For this years Recording Competition at the AES Convention in Munich I did a 5.1 surround mix of the Late Calls “Cards on the table”. Was like painting a picture I already had in my mind since I did the stereo version of the song. The String Section becomes overwhelming in the surround context and the Glockenspiel plays little ping-pong effect from left to right, back to front.

And you know what? It got the 1st price in the surround non-classical category!

Judges were Ronald Prent (Galaxy Studios, Belgium) and Andrés Mayo (Mayo Mastering, Buenos Aires).

Thanks to everyone who supported me at the convention and all of you who gave me such great feedback on my work. Thanks also a lot to iZotope for the Ozone4 license!

 

Equipment:

Logic 8 on MBP, only Logic Plugins

Mastering: TC 6000 Surround Mastering System

We chose one of the nicest days in spring to do a very special recording in Graz. Once I heard a lecture on musical form at a small but high building of the university straight in the old town of Graz. This buildings holds a very old class room like wooden chamber which I found to be a nice recording space for… yes, right, chamber music.

Christoph Frank and I now recently got the idea to do a classical surround recording using some vintage gear like old tape machines. This is where I remembered the old class room and we finally came up with quite a usual setup for the recording due to transportation limitations and a none working tape machine (I try another definition of vintage = heavy).

It was more like recording a rehearsal than working on it for the perfect take. If you listen to our experiment, you won’t get perfect sounding classical sound but more a deep impression on the mood and the character of the room. The Surround concept should keep the listener surrounded by the four musicians playing the Ravel String Quartet.

Thanks to the “Wine Quartet” for taking part at our experiment!

 

Equipment:

Mics: INA5 with Schöps MK5, AB Room Schöps MK2, C Room Schöps MK8

Tracking: Metric Halo 2882, Mac Book Pro, Mio Recording Tool

Editing/Mixing: EQ and Compression on TL Audio TubeTracker, Cuts and Surround Panning in ProTools HD

Get the Surround Files: Coming Soon

Today Tapete Records is going to release “Leaving Notes”, the debut album of singer/songwriter Johannes Mayer aka. The Late Call. It has been a great experience to record and produce this album, since we had to deal with the long distances between sweden, germany and austria. A lot of tracks were flown into the project recorded in different places around europe which I do not even remember exactly.

It was the third time working with Johannes ’cause we did some demo recordings back in 2002 and 2003. It’s great to see how he developed his very own style of writing arrangements just with his guitar and using a variety of other instruments like vibraphone, trumpet, piano, glockenspiel to adorn the songs with different sound colours. And of course, his undoubted brilliant voice really stands out from a lot of his singer/songwriter colleagues this days.

Thanks to everyone who helped to get the production work done. It wouldn’t have been possible without you!

I wish Johannes all the best for the release!

See the Video of “Cards on the table”:

The Late Call – Cards On The Table from Mats Udd on Vimeo.

To continue the traditional christmas tape recordings Jörg Teichert and I found ourselves in the studio this year again. Inspired by the Whitestripes and Seasick Steve there was only one way to go: to eleven.

Listen to it:

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This is the first time the all new “Amadeus Kollektiv” played a live concert. The stage was installed in front of the beautiful garden of the Castle Schwetzingen in Germany. It was great fun to meet Jörg Teicher with his incredible new project band. As the name reveals the “Amadeus Kollektiv” is playing Jazz and Blues arrangements of Mozarts compositions like “Bonna Nox” or “Dies Ire”.