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Stinging Nettles have added a new guitar player and things are sounding groovy. Studio is in a transitional stage but I think some good things are coming ahead.

Stinging Nettles "Tread Softly"

Stinging Nettles’ album “Tread Softly” hits stores today. You can purchase a copy at CDbaby or download the full album or single tracks at DigStation. If you’re in the Lancaster area you can purchase a copy at Mr. Suit Records. You can also preview three full tracks at the Stinging Nettles myspace page.

Here’s a streaming audio version of the first single “Ocean Nose”:

Download audio file (OceanNose.mp3)

Stinging Nettles is a fuzz-folk/indie trio based in Lancaster PA featuring the songs of John Huebner. The record was recorded and mixed by me here in my studio and mastered by Garrett Haines at Treelady Mastering.

We are mighty proud of this album. (I play bass in the band as well) I hope you can check it out for yourself, pick up a copy, and support independent music!

Here’s one of the first reviews of the record from The Sentinel in Cumberland County, PA

They Were Only Satellites

I recently wrapped up some mixes for They Were Only Satellites. 3 songs quickly finished for the myspace page, compilation submissions, etc. Work on the full length continues and we’ll probably add some candy to the tracks we’ve finished. 

They Were Only Satellites is:

Clayton Mars: Vocals, Guitar, Songwriter
Tom Chaffin: Drums
Steve Brecht: Guitar
and myself: Bass, Backing Vocals

Check out a sample track by clicking the player below:

“Baby I Turn to You”  

Download audio file (BabyITurntoYou.mp3)

Joe was joined by Hugh Hamilton on stage who provided dobro, banjo, shakers, tambourine, and vocals. More of Hugh’s music can be found at myspace.com/hughhamilton and iacmusic.com/hughhamilton. Marshall Fischer from Stinging Nettles joined in on Bongos for a few tunes as well.

The entire show was recorded and filmed and we hope that a CD and/or DVD will be released at some point. Here are a few photos of the event. Special thanks to Nina Sabatino for the photos.

Click the player below to hear the song “Methodist Coloring Book”:

Download audio file (Methodist_v1.mp3)

The Stinging Nettles mixes started last Thursday afternoon and today is a little thing I like to call ‘day 8′. We’ve averaged about a day per song and have overshot our time by about double… but that’s OK. The mixes are turning out great and we’re looking forward to finishing up strong.

I’m happy to say that this record was mixed on a console with most processing done with outboard gear. I used a few plugins from Logic for certain special effects, but otherwise we worked “out of the box”. The mixes themselves are very musical and dynamic as John (Huebner) and I were able to ride the faders on every mix and really dial in what we wanted. The mix becomes the final performance in sense.

Anyway, back to work. The mixes should be done by this weekend, then we send it off for mastering. Look for a March 2009 release.

taking a break

The Stinging Nettles have given me carte blanche to record my backing vocals for the record. Which is nice as I can do it when I have the time and also take my time to get them right. So far, so good.

Been spending a lot of time in the studio lately. Splitting my time between working on the Nettles stuff and playing with parts of my new set up. I recently purchased Logic 8 and an Alesis HD24XR for tracking. I’ve used the HD’s before and it’s nice to have one of them back in the rack. I’ve been working in ProTools so long now that I feel really comfortable with it and I’m having a hard time embracing logic. I guess I just need more time.

In other news, They Were Only Satellites are set to start a record in November and I’ve been talking to Jack Dillman about doing a studio release as well. Check back for more updates.

Our idea for this first electric guitar (there will be two) was to split the signal from the guitar 3 ways. Using a DI box, we split 1) to the console 2) Amp #1 – a Vox VR30 through a 2X12″ speaker cabinet and 3) An Epiphone Electar Tube 10 through another 2X12″ speaker cabinet. 

Both of these amps are tube amplifiers and have a great, creamy sound when you get the input/output balance right. On both amps we laid off of any overdrive/drive circuits and went for really pushing the amp LOUD to get the tones we wanted. The guitar was an Epiphone semi-hollow body. (I’m not sure of the model) For microphones we went with an SM57 pointed to the center of the cone on the Epiphone Amp through a Purple Biz preamp to ProTools. For the Vox amp we had an MD421 positioned slightly off-axis to the speaker cone through an API preamp to PT. We also had the Fathead Ribbon mic in the room pointing to a metal sign on the wall to capture reflections of the room and blend in if needed.

That’s 4 guitar tracks… and we still have to do the second guitar. The bottom line is we may or may not use all the signals for every track, or I’ll most likely sum certain amounts of each to one fader on the console and treat it as a mono track. The direct signal is more so for back up in case we need to re-amp the signal for a different tone. 

We managed to get all 11 tracks done between Sunday and Monday night. It’s been a long weekend and we’ll be set to come back next weekend for the second guitar. We took pictures of this set up too with John’s camera. I hope to post some pics soon.

Overheads: We suspended to Josephson C42’s from the ceiling in a an XY configuration about 4-5 feet above the snare. I ran these through a pair of API 312 preamps into PT. This gave us our overall drum sound.

Bass Drum: We tried a few mics on the bass drum. EV RE20, AKG D112, Sennheiser 421, and a Shure Beta 52. The Beta 52 won by a landslide. I ran this through a preamp on the console, then into a Distressor with a 4:1 ratio a fairy quick attack and medium release. We also used a AT4033 about 3 feet in front of the bass drum and built a little tunnel around the mic and bass drum. Sounds great blended together.

Snare: We used a 57 on the top of the snare running through a Purple Biz pre, then into the FMR RNLA leveling amp with about a 2:1, ratio, a pretty quick attack to give it a nice crack, and a release to match. We also put a modded 57 (minus the transformer) on the bottom snares. We built a little baffle between the bottom snare mic and the high hat to avoid picking too much of that up. This mic went through the console and into PT

Toms: The rack tom had a 421 on it and the floor tom had the D112. Both the toms went through a modded Behringer Tube Preamp. I don’t know what it was, but this was just a magic combination. Sounded great. The toms were tuned pretty well which I think helped.

Room mics: We had two room mics. an AT 4033 and a Fathead Ribbon. Both went through the console preamps. The 4033 went into a FMR RNC Compressor with 1.5:1 ratio with just a few db of reduction. I also cranked the gain on the compressor to get more overall level.

So how does it sound? Really freakin’ good. We’re all pretty pleased with the results. It was nice to have the time to set up and try different mics instead of rushing to get a bunch of songs done. In the end we got everything done we needed to anyway. 

I hope to have some pics of the session to post later on. I don’t have a digital camera but John and Marshall took plenty of photos. 

As a side story, Friday night while getting sounds I blew a driver (I think) on my KRK V8 speakers. The fuse was blown and I thought maybe if I replaced that, it would be ok. Saturday morning I went to Radio Shack, got the fuse and put it in. Still making a terrible noise. The speaker was screwed and I had to do something. So, I went to Guitar Center and bought a new pair of Dynaudio BM5a’s. I’m loving these speakers so far. They are perfect for my room and they sound amazing. Very detailed and not fatiguing at all. These are also shielded (unlike the V8s) so I don’t get any noise or buzz from the computer monitor. I may sell the V8s. We’ll see.