As musicians, we choose to record for a variety of different reasons. For some of us it's the chance to see our vision come to life. In other cases we simply want to be able to bring the songs home with us. For some it's an artistic endeavor. It's enjoyable to hear the hard work you put into your music over and over again, and equally awesome to share with our friends. And it's our way to contribute to creativity, and – in some small way – even history. There are a ton of motivations for doing this thing we call music.

With so many unexplainable needs that ignite this desire in us to write, rehearse, perform and record music, there are certain qualities we require to make a recording session engaging and prosperous.

Comfort and Vibe

Comfort is a huge thing. If we're not comfortable with the atmosphere we're recording in, how can we possibly engage the marathon that is recording a release? If the place smells, or is a wreck, how do we muster up the enthusiasm and focus? If the engineer has a bad attitude, or simply seems completely uninvested in the project, how do you not feel like you were used for just a paycheck? We want an engaged and enthusiastic engineer, who will be assertive and critical enough to say "we can do one better here, let's try it again", and yet have the personality that meshes with our own, so it feels right. The time it takes to record is substantial, and the atmosphere and the engineer to be both comfortable and "in the zone". After we've scraped together the cash flow to get into the studio in the first place (which is a struggle in itself!), the last thing we want to feel is that we wasted our money. Music is a labor of love, and we want the engineer we work with to love it as well.

Brass Palace is indeed a labor of love. With all of these things taken into consideration, my goal is to provide a comfortable, yet prosperous atmosphere for achieving your sonic goals.

Mobile Recording

The idea of a mobile recording studio was really accidentally born out of my own needs for recording and creating in more unconventional atmospheres. The great thing about a mobile studio is that you get the choice of deciding what is most comfortable for your band. If recording in your apartment or rehearsal space is most conducive for your group, then perfect. If you'd like to make use of the rehearsal rooms on your university campus, that's just as easy. Or if working in an actual studio space feels best, no problem.

The focus is on your creative comfort.

No Watching the Clock

The fun in recording is discovering the undiscovered possibilities within a song, and fulfilling the promises and possibilities of the songs. So it doesn't really make sense to penalize you, the musician, for taking time to experiment while we record. Maybe a keyboard part is worth taking a look at. Or maybe a different space for atmosphere. It's always good to have a steady hand on the reins to keep things productive, but we should also have the chance to explore. Recording shouldn't be stressful because of the time/money balance. That's why I charge a flat rate for all projects.

Let's spend time on what's truly important, and not staring at the clock.

Brass Palace offers an "All-in-One" approach to your recording needs:

Recording

Most obviously, is that I record your session. We track at the location of your choice, and track each instrument individually. Starting with drums and percussion, bass, guitars, keys, any other instruments, and then vocals. This includes high quality pre-amps and analog-to-digital conversion, computer-based recording system, high quality microphones from Oktava, Shure, Sennheiser and more. Our goal is to achieve the absolute best performance, with care and detail on getting great tones and sounds.

Editing

Editing is huge for recording. It's not simply just tossing a mic in front of an instrument, tweaking the fader, slapping on a couple plugins and calling it a day. Phase relationships are tremendous in making or breaking your recordings. Tightening up the timing of the drums, the bass with the drums, and the entire song itself. Being able to phase-accurately replace a kick if the performance was weak in a spot. Or thoughtful pitch tuning of a trumpet if a note was just a little flat. Meticulous and careful detail spent on tightening, tuning and cleaning up a session is key.

Mixing

Once we've honed in on a great recording process, and then edited the tracks so they're cleaned up, tight, and there are no loose ends left, I mix the material for you. Mixing is done entirely "in-the-box", using Presonus' amazing Studio One suite on a Mac-based system. Clarity and precision is achieved mixing digitally, but also using high-quality analog plugins like Slate's VCC collection to achieve the non-linear, inexplicable aspects of recording analog. It's a great combination of the precision of the digital world with the warm, vibey aspects of analog production.

Mastering

Mastering is also included within your project. A lot of recording facilities separate these roles, and often you'll need to find a separate mastering house. However, Brass Palace includes this process. I'll make sure your release is competitive with current playback levels, while ensuring your songs aren't squashed to death with compression or suffering inter-sample peaking that plagues modern recordings. Your release can be mastered for any format, and will have all the necessary meta information built into the files (song titles, artist, songwriter credits, ISRC).

Pre-Production/Demoing

Obviously a great deal of preparation is necessary before even walking into a studio to record. Practice, practice, practice is key, but demoing tracks can go a long way as well. I'm interested in really making sure your project is great, and the necessary foundation is built. Pre-production is also included when you work with Brass Palace. I want to get to know the material ahead of time, and it can very beneficial to everyone to have a rough demo to reflect upon, note things that need working on, or to further hash out creative ideas. I can come to your rehearsal, set my gear up and record your band practice, and then send rough mixes of the set to you. This will also help me better understand your needs for the recording session, the band dynamics, and dial in things like BPM for click tracks.

Archiving and Retrieval

Though it seems like it should go without saying, I make sure all sessions and associated files are backed up and always available to you in the future. If you need stems for a remix, I can provide that quickly. If your computer crashes or is stolen, I can always provide you with the wav files of your recording. Maybe you just want the session to tweak around with? I of course can hook you up with that as well. All sessions are backed up on external hard-drives and online using Crashplan.

Stand-Alone Services

If you are looking to just demo your rehearsal, or an engineer to mix a session you've already recorded without the full suite of Brass Palace services, I can certainly do that as well. Please feel free to contact me to discuss this.

The above track was recorded in a very unusual atmosphere – a work space for building and testing boutique guitar pedals, underneath a dog grooming shop in Rochester, NY. Surrounded by tools, metal, virtually no sound-proofing to speak of, low ceiling, and the occasional yap of a dog from the shop above, this was hardly the ideal situation for tracking. However, we ran with it, and the result was a technical, driving post-punk song with loud, gain-heavy guitars and strings and horns to boot. A bit self-indulgent sure, but exciting nonetheless.

All the tracking was done instrument-by-instrument, so the drums first, then bass, followed by guitars and guitar leads, violins and lastly trumpet. Obviously this track is an instrumental, so vocals aren't present.

The approach taken was to position the drums as ideally as possible, using furniture in the room such as a couch and chair to isolate the kick a bit. Anything that seem to rattle in the room was taken off the walls, put away in a closet, really taking note of anything that might be nasty if caught in the recording. Blankets and pillows were stuffed in the ceiling panels to deaden any echo. A click track was used, and we did about 3-4 passes on the drum track, which was great for comping together a couple different performances for one solid performance. It's a pretty technically involved drum part, so this was incredibly helpful. Oh, and the drummer could only give about 3 hours to track as well. So time was of the essence.

I then edited the tracks individually, really tightening up the drums phase/time relationships, the drums timing against the click/grid, the performance of the other tracks against the drums, the pitch of the strings and horns, mixed and mastered. The Before example has the exact same levels and panning set for consistency, but no editing, mixing or mastering done. The After example has all of this.

Hope you enjoy the difference between the dry, unmixed/unedited track and the completed master.

I know that one of the most important things to you is being able to vibe with the engineer you're recording with. If your personalities don't mesh, then it's gonna make for a grizzly time. That's why I feel it's just as important to get to know the bands that I'm considering working with as well. I really want this to be the perfect fit for both of us.

If you feel Brass Palace might be the option for you, please email me using the form below. We can then set up a chance to discuss the project over coffee, Skype, or whatever works best for you. I really want to be the best resource for you in this often-times unclear realm of recording.

Thanks in advance.

So Who Am I?

Hi, I'm Chris Vandeviver. I'm a NYC-based touring musician and engineer. Since from about 17 on I've been in bands of various sounds and influences, and have toured pretty much everywhere east of the Mississippi, released records with a number of independent labels, played festivals like The Fest in Gainesville, FL and Bamboozle in New Jersey, worked as a stage hand, and have been beating the pavement for the love of music for the last decade.

Favorite Records

Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Punks
Refused, Shape of Punk to Come
Foxy Shazam, self-titled
Dillinger Four, Midwestern Songs of the Americas
Aficionado, self-titled
Cursive, Ugly Organ
the Appleseed Cast, Mare Vitalis
Glass and Ashes, Aesthetic Arrest
Lana Del Rey, Born to Die
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Fucked Up, David Comes to Life