Questions about Studios

[Chris DiCicco]

Hey Travis,
I was thinking of doing a True Bonnafide Album with Pro Tools and a Producer but there these new words and things that freak me outlike Month to month Lock out and or Location, but all of that aside I guess I can rent a space here in town and  I know a drummer and a Bass Player and much better guitar player (then Me) I could Take on Rythum and  or Percussion , All I\'m gonna say is I beleive I can do something like this but I just thought I\'d throw it out there,  Also I did in fact call the studio and spoke to Travis Machine and that said " If you have any Questions about the studio..." OK Yes  1 How much does it cost to rent a Travis Dickerson Recording Studio 2 Were in California is Chatsworth ??
Ignore this If you don\'t like  Questions but I gotts to Know! And Knowing is half the Battle...

Ego Trip #5 Trip Away

Chris

[Travis]

Chris,
You may have noticed there is little or no information on this site regarding my studio. This site really exists more for  information related to the artists I work with. My studio is more of a production facility for me and producer friends that use it rather than strictly a day to day commercial recording studio. Commercial studios generally rent out time on a day rate basis and you can get better rates if you lock out or book chunks of time by the week or month. This rate my or may not include an engineer and almost never includes a producer. Producers are usually hired by contract for a royalty  from the sale of the recording, normally an advance is paid up front to insure a minimum  payment. It sound like your doing your first independent record. Unless you have thousands of dollars to put into your production ( in which case you should immediately email me for rates) your probably much better off hiring a local studio at an hourly rate. My advise to people who ask about their first independent production is to hire the best studio you can afford for a day or two to do your drum tracks and or basic bed tracks. You should rehearse your songs over and over before you go in till you know them cold. Pick a studio with a house drum kit, one where they know drums and have made many records with their kit. Use the house engineer, someone that knows the room the kit and the equipment. Once you have the basic tracks then you can book a much smaller studio with a few good mic\'s and pre-amps to do your vocals guitars etc. Generally speaking your first recordings should be a simple straight forward production. A producer may be unnecessary. Keep the production simple, concentrate on the song and the vocal, save more complex productions for when you have a bigger budget and more experience, or when you can afford a producer who can guide you through what can quickly become a big muddy mess of a large production. If you still have specific questions about the business aspects of my studio I\'ll be happy to answer them by email.

[hexitt]

This is the type of stuff I really like to know.  Thanks guys.

[Chris DiCicco]

  Right on Muchos Thankyous Sometimes I forget I don\'t make Bugillions of Dollars,But I will ask around and I guess Solo is the Way I should go, its been like that for as long as I can remember one thing I\'d like to do is a  Record without playing everything myself. But it could be done Drum Machines are good, Have one thats really cheap (Digitech RP50). But why I would want to do this is the Computer I\'m Writting this ( message ) on has been getting slower and slower and so on and I would like/need something that sounded fresh I\'ve thought of session work but those guys are genuises writting for magazine and I would want to do something along the lines of DCK,Riffs and just plain odd sounds like I\'ve been threating to go acoustic and ( Rambling on ) do a Ukulele Record just to scare some of the kids around here...

Thank You for the GREAT INFO My Questions have Been Answered and I will Kindly creep back into the shadows.

Chris

[gkg]

this may sound like a silly question, but do you have a lot of shit on your computer?  burn off a bunch of your stuff you\'re not using every day onto CDs and clean house in there a little... it might be you\'ve already done this, but if not you could be amazed at how much faster the damn things run when they have the room to do it in.

just a thought.

[Chris DiCicco]

 
Creeps out of the Shadows and makes some sort of grunts

could be a speech run for it...... RUN I SAY.

The sound amplified makes a like an old scratch sound this is great but Im tired of it when I treat the thing with Ambience and so Forth and so on the sound gets top heavy and even if I invert the sound is still heavy, Back in April of 2003 my system crash real violentlike when I was running everything thru Acid Loops 7? er something and I would never earse and yes gkg I have been cleaning house is so clean in here you could eat off the circut board... er whatever anyway I now record in full room Mono off the Wave player my old man once showed me how to record on this here computer before it was mind and way before I crashed it the Techys at Heron Technolegies gave me four options in price for a hard drive and I chose the cheapest one also being broke at the time did not help current Homemade Kut has a toatle of 17+ songs on it Riffs Vocals and the like...

Travis Thank You once agien the shades are open to new things
GKG Thank You I\'m going to get anouther Hard Drive put in soon ?? Maybe....

EVERYONE BE SEATED IT APPEARS HARMLESS.

Chris

Ego Trip #9.0

[Chris DiCicco]

Bad Spelling agien weres that Webster...

Chris

[gkg]

assuming you have a cd burner (never assume, you make an ass of u and me, yeah i know mother, i know)

if you don\'t then check price of that against getting another HD - could help the machine run better for a while until you can get a bigass HD if you take stuff off - sound and images both take up hunks of space and if you\'re running on a small HD it can lock up looking for places to tuck in all the data you\'re trying to feed it.  dunno how much RAM you have on your PC either but if she\'s a few years old she\'s likely not up to doing to many things at once without a little boost.  if you suspect she\'s gonna blow soon you should get as much of your data off her onto CDs as you can soon so you don\'t lose that if she gives up for good.

whatever you do, don\'t give up - i wanna hear the slithery scratching thing creep into the light.

[Chris DiCicco]

I would do a plug for a shameless self produced peice I call AWAKENINGS but I don\'t have software to do it or the  Knowlegde to now how to Post somewhere here or elsewhere pluse Travis might get mad and I don\'t want that hanging over me this Board is great Nice helpful people the only other member who\'s Music I\'ve really dug was Chris Moss\'s Grab Bag Alley and Rocket Drop!?!? off Iminthehuzzi sorry Chris if I get that or this Wrong but amazeing stuff....amazeing

AWAKENINGS is a Guitar and Ukulele marriage made in heaven I\'d write out the Tab  But alast I\'m just learning how to read Tab much less write the stuff..

Studios around here are unknown to me as I said before I know a Bass player who digs Bill Laswell and a Drummer who stutters some when you talk to him and a Really Great Guitar player whom I have had the chance of recording some Irish ghost like music  thats looped into three diffrent Sonnets er something.

Now I  Feel somewhat knowledgable in areas concerning the Recording world Thanks Travis, Hexitt, and gkg the thoughts wander on but its much to late to play a song.

I beleive Chatsworth is in SoCal ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Chris

[CMA]

I\'ve really dug was Chris Moss\'s Grab Bag Alley and Rocket Drop! off Iminthehuzzi sorry Chris if I get that or this Wrong but amazeing stuff....amazeing

THanks alot, just saying this, but... i did them at home on my slow computer using a magix music studios 7, i quite usingmy 8-track...zip discs suck

I did an "dub" if you can call it that album on my computer, all going through the mic imput, tho a zoom 707-2 everythign went through it, then i used the mediocre eq system on magix..and a japanese mastering programe.

like always i\'m my own producer engineer, musican, it kinda works out good, untill you fall out with yourself over a Bb/Eb slash chord with the bass playing in C# becasue youforget what key it\'s in...

when i was at college i had prime usage of there 32 track studio with live room with amps grand pianos ect; pro tools with some fun plug-ins.. i did around 36 songs in that studio...sometimes with a rhodes, shaker and guitar..(i dunno where this is going...)


Thanks for liking my work

..i\'ll do some more soon, im on a diffrent project at the moment..but rollercoaster music will be back sometime at the end of the month..

[gkg]

Moss, i don\'t care what you argue about with yourself - you rock and don\'t you let that alter ego tell you different!  

gotta say, somma the best music i ever heard never made it to recording, so if it\'s hot and all you\'ve got\'s a crappy little cassette player hooked into your dash, get it down man.

[CMA]

my own strict set of rules for the best
album in world:

1) refuse to tune guitars, as a collective show of defiance against status quo standard tuning,

2) scream lyrics through a megaphone,

3) hold the recording session in a garage using malfunctioning Peavey Rage amps with the gain cranked to neighbor-complaint levels,

4) add treble,

5) add more treble, then record the resultant din on a microcassette recorder,

6) send the tiny tape to a huge label,
including a note telling penguin suits "go away" if they don\'t like it...

that is the stragey for my newest album, The album will include  tongue-in-cheek numbers about premature burial, making love in public, psychological dysfunction, and a house used for communal orgies-- Imagine listening to a twelve-track disc where the first song was about drugs and the other eleven were semi-improvised tunes about twisted  scenarios... well will it work? we\'ll have to see.
but im sure havign fun with it so far just 2 songs. going primative: no electric guitars, 1 akoostik and a bass guitar, keyboards and drum machine. and my £2 computer mic. No songs going over 2 minutes... if so it\'ll have to be cut in to 2 parts.

i\'ll keep you posted.

[Chris DiCicco]

Dude Chris Moss Just Cut a Record called International Phantom Riffs its sweetly short with one 20 minute bone jarring jam on it, yeah I hear you playing bass ain\'t all that fun I gave up and just do Guitar Electric/Acoustic and Electric withit all slowed down with ambience and Manderain Vocals really scary stuff, the New stuff is called SKIN DRAG ON HIGHWAY WITH GHOST, SECOND TOP SHARK ENTER BIG BOSS, DANNY\'S BOY, INSIDE BROKEN GLASS and More good riffage and some melody (pretty pretty melody) My Secret weapon tho is a Ukulele Concert and Banjo UKE\'s are nifty keen.

WHEN HE GOT GOING HE WAS SCARY!!!!!!!

Chris

[gkg]

scare me some more!

hey - Chris-es-ezz  
try a washtub bass - funkyass sounds and a ball to play with.  my dad had a standup bass, but he preferred the washtub at parties because it was fun and anyone could f\'ck around and impro with it... in the late 70\'s i had an old fender bass when i played with my girlie band, but it was always more of a gas to play with my old man\'s washtub.

[Chris DiCicco]

To GKG
My old man (silvermullet) gave me the Banjo Uke , it was so sad :\'( it was broken,dusty,and he used it as a wall ornament, Isaid lemme take it fix it up and play it, my oldmans other insterments (I\'ll Inherit someday far away) are a greek made 6 string guitar? and a Martin 12 String all acoustic, No washtub Bass for me, but killer you were in a girly band good show? what was it called? Church or Garage? three piece or Four? lemme see You played Bass so it must be four er five was there a singer?

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