MTF Semester 2 – Week 3 – 09/08/07

It was another afternoon out to visit a recording studio at Hendon called Paradise Studios. Apparently this used to be called Hippo Studios. The Paradise Church has recently acquired this studio and is in the process of a refurbishment. The place is having a paint job and Dewald, the resident sound engineer, is by all standards going on quite a spending spree.

This studio is looking slick and has a recreation area with a plasma screen and comfy lounges. Dewald says he goes all out for artist comfort and like other engineers says that it produces a better performance. He talks of lighting candles in the “live room” so the ambience spills into the vocal booth with the lights out for vocal tracking. Very smooth! Dewald says to never give the artist reverb when recording vocals as it will more often than not cause the artist to sing flat. Dewald also spends a lot of time experimenting with click tracks, He find that percussive shakers or others sounds created in Reason 3 are great and instead of just a 78 BPM he can construct a custom click track that will help keep the drummer in time, including 1/16 and 1/32 notes if required.

Dewald is still waiting for his SSL console and other goodies. It seems that this studio has a fairly extensive budget but then I suppose money made from church activities is tax free. Nice studio but not quite nice enough to convert me.


http://www.myspace.com/paradisestudio

http://www.paradisestudios.com.au/

References:

Dewald Hartzenberg – Session at Paradise Studios, Hendon, 09/08/07.

Music Technology Forum – Adelaide University, Electronic Music Unit.
Lecturer: David Grice