The Sound Palace

The Holy Grail of Microphones: The RCA R44

Pat Murphy — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:08:06 +0000

RCA 44 ribbon microphones have remained an essential part of studio life well after RCA stopped manufacturing them in 1955. The sound and response of the 44 B/BX were unlike anything else available, and was cherished for its smoothness, forgiving nature and unique tonal balance. As collectors began to buy up the supply of RCA 44′s through the 90′s, the availability of this wonderful ribbon mic to the studio was greatly endangered.

The 44 was RCA’s best microphone from the 1930s into the ’50s and is one of those rare mics that has remained relatively unchanged from its inception, and still sounds great some 75 years later. Wes Dooley, a specialist in ribbon mics of all kinds and founder of AEA, has now restored the 44 type microphone to its rightful position in the studio. After tracking down the engineers who designed and built the original RCA 44, AEA acquired ribbon material, made the tooling and custom machined all the parts necessary to build the original RCA 44 B/BX design to its original specifications, just as it was in the 1930s.

Each year, studio owner Pat Murphy has visited with Wes Dooley at the Winter NAMM show (the National Association of Music Merchants) and this year the R44 was finally purchased for clientele of The Sound Palace.

Christmas CD Released

Pat Murphy — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:31:50 +0000

The Angel City Big Band released its Christmas CD this week. The album, recorded at The Sound Palace, was produced by Jim Baldree and is available for purchase through the band’s website: Click Here…

FARMERS INSURANCE VIDEO RECORDED

Pat Murphy — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:23:59 +0000

Farmers Insurance Group distributes periodic training videos for its nationwide employment force. Through a contract with Mothership Creative Services, the voice-over work was recorded today at The Sound Palace. Billy Savage handled the recording and mixing for the project.…

Andrew Muccitelli Starts Studio Sessions

Pat Murphy — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:22:36 +0000

12 year old Andrew Muccitelli, has completed his run on the television show The X-Factor and has now been accepted into the Artist Development Program jointly run by The Sound Palace and Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Chuy Flores. A gifted performer with a large following already on YouTube and Facebook, Andrew can’t wait to bring his music to the global community. In-studio preproduction sessions are scheduled to begin on October 28, 2011.

More Ribbon Microphones Added

Pat Murphy — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:51:30 +0000

The past couple of weeks have seen multiple brass instruments (trumpets, trombones) in the tracking room. A microphone “shoot out” was done and the ribbon microphones were found to best capture the tone and character of the brass. In this case it was the Royer R-121 ribbon microphones coming out on top. We have also heard very good things about another ribbon microphone called the “Fat Head” manufactured by Cascade Microphones. We have now added a matched stereo pair of Fat Heads and are anxious to put them into immediate service.

New Sound Palace Artist’s 1st Public Performance

Pat Murphy — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:47:27 +0000

Taylor Kastan, is a 15 year old singer-songwriter who recorded her first songs at The Sound Palace earlier this year. Since then, we have moved her into our Artist Development partnership with local producers and she has continued her artistic growth as we regularly meet to work on pre-production for her forthcoming debut album.

Taylor made her first public performance this Sunday (October 16th) at 2:30 pm on the main stage of the Thousand Oaks Street Fair.

Recording continues for Christmas CD

Pat Murphy — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:44:21 +0000

The Angel City Big Band brought in their legendary drummer John “Spoons” Spooner and finished the drum tracking sessions earlier this week. John has toured all over with Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinkand it was great having him in studio. The band has now completed recording drums, bass, and guitar. The Brass sessions are now underway with 4 trumpets to be followed by trombones, saxophones and then vocals. Photos are of audio engineer Jim Baldree, several of the trumpet players and band leader, Tim.

Jim Baldree with 3 Trumpet Players

Isolation Booths for Brass

Angel City Big Band Starts Work on Christmas CD

Pat Murphy — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:38:11 +0000

The Angel City Big Band has begun work on their forthcoming Christmas CD at The Sound Palace.They plan on releasing a 14 song album and began tracking drums today. Legendary drummer John “Spoons” Spooner, who has toured all over the world with Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink brought in his DW drum kit and we snapped this photo during his set up.

DW Drum set used by John Spooner

Everyone loved the sound of the tracking room and will be returning to record trumpets and trombones over the next few days (using the ribbon microphones recently added to the microphone locker).

The project is being engineered by Jim Baldree who is also a composer and the audio mixer for the television show “Burn Notice” which airs on the USA Network.

The Studio On The Small Screen

Pat Murphy — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:28:38 +0000

On September 13th & 14th, PBS aired the documentary “Wings Across The Channel: Catalina Island’s Aviation History.“ This 90 minute documentary was narrated by actor Gregory Harrison at The Sound Palace and engineered by Danny Langa and Pat Murphy. The film also stars Tony Dow. Here is a clip from the film:

Click to View Film Clip

New Microphones Added to Arsenal

Pat Murphy — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:43:37 +0000

In the last week the studio added a pair of Royer Labs R-121 ribbon microphones to its sound locker. Years after the large iconic RCA ribbon microphones faded from industry use, Dave Royer reinvented the design of ribbon microphones in 1998 and the R121′s quickly established themselves as the industry standard at high end studios. These microphones are pure magic on electric guitar amplifiers and brass instruments. They also add tremendous richness when used in a stereo configuration for acoustic guitar or drum overheads.