs starting at 23/24 as the main outs, with 8 more to the right of those... The 1-4 buss's were normalled to a focusright liquid pre, and the 5-8 buss's were straight to inputs in the other 96 i/O... confused? I certainly was.
Thankfully there were a couple of really helpful guys there and we rented and brought in a few key pieces that I asked for, compressor wise.
They even brought in an AMAZING SSL bus compressor clone that a local guy makes there in Bogota that he was selling for $500 US. needless to say , I put in the order for one. it was incredible, and It looks awesome, and is built really well, and it is ONLY 500 DOLLARS!!!! I used that for some room mics...
The drum room was pretty dead, but there was an amazing stone hallway with a marble staircase with a rounded cement wall around the staircase... Hmm... stone stairs? I have heard that before somewhere in drum recording history 101 I think...
So anyway, I put a Sage Bova ball out in the hall and it might just be one of the best ambient drum sounds I have ever recorded. Even at Avatar, or other well known drum rooms. The bova ball and the Marble stairs/stone foyer combination turned out to be stunning. I used what I had, which was a focusrite liquid pre into the SSL bus comp clone and it sounded KILLER. We were all excited over that one.
I had flown with my drum mics, which includes a Telefunken U47, a 602, a FET47, a bova ball, a pair of stapes Omni's because I couldnt fit my pair of M49's for OH, a pair of oktava 012's, and a little altec lavaleir thing from the late 60's that I forget the name of.
I dont think I used one microphone that the studio had. Oh, yeah, an SM7 that we borrowed from another studio. The studio community there was incredible to me, letting us borrow stuff. Totally cool. We wound up on that first setup day with assistants running all over bogota picking up items from different studios. The day felt long and the setup took a long time because we would hit roadblock after roadblock, wiring wise...
Basically, we built a studio out of 4 or 5 studios and people's personal collections.
I used so many things I would not normally choose to use here in the states, because it was what was avaiable, and that turned out to be a great lesson: If it turns on, and does its job, you can makegreat sounds with it. I know the concept gets beat to death here, but it is SOOOO true. I wound up with like 7 devices I had never really used before and they turned out to all work really well. The presonus digimax helped with the number of inputs and pre's, the RME 8 channel thingy running via optical to get me 8 more outputs. the SSL 4 channel mic pre, a pair of quad 8 strips that the kid saved up for like 5 years to buy (literally) and let me use them for free ( i bought him lunch for a week instead), the SSL clone thing that was AWESOME, the Mackie, the event monitors that we replaced the small yamaha things that were no fun with...
Pretty much a whole assortment of non standard, weird stuff that you wouldnt normally find in a "pro" studio here in the states.. except the one distressor we borrowed, i guess.
All of that stuff performed flawlessly.
The food is amazing in Colombia, the violence is amazing in Colombia, the extremes are amazing in Colombia. Not a city for the faint of heart. If the driving doesnt give you a heart attack, the ladies will...
We tracked 8 songs and I really put effort into 7 of them, production wise. I am really, really psyched about this record, and it was made ith a mackie and some other borrowed stuff and man it really was a nice reminder that this whole recording/production thing is about the people, the songs, and as a producer? Being the magnifyng glass for the hopes and drems of the people in the room, much like the way you can start a fire with a magnifying glass using sunlight....
just giving the energy in the room a focal point, and once you get it in focus, no mic pre, or lack of mic pre, can stop you.
