It's been a while since I think I introduced myself, if I ever did so at all. So, by way of brief introduction, about a year ago, after 40 years of the sickness known as audiophilia, collecting recordings, programming music on FM radio in the 70s and now programming performing arts (including music) at our local university, I decided I'd collected about all the music I was interested in, the new stuff was crap and I needed a new hobby to replace another money-pit, auto racing.
Couple that decision with a late night drinking session with friends in the Library, History, and English departments that led to the realization "there's grant money in this!" and, former entrepreneur that I am, I was off and running.
So I started a little recording studio upstairs from my office, using some stuff I bought and some stuff from a donation to the University. I'm learning. And I'm chasing local acoustic musicians, recording them, interviewing them, and archiving their stuff for the university library's Special Collections department. It's mostly bluegrass, but I've also encountered a delta-style fingerpicker who writes amazing blues tunes, a couple of folkies, a songwriter or two, and so on. Anyway, here's a few tracks from some of our efforts:
Love Come Home, by Bunch of Bluegrass
Wayfaring Stranger, by Bunch of Bluegrass
Moped Boogie, By Lon Eldredge
The basic equipment setup includes several KEL Audio mics (some 1s, a 2, a 3 and a 7) feeding a Tascam M50 board and a Teac 3440 recorder. We mix through some very gentle settings on an FMR RNC to a Focusrite Sapphire 24 converter which feeds a Macbook at 24/96 settings. The archived masters stay at 24/96 while distribution files are either 16/44.1 or 320 kbs mp3s, like these. I'm starting to play with a UREI 1176LN, a TubeTech CL1B, a couple of dbx 160s, and some other odds-n-ends from a heap of donated equipment from a now-gone studio in Chattanooga, but none of that is used on any of these recordings. I'd set up all of the good stuff from the donation, but there's no room on campus, so this effort is kind of a demonstration project to garner enough interest and funding to get it all put back together.
We also have some portable Marantz cassette decks to take feeds from the boards in several local venues, which adds to the archive very quickly.
Be curious to know your thoughts. There's also a blog (something of a requirement for grant applications) at reelrecording.wordpress.com if you're interested.
