Firebrand Recording

Long time, no blog…

Brian — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:14:19 +0000

The last couple weeks have been pretty productive here at Firebrand. We had a little down time to do some long overdue maintenance: patch bay stragglers were wired in, things were rearranged a bit, a few normals were added, and a couple intermittent patch points were chased down and summarily dealt with. I finally opened up a non-working FMR Really Nice Compressor and, a few electrolytic capacitors later, magically transformed it into a working FMR Really Nice Compressor. I also spoke to Peter Reardon of Shadow Hills Industries who was nice enough to call me on the phone five minutes after emailing him to walk me through a problem I was having with one of our Mono GAMAs. The darn thing had shipped with the nickel transformer out of polarity relative to the steel setting. All of this, I know, is riveting reading. We also did some cooler things, like work on some music. Jonathan McCammon was back in recording some vocals for his upcoming release, Ellen the Felon & the Mattronome were doing the same (and guests added violin, sax, and backing vocals), Death of Yeti came back in to finish mixing, and I worked on a first pass of mixes for Mike Boggeman‘s record. We were also pleased to show a couple of potential freelance engineers around the studio and talk shop. Oh, and we had a very special guest amp in that I wish I could tell you more about. Let’s just say that St. Louis will soon have a brand new (old) amp company and a certain guitar player in a certain band with some very famous beards will have serial number one. That’s all I can say. Lastly, we built a few more channels of Classic API VP26s. Not only have we been using these things ourselves and loving them, but we’ve been building some on the side for people who don’t have the soldering skills to built the kits themselves. Why DIY, when you can HTDAFDIFY*?

*have the dudes at Firebrand do it for you

New year, new ways to save on recording…

Brian — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:49:17 +0000

We do a fair bit of repeat business here at Firebrand and we have a lot of bands–even ones we haven’t worked with before–go to bat for us and spread the word about the studio. We wanted to give a little back to the community as a way to say thanks for what it’s done for us, so starting in 2012 we’re trying out a couple new programs:

Referral Program:

If a band books a minimum of one day with us on your recommendation, you’ll get $100 off your next session. You can accumulate this perk, so each time you send a band our way and they mention you when they book time, you’ll get a $100 credit. You could theoretically record for free if you’re industrious enough and have sufficient powers of persuasion. Get your friends in here and make your record on the cheap!

Loyalty Program:

Once you’ve accumulated seven full days paid, starting with your next project, we’ll bump your band down to the next rate tier for life. That’s right, I said it: life! That means that under our current rate structure, rather than paying $400 a day, you’ll get bumped down to $350 a day to start. That rate would normally kick in only if you booked four to seven days. Your four to seven day rate would drop to $300 (the normal eight to fourteen day rate) and so on. It’s not as confusing as it sounds if you navigate to our Rates page and look at the block rates list. (Your twenty-one to thirty-one day rate would go to a previously unprecedented $250.)

2011 year in review

Brian — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:11:34 +0000

2011 was a pretty good year here at Firebrand. It’s hard to believe we’ve been at this in our current incarnation for six years… Time flies. We’re thrilled to have finally gotten our new website up this past November. It was a long time coming and still needs a little work in 2012, but you’re looking at it! We acquired some cool new gear, highlights of which include our Telefunken AR-51 tube condenser microphone, a couple Classic API VP26 mic pres, and an Electrical Guitar Company bass; and we got my 1969 Traynor YBA-3A bass amp up and running and back in the arsenal. Most importantly, we worked with more than forty artists and bands in 2011, including our first work for a major label. We were again lucky to have the privilege of working on a lot of cool records by great bands and we’re happy to see many of them get the recognition they deserve. The Riverfront Times music staff was particularly kind to a number of bands we worked with this year. Sixteen bands that worked at Firebrand were nominated for RFT Music Awards and five won them. There were also a couple Firebrand alum among the winners in the annual RFT Best Of issue, and a number of albums we recorded made the 40 Best St. Louis Releases of 2011 list. KDHX also did their fair share to promote a number of records we worked on, giving many of them airplay, and recognizing a few in their year end best lists. The Blind Eyes With A Bang was the most played record on KDHX this year, local or otherwise. That’s quite an accomplishment! We’re indebted to these and other institutions that help get the word out, play the records we work on, and support the bands we work with. That said, we also worked on a number of records that didn’t get much in the way of media attention, but aren’t any less great because of it. There’s a lot of great music happening in this city and we’re pleased to be a part of it. We have a few ideas up our sleeve to help make it easier for bands to work here in 2012 and will reveal them in subsequent blog posts. We hope to make 2012 the best year we’ve had yet and look forward to working on projects with all of you.

Death of Yeti in the studio

Brian — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:44:45 +0000

Death of Yeti was back in the studio a few weeks ago to record four more songs towards a full length we started earlier this year. Not bad for a (long) day’s work. The completed album will be ten songs and I’d imagine it should be out sometime in early 2012. We tracked this session like we did the last time these guys were in: live–including the vocal–with minimal overdubs. That’s not to say we didn’t fix a thing or two… We used three different guitar amps simultaneously to give ourselves some stereo imaging and two bass rigs, one for solid low end and one for dirt. Once we got a take, we recorded a vocal double and added backing vocals and percussion here and there. A classical guitar made an appearance. Our good friend Phil Norath was kind enough once again to lend us his Leslie cabinet to give the keys DI some life. We love seeing that thing going so much that we shot a little video of it… What a wacky device. There’s sure to be better video of the session than my iPhone footage–there was a three camera shoot going on during the session.

Death of Yeti at Firebrand Recording from Brian Scheffer on Vimeo.

Death of Yeti – Leslie cabinet from Brian Scheffer on Vimeo.

Ashaka’s new album Time out now.

Brian — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:58:50 +0000

We’re happy to see Time, the new album from reggae artist Ashaka, out and available for purchase and download. This record was a long time in the making and came a far way from its humble beginnings as a vocal, drums, and bass. The record features the late great Dave Hagerty on bass and guitar, Grady Briedenbach (also from Fattback) on keys, and the horn section from the Murder City Players. Check out the first track from the record over at our Samples page.

Firebrand Recording press roundup

Brian — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:25:49 +0000

This newfangled blog of ours gives us a great forum to spread the word about press on our favorite subject: Firebrand Recording. We’ll be posting blog entries about articles and news as it happens from here on out, but we thought we’d collect some past press for the curious among you. You’ll find it in all its glory in the links below:

2008 RFT Best Recording Studio write-up

RFT A to Z mention

RFT In the Studio feature on The Humanoids

RFT In the Studio feature on The Livers

RFT In the Studio feature on The Campfire Club

RFT In the Studio feature on The Blind Eyes

2010 RFT Best Recording Studio write-up

RFT feature on the Firebrand Recording Showcase

RFT blog extra on the Firebrand Recording Showcase

Speakers In Code Firebrand Recording Showcase preview

KDHX Firebrand Recording Showcase review

Corey Woodruff Photography coverage of the Firebrand Recording Showcase

RFT mention of Fire Dog Dave Hagerty Tribute

Feature article in this week’s RFT mentions Firebrand

Brian — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:35:02 +0000

Pick up a copy of this week’s Riverfront Times Year in Music issue and read the feature article by Ryan Wasoba on the state of recording in St. Louis. There are some kind words about Firebrand from Wasoba and the Blind Eyes‘ Seth Porter. You can also read it now, through the magic of the internet, by clicking this link.

The Blind Eyes are also in other news this week. Their Firebrand-recorded With A Bang was the most played record on KDHX in 2011. That’s a seriously awesome achievement for a band, local or otherwise. You can see the rest of the list here. Additionally, five KDHX DJs listed With A Bang as one of the ten best albums of the year. Head over to the Samples page to listen to the title track from With A Bang to see what all the fuss is about.

I should also mention that Sine Nomine‘s Golobulus was named one of the ten best albums of 2011 by the hosts of KDHX’s program Wrong Division.

RFT cover photo credit: Jennifer Silverberg

Recent goings on…

Brian — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:27:45 +0000

So… What, you may ask, have we been up to lately besides learning about SEO, Google Analytics, and trying to figure out why Bing no longer returns our site in search results? Well, I’ll tell you: We recently had Special Guest in recording some cover jams. Hanging out with those guys gives me faith that I’ll still appreciate dick and fart jokes with the same intensity as I currently do in the coming decades. They are a fun bunch of guys to be locked in the studio with and they laid down some good tunes to boot. We’ll be wrapping up mixes on seven songs shortly. We also had Blood of Heroes back in after a bit of a hiatus to get mixes further along. We worked out a bunch of vocal effects, added some movie samples, and learned how hilarious things can sound backwards. We should be wrapping up their EP pretty soon. We’ve also been working on mixes for the new Yowie record. Mixing a Yowie record is a singular experience. They are certainly unlike most bands on this planet of ours. Other than that, we’ve been chipping away at fleshing out the new website and hustling to get the word out that this thing exists. We’re looking forward to a weekend with Death of Yeti. Yowies, yetis… it’s getting crytozoological up in this piece!

Firebrand now takes credit cards.

Brian — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:24:25 +0000

Now you can finally go into crushing debt for something worthwhile and put your next record on plastic. It’s almost like you’re not even paying for it! Just kidding… of course you’ll pay it off in a timely fashion. Who’s ever heard of an under-funded or deadbeat musician? We’ve adopted the use of Square after hearing about it on the NPR program Marketplace. It seems like it should work out nicely for everyone involved, but we’ll still take credit cards via Paypal from anyone who is uncomfortable with me swiping your credit card with my iPhone.

I’m writing about Square here not only to let you know that Firebrand can now take Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, but also because I think this could be a really great tool for bands. I’ve seen it countless times at shows: patrons don’t have cash and promise to download the record when they get home or buy the shirt at the next show. These fools have had a couple beers and won’t remember. Their intentions may be noble, but you’ve got to get them on the spot and now any dumb person with a smart phone can take credit cards. Tap the dude/lady in your band who has an iPhone to man/woman the merch table and watch those sales numbers go up. Heck, you may not even have to put that session at Firebrand on your credit card with all the extra money you make.

I feel compelled to note that I’m no shill for this company and if the experience with it ends up being less than ideal, I’ll update accordingly here.

Welcome to the Firebrand Recording website!

Brian — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:06:46 +0000

They’re scoring hat tricks in hell and porcine are populating the heavens… Firebrand Recording has a new website. If you’re reading this, then you’ve already found it. Pretty fancy, huh? We hope that it looks good in your browser and has all the pertinent information that any potential recording client could ever wish for. If not, drop us a line and let us know what we’ve overlooked. You’ll notice that there are a few places where things aren’t quite fleshed out yet. We’ll be getting to those, but we’re mostly there. The FAQ page is in the pipeline and in the meantime you can check out its smart assed place-holder. We’ll be adding more photos to the Equipment page as time allows. Eventually, we’d like to have every piece of gear represented by an image, so you can play the fun game of counting all the knobs, buttons, and switches in this place. More importantly, we’re waiting on permission from a number of bands to make available downloadable high resolution samples of some recordings we’ve done for the Samples page. There are streaming samples there now for your perusal/judgment. Take a little while to have a look around and poke in all the nooks and crannies of this thing. We’ve finally birthed it after a long gestation and we hope it grows up to do us proud.