MUSIC|MEDIA|DESIGN

We can’t resist noting when a local artist or band does good in the World Outside.  Spin and Rolling Stone reviews are pretty rare for Cincy bands on small labels.  But not for Wussy! 

Wussy, ‘Wussy’ (Shake It) | Spin Magazine Online.

It’s true!  I’ve left the sound design world behind to refocus on music.  Job 1 for me now: Mastering CDs and New Media!

I have a few other things I’m working on, including a new kind of record label.  But as usual, working on music is my real passion.  I’ve worked out a way to have the best of all possible worlds, working in all the best (and my former!) rooms in town.  

Most of all I hope this change is painless and transparent to the people I work with, recording artists. For people who’ve worked with me at QCA or Sound Images or UltraInteractive, but aren’t sure what to do now, it’s simple: Go wherever you’re used to going!  All 3 companies can now accept projects from all of my past clients, and schedule me for work.  Go wherever you’re most comfortable, or used to working.  Rates are pretty close either way, but may be a little more or less depending on how your project breaks down.  And of course, you can just ping me right here, at MUSIC|MEDIA|DESIGN, my new professional home.

For attended sessions or analog work, we should probably speak directly.  First, the number of people, technical needs, even time of day might lean me towards one facility or another.  This brings up one of the real benefit of this move for me personally.  It’s fun to specs and route the projects that come through here to the room that best fits the job.  When you work someplace, part of the job is selling the room.  No more.  At Sound Images, the Lipinski L707 monitors and Bel Canto amp are fed by a very unique, special interface, based on the SonicStudio 305.  A fully-keyed SonicStudio soundBlade system is there, still loaded with a lot of my own custom goodies.  QCA has been greatly improved by Ashley Shephard’s tenure there since my departure… I like his Lynx PCI-based interface and plug suite, but I LOVE the Sontec eq that’s permanently in-line.  I bring my own interfaces and toys as well, as I’ve really gotten hooked on 80-bit processors and paths.  Like many mastering guys, I’m a gear-head at heart!

So that’s it.  I’m really looking forward to this new phase of my career.  If you’re working on a CD or music DVD release, call me.  And if you’re working on digital-only stuff, or other new media music release then definitely call me!

dave.davis@musicmediadesign.com

CityBeat Feature on Play It Forward

One of the coolest charity projects I’ve been involved with in a long time was mastering this new 2 CD set for Cincinnati’s new music support group Play It Forward.  Play It Forward was founded by former WLW host Gary Burbank (who happens to be a very talented drummer, originally doing sessions in Memphis!), and is working to raise an endowment to create a sustainable fund to help needy musicians cover health care costs.

That would be reason enough to support the record (and the show,  Thursday 3/12/2009 at The Madison Theater) but the 30 track disc is pretty interesting too: With a diverse range of artists, genres and tempos it represents our community well.  I was pretty honored for the opportunity to work on it, and I hope the mastering does the performances justice!

Cincinnati’s Psychodots have been a fixture for nearly 2 decades.  While they’ve previously used The Bears website to display their work, they’ve recently revamped their own site, and included a video from their 2006 release Terminal Blvd.  Their friends at Flashpoint Academy in Chicago have dropped a video for the track Not a Pretty Face in the Sights and Sounds section.

I’m gonna get myself in trouble here.  From the day that Video Killed the Radio Star I’ve hated the conventional MTV music video form.  You know the drill: 4 guys jammin’ hard, intercut with the concrete images of the video directors idea of the song’s narrative.  The problem I have with this is that I rarely have the same vision of that narrative.  So first I struggle to understand the concept.  But once grokked, too often I reject the concept in favor of my own.  It’s too concrete.  And I get very little from watching my favorite bands lip sync.  In this case, the craft is great, and I didn’t struggle too much with the concept.  It’s a nice piece, and a good effort.  

Unfortunately, it doesn’t erase my own vision of that narrative.  From the moment I heard that song in the mastering session, it reminded me of an individual and time in my life, which not surprisingly was shared with Psychodots Rob Fetters.  For me, the song’s about much more than the music business, and the video isn’t funny enough to take me wherever it’s aiming.  I confess it’s great to see Bad Bob in metal garb and the costume girls are great, but it’s kind of a one liner.

But that’s just me.  It’s still cool.  But I say music video won’t mature until it can support more than one narrative vision.

Sound Images has always been known for their generous support of good causes.  So it wasn’t hard to convince them to let me take on the Building a Mystery project for the foundation set up by Lauren Fernandes first for Katie Reider’s treatment for cancer, and now tragically, for her memory.  Check out the record… it’s pretty eclectic and fun listen, reminding you of the beautiful person who made all the songs (in every sense).  

In a rare display of promotional virtuosity, local powerhouse Shake It Records has scored a home run with Wussy’s 2006 sophomore release, Left for Dead.

Over the course of the fall of that year the band became the darlings of the Usual Suspects:

First, Cincinnati’s CityBeat dropped a long article for the record’s release party.

Next, Rolling Stone featured a review by Robert Christgau in the same month that Spin’s Steve Kandell issued a strong 4/5 stars.  Even alt-weeklies in other towns got in on the action without supporting tour dates, like The Boston Phoenix  piece here.

I knew this was a good record while we were working on it, but I didn’t expect all this.  Someone’s doing something right at Shake It!  Way to go!

-d-

Sub Pop Records : Daniel Martin Moore : Stray Age LP.

We’re proud to see Sub Pop jumping on Daniel’s bandwagon, and linking the Shake It edition! Very nice, Sub Pop!

Everthing old is new again sooner or later.  The vinyl version, mastered by our own Dave Davis, is part of a trend – low-volume vinyl releases that sell for a little more to select group of fans.  Sure, the medium of vinyl is old as dirt.  Maybe that’s what makes the experience of listening to a record so special.

This is the second vinyl-tagalong we’ve done at Sound Images over the past couple years.  We used the vinyl version of Heartless Bastard’s All This Time to address sonic shortcomings of the CD!  By all accounts, that project was a win.

Ruckus Roboticus: Wildly Vivid : On World Cafe/NPR Music

What’s that Ruckus on the radio!??! RUCKUS ROBOTICUS! Whoooa!  How cool is D’AT!

A few years ago I got a call from a very nice DJ named Dan about doing some mastering.  He was kind of cryptic on the details, but was insistent that someone who “got it” work on this thing, so he put me through a brief phone interview before sending me the job, basically a breakbeat DJ disc.  Since I’m a big electronica fan on my own time (and it’s what I last did as a musician), we hit it off and I got the job.

Fast forward 3 years.  Somehow he tracks me down at Sound Images, with a new record, Playing With Scratches.  As soon as I hit play, my head twisted in new directions, via some very old paths.

Dan filled me in on goings-on in the intervening years, including his remix gigs.  But as cool as all that is, national attention for your music is what it’s all about.  It doesn’t get much better than World Cafe, which has shown much love to Cincy artists.  Check out the show at the link above!

(Photo Backstory – I was crawling on the floor behind Eddie and Frank as this was shot, working on monitors!).

If you think rock/pop bands have it rough, you ought to check out the jazz and orchestral worlds… in spite of a Grammy nomination and sold out performances it’s been frustrating to see how little coverage Bridges, Eddie Daniels Plays the Music of Frank Proto has received since it’s release.  Fortunately I’ve discovered this piece at Crossovermedia, which specializes in such recordings uncategorizable music projects.  Cooler still they provide a list of spins and attention the music has garnered.

Beyond this, the project’s label Liben Music has a page of reviews for this record.  As does Eddie Daniels at his site.  As the engineer, I’m pretty proud of the positive comments about the sound of this record, as well as the music and performances we captured.  Still, considering the importance of the music, the concept (new orchestral and chamber compositions featuring a clarinet virtuoso), the reviews don’t reflect the achievement.  Fortunately our industry peers recognized it with a Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Performance.

The CD and DVD package of Bridges is available from Liben.com.