There is no better way to breathe life into your music than using real, live musicians. That happens to be our specialty here at Ultimate Studios, Inc! Producer/Engineer Charlie Waymire has built up a long list of the best players in LA with the sole intent of helping YOU create better music. Adding live instruments to your music will make it groove better and give it a timeless appeal.
One recent session included drummer Real Drum Tracks Now drummer Mike Avenaim (Emblem3/Scott Weiland), Bassist Kevin Chown (Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats), and guitarist Christ Vazquez (Daniel Powter/Andre Cymone). Working with Charlie this uber talented group worked with a new pop artist to add a real, live, band to a rock track. The benefit of using a group a musicians like this is they all bring years of music experience to the music. That makes these tracks special!
“My goal is to always have the most talented group of people in the room, at the same time, recording on your music. That way I know the artist is getting exactly what they need for their songs. I take great pride in my work and so do all of the musicians I work with.” says Producer/Engineer Charlie Waymire.
What ever you need we can deliver. Full band tracking, real drum tracking, adding live musicians to your programmed songs, mixing, mastering, and video, we can do it all! Contact us to get your next session started and come by and see the studio!
“Tips & Tricks” is a new video series from Ultimate Rhythm Studios that is aimed to help you learn how to make better recordings. We’re kicking off the “Tips & Tricks” series talking about guitars!
In part 2 Charlie and Ernesto show you how to use two microphones to get a full guitar tone and give you a lot of tonal options.
Setup #1 uses two SM57’s at different angles running through the Toft ATB24 console with no eq.
Setup #2 uses 1 SM57 and 1 Audio Technica ATM450 condenser also running through the Toft ATB24 with no eq.
“Tips & Tricks” is a new video series from Ultimate Rhythm Studios that is aimed to help you learn how to make better recordings. We’re kicking off the “Tips & Tricks” series talking about guitars!
In part 1 Charlie and Ernesto focus on using a single dynamic mic to get a guitar sound and how moving the mic around the cone will give you different tonal options. The SM57 is running through the Toft ATB24 console with no eq.
Here’s a short video of last weeks percussion and guitar sessions for Right Hand Rule. Leslie Jones (singer/percussionist) is laying down some cool congas and Robert Thrall throws down a solo! A few photos of the the recording setup are included too!
“We had some time to experiment with sounds and decided to use the size of the room to our advantage by capturing the natural ambience of the room. By capturing the instruments this way we are able to set them sonically where we would like them to sit without using lots of processing or digital reverb. It makes for a much more natural sounding recording and also adds a lot of depth. In other words the sounds we capture are pretty much done”, says engineer Charlie Waymire.
The Congas were recorded with 4 different microphones. A spaced pair of MXL Cubes about 3 feet out in front of the congas about 4.5 feet off the ground (pictured). The cubes have a really cool vibe. They are kind of dark and gritty and did a great job of picking up the full tone of the congas.
There is a Cascade Elroy about 6-7 feet in front of the congas about 2 feet off the ground. The Elroy is set to cardioid and is picking up a lot of the low mid and low frequencies. It really helps to fill out the congas. The placement of the mic was determined by crawling around on the floor and listening for the sweet spot!
We also had an MXL V67G up in the corner of the room about 11 feet off the ground to get some real room ambience just in case we needed it.
Leslie Jones Recording Congas.
For the guitar solo we had two amps set up. A Fender Deluxe in the ISO booth and a Marshall half stack in the live room. One of the cool things about the studio is the “loop” system that allows us to connect all the rooms in any manner we like. For instance, on this track Rob was in the control room and we ran a line to the ISO both with the Fender and continued that line to the Marshall in the live room. One amp is our tight close sound and the other is purely ambience.
Below is a photo of the Fender Deluxe in the ISO booth. It’s miced with and SM57 on the edge of the cone and an MXL V67i pointing straight across the cone.This gave us a nice focused yet smooth sound.
Rob's Amp miced with an SM57 and MXL V67i
We decided to take advantage of the large live room and capture some natural ambience. We set the Marshall half stack close to the control room wall, cranked it up to excite the room and captured it with a pair of MXL Cubes in a spaced pair about 10-12 feet away from the amp. This gave the guitar solo and awesome sense of space! Below is a photo with the camera sitting on top of the amp head. You can get an idea of how the kit was miced for this session too!
Photo from on top of the Marshall head with 2 MXL Cube's in a spaced pair about 10-12 feet away.
Shot of one of the MXL Cubes capturing the Marshall.
It’s very cool to have the room “loop” system that allows us to take advantage of the different rooms.
The Local Weather was recently in the studio recording tracks for their upcoming EP with engineer Lizzy Ostro.
Nick Goffi (guitar/vocals, Dan Fisher (bass/vocals) & Joe Riches (drums) have a killer sound with an influence from bands such as The White Stripes and The Black Keys.
“We tracked 4 songs for their upcoming EP and everything sounded GREAT! I can’t wait for everyone to hear it!” says engineer Lizzy Ostro.
It’s been a loooong time since EGH release their debut record “It’s About Time“. 2003 to be exact. The new release is getting very close and, at the moment, is set to be released in November. Tracking is done on all but one song and mixes are completely done on several tunes. Here are a few pictures from some of the sessions over the last year.
It’s no secret that MXL Microphones are extensively used at Ultimate Rhythm Studio which is why URS was the obvious choice to record and video demos for most of the MXL product line. The goal was to give musicians and studio owners a chance to hear exactly how the microphones sound on a variety of instruments. Each video is shot in HD and there is no compression or equalization on the audio or video.
Charlie enlisted the help of several fellow teachers and long time cohorts to record each instrument. They include: Ernesto Homeyer (guitar), Brian “Hacksaw” Williams (vocals), Tita Hutchison (vocals), Joerg Kohring (acoustic guitar) and Charlie (drums).
MXL makes a wide variety of mics that will fit any budget. Both King Crazy records, “Hero“ & “A Rockin’ Christmas“, were recorded with MXL microphones.
Melodic Metal masters Broken Decency recently recorded a new, and more brutal version, of “Hang Sick” at Ultimate Rhythm Studio.
“Originally we were just going to track the drums so Alex came in and totally slayed the track, by himself!” says Charlie.
“Tracking the drums went so well we ended up recording everything here. The guitar tones we recorded are so thick, juicy and brutal they literally knock you over! Celia came in at 10am to track vocals, not exactly rock ‘n roll hours but she totally killed it!
I had a blast with this crew and I hope to work with them more in the future!
