New Acoustic Panels for The Robins Studio

New acoustic panels are built!  I ordered the materials, and with the help of friend and audio engineer extraordinaire Ashton Nagle the 15 panels were built in a day.

We built 2 sizes...2" thick Owens Corning 703 (compressed fiberglass) in a 4" thick frame -and- 4" thick fiberglass in 6" thick frames.  The 2" air gap behind the fiberglass helps the panels absorb sound better.  It also helps the panels absorb lower frequencies.

A look at the fabrication.

Here are some of the wooden frames after fabrication.

Once the frames were built, we wrapped the front of the panel with black burlap.  Burlap is used because the loose weave and breathability allow sound to travel through and become trapped by the fiberglass behind.

Here's a panel with the burlap about to be fastened.

Once the burlap was tightly secured it was time to stuff the rigid fiberglass into the wooden frame.

Here is a picture of the yellow fiberglass which was pushed into the back of the panel.  There was no need to secure the fiberglass because once it was pushed in it was held in place by the tension of the snuggness of the fit.

Here is a picture of the finished panels just after fiberglass installation.

Once I vacuumed up any loose fiberglass, the panels were clean and ready to be hung in The Robins Studio.

Here is one more picture of the panels sitting and waiting for their fiberglass stuffing.

The 15 panels took us most of the day to build.  Now I just need to find some time to hang em up!

If you have any questions about how we built them or the acoustic principals at play, drop me a line and I'd be happy to answer.

-Ty

Back From LA

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

April and May are heating up…time to escape to L.A.

April and May have been gloriously busy.  Houston's weather has been more kind than most years, and the projects in the works have been great, too -- including work from amazing singer and songwriter Courtney Conerly, Houston based country artist Charlie Lucas, and the formidible and talented Lauren Holmes/Niscavits.  Great stuff all around.

Pre production for Paul Pelc's debut solo project will start this month.  Masters for Keeton Koffman's solo EP are hot off The Robins Studio presses.  

So...I'll be escaping the oncoming Houston heat this week to fly out to L.A.  I'll be touring studios, shaking hands, and meeting people in the record making racket.  Should be a blast.  

More updates to come!

-Ty

New Project with Paul Pelc!

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be producing and mixing the debut solo album from amazing singer, guitar player, and songwriter Paul Pelc!

Pre production will start soon.  Keep your ears peeled!

-Ty

Vocals with Courtney, Pre-Production with the Dukes of Harris

Things are moving along with Courtney Conerly's debut album.  We finished tracking vocals this week, and solidified the track listing for the release.  The Lawson 251 > BAE 1084 > Retro 176 tracking combination we chose for her voice sounds incredible!

This week production starts with a Houston based band called the Dukes of Harris (as in Harris county). The production will be overseen by Houston producer Josh Moore and myself.  Excited to see what comes out of this project, and excited to work with Josh and the Dukes.

-Ty

Birthdays and Great Music

Had a great week this past week celebrating my birthday and working on some great upcoming music.

Vocals were tracked for Courtney Conerly's debut album.  What a voice!  We did a mic shootout with a lot of great mics (Sony C800g, Bock 507, AKG C12, Neumann m149) and ended up choosing the Lawson 251, a Telefunken clone.  We tracked through a BAE 1084 pre amp into a Retro 176 compressor.  The project is sounding great, and we're getting close to finishing it up.

Songs of The Well - Volume 1

I had the privilege of working with singer/songwriter and worship leader Micah Peacock near the end of 2013.  I produced an EP for his church's new contemporary service called "The Well".  Micah did some guitars, lead vocals, and song arrangements.  We had guitarist extraordinaire JJ Cole record acoustic and electric guitars.  John "Fanhands" Niscavits played drums.  I played bass, keys, and percussion and mixed and mastered the album.

Here's the link to sample and purchase the album from iTunes.  Check it out!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/id791330811?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Live Performance from Brooke Waggoner

Last week I was part of a live performance stream produced by Serial Box Presents and The Music Bed. I helped with the audio portion of the production.  The performance was from a Nashville artist named Brooke Waggoner.  It was a blast working with some of the most talented audio and video minds in Houston, and capturing such great performances from a special artist.

Check out the full video!