This is a recording I made of Earl KLUGH. He is a fabulous jazz guitarist playing with really fabulous musicians.

This is live, fly by the seat of your pants mixing. No fixes.. No overdubs. Recorded and mixed on the fabulous, 100%, Vintage, all transistor, Neve. Drums are all gated, except for the overheads. 

Earl's guitar, saxophone and bass guitar, are all wireless. Not bad sounding for wireless.  Ya probably wouldn't have known, if I hadn't told ya?

Most everything has a compressor on it.. Drums and keyboards & guitars are all gated. The EQ was minimal. A bit of digital reverb on his guitar. Some digital reverb on the drums. Some digital reverb on the keyboards. All from different digital reverb devices like Lexicon PCM-60, ALESIS Quadraverb, Yamaha SPX-90-II.

Earl KLUGH

Our Hallmark Films & Recordings Studio, was the second largest studio in Baltimore, in 1978 at the time,. I had designed and constructed this fabulous facility after having had worked at Baltimore's largest studio, that George Massenburg got his start at, FLITE THREE Recordings INC., where I had been employed at the ripe old age of 17 as a production engineer and music engineer. I was never a gofer.

This recording was from my custom console onto our new Ampex MM 1200-16, that we had purchased right off of the NYC AES Convention floor, weeks earlier.

So this Methodist Minister, from Silver Spring, Maryland, drove his 14-year-old daughter nearly 60 miles to Owings Mills, Maryland. We cut Ellen's, first demo, which was just solo piano, guitar and voice. It was most obvious this kid was a wunderkind. Incredible songs, incredible melodies and an incredible songwriter/performer at only 14.

There was a contest, which was started in Baltimore for local bands to come up with a song about Baltimore.

We had also been working with this fabulous ghetto band that was as hot as Earth Wind & Fire. We wanted to produce another Earth Wind & Fire. Their lead singer who does not appear in this cut, was only 15. He was incredible and had a terrific voice and delivery. As good as any MOTOWN star. Practically another Michael Jackson. The drummer was only 14. The guitar and bass player weren't much older. And one of the dads of the Fabulous Friends and One, played the flute solo. Otherwise these were all young teenagers.

We wanted to enter this contest. So we contacted the 14-year-old "Ellen" Amos & asked her to write a song. We were going to trouble her together with this band. She'd not had played with a band prior to this. This was like take number three. And it was recorded virtually all live together. We overdubbed her backup harmony vocals, which she hadn't done up until this time. What an incredible talent she is.

It was recorded by Phil Brecher and RemyRAD. It was mixed by RemyRAD with Phil Brecher assisting. She's singing on a Neumann U-87 through my console into an 1176. Very little EQ was used.

She later went on to be known as Tori Amos. Unfortunately her original demo, which had fabulous songs with incredible memorable melodies, was destroyed in a massive fire at the studio. This one cut with the band is all I have left. I cherish it nearly.

Unfortunately, some other lousy rock band won the contest. They were all guys in their later 20s and 30s. Their song sucked big bananas. Had the judges known that this song came from a bunch of young teenagers, I think it would have won? They had no way of knowing. Baltimore is known for its superb mediocrity. The winning song was truly forgettable. C'est la vie.

This recording was from my custom console onto our new Ampex MM 1200-16, that we had purchased right off of the NYC AES Convention floor, weeks earlier.

So this Methodist Minister, from Silver Spring, Maryland, drove his 14-year-old daughter nearly 60 miles to Owings Mills, Maryland. We cut Ellen's, first demo, which was just solo piano, guitar and voice. It was most obvious this kid was a wunderkind. Incredible songs, incredible melodies and an incredible songwriter/performer at only 14.

There was a contest, which was started in Baltimore for local bands to come up with a song about Baltimore. 

We had also been working with this fabulous ghetto band that was as hot as Earth Wind & Fire. We wanted to produce  another Earth Wind & Fire. Their lead singer who does not appear in this cut, was only 15. He was incredible and had a terrific voice and delivery. As good as any MOTOWN star. Practically another Michael Jackson. The drummer was only 14. The guitar and bass player weren't much older. And one of the dads of the Fabulous Friends and One, played the flute solo. Otherwise these were all young teenagers.

We wanted to enter this contest. So we contacted the 14-year-old "Ellen" Amos & asked her to write a song. We were going to trouble her together with this band. She'd not had played  with a band prior to this. This was like take number three. And it was recorded virtually all live together. We overdubbed her backup harmony vocals, which she hadn't done up until this time. What an incredible talent she is.

It was recorded by Phil Brecher and RemyRAD. It was mixed by RemyRAD with Phil Brecher assisting. She's singing on a Neumann U-87 through my console into an 1176. Very little EQ was used.

She later went on to be known as Tori Amos. Unfortunately her original demo, which had fabulous songs with incredible memorable melodies, was destroyed in a massive fire at the studio. This one cut with the band is all I have left. I cherish it nearly.

Unfortunately, some other lousy rock band won the contest. They were all guys in their later 20s and 30s. Their song sucked big bananas. Had the judges known that this song came from a bunch of young teenagers, I think it would have won? They had no way of knowing. Baltimore is known for its superb mediocrity. The winning song was truly forgettable. C'est la vie.

TORI Amos, "Baltimore" song for a contest, 1978

I was working for the number one Urban Contemporary station, in Washington, DC. It was an owned and operated flagship station of NBC radio, WKYS FM, 93.9.

This was 1983 and in1983 Michael Jackson came out with Rock With You. In the early 1980s, decent and comprehensive professional home project studios didn't quite yet exist as they do today. I had gotten some new equipment and wanted to test some things out.

I was always a joker. The station had extra copies of Rock With You, so I took one of the 45's home with me.

It was around 2 AM and my significant other was a fabulous up-and-coming dramatic, operatic soprano. She was sitting in my bedroom control room with me. 

I proceeded to cover this Michael Jackson song. This is before anybody knew the word " KARAOKE ". But good engineers like myself, knew how to remove lead singers off of records and still retain the low-end response, so as not to lose the bass guitar, bass drum, snare drum. So I knew how to make my own karaoke.

Since I was a very good engineer, I was able to remove Michael from his own song. I put myself in place of him. His background vocals remain as does the rest of the  accompaniment.

I was having a good time and was smoking an illegal weed, as in a joint, between vocal phrases. In the middle of the song I screw up the lyrics. I ripped off the F word expletive and asked if we could do that take it again. My partner, can be heard giggling at the mistake & expletive I ripped off, if ya listen carefully.

The following day I gave it to our big-time program director, Donnie Simpson. Being the Joker I was, I told Donnie that this was "Michael Jackson, live, on a bad day" and that it had come down the radio network lines. And I thought he would get a good laugh out of my efforts? After all, he knew I was a joker.

Days went by and I heard nothing. Then one of my colleague engineers was walking up the hallway toward me. He stopped and confronted me about this Michael Jackson song. He told me he played it. I asked him if Donnie found it amusing? He replied by telling me that Donnie told him  to play it on the air. I really thought he was joking with me?? I had told Donnie that this was Michael Jackson, on a bad day. I thought he would figure out it was a joke? 

Like any good Program Director, he listened to a little bit of it, scanning through it. He never listened all the way through obviously? But may be dead? Then he gave it to the engineer to play. And apparently, that's how Donnie announced it. " Michael Jackson live, on a bad day". I thought this engineer was pulling my leg? He wasn't! And that really shocked me! OMG NO WAY!?!?

So I went up to Donnie Simpson and told him, that the Michael Jackson song was me. He responded saying " I know, you gave it to me. "  I told Donnie it wasn't Michael Jackson! It was me! It was a joke! And this very handsome black man turned nearly as pale as to match my Caucasian skin. 

He didn't talk to me for months after that, as the station could have been sued for millions of dollars! And thankfully, nobody called in to complain about the F word expletive, either, as it was usually used in everybody's common day vernacular. We had a large African-American listening audience, which was the primary listening audience.

So I was played on the number one station that likely had a couple of hundred thousand people listening to it? Wow! And no one called to complain about the F, word. Thank God! 

I recorded this on my AKG 414, through my SOUNDTRACS 16-8-16 I had just purchased and UREI 1176 limiter & KEPEX-1, downward expander, along with my stainless steel plate reverb. 

It was recorded on my 4 track, 1/2 inch, Scully 280 B. Thankfully this had the DC servo option and I had to vary speed the recorder down a bit because my register is not as high as Michael's. And obviously played back at the right speed, it sounds a bit like Michael Jackson... on a bad day, live? Yeah baby! I'm still laughing over that one, 30 years later. I hope you get a good laugh too? Every time I listen to it I have to smoke another Doobie and then I have to listen to the Doobie Brothers.

Michael Remy Jackson, Rokin'U Ultimate FM joke.

These are my jingles I produced when I was 23 years old. Produced on a Yamaha PM-1000 PA board mixer. Installed at this advertising agency, voiceover studio. Designed primarily for PA applications. It was rather substandard for commercial recording purposes. This is all pure analog recording. No computers. And it is comprised of 32-36 stacked tracks. On the, eight track recorder. Never intended to be released in stereo. It was produced for, strictly, monaural. I was told not to track or produced for, stereo. But after the boss heard the Mono versions. Along with the 50 some sales staff, nationwide. The sales staff. Asked if I could generate some stereo mixes? To help butters all the clients on. These are just experimental, stereo mixes. Done in a few hours time. Back in 1979. All produced at 30 IPS NAB, 3M Scotch 250 tape. 2 UREI 11 76 limiters. One half broken AKG BX-20 E, spring reverb. And the brand-new, Eventide Clockworks Harmonizer H-910. 8 microphones. 3 headphones. Overdubs with live studio speakers blaring the rhythm tracks. With the hottest Miami studio musicians. Along with the Miami Symphony Orchestra. All in a voice over studio.  Designed for three or four announcers. But with up to 13 people in the cramped little dead, room. It was fun. And no one in the USA in 1979. Was making recordings quite in this manner. No noise reduction was actually used except for, two, Allison Research, KEPEX-1, downward expander/gates. It was a remarkable undertaking. And I'm still quite proud of these. Over 38 years later. And these copies were copies of copies. All transferred in 1996. To digital. Think of what the masters must have sounded like? All lost in a studio fire. Years later. And a sprinkling of a couple of the actual commercials, I produced. With our fabulous announcers.

As you can tell. These jingles. Were for, multiple campaign, packages. From car dealers to banks. Home improvement companies and tire stores. And my jingles have to compete with the big time jingle companies the company had been obtaining their jingles from in, New York City and Chicago. From studios substantially better equipped than this. But I convinced the old man I could pull it off. And as you can hear? I did.

These jingles. Work later played for, Sir George Martin. And he offered me a job. But not at the money I was making. So I declined his offer. And then kicking myself in the ads for that. For over 30 years now. It's okay. I've had a fabulous luscious career. And it was pretty cool to sit there with Sir George. When he asked me to explain. How I produced this on an eight track, machine? It was almost the same as the Beatles using two,, four track, machines. And so, it was very flattering to be offered that job. And if he had offered me what I was making? I would've accepted his offer. I was in love. And funding my partners operatic career. Alessandra Marc. Google her. And you'll see my Grammy nominated for best engineered, operatic recording called, American Diva. And went on to garner, three more major musical world domination. For others. But where is my award? I guess I have to keep trying?

RemyGolnickJingleSotDemoMB2

From our first, technical shakedown sessions. This is a 100% compromise recording. As we were not yet, fully powered up through our, power isolation transformer. Which meant, no directs, no microphone splits. Without introducing buzz and hum. And  blowing out, a ground fault electrical outlet. We were then pulling our power from. The vocal is coming through a cheap old, six input, Barringer mixer. Through a guitar DI box. With all four microphones coming up one hose. Causing an inordinate amount of drum cymbal wash/bleed. Oh well...Except for that. It ain't bad.

This was recorded all through my, 1970 design, 36 input, 1974 custom built for NBC-TV Neve, audio console. At the Electric Church BYOB performance venue in Austin, Texas. December 7, 2017. A day that will live in infamy. As the beginning for a new recording concept. For the pop music & Recording Studio,  industry.  No other performance venue in the country has this, can do this or will be producing entertainment programming this way. I'm breaking new ground here folks. This is the THING, to come. Don't get left in the dust? Go out and purchase your own $100,000 Neve console. Schlep it to the club and go get 'em. You might need a 25,000 pound diesel box truck to do it though?

This is a live recording direct to stereo 2 track. This is a live rough mix. Or what I refer to as my FM/TV mix for live broadcast purposes. Or for live Internet streaming. Of course it is also attracted to the digital multitrack recorder and simultaneously into multitrack ProTools. But this is not the multitrack recording. This is my live, spontaneous, fly by the seat of your pants, audio engineering. With all its technical problems and foibles.

I am happy to announce that after this recording was made. We are now on our proper, Transformer isolated, filtered, power. Lowering the noise floor and expanding our capabilities technically. So that the recordings won't come out this crappy Sound, anymore LOL. Is it crappy? I don't think so? Its stylistic. With all that fizzy distortion. So it's cool.

Go Fever

First technical shakedown session. December 7, 2017. A day that will live in infamy. At the Electric Church BYOB performance venue in Austin, Texas. These are the Nymphs.

This is a 100% technically compromised recording. Tracked live to stereo 2 track. No DI, Directs, are taken. The vocal comes from the nasty sounding, recording output of a Barringer 6 input PA mixer. Via a  Radial DI box. Into the 1974, built for NBC-TV, Custom, Neve, 36 input audio console, in the backyard. In my truck. Yes, it's inside a truck. It's a Control Room On Wheels a.k.a. the CROW.

This, I believe will become the new paradigm for the way recordings are going to be made. With real musicians. Real singers. No artificial de-gredients. Like computers.  Were used. No Auto Tune. No beat quantizing. Just live audio engineering. This is only an, Experimental Recording. To prove proof of concept. This is only a test. For the next few minutes. The station will broadcast a test of the, Emergency Recording System. This is only a test.

The Nymphs

This is a band that I recorded in an un-soundproofed or modified two-car garage.  We had to move the power mower, the kids bicycles, gardening supplies.  The singer I cut out doors, on the gravel in front of the garage.  He didn't sound good in the garage.  It was after midnight and a ground fog was rolling in as all of the crickets sang. The singer nailed this after he completed an eight hour shift as a short order cook at Denny's.  He nailed these takes in 1 or 2 passes.  The ground fog was rolling in and the band was standing around him outdoors.  He wasn't using headphones.  I simply stuck a small cue speaker, right under the microphone (FOSTEX, 6301).  And if you solo his track on the multi-track, you hear crickets as the choral backup LOL.

I cut his vocal on a AKG 414 in Omni, no pop filtering. Limiter was my old blackface 1176 through a Sphere Eclipse C 1978 console.  It was mixed on the same desk and everything here was 16-bit, 44.1 kHz throughout.  Sampled synth Roland D-50 and a Yamaha something?  Real drums.  DI bass guitar.  57 on amplified guitar cabinet.  Sennheiser 421's on snare and bass drum.  SM 81's overhead's, 57's on tom-toms because I didn't have enough 421's.  Bass drum, snare drum and tom-toms are compressed through DBX 165 A's and gated with KEPEX 1's.  Reverbs were Lexicon PCM-60/LXP-1's, Alesis Quadra-verb, Yamaha SPX-90 version 2's, Delta Labs Effect-Tron 2's.

This cut is also not mastered by anybody.  This is a raw unfinished, 20 minute mix of mine.  And for a little extra interest, I took the opening downbeat, isolated it, as a sample.  Added some software plate reverb and tossed it back in and backwards.  And this was a project that was never fully completed.  And the project could have been called " Too dumb to become famous. "? And so they didn't. Though it sparked a lot of interest that the 1996 AES when I used my CD of this to audition some new speakers.  Tough luck I guess?

Mx. Remy Ann David
Crowmobile.com
202-239-7412

EarthBelowSlide in

This recording was a complete happenstance.  I was in Wellington New Zealand recording operatic CD for Los Angeles record label.  I met this beautiful local Maori woman who was a singer in this little band.  She was going to be performing that night out in the suburbs outside of Wellington New Zealand.  I had two API 3124 mixers with me.  A couple of 15 foot microphone cables.  414's overtop the drums and a Crown PZM with a phase inverting XLR barrel on it.  I had my Lexicon LXP-1.  The singer is on a 58.  The saxophone is on a Beyer M-160.  Bass guitar and keyboard were taken through a couple of really beat up cheap direct boxes.

No equalizers.  No compressor/limiters.  I had to ride the gang of her vocal microphone by hand.  My entire rig was set up on top of the bass guitar cabinet.  And even with my old KOSS Pro 4 AA's I couldn't hear the mix the bass guitar to save my soul.  Direct to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz Panasonic SV-3500, first-generation DAT recorder.

The only postproduction done here was that I used IK multimedia T-Racks, multi-band limiter with my own tweaks and nothing else.  This is as real as it gets.  A very enjoyable evening.  Something I'll never forget.

SusanNZZZ

This is cool.  I had my recording truck parked at a nightclub Friday through Sunday night.  I stuck around for Monday as they were closed.  I left all of my junk still set up.  When I went back to my truck Monday night to watch TV.  Since nothing was going on  at the nightclub.

Sometime after 11 PM.  I heard audio of a band coming through my audio console.  But the club was closed.  So I went inside to see what was going on.  Since  all of my microphones were still plugged into my microphone split box.  And here is this band.  That has booked the club strictly for their rehearsal.  No audience is present.  And I asked if it was okay to roll on their rehearsal.  And I got this recording from bed.

From bed?  Yes.  I take the  captains chairs out of the control room.  I roll in the portable bed and sack out.

So this here recording.  I basically recorded from behind my console, beneath my fader where I could not see them.  From bed.  Behind my console.  And I was watching one of my favorite TV shows at the same time.  And I get this haphazard, major coast-to-coast network quality recording.  From bed.  In my control room.  Kind of in my sleep or foggy haze of a stupor.  Just recovering from, 3 straight nights of awesome live rock band show recordings.  And I was just relaxing.  Not planning to record anything.  When I pressed the record button.  So I really can do this, in my sleep.  Or at least from bed.  In the control room behind the console.  Where my chairs normally are.  And beneath the faders.  So I can only feel around for them.  And I get these ridiculous recordings all of the time.  All with cheap microphones.  All with the PA system on.  2 drummers.  As they were breaking in a new drummer.  And this would be their only rehearsal before the gig.  So it's a final rehearsal for them.  And my recording, in my sleep from bed from behind the console.  Network Television, style  Audio.  From my network television audio console.  It even sounds like television.  And the commercial is only for me.

This is just a haphazard rehearsal recording with the previous days set up for a different band.  So there is nothing technically accurate about this recording.  It's haphazard.  I am not seriously engineering, seriously.  I'm not really engineering at all.  I'm watching television of another TV show.  While doing this.  I like to multitask.  I don't really need to pay attention to what I'm doing.  I can do it in my sleep.   This sort of proves it.  Though I was semiconscious.  But only, semiconscious.  I was pooped.  Ragged out   From a fun music recording weekend.  I never thought it would stretch into Monday night with a rehearsal.  And sometimes you capture and catch, magic!  And this was one hell of a rehearsal with no audience present.  Just me in the control room.  300 feet away.  in another structure.  I mean this rehearsal and this recording is bonkers!  Nobody gets stuff like this.  Except me.  Check it out.

Noel Rehearsal PLL Comp EC 2018

This is from a live show I recorded with my control room as seen in this picture. This control room was, for the past 30 years. Assembled inside my big gigantic 25,000 pound, Mercedes-Benz, diesel box truck.  One of the best music and audio recording trucks in the USA.

But this is a live recording at a relatively new nightspot performance venue.  On the east side in, Austin, Texas. Add was all recorded and produced through this very control room installed within my truck rolling control room on wheels. 

There simply has to be a way to bring this entertainment into your homes.  On a regular basis.

I'm I further go on to say. And I really hate to say this. But. This is a live performance band. I like this live rendition. Much better than their album productions. Those are just too refined. This recording has real Performance Value. Because it's live. There is no fake stuff here. No studio tricks. No computer tricks. No autotune. This is what this band can deliver live. And it's a great performance band. With true excitement.  And it doesn't just stop there.

I sure did. This is an awesome band. Sometimes A Legend? What about all the time? Sax and flute and trumpet. And such a great deal of stage presence. This guy knows how to work the audience. He's got a great rapport with the audience. He is in tune and interactive with the audience. He's animated. He's entertaining. This is real entertainment. This is a real entertainer. This is true entertainment. And what great songs! I absolutely love this band. These guys might very well become legends. Because they know how to perform. It's all about the performance of value. And this is chock-full of it. Chock-full of nuts that know how to play their instruments and entertain an audience. In a most professional manner. And man did I ever appreciate this band.

And in closing.  Another note here. This recording is not Mastered. So you can try it for yourselves at home. This is just the raw live FM style mixes I derive at the time of the show. So it's got its problems. And needs a little Mastering. Which I have personally toyed around with doing. But figured. Let's see what everybody else can come up with? Why should I have all the fun. I recorded and mixed it. Enjoy.

Somtimes A Legend Session 1 Over The Top TRacks FM Rendition

I have attended the DV Expo East convention in NYC. I have been attending the AES which, this year, marks my 41st anniversary of attending that convention.

And so here was this piece of e-mail for the DV Expo and for some self amusement, I created a  60 second spot. Hope you like it?

Shoot edit create 2shoot edit create DV Expo East 2012

Authentic 70's/80's Engineer/Producer and 4 time, major music award nominee. 3 times in the best engineered category. 20 year, A-1 Audio Engineer/Maintenance Engineer & Control Room Designer, installer, NBC-TV & Radio, veteran. Washington, DC. Owner/Operator CROWmobile.com 25+ years. Which is awesome!

Everyone thinks, that they know how to tweak control rooms. But they only think, that they know. You've not heard what a control room is supposed to sound like. Until you hear my control room. It's such a shame. That everyone else thinks that they know. You won't know how awful your, Control Room, sounds. Until you hear mine. And how it costs next to nothing. To fix it. 

It's okay. You can't help it, if you followed, directions or got a college degree. Or at least. That's what I teach to college professors. 

So when you want the most awesome sounding, musical productions. Now you know where to go. Or rather. Who to call.

However... If you suck? I might tell you where to go? You better have a hell of a lot of talent. If you want to work with me? Beginners and fakes can go elsewhere. I don't, like playing with amateurs. But if you're good enough? I might take your money? If you pass the audition?

RemyRAD

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