oh, hello
May 21st
Well hello there neglected website. It’s been too long! I’ve really got to start finding more time to jot things down here as there is always something new happening.
I’m reading through my last update and realizing how frantically written it is. It was definitely fit in between several minutes of downtime between project A and project B. Fortunately this morning I’ve got a full cup of coffee and my iPod honed in on some easy listening. I love writing, but when I’m not in the right mindset (slow down) my thoughts come off pretty incoherent.
Started things off today with a great quote, I’d like to share it:
When you genuinely pursue your passion, you might not get peoples understanding but you will get their admiration.
- Melody Ehsani
Now, I know nothing about Melody Eshani other than what I can interpret from this quote. I do know, however, that the name ‘Melody’ is one of my personal favorites and that she is a great example of someone whom I would truly admire. Melody is out to make a name for herself doing something she is passionate about. What a great way to stay inspired in my own journey & certainly a motivating quote to start the day off.
In light of this subject, my first small victory was reached this week, take a look:
What I’m trying to show with this blurry cell phone picture is a notification that my DBA is officially registered with the United States and the state of Connecticut. A small victory, but still very exciting! I can now officially do business under the name My Empire Recording.. awesome. In case anyone is wondering, I used LegalZoom.com to help me through the process of registering a DBA. When I say help, I mean it was as easy as fill out an online form and they literally do the rest; not a bad deal. Thanks LegalZoom and thanks to Joel for the recommendation to use LegalZoom.
Business is business, but music is life. The Run Sly Fox EP is still out to get mastered. Unfortunately, West West Side Music is running a little behind schedule but Alan Douches promises me it is on the ‘to-do’ list. I get home every day and Brian has a new creative way to ask me if the mastering is done yet; poor guy is so excited. Don’t worry Brian, we’ll have it soon! It’s also unfortunate that I have to say Jon is no longer a part of finalizing the project that took over a years worth of hard work and friendship to create. It’s impossible to sum up how I feel about this but it’s been a lot of weight on my mind over the past two weeks. Pretty much what it comes down to is that everyone has their choices in life to make and Jon has made his and I wish him the best of luck. However, Brian and I are going to make sure the album receives it’s proper treatment and everyone gets to hear our hard work. We’re definitely bringing it in a different direction now, but there have been so many people who grew with us through this entire journey, so it needs to have an ending. Although it is an end come early, (and one I wouldn’t have expected) it’s time to wrap things up and move on.
This is a good moment to stop and recognize Brian’s new guitar. Check it out:
This guitar is worth showing because: it is a custom Fender Telecaster and Brian assembled it himself. It is quite a thing of beauty and sounds amazing. We’ve been hashing out where we want to go next musically, but you will definitely hear this thing slay some tracks eventually.
I’ve been working on my own solo project on and off over.. well I guess a few years, but in reality on and off when I find the time. Here’s a quick sample of what I do on my own:
It’s just an idea I’ve been kicking around, but it’s a good example of the work I like to do on my own. Tonight I start laying down some serious piano as I get back to my piano playing roots in an attempt to become a well-rounded musician.
Well this post took an entire album listen to write, and that album was Circa Survive’s newest, “Blue Sky Noise.” I will definitely be reviewing this album within the next week.
April Showers.. May TDB
Apr 2nd
It’s been an extremely busy couple of weeks for me between a 50 hour work week, wrapping up recording/mixing the Run Sly Fox EP and preparing to get my own business off the ground. Here’s what’s awesome right now:
Run Sly Fox EP is recorded and mixed, we’ve been tweaking the pre-mastered tracks ever so slightly but they sound great. Enoch Jensen, our recording engineer and owner of EastLake Recording, suggested we bring our EP to Alan Douches of West West Side Music to do the mastering. We took Enoch up on his suggestion and booked a session with Alan for early May. It’s exciting to be taking the EP this far after putting in so much time and money into the recording.
Recording with Enoch was a great experience. He’s a real laid back guy and I spent a great deal of time watching his work flow, picking up on technical details and asking him questions from all aspects of recording. I learned an amazing amount of knowledge just from soaking up the entire process. I can’t wait to start applying what I’ve learned in my own studio.
Lastly, I’ve been able to finally hammer out an idea for my own business. Where as I don’t want to get into too many details at this time, the preliminary stages of planning are nearly complete; it will soon be time to get my plan in motion. Great things are coming and I can’t wait to document it well.
More soon..
A ‘must watch’ for aspiring engineers
Mar 14th
To begin: While skimming through posts on Twitter the other day, I found one that really excited me from Dave Rat of Rat Sound. Dave’s work was brought to my attention when I did a two day trip to Hartford, CT and Columbia, Maryland to see Blink 182’s summer 2009 reunion tour. At both shows I was in complete awe over the band’s sound. Travis Barker, being the technical drummer he is, had a kick drum that sounded more like a doomsday cannon and the clarity of the entire performance was evident even through the lower end of the audio spectrum. Fortunately, through my ability to follow people on Twitter, I tracked down the man responsible for exposing my ears to a live sound I have never witnessed before. To my luck, Dave documents his work well online. After discovering his blog following Blink’s summer tour, I spent almost an entire day reading through his technical details. While the majority of it is out of my league, Dave has become a great influence towards my aspirations.
And now to the next: While researching room acoustics, I was introduce to the company RealTraps based right here in New Milford, Connecticut. I first heard of RealTraps while reading through Mastering Audio by Bob Katz (Big thanks to Tom MacLean for providing me with a copy of this book). RealTraps came to my attention again several weeks ago as I began a more in depth look at the art of treating rooms for better acoustic accuracy. The owner of RealTraps, Ethan Winer, has proved himself to be a seemingly endless amount of knowledge to any level of recording engineer or audiophile. Ethan Winer tops my list of the ‘most helpful’ and I look forward to meeting him one day (fingers crossed).
Onto the connection: As I stated, I was stumbling through Twitter posts and came across Dave Rat’s latest. It was a YouTube link to a ‘must watch’ video for anyone in the industry. I fixed myself a delicious bowl of mac n cheese and prepared myself for what would most likely be some great new insight. To my surprise, the owner of the video was none other than Ethan Winer. I gave myself a pat on the back for looking up to both of these greats and dove right into the video.
To get to the point: Ethan’s video is from an Audio Myths workshop lead by himself, James Johnston and Poppy Crum that took place at AES 2009. Like many before me said, this video is a ‘must watch’ and I couldn’t agree more. Here it is:
Angels & Airwaves – LOVE
Mar 11th
Disclaimer: I am not a professional critic. This review is solely based on my own opinions.
I’ll start right off the top by admitting I’m a Blink fan first, a Plus 44 fan second and an AvA fan third. After catching wind of Tom DeLonge’s mastermind free album download, I became an instant skeptic to the word “free.” With much surprise I was caught off guard when Modlife actually allowed me to freely download all eleven tracks (paying only for a bonus Hoppus remix). None the less, a free AvA album sits right in tandem with DeLonge’s view on the music industry and his attempt to change it. Whether or not he has been successful at doing so is debatable.
As I burned my free copy of LOVE, I was struck with a feeling of hope that this could be the AvA album that refreshes my opinion of their music. Settling behind my steering wheel, I replaced The Offspring’s Americana (ironic) with AvA’s third attempt. As the first track faded in with a typical-confused-crawling-intro, I felt my hope dim and knew I would have to force myself to keep focus on the music.
What’s unfortunate is that AvA’s follow-up to I-Empire refuses to take hold of any theme such as found on We Don’t Need To Whisper. I felt bombarded by a mix of different genres, all seemingly fit into lengthy, run-in songs which were unwillingly forced to match AvA’s own style. There are songs that would fit better into albums of surf rock, punk rock and even pop. DeLonge leads the band with an overuse of effects, synthesizers and auto-tune that might cause a song to suffer more than the listener. However, it is necessary to point out that these effects really light up on a hi-fi stereo. Because the album is mastered to match the loudness war there is not a great range of dynamics provided between soft and loud passages which leaves me wondering if the music could benefit from less processing. However, even with an array of different effects there is a significant lack of energy that fails to keep the song entertaining.
DeLonge’s Angels & Airwaves is truly a LOVE or hate band. I’ve never easily written off their music, but there isn’t much about it that impresses me other than how well it matches visuals as more or less ambient noise (and I don’t mean the soon to be AvA film). Perhaps there is merit in the lyrics, but to understand such a message means interpreting what you can through an assortment of unruly reverb and delay. The bottom line is that AvA might be a self-fulfilling legacy for Tom DeLonge, but Blink is still together for the kids.
In the studio
Feb 27th
So we (Run Sly Fox) finally got to the studio after many months of practice and delays. We’re throwing together a 7 track EP with Enoch Jensen at his studio EastLake in Shelburne, Mass. I was going to use all my down time to post about it but I haven’t had much downtime between tracking drums and picking Enoch’s brain for recording tips. I have learned a lot in this trip and can’t wait to wrap it up. We will be out of here tomorrow night but still have a lot of work left for later dates. In the meantime, here are a few pictures. I don’t have anything more than a dinky cellphone camera so the quality isn’t much.
Gear List
Feb 16th
Although I love browsing over gear that professionals use, I’m still a firm believer of “it’s how you use it.” None the less, here’s my current list.
Drums:
SJC Custom Drums – flat white
Zildjian A Custom Medium crash cymbals
Zildjian Mastersound hi-hats, Zil Bel
DW Hardware
Studio:
Digital Interface
iMac OS X Snow Leopard
Logic Studio 9
Reason 4
Apogee Ensemble 24bit/192kHz
Monitoring
KRK RP 8 Active Monitors
KRK RP 10s Subwoofer
Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro-80 Headphones
Outboard
JLM Audio TMP-8 Mic pre
SPL Transient Designer
Aphex 204 Aural Exciter
POD XT Bass Pro
Palmer PDI-03 DI
Rocktron Guitar Silencer
Microphones
Audio-Technica AT2020
Shure SM58
Shure SM57
Shure Beta 52a
Shure SM81 (2)
Sennheiser MD421 (2)
BLUE Baby Bottle
Neumann KM184 (2)
Other
sE Reflexion Filter
PACS Audio Cables
Monster Pro Power Conditioners
Amps & Instruments
Yamaha Arius Digital Piano
M-Audio Oxygen 49 USB MIDI Controller
Fender Telecaster
Mark Hoppus Signature Fender Jazz Bass
Ampeg SVT-3 Pro Bass Head
SJC Custom flat white drumset
LP Shaker
Cabasa
Beginning
Feb 13th
Hello,
My name is Nate Faulkenberry and I live a purpose driven life. At the current age of 22, it’s impossible for me to say that I truly know myself or what I want out of this life. I won’t attempt to guess at where I end up in the future, nor will I make any significant plans on how I get there. Life is a journey and I live mine day by day.
But all philosophies aside, I would like to detail a little more about myself. I am fortunate enough to have a musical background. My musical career began at a very young age, taking private piano lessons and learning how to read music. After awhile I felt the desire to play the drums, and by 5th grade my parents had purchased my first Ludwig Black Beauty snare. Over the years I played in many environments: Jazz bands, Concert ensembles, Drum lines, Orchestras, and many of my own musical endeavors. Music has been the greatest reason I have the friends I have, and has allowed me to meet a lot of people and even see a few towns & cities I never knew existed.
Over the past few years I have been lucky enough to record in a variety of wonderful studios. While my primary goal there was to play drums, I grew highly interested in the production side of music. After graduating college with a degree in Multimedia & Web Design in 2007, I began to concentrate on bringing my musical background to a higher level through the study and practice of recording engineering. With a bare amount of knowledge and money, I took to purchasing the most professional recording gear I could afford.
It is unjust for me to call this the beginning.
The beginning was when I hit the first key on my mother’s piano. To paraphrase where I’ve already been is almost impossible, but where I am going is far more important.
My degree in Multimedia & Web Design has earned me a great new job that I will start this week. I am more than excited to know this new career opens up a considerably larger new path in my life. The point of this blog is really for myself. I want to look back on these entries years from now when I’m asking myself, “What have I accomplished?” I hope the answer to this question will never be hard to find, but having the history written down will only further motivate me to do more.
So why don’t I just write a journal to keep to myself? I’ve found through my own journey that I am inspired by the success of others. Through reading and listening to others, I remain motivated and passionate. I hope that one day my journey will do the same for someone else. Until then, I am the student and the people I meet are my teachers. My journey remains completely open-ended as I move from one day to the next.
Sincerely,
Nate Faulkenberry
