Vive y Viva

George Rivera, left, with Studio West engineer Mark Kirchner

Local San Diego radio personality George Rivera was in Studio C earlier this week cutting voice tracks for 5 Gum's "Vive Tu Musica" campaign. Bravo Agency, located in Chicago, was responsible for writing and producing the spots and they were connected into the sessions via phone-patch so they could interact with George on direction. We connected via ISDN to Sound Slave, also located in Chicago, for the voice record as they were responsible for compiling the final radio and television edits. 

"The booth setup was pretty standard using a U87 and pop-filter on the front end, with the exception of a fairly heavy compression ratio on the Focusrite Red 7," reported session engineer Mark Kirchner.  "In order to get the entire script read in the 25 seconds allocated, George had to hit the mic pretty hard resulting in lots of plosives.  In all I think we did four individual sessions for the campaign.  George was a blast to work with and we're already looking forward to next summer's contest!"

Meanwhile, over in Studio A, Viva Brother were recording voice-over cuts for Slacker Radio.  They also performed a 3-song acoustic set to be included in their feature station on the internet radio service.  (Watch Viva Brother's performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live here!)   

Congratualtions!

We'd like to congratulate the following artists (and Studio West clients) on their 2011 San Diego Music Awards nominations:

Jordan Reimer - Best Acoustic

Echo Revolution, "Counterfeit Sunshine" - Best Pop Album

Tori Roze and the Hot Mess, "From the Hip" - Best Blues Album

Wayne Riker Quintet, "Penumbral Sky" - Best Jazz Album

Tribal Seeds - Best World Music

B-Side Players - Best World Music

Endoxi - Best Alternative

Astra Kelly, "Time Bomb" - Best Rock Album

Hyena, "We See You" - Best Alternative Album

My Elysian, "My Elysian" - Best Hard Rock Album

Genius of Soul, "A Project for the New American Century" - Best Jazz Album

Gregory Page, "My True Love" - Best Jazz Album

Peter Sprague, "Calling Me Home" - Best Jazz Album

Berkley Hart, "Crow" - Best Americana Album

Shawn Rohlf & The Buskers, "Tiny Xs" - Best Americana Album

Ida Maria Performs and Records in Studio A

Studio West Engineer and Intern Program Manager Hunter Levy was in A this week with Ida Maria as she recorded vocals and voiceover for Slacker Radio.  Here's what he had to say about the gig:

(L - R): Hunter, Studio Manager Jesse Maxson, Ida Maria, Stefan Tornby

During Ida Maria's visit in Studio A she and her guitarist, Stefan Tornby, recorded voiceover clips to be used as introductions to 50 of their favorite songs, which will be played on the Ida Maria Radio Station on Slacker Radio. After the clips were recorded, Ida and Stefan were kind enough to play a 3 song acoustic set before heading out to her show at The Casbah.  The performance was recorded using one 414 mic on the acoustic guitar, one SM57A on Ida's Vocals, and one SM58 on Stefan's vocals. I chose dynamic mics for the vocals to reduce guitar bleed into the vocal mics. I placed the 414 at the 12th fret of the guitar to get the guitar sound I wanted. I'm happy with the result of the recording and during the performance became a new fan of Ida's music!