The Brooklyn Studio Sounds: An Altiverb Impulse Response Project, Part II – BC Sound, Trout Recording, The Motherbrain
Part II of the multi-part Altiverb Impulse Response Project. I’m on a mission to capture the sound of Brooklyn recording studios and acoustic spaces through impulse responses created for Audio Ease’s Altiverb 7 software. For more info on the scope of the project and its roots, see Part I.
In this section, we’ll explore three studio spaces that fall more into the category of ”project” or “private studio” than commercial studio. Each of these rooms is the everyday home-base operation for a particular producer/engineer. Part I of this series features a detailed description of the setup and capture process. I’ll touch on some of the main ideas before getting to the studios:
The process of capturing a room starts with setting up a pair of good quality studio monitor speakers on stands in a spot in the room where a loud instrument like a drum kit might normally be positioned, and point them directly at the capsules of a spaced pair of microphones on the opposite side of the room. Omni-directional mics are usually best as they will capture the ambience of a room most naturally.
Reference audio consisting of dry drums, percussion and double bass is played back and recorded for each setup so that I can later A/B the sound of the room versus the impulse response created by Altiverb. We then began capturing the impulse responses by playing Audio Ease’s blip and sweep tone. For some rooms, we recorded multiple IRs at varying distances. Each distance will end up being a separate impulse response that can be used inside Altiverb. This gives the end user the ability to decide which mic placement in the room sounds best for their mix.
Once the sweep tones are recorded, they can be dragged directly into Altiverb via the IR Import tab.
For each studio in this series, I will provide several different audio examples including one showcasing the difference between the actual audio recorded by the mics in the room vs. the same dry audio played through the Altiverb impulse response of the room. I will also provide a commercially available track recorded at each studio.
BC Sound – Gowanus, Brooklyn
BC Sound is the studio home of legendary producer/engineer Martin Bisi, well known for his work with Sonic Youth, Swans, Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock and more recently the Dresden Dolls. The building is the former home of the Old American Can factory and today provides spaces for a myriad of artistic outlets.
Tracking session at BC Sound. Photo by Kevin Abbondondelo.
Martin currently shares the BC Sound control room space with producer Jason LaFarge and his studio, Seizures Palace. Prior to LaFarge, Martin shared the studio space with producer Bill Laswell and Brian Eno.
BC Sound’s first recording was captured in January 1981 with Brian Eno. The sessions would eventually become the track “Lizard Point” on Eno’s ambient record “On Land”, which is considered his darkest ambient record – a fact of which Bisi is particularly proud.
“For the next two to three years, the studio was shared with Bill Laswell,” says Bisi. “Many hip-hop records were recorded here, along with Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”, from his Grammy winning album Future Shock. During this time there were also a dozen or so John Zorn and avant-garde records including Fred Frith’s Massacre starting around 1983. I (later) split with Bill Laswell and delved more into indie rock and post-punk at the studio, with bands such as Sonic Youth and Live Skull.”
Bisi originally found the space through an ad in the Village Voice. “I was attracted to it being two floors – my initial intention was for a space for me and my friends to rehearse. When I delved into recording, there was no real designing of the layout,” explains Bisi. “The space was big enough and weird enough to work with as-is”.
I don’t think Martin would mind that I agree with him on the weirdness factor. The studio space itself quite honestly has that creepy-old basement feel to it. As you can see from the pictures, the walls are cement and cinderblocks with no real ceiling besides the bottom of the wooden floor above. It was in difficult in some ways to imagine all the great work that had taken place inside these walls just on looks alone.
BC Sound’s main tracking room. Click to enlarge.
The sound, however, is incredible. Drums and percussion explode off the floors and walls to create a sharply detailed yet expansive sound with an impressive reverb tail. The sounds we captured in the L-shaped recording space are the most stunningly accurate impulse responses (when compared to the original room recordings) I’ve been able to produce so for this project.
Four impulse responses were recorded in the main space. The first three span the length of the longest section of the L-shaped room from different distances. The final IR we captured was from Martin’s personal room mic style setup with the speakers in the corner firing 90 degrees away from each other into each far end of the L. This results in an incredibly wide stereo response.
BC Sound is one of the most unique recording spaces I’ve ever heard. It will be a great addition to the Altiverb family!
Recorded June 13th 2012 via:
Apple MacBook Pro
Pro Tools 10 + Altiverb 7
I/O – Apogee Duet 2
Monitors – Tannoy Reveal Active
Microphones – AKG 414 B-ULS (graciously provided by Justin Colletti)
2) Dry Horns – Altiverb Horns; Dry Clarinet – Altiverb Clarinet
3) Dry Drums to Altiverb Blend
4) Dry Bass – Room Bass – Altiverb Bass
5) Drum IR Setups – 3M 6M 9.4M 9M WIDE
6) Dry Congas – Room Congas – Altiverb Congas
[wpaudio url=”https://www.sonicscoop.com/audio/SweetSpot.m4a” text=”Sweet Spot by The Stumblebums. Recorded at BC Sound.” dl=”0″]
Trout Recording – Gowanus, Brooklyn
First acclaimed for mixing Pavement’s classic Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Bryce Goggin has had an illustrious career producing, engineering or mixing recordings for artists such as Spacehog, The Apples in Stereo, Sean Lennon, Phish, The Spring Standards, Joan as a Police Woman, Ben Kweller, and Dianosaur Jr – to name just a few.
Trout Recording
Bryce’s studio home, Trout Recording, has been operating in Gowanus since 2002. The studio proper and control room are a shared space separated by Bryce’s Neve 8028 console and vast collection of vintage outboard gear. The room measures 60’ x 19’ with a 14’ ceiling.
“I had my console and equipment set up in a church building in upstate New York for about two years before moving into the current space,” Bryce explains.
“My goal with Trout was to set up a studio where I had all the equipment and instruments I was used to using in world class facilities but have the ability to accommodate the ever diminishing budgets available for making records.” Additionally, Bryce explains: “My primary goal was to set up a room where bands could feel comfortable playing together in the same space. As basic as that sounds, it isn’t always easily achieved.”
The vertical walls are painted white brick with translucent glass block windows on one side. The ceiling has been treated with spectacular staggered wood paneling creating a tight and well-controlled sound.
“I needed a room that offered pleasing and defined early reflections as well as the capacity to reveal some larger spacious anomalies if the music supported such a choice,” Goggin notes. “I put a lot of effort into staggering the dimensions on the horizontal as I felt that if I worked on the vertical dimensions the feel and volume of my recording space would be too greatly compromised.”
Recorded July 5th 2012 via:
Apple MacBook Pro
Pro
Tools 10 + Altiverb 7
I/O – Apogee Duet 2
Monitors – Dynaudio BM15A
Microphones – AKG 414 B-ULS (graciously provided by Justin Colletti)
1) Dry Electric Guitar – Altiverb Electric Guitar
2) Dry Trumpet – Altiverb Trumpet
3) Dry Congas – Altiverb Congas
4) Dry Drums – Altiverb – Altiverb Compressed
[wpaudio url=”https://www.sonicscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/WellWellWell.mp3″ text=”Well Well Well by Johnny Society – Recorded at Trout.” dl=”0″]
The Motherbrain – Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Brian Bender and I came up through the assistant engineer ranks at The Hit Factory in the last years prior to the close of the studio. I’d heard rumors and seen pictures of the incredible facility Brian had put together in Sunset Park over the last few years but hadn’t managed to get down to see it in person. When I began working on the Altiverb project, he was my first call.
The Motherbrain
The Motherbrain is a sight to be seen. The main studio space clocks in at 28’ x 36’ and houses not only the main recording room but a kitchen, living room area and a vast and ever-expanding collection of new and vintage instruments.
The studio is an ideal environment for songwriters and musicians who want the technical abilities of a major recording studio coupled with the homey feel of working in your living room. When you record at The Motherbrain, that’s exactly what you’re doing.
The Motherbrain room as it exists today was first built around 2002 by Irish society folk musician Fionn O’Lachlainn. Bender notes: “There are thirty plus 2″ reels of his (Fionn’s) here and Andy Wallace is listed as the producer.”
The space was later taken over by Aaron Johnson, drummer for the Brazilian Girls for about 18 months before changing hands to Bender.
Some of the studio’s most recent clients include Pino Pallidino (producing Jose James), Shawn Pelton, Madeleine Peyroux, Me’shell N’dgeocello, Ben Kane, Brazilian Girls, Forro In The Dark, Red Hot Organization, (engineer) James Brown, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, and Heather Christian and the Arbornauts among many others.
Recording The Motherbrain’s Music Man
The sounds we captured in Altiverb are a fantastic representation of The Motherbrain. The sound is wide open with a sharp top end, perfect for percussion and well suited for drums, bass and electric guitar. Along with the room, we sampled the studio’s Valvetrain Spring Thing spring reverb unit and a vintage Music Man guitar amp’s spring reverb.
Recorded June 7th 2012 via:
Apple MacBook Pro
Pro
Tools 10 + Altiverb 7
I/O – Apogee Duet 2
Monitors – KRK 7000B
Microphones – Telefunken AR-51
1) Music Man Amp Spring Reverb
3) Electric Guitar Spring Thing Spring Reverb
4) Dry Congas and Altiverb Congas
5) Dry Bass – Room Bass – Altiverb Bass
[wpaudio url=”https://www.sonicscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Sister-Sparrow-and-the-Dirty-Birds-Too-Much.mp3″ text=”Too Much by Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds – Recorded at The Motherbrain.” dl=”0″]
The Brooklyn IR series – including BC Sound, Trout Recording and The Motherbrain – are all available now for Altiverb 7. Click for more details.
Brooklyn IRs in Altiverb 7 browser
Zach McNees is a Brooklyn-based producer/engineer/mixer and live recordist who’s worked with Björk, Rob Thomas, Julia Nunes, The Gregory Brothers, Pixies, Liars and Alice Cooper. Get in touch with Zach via http://www.zachmcnees.com.
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