Borrowed lyrics and motifs from songs already written, what’s wrong with that? Well, nothing honestly, as long as you aren’t trying to claim that a song that isn’t yours is yours like that kid from squid and the whale. Tip the hap, have some fun, but give credit where credit is due. Sometimes it happens though, that without even realizing it you’ve pulled something already written into what you think is an original work. This happens, it’s ok, the chances of discovering a song exactly the same way as another previously written song is highly unlikely, but how does it happen. I mean, that melody was just swimming around in your head and you played it out, It has to be completely original, right?
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I made my first drum recording when I was 14, with a boombox that looked a lot like this one. The kit was “borrowed” from my cousin for the summer. The boombox was a garage sale gift from my mom, had two mics, and a switch to choose between “diction” and “field” recording modes. I was aiming for the drum sound off Lonesome Crowded West, and I wasn’t satisfied with results.

Then I scored a Nady drum mic kit from a kid at school. He threw stands and XLR cables in with the deal. I was sure that I could now achieve that exact Modest Mouse drum sound. I ran the mics through my Behringer Eurorack mixer and output the stereo mix to cassette tape. Wow, I felt cool – and I was seriously puzzled when the recording turned out much worse than my boombox recordings.

And that’s pretty much how I became interested in audio engineering. How could it possibly be worse?!?! I mean, I had a dang mic on each drum, just like a real recording studio!

The biggest problem – and one I was completely oblivious to – was phase cancellation. Mo’ mics, mo’ problems. For the time being, I resorted to a stereo pair for overheads.

Anyway, that’s ancient history, but it’s revealing. I think a drum kit is one of the harder things to record well – and probably a catalyst to many future audio engineers.

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A couple months back I was in the studio with this blues guitar player, he was kinda bummed about his amp giving him tone trouble. For those of you who don’t know, tone trouble is a pretty terrible kind of trouble, you don’t want it. Voicing some frustration with a smile on his face, Thaddeus told me “I’m putting all my money into potato amplification, as in potato amplification devices. That’s made out of tubers, potatoes, spuds… I’m a researcher,  man.”
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It’s been a good year. We’ve worked with over 30 Bands on projects large and small and completely transformed this old warehouse into an awesome space for music.

On the 21st we’re welcoming musical guests Humble Home and Ladybird and The Folk to play some tunes on the red stage, and stocking up the ‘ol piano bar.

It’s an open guestlist but please register on eventbrite so we know you’re coming.

Live From Bad Racket – Press Club of Cleveland Award

Our video series, Live From Bad Racket, recently got some local affection, winning it’s first  award on June 7th , 2011 -  with The Press Club of Cleveland. We’d like to formally congratulate our friend and resident film maker, Aaron Freeder, on winning this award for his incredible videography work.

The concept of a studio video feature actually started with our good friend Erin Fox, summer of 2010. She said that we could record a track and film the production, call it ‘live from bad racket’ and it would be cool. It was a pretty simple concept, and even though the series didn’t turn out to actually be ‘live’ we decided to keep with the moniker as the title when the project came together.
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