YouTooCanWoo: Recording, Composing, and Rebelling in Brooklyn
As if one rebellion weren’t enough, now David Perlick-Molinari is thick in the midst of another.
We speak not just of the perennially inventive indie rock duo French Horn Rebellion which he co-founded, but of a rather radical studio that he and his collaborators – Deidre Muro and Paul Hammer of the equally acclaimed Savoir Adore — call home base. This beautifully amorphous Brooklyn space is YouTooCanWoo, and it’s shaping up as a revolutionary new place to make music and sound.
The control room A of YouTooCanWoo draws you right in.
As Luck May Have It
A boutique studio at the crossroads of Berry and Grand in Williamsburg, YouTooCanWoo has been busy since even before it officially opened in June. The facility came together when Perlick-Molinari was musing about how to expand past the living room studio in his apartment, walked downstairs one day, and found that a sizable space on the first floor had just become available.
12 months later, the partners at YouTooCanWoo – all of them accomplished artists, composers, and sound designers – are feeling right at home. Besides numerous projects for French Horn Rebellion and Savoir Adore, artist-oriented work includes time with MGMT, Haerts, Deidre & the Dark, Ghost Beach, The Knocks, and St. Lucia. Other recent clients include MTV, Wired magazine, and the feature film Mateo.
With the flurry of album projects, music for picture, online media, film, and uncategorizasbles flying around, Perlick-Molinari isn’t sure how to classify what they do at YouTooCanWoo. “It’s not always so easy to define,” he says. “Do we just create albums for awesome bands? Or are we composers for film and TV, who are equally comfortable in that medium? We love doing both, and we get inspired by all these things.”
The view into the live room from Studio B.
Acoustic Mirror
YouTooCanWoo’s enormously appealing interior reveals a spacious, SSL Matrix-equipped Studio A control room, and a Studio B which also doubles as an isolation booth/project room. Both of those studios share a 300 sq. ft. live room more than sufficient for recording a full band. Tie lines connect all the rooms, all of it bathed in sunshine from multiple windows and gorgeous skylights.
Designed in the style of on “Art Deco reading room in a hotel lobby”, the atmosphere of YouTooCanWoo illustrates its founders’ artistry as much as any sounds they make.
“It’s a direct expression of who we are,” confirms Perlick-Molinari. “We wanted to build something representative of our own tastes, and what we want to be surrounded by. We have our favorite things here to look at and live with.”
Having had the opportunity to build the place from the ground up, and then tweaked to taste as needs arose, the YouTooCanWoo collaborators can accomplish many things under one roof.
“The studio is commercially available – it’s more of a boutique-style studio. We don’t solicit work, but we’re available for people who are into what we’re doing. This is a facility providing creative services from beginning to end: we can do postproduction, compose, do sound design, ADR, and Foley. We can also shoot video projects in the live room, while redoing sound in the control room. For us it’s been a game-changer, because we never had the space to do all these things before.”
An SSL Matrix was the right fit.
Under the Hood
YouTooCanWoo selected the Matrix, SSL’s SuperAnalogue, 40-input mixing console, to power Studio A. “I found that for the size that we are, the Matrix is the perfect match because it’s a module-style board,” states Perlick-Molinari. “I’ve been collecting different gear over the years, and with the board software I can integrate it into the signal chain very easily.”
Choice pieces plugged into the system start with mic pre’s like the API 512, 525, 550, 2500; Neve 1073LB, Trident S20, and of course an Avalon 737sp. Conversion comes via Apogee Symphony I/O, Forsell MADC2A, and Lynx Aurora.
SSL X-Rack VHD, Compressor, Dynamics, EQ is onsite, as well as a Purple Audio MC77, Anthony Demaria Labs 1000 C/L Compressor, SPL Transient Designer, ADR Compex Stereo Dynamics Processor F760XRS, Empirical Labs EL8X Distressors, UA DBX 160, Federal AM864, and ART SGE Mach II.
That last little ART box – a long-ago discontinued 1RU multi-effects guitar processor from back in the day — Is emblematic of what’s going on around YouTooCanWoo. “Paul’s dad is the very influential keyboardist Jan Hammer, and we have little bits of gear he tossed aside, including this processor that he used to make his keyboard sound like a shredding monster guitar,” Perlick-Molinari says. “I don’t know if this SGE Mach II is anything special, but on guitar and keyboards it’s great. I use that a lot on my brother Robert’s French horn in French Horn Rebellion to make it sound like something else.”
Monitoring takes place via Genelec 1032As, Focal Solo6 Bes, Mackie HR824s, and Yamaha HS50Ms. Pro Tools HD3, Logic, and Ableton Live are the DAWs, while a Golden Shield Model 4001 tape machine and Yamaha Mt4X multitrack are on hand to go old skool. Mics include Coles 4038 Ribbons, a Soundelux Elux 25, Blue Kiwi, Wunder Audio CM7 FET, Royer R121, and Microtech Gefell M930.
It’s all the better to capture the plethora of playing devices, which include a 1959 Fender Musicmaster, 1977 Fender Stratocaster, Guild Bluesbird, Martin HD28, Epiphone Hollowbody electric bass, Vox AC15 CC1, Fender Deville, and four-piece Gretsch ’67 Round Badge kit. Or trip out on keys like the Roland Jupiter 8, Rheem Transistor Organ, Farfisa VIP 255, Korg Polysix, Moog MemoryMoog and SubPhatty, plus Dave Smith Prophet ’08.
All Together Now
The best thing about this studio is that it’s equal parts salon, a scintillating center for a lush creative community the facility’s founders hang with. It’s fertile ground for the emerging circle of media producers who get where YouTooCanWoo is coming from.
David Perlick-Molinari sums it up. “We’re working with people who have a shared inspiration as to why we’re in this in the first place. It’s hard to say exactly what makes it tick, but I think it has to do with a sense of empowerment, and a sense of exploration. Curiosity is good too.”
— David Weiss
A Grand convergence of bands and brains.
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