Acoustics

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The most important attribute of any recording space is the acoustics. Good acoustics not only means good recorded sound, it also means inspired performance from the artist.

Trick Dog Recording features all wood construction, cathedral ceilings nearly eleven feet at the peak, and a nearly 500 sq. ft. open L-shaped layout which lends itself to sonic exploration. The sound is very present and clear, and particularly compliments acoustic instruments.

House Instruments

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Trick Dog Recording offers a selection of quality instruments that can be used on your project.

The drumset is a refurbished 1960s Slingerland with a 20" kick drum, 12" rack and 16" floor toms, a 13" drumset timbale. There are two snares, a coveted Slingerland wood snare and a vintage steel shell Sonor. The set sits on an Auralex Platfoam isolator.

There is a beautiful 1930s 5'1" Chickering Baby Grand in immaculate condition. It is very crisp with a resonant bass. There is an 88 key, hammer-action Roland RD700 MIDI keyboard with a large palette of sounds. A collection of virtual instruments and samplers can be played using the Roland keyboard or the Drum Kat controller. Other keyboards include a MOOG MiniMoog, a Fender Suitcase Rhodes with vibrato, a Clavinet D6 and a Farfisa Compact Combo.

House amps include a beautiful, bluesy Fender Twin, a Fender Blues Junior, a versatile Budda 2 x 10" Twin Master. For bass, there is a pristine Ampeg B15N as well as an Ampeg SVP-CL which is an an SVT preamp for DI recording. And there's more!

Recording Equipment

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Digital Performer 5.11 runs on a MacIntosh dual 2.3GHz G5 for all multitrack recording. A MOTU PCI system features two 1224 interfaces and a 2408 mkII allowing for up to twenty-four simultaneous analog inputs. All recording is done at 24 bits, 44.1 kHz. There is also a MOTU Ultralite interface which allows recording eight analog inputs at up to 96kHz.

DSP Quattro is used for CD mastering and burning. Plug-ins include Altiverb 6 convolution reverb and Wave Arts eq and compression. Monitoring is through B&W mains with a Tannoy sub and NAD amplification. There are four channels of Focusrite Red Range and four channels of Geoff Daking mic preamps, as well as Aphex and Mackie pres. There is Crane Song and dbx compression.

Legacy media includes ADAT blackface, Otari MX5050B 1/4" analog, Sony R500 DAT, Denon cassette and a customized AR turntable with an AudioTechnica cartidge.

Microphones include: MicrotechGefell UM70, Audio Technica 4050 (pair), M-Audio Sputnik Tube (pair), Josephson C42MP (pair), Shure VP88 M/S stereo, Shure Beta 87A, Shure SM57 (pair), Audix D6, Shure Beta 52, Audix i5 and others.