Matthew J Barnhart

Recording, live sound, and mastering engineer, tour manager, and amateur janitor based in Denton, Texas. Co-owner of The Echo Lab recording studio. Occasional svengali of Works Progress. Member of Tre Orsi and other notable social networks. I have a Tumblr of tour photos and other miscellania.
27 January 2009

Iced over in Denton

A big ice storm blew in last night, slowing most of North Central Texas to a crawl — schools and government offices are closed, no one’s on the roads. A perfect time to update the site, I suppose.

I spent the past two weekends recording a new EP (possibly half an album) with The Distant Seconds from Austin. I did an LP for them last year (Spectral Evidence), and we all got along famously.

The modus operandi for this session was “quick, almost dashed-off”, but as the saying goes, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. Still, setup was relatively quick, and we were tracking by about 3pm on Saturday. I tried a few different microphones for the drum recording this time, all in the pursuit of something closer to The Blank Generation or Chairs Missing:

  • Kick: Electro-voice RE20 on the full front head. Typically, I use an AKG D112 or a large diaphragm condensor in this application. I used the RE20 for a more direct, mid-rangey tone, rather than the slightly hyped sound of the D112 or overly warm tube condensors
  • Snare: Beyer M201 on top, rather than Shure KSM141.
  • Toms: Sennheiser MD421. Typically, I use two condensors, top and bottom, on each tom, but the MD421 is really useful in these situations. (I also used these for the Great Tyrant recordings.)
  • Overheads: Coles 4038, close to the cymbals. Often, I use the overheads to get a full image of the kit, but this time I really wanted a lot of detail on the cymbals. The Coles, being ribbons. are much smoother than condensors typically used here, and also have excellent transient response.
  • Ambience: Neumann CMV 563 w/ M7S capsule for Mid, Soundelux e49 for Side, 4′ in front of the kit. Been playing around with these a bit, previously on the Handbrake LP and the Tre Orsi tour EP. This setup provides a nice ambience that’s not as explosive as widely-spaced omnis on the floor. In our main room, though, I think the omnis work better more often.

We also did all of the vocals through a Shure SM7, Daking pre-amp, and Purple Audio MC77. I really love this setup, though I often use another pre-amp that’s less forward in mid-range.

We finished tracking everything (including quite a few keyboard a guitar overdubs) by Sunday evening, finishing early enough for the guys to drive home to Austin that night and get a few hours’ sleep before work Monday morning. The next weekend, Matt, Charlie, and Kirk trickled in, one-by-one. We re-cut a few vocals and then started tearing through the mixes. Things went very quickly from here on out, and the last mix was printed around 8pm on Sunday.

Next up for me: a lot of mastering this week (including a new Fishboy album), then sessions with Tre Orsi, Beautiful Supermachines, and The Me-Thinks in February. Then I head out with A.C. Newman for a couple of US tours.

Also, I just finished mastering Daniel Folmer’s new album, The Roaring Twenties. This is the third album I’ve done for him in a year or so. Very prolific! Great singer, and very insightful songs. He’s playing a record release show this week in Denton at The Hydrant Café, then another at Good Records.

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