The Bosben Brothers

For You

Jake and Cory Bosben, two musicians from Rochester approached me about doing a few demo tracks for future use with their band, Chester Bay. Using just a couple close mics on the acoustic guitar, as well as isolated vocals in the vocal booth, we were able to come up with a pretty clean demo track. Everything was recorded separately to give us the most separation and minimal bleed between instruments.

To learn more about The Bosben Brothers, ‘Like’ them on Facebook.

Stephanie and Melanie Josselyn

Oughta Know

Stephanie and Melanie Josselyn, two sisters from Mazeppa, Minnesota came to Digital Avenue looking to have a professionally done demo to take with them to Nashville. Over two days of recording, we completed 6 songs. “Oughta Know” was recorded with two guitars playing simultaneously. To maintain the feel of a performance, both musicians were placed side-by-side to allow them to play off of eachother. Each guitar had its own dual mic setup, which allowed us to edit, mix and automate each instrument separately. The vocals were recorded separate to provide maximum isolation. The final vocal track is a composition of three or four takes, selecting the best phrases from each, and comping them together to form a single, “best of” track.

To listen to a few more songs from Stephanie and Melanie Josselyn, check them out on Pure Volume.

Dave Ryan

Who I Am

“Who I Am” is a song recorded by local musician, Dave Ryan. On this track, Dave opted to bring in his own keyboard. Using a full-size keyboard, yet utilizing the internal sounds here at Digital Avenue, we were able to record the performance, then go back and find the perfect piano sound for the song. This is proving to a great alternative rather than transporting a piano between sessions, or keeping one on-site, and maintained at the studio. In order create some depth in this track, we used multiple microphones on the lead vocal, as well as harmonizing vocals underneath the lead.

Hannah Swegarden

Streets of Rome

Hannah Swegarden comes from the very fabric of artists who separates Digital Avenue from the rest of the studios in the area. She’s an immensely talented woman, who isn’t necessarily looking to “make it” in the music world. Hannah came to me just looking to record a few songs she had written herself. With no prior recording experience, we were able to sit down and discuss how we would approach each song and how we could get the best combination of performance and professional sound quality. On this specific track, using simple close mic’ing techniques, we were able to record both the guitar and vocals at the same time, while maintaining enough separation to mix the different elements separately.

Don Nocka Meechie

Let’s Go

Don Nocka Meechie is a recording artist from Loonessy Entertainment. Having exhausted everything else in the area, and tired of spending long hours commuting to studios in Minneapolis and beyond, Loonessy found Digital Avenue. Coming here, they had an engineer in Dallas McLaughlin who knew exactly how to accomplish anything on the technical end that they could possibly think up. The speed, and energy behind these sessions is something that is hard to capture, but we were able to find. Working on these tracks, we never had to slow down the creative process in order to catch up on the technical side. Don Nocka Meechie came armed with instrumentals from his label, as well as musicians ready to perform on the spot. Track counts reaching into the upper 40′s (of just vocals) were a common thing during these sessions.

Be sure to check out Loonessy.com, Don Nocka Meechie’s record label.

Heavyweight Champion

Other Side of The Spectrum

Heavyweight Champion is the solo effort of local musician, Ryan Booth. Ryan Booth had spent his whole life playing piano, but had never experienced the recording process. These sessions were the epitome of “just keep recording”. With a creative talent like Ryan, everything is impromptu, and everything is in the moment. If I at any time had to stop the process, or swap out any equipment, the moment would have been gone. With Ryan barking out commands, I was able to keep the session running at a rampant pace. At the end of the night, with all of our sounds, loops and song ideas, we then set out to arrange them in as best of manner as we could. When this experimental piece was complete, the drum machine could no longer hold up. I called in another client, Jack Montour to play some live drums on the track to breathe some new life into it.

Henry Sibley High School Varsity Dance Line

Aural Assault

Each dance season, Digital Avenue is extra busy. I’ve been doing the music editing for local high school’s, as well as this one for Henry-Sibley High School’s Varsity Dance Line team. Editing dance line music is a whole separate process in itself. The coaches select the music in advance, and then give me the freedom to run with ideas on how to best mix and match the different elements of each song into a single, exciting, yet easy for the dancers to follow, song. Each “genre” of dance line song needs to fit certain criteria, in addition to certain songs, which puts a fun set of restraints on each song.

R-Dubs

Let It All Out (Ft. Reality)

R-Dubs is one of Digital Avenue’s longest standing relationships within the music business. With almost 4 years of experience recording together, and close to 100 songs, we have a sort of “unspoken” method to our recording sessions. This track is unique in the sense that it features an artist that has never even stepped foot inside Digital Avenue. R-Dubs had tapped Minneapolis’ Reality to feature on this track, but due to scheduling conflicts, we were never able to get all of us in the same studio together. The beat for this song was made at R-Dub’s Beat Factory, all R-Dubs vocals were recorded here at Digital Avenue, and then I mailed out all the session files to a studio in Minneapolis. Within a week, I had all the files back at Digital Avenue, along with Reality’s vocals, as well as his engineers personal editing and mixing touches. Truly a feat that would have been impossible even just 10 years ago.

You can listen to more R-Dubs tracks over on his MySpace.