Sarah and I are back from LA, and man did I hit the ground running! More on that later, first a little bit about the trip.
The first morning there, I was lucky enough to get a tour of East West Studios (on Sunset). The tour was set up for me by engineer Woody Woodruff, who has worked with Whitney Houston, Rod Stewart, Celine Dion, Kenny G, and Tony Bennett (to name a few). The studio was incredible. Lots of vintage consoles, mics, gear, and instruments. I had my first run in with a real deal Fairchild! Here are some pictures...
Here's me with Woody in one of the control rooms...
Who needs plugins?
After that we hit the beach in Malibu and Santa Montica. So beautiful. I also go to see a the street where Incubus lived while recording Morning View, which had a huge impact on this budding producer. You can just see the ocean over my shoulder...
The week was filled with good food, catching up with friends, and meeting a ton of new people. We had a blast! And we took in as much of the city as possible in the days there.
The last day of the trip we were supposed to leave around 5pm, but our flight was cancelled. That was fine with me, because it let me rebook for the redeye 12:30am the next morning, and make it to a mix seminar with Manny Marroquin (mix engineer John Mayer, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Imagine Dragons, and so many more). The mix seminar was about 100 people, and I had signed up early in the week thinking I might be able to make it. Glad I did! Manny talked about passion in music, showed us some unreleased music from a new, up and coming artist, and showed us some of his skills hands on with an SSL duality. Awesome stuff.
My flight left around 12:30am LA time (2:30am Houston) and landed in Houston at 5:30. I was able to catch a little sleep, and then hit the studio with Lauren Holmes (Niscavits) and John Niscavits to start tracking their EP. We've wrapped up drums, acoustics, percussion, and lead vocals. The songs are awesome and Lauren's voice is great. Can't wait for y'all to hear it!
All in all the trip was a great success. Couldn't have asked for better. We'll have to go back soon.
-Ty
