More Tube-Tech Gear for Daptone Studios and Engineer Gabriel Roth
By By Evan Fortune
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – NOVEMBER 2017: Gabriel Roth is the bassist and main songwriter behind Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and the innovative studio engineer and producer behind Daptone Records. He has engineering Grammys for his work on both Amy Winehouse's multi-platinum Back to Black album, as well as Booker T.'s Road to Memphis. Daptone's House of Soul studios and headquarters are secreted away in an old two-story house in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and Roth has a second mixing studio, Penrose Recorders, in Riverside, California. Both studios have Ampeg tape machines, Trident consoles and a good amount of Tube-Tech gear. Roth has relied on Tube-Tech PE-1C and ME-1B equalizers and LCA-2B Compressors on both sides of the country for years, and he recently added a Tube-Tech SMC 2B multi-band compressor and a Tube-Tech HLT2A "Tilt" EQ to the rack.
Over the years, Roth borrowed an SMC 2B multi-band compressor from Tube-Tech when he came across tracks that were big on performance but lacking on engineering. "For me, the Tube-Tech SMC 2B is a utilitarian tool for fixing something that wasn't done right," he said. "It lets me get in there in a surgical way and, say, squeeze the bottom end without making the high-end duck around. I can catch the bottom end without making the vocals move around and vice versa. It just got to the point where I thought, 'I need this thing around all the time,' and so I took the plunge." Roth most commonly uses the Tube-Tech SMC 2B across entire busses, such as the rhythm section, or across entire mixes. Roth also noted that his Tube-Tech equipment plays well with the high-output voltages of the old Ampeg tape machines that form the heart of his recording and mixing operation
Roth admits he was mainly curious about the TEC-Award-winning Tube-Tech HLT2A "Tilt" EQ. "It's true that I'm often trying to equalize the overall tone of a track or a bus, rather than going after specific frequencies," he said. "Tube-Tech's Tilt EQ is designed for exactly that purpose. I haven't had it for very long, but we immediately started using it on the vocal bus for the new Michael Rault record. There are a ton of vocals on that record – leads, backgrounds, harmonies, doubles – and we bussed them all through the Tilt. I was able to thin things out a bit, brighten everything up, and sprinkle Tube-Tech's fairy dust over all the vocals. It's very pretty! Like my other Tube-Tech equalizers, the Tilt is one of the few equalizers that can really push high end in a musical way. It sounds simple, but most EQs get ugly and full of artifacts. With Tube-Tech, I can get in there with a heavy hand and everything still sounds pleasant."
"I don't buy into hype and I'm not big on endorsing gear," Roth said. "I trust my ears and only my ears. There are tons of hardware processors out there these days with tubes and big knobs, and it might be easy to go in for the fetishism of it. Of course, Tube-Tech gear looks great, but I'm not distracted by that. I'm into Tube-Tech gear because it sounds fantastic and because I'm able to do real 'heavy lifting' without getting any undesirable artifacts. I find that when I push a lot of other gear, it sounds effected and displeasing. Not so with Tube-Tech: I can make strong moves, but the end result is always musical and pleasing. If Tube-Tech gear performed the same but came in a tiny box with cheap little knobs, I'd happily use it just the same!"
ABOUT TRANSAUDIO GROUP
TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly become the premier U.S. importer/distributor and/or U.S. sales and marketing representative for high-end audio. Success hinges on TransAudio providing dealers and end users with a higher standard of product expertise and support far beyond the norm.
www.transaudiogroup.com
January 13, 2020, Fort Wayne, IN – Sweetwater Studios, the recording studio arm of music retailer Sweetwater Sound, has just released exclusive in-the-studio footage of thrash metal architects, Anthrax. The video – shot by famed British music video director Nigel Dick [Ozzy Osborne, Guns n' Roses, Band Aid] – finds the band energetically ripping through classics like 'Madhouse' in Sweetwater Studios' Studio A, intercut with interview footage where the members discuss their shared history and working methods writing some of thrash metal's most iconic riffs. The band partnered Sweetwater Studios and Shure last September to present a Recording Master Class that invited fans and recording enthusiasts into the studio to learn the art of tracking and mixing alongside the metal icons and Producer/Engineer Mark Hornsby. Shure provided all of the microphones used in the sessions, and the band tracked a selection of older and newer material, while sharing their insights and stories with attendees. For more information on Sweetwater Studios, please visit: http://www.sweetwaterstudios.com/ For additional behind-the-scenes videos and exclusive performances from Anthrax, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/user/SweetwaterSound About Sweetwater Studios Sweetwater Studios is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sweetwater Sound, Inc., the largest online music instrument retailer in the country. With three world-class studios designed by Russ Berger and access to a greater diversity of musical equipment and professional audio gear than any other recording studio in the world, Sweetwater Studios is able to accommodate just about any recording, mixing or mastering project, no matter how simple or complex. With renowned staff producer Mark Hornsby at the helm, who has worked on many Grammy-award winning albums, Sweetwater Studios also has an exceptional staff of producers, engineers, session musicians and studio technicians.
Mastering Engineer Fred Kevorkian Opens Avatar Studios-Based Kevorkian Studios
Engineer Pete Doell Gets Dangerous at Universal Mastering Studios
Mix Regional: Southwest U.S.
Mix Regional: Midwest U.S.
Veteran Audio Engineer Eduardo Mendoza Joins One Union Recording Studios
David Kutch Joins Sony Music Studios as Mastering Engineer
Senior Engineer and Sound Designer Joel Hopper Joins One Union Recording Studios