DJ Mani

I felt now was the time, so I dabbled with NI Maschine and came up with a new approach to my production.  I have to personally thank Manish for the inspiration and production tools, as i sit and bang out parts on his MIDI controller.

Thanks, bro!

This was Jim’s response to the track:  “Mind blown! Don’t even know what to say E. Im sitting on a train in China smiling my ass off. You absolutely crushed this and if i could pick a “sound” going forward this is it.”

I’d say it was a successful day at Horse-Drawn…

This project is a beautiful blend of country and folk sounds, in which we captured a natural live feel, while injecting some very cool colors into the mix. This is their second project, and they have a direct line on radio play when the project completes. You can find out more info on the first project, engineered and produced by Don Griffin.

Although their single, “One too Many” is a sharp combination of good songwriting and a crafty performance, I really like the tune “Rumble”, which I cannot stop singing out loud.

Steve had a specific drum sound in mind, so he brought in his own kit, and instructed me how to achieve the sound he wanted. I used mostly API mic pre’s for the task, and put the Focusrite mic pre’s to work on Michele’s sweet acoustic guitar.

Live Room with the Maple Custom Kit

We have power toms in all sizes from 8″ to 18″.  We chose the 8×8″, 10×10″, 12×12″ and 14×14″ toms.  The kick is a standard 16×22, but do to the high number of maple plies, it is one of the heaviest kick drums I have carried to gigs.

This was the mic line-up ( to answer everyone’s questions)

Kick – AKG D112, Snare top Shure sm57, Snare bottom and floor toms were Sennheiser 421′s, Rack toms were AKG C414XLII‘s, Overheads were an Audio Technica 825, Shure Beta 91 PZM mics also captured room and cymbal sounds, with a Lawson L47 crushed through a Distressor for the room sound.  Everything was tracked through our Trident 65 Series mic pres and EQ’s.  Massive.

Go Brian!

Brian is able to get great performances from his artists, and the finished vocals sound amazing. I used a Neuman U47 to capture the vocals, and a focusrite class A preamp, with no eq and a Distressor for compression.

Earlier in the day, we recorded our acoustic grand piano in the live room. For this, I used 2 AKG 414′s and Shure Beta 91 pzm mics on the floor about 8 feet out with the lid open. Both of them through API mic pre’s with no compression.

As usual, everything was converted to digital using Apogee converters.

Shout out to Steve “Funkworm” Butler for giving out some great blog advice to our clients. Steve has been working with HDP for ten years, and can give you a super boost on your online productivity. He currently administers a great blog for indie hip hop artists, called indiehiphop. I recommend you send him your music, as it is great promotion, and it can help give artists a fresh prospective.

Call 773.463.7970 ext 706 for more information.

In other news, Emory Jones and Sanctuary got an offer for radio play from a song we completed just this week.  They haven’t even gotten the final master, yet.  Meanwhile, we are working on completing Sanctuary’s second album with Horse-Drawn Productions.

Please give a prayer to my Aunt Janet in the hospital undergoing some tests after contracting double pneumonia.  Our thoughts go out to her and our family.  She is doing much better now, I hear.  Tired of being in the hospital…