Eugene Marlow produces a composition for Baruch College video

Composer Eugene Marlow produced a live band with CUNY Baruch College students this March.

His original composition, "The Rhythm of My Future," features a combination of sample hip-hop drum tracks and improvised world music instruments, including electric guitar, sitar, clarinet, pan flute, saxophone, koto, steel drum, and Rhodes. 

The recording is part of a music video commissioned by the Dr. Aldemaro Romero, Jr., Dean of the Weissman School of Arts & Sciences, CUNY Baruch College.

Throwback Thursday: SongCraft Presents

Happy Thursday, Dubway family! For today's throwback, we're highlighting a project that Dubway owner Al Houghton and former co-owner Mike Crehore worked on a few years ago..

songcraft
SongCraft Presents is a "web series in which featured artists write and record a song in the course of a day with host Ben Arthur. Producers Al Houghton and Mike Crehore then take the song and shape it into a polished studio track.

There’s no cheating.  From concept and lyrics to arrangement and performance, the pressure is on to make not just a good song, but a great song.

Often filmed in NYC’s renowned Dubway Studios, the artists have access to the best recording resources available: vintage instruments, state-of-the-art recording software and hardware, and the best engineers in the business.

Here are the first and last parts from one of the episodes of the series featuring Kaleta and his band Zozo Afrobeat.

Surround Mix for John Luther Adams' "Canticles of the Holy Wind"

'Canticles of the Holy Wind' performed in the Met’s Medieval Sculpture Hall (Richard Termine for The New York Times)

'Canticles of the Holy Wind' performed in the Met’s Medieval Sculpture Hall (Richard Termine for The New York Times)

John Luther Adams was in the studio with producer Nathaniel Reichman mixing his highly-anticipated new choral piece "Canticles of the Holy Wind". The piece, commissioned by Chamber Choir Kamer and The Crossing Choir, was recorded in a church in rural Pennsylvania, and features The Crossing Choir led by conductor Donald Nally.

Nathaniel Reichman and John Luther Adams in The Blue Room.

Nathaniel Reichman and John Luther Adams in The Blue Room.

Cantaloupe Music’s ongoing commitment to surround-sound gave Nathaniel Reichman and recording engineer Paul Zinman the opportunity to record the piece as it was originally intended to be heard: four separate choirs surrounding the audience. Nathaniel says, “There’s always a let-down when you switch from the immersiveness of surround to the flatter, more ‘painterly’ stage of stereo. But in this piece, that difference is huge.”

John Luther Adams and Nathaniel have worked on many albums at Dubway together, including the 2015 Grammy-winning album (and Pulitzer Prize winning composition), Become Ocean. Looking ahead to the release of the new album, Nathaniel adds “John has written another profound and exquisite piece, and the choir’s performance is extraordinary. We’re all really proud of the result.”

Look for the album and new performances of "Canticles of the Holy Wind" in the spring of 2017.

Geek-Out with Nathaniel - Episode 8: Custom Key Commands

Nathaniel.jpg

Back in Logic version 2, you could enter your own key commands for nearly every function in the application. This led to a lot of confusion, but it was fun. Mac OS X allows users to add key commands to installed applications, but the process is a little inflexible, and system maintenance can easily erase your work. To address this problem, Keyboard Maestro has become a favorite tool of professional artists. Keyboard Maestro runs as a background process and takes almost no CPU power. I rely on it heavily while using Pro Tools. Here are some of my favorite custom commands:

command-r: Show/Hide Clip Name
option-d: Delete Fades
control-r: open Pitch 'n Time Pro

I’m in the middle of a project that has caused me to become an Izotope RX ninja. You can automate the process of getting from Pro Tools to RX and back:

shift-c (clicks on an open Audiosuite plug-in for RX Connect): RX Connect Send
shift-d (sends the audio back to Pro Tools, waits 0.5 seconds for the application switch, and then renders the audio by hitting the Audiosuite plug-in): RX Connect Render

This greatly speeds up insanely tedious tasks. Here’s a screenshot of my custom key commands. I regularly update these depending on what (tedious) task I’m doing:

All of this is no substitute for learning all the key commands that Pro Tools already has. So for a little bedtime reading, here’s the official shortcut guide. Be careful when adding commands, because if they overlap with existing commands, the computer might yell at you.

Raye Zaragoza recording her debut album

Raye Zaragoza recording in the mezzanine's live room. (Photo: Desmond White)

Raye Zaragoza recording in the mezzanine's live room. (Photo: Desmond White)

Visiting from Los Angeles, Raye Zaragoza began recording her debut album (title TBA) in the mezzanine with engineer Chris Montgomery. Accompanying her are musicians Goh Izawa, Tom Basom, Desmond White and Christian Nourijanian.

Raye-Zaragoza

Raye Zaragoza is an independent singer-songwriter from New York. She released her debut EP "Heroine" in 2015, with its title single "Heroine" receiving acclaim across the US and UK. Honoring her Native-American roots, her latest release "In The River: A Protest Song," was written in solidarity with the Standing Rock sioux against the Dakota Access Pipeline, whose video received half a million views on Facebook and has raised thousands of dollars for Standing Rock's supply fund. You can now pre-order and help fund Raye's 100% independent album on PledgeMusic.

Lisa Lavie and Orlando Dixon tracking vocals

Engineer Sam Palumbo with Lisa Lavie and Orlando Dixon

Engineer Sam Palumbo with Lisa Lavie and Orlando Dixon

Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie flew all the from Montréal in Canada over the weekend to produce the vocal recording of singer Orlando Dixon.

Lisa Lavie is a pop/R&B/soul singer from Canada who was one of the earliest to use YouTube to reach fans and arouse interest in record labels, though she currently remains unsigned. She is working on her sophomore album in New York City which will feature Orlando Dixon, who was previously a finalist on season 4 of NBC's The Voice.

Geek-Out with Nathaniel - Episode 9 - System Drive Cloning

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I spent days getting the software perfectly tuned on my desktop Pro Tools machine. Each plug-in version, every preference setting, every custom key command, every email password… and then I realized that my laptop had to serve as a backup to the desktop. Start again and spend days copying all the settings from the desktop? Fortunately no. macOS is very portable and can be cloned easily from one machine to another.

The textbook method of cloning is a block-by-block clone performed by Disk Utility. Disk Utility won’t let you clone the active system drive. So you need (3) drives:

1. another Mac or USB flash drive with a bootable copy of macOS.
2. the source drive (your perfectly tuned system drive)
3. the destination drive (which will be erased completely!)

Restart, hold down “option,” and choose #1 as your boot drive. Launch Disk Utility and you’ll see something like this in Mavericks:

…or if you’re on Sierra, something like this:

Choose your drives, hit Restore and follow the prompts. DON’T DO IT BACKWARDS! And note that this will only work if the destination drive is exactly the same size or larger as the source drive. Regardless of the actual used data size, Disk Utility will complain if the total volume size is not equal or larger.

So this brings me to the cowboy method of cloning a hard drive: Instead of (3) drives, you only need (2): source and destination. And not only that, you can be actively booted from the source, and the total volume sizes don’t have to match. Yee-haw!

Apple will tell you this is silly, but if you quit all open applications, and let it run in one shot, it works. But if you save the .sync file and try to run it again as a “refresh” several days later (copying only modified or new files), it will probably fail. When cloning cowboy-style, I always start with a fresh synchronizer and a newly erased destination drive.

And now the fine print: iTunes authorization won’t clone (but Apple Music will). Change the Share name as soon as possible so the network doesn’t freak-out when it sees two identical machines on the LAN. Dropbox and Google Drive will need some love, but will ultimately make it through unscathed. Serial number authorizations may have to be re-entered. iLok authorizations are totally unaffected. Time Machine might freak-out, turn it off as soon as you’re done to be safe.

 

 

Email me if you have any questions. Geek-on!

Sofar Sounds New York at Dubway Studios

Last fall, we hosted a handful of Sofar Sounds New York shows, welcoming music lovers and up-and-coming artists to our mezzanine studio for these secret, intimate gigs. The shows were filmed and just released on Sofar Sounds' global YouTube channel. See performances from the guest artists below:

Scruffy Pearls:

The International Ensemble (November 14, 2016):

Vento Alejandro:

Bombshell Nightlight:

Live band tracking for New Orleans' Bayou Boogaloo Festival

Last week, our mezzanine studio hosted a live band tracking a theme song for this year's Bayou Boogaloo Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana. The New Orleans orchestra consisted of drums, bass, guitar, a hammond B3 organ, trumpet, saxophone and trombone.

The orchestra was lead by composer and actor Nick Balaban, who is also known for his music scoring on Nick Jr.'s Blues Clues with Dubway family member Mike Rubin!

Rick Bogart recording a 10-piece jazz ensemble

Jazz clarinetist and composer Rick Bogart conducted a jazz ensemble in the mezzanine studio this February consisting of violins, cello, bass, piano, drums, and clarinet.

Bogart is a renowned jazz clarinetist, having played for several major motion picture soundtracks, given master classes in universities internationally, and has toured in over sixty-five countries.

Take a peek of his session below:

Here's a peek at Rick Bogart's ensemble and his young musical prodigies. What a great session! #nyc #studiolife

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Music Mix for One Republic's Artists Den performance

Another one for the books! Dubway's own Chris Montgomery engineered the music mix for another installment of the Live From the Artists Den series – this time for popular rock band OneRepublic's performance at Park City Live in Park City, UT.

OneRepublic is an American rock group from Colorado Springs, CO lead by major hit pop songwriter and producer Ryan Tedder. The group is acclaimed for producing smash singles after smash singles in popular music, including "Apologize," "All The Right Moves," "Secrets," "Good Life," and "If I Lose Myself." Their latest album Oh My My was released in the fall of 2016 and debuted at #3 on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart.

Live recording and Mix for Lady Antebellum's Artists Den performance

Lady Antebellum performing at United Palace Theater for "Live From The Artists Den"

Lady Antebellum performing at United Palace Theater for "Live From The Artists Den"

This February, Dubway had the pleasure of providing the audio recording for another installment of the Live from Artists Den series. Engineers Sam Palumbo and Bea Go went to the majestic United Palace Theatre in Washington Heights, NY to record seven-time Grammy-award winning group Lady Antebellum's performance and interview. Dubway engineer Chris Montgomery is mixing the music for the episode.

The Artists Den is a critically acclaimed television and digital music series best known for presenting small, secret concerts by extraordinary artists in non-traditional, often historic settings for the TV broadcast. Live from the Artists Den is broadcasted nationally on public television, and internationally in the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, Israel, and Latin America. Dubway has recorded and mixed audio for the series' previous episodes featuring Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, The Killers, Marina and the Diamonds, and Sara Bareilles.

Lady Antebellum's interview took place in the lobby of United Palace.

Lady Antebellum's interview took place in the lobby of United Palace.

Lady Antebellum, the country trio based in Nashville, TN, has sold more than 18 million album worldwide, earned six PLATINUM singles, nine chart topping hits and countless other awards including Billboard Music Awards, People’s Choice Awards and Teen Choice Awards, while also taking home ACM and CMA "Vocal Group of the Year” trophies three years in a row. Their upcoming album Heart Break is due for June 9th of this year.

Stay tuned for the release of this episode in 2017.

Music Recording and filming for MTV Pilot

Rob-Scallion-Sarah-Longfield

Earlier this month, our mezzanine studio was the set for the pilot episode of a new MTV series, Sonic Boom (working title). The pilot featured musicians and YouTube stars Rob Scallon and Sarah Longfield, who have garnered over 1 million subscribers on the platform together. The two are popularly known for collaborating on musical videos showcasing quirky and creative ways to play their instruments.

Michael John LaChiusa composes music for William Inge theatrical productions

The theatrical company Transport Group is recording music for two William Inge plays, Picnic and Come Back, Little Sheba. Composer Michael John LaChiusa will be on hand recording his original compositions for the two plays.

Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for musically esoteric shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See.