This past weekend Belikos asked me to come out to Utica, NY, to help with a recording session at Castle.  The band was solid, and cranked out most of two complete tracks in one day.  I’m planning to do most of the post work from home.

Castle was a very cool place to track.  Matthew Wagner, chief engineer, is a great guy and found some fantastic sounds.  The room is an old church, and designs for the conversion were done by our old friends at the Walter-Storyk Design Group (the same folks that redesigned the Duderstadt Center Audio Studio at the University of Michigan).  I sensed that it was a John Storyk room when I walked in, based on the design and acoustics - very good all around.  

My only complaints were the decay time in the live room (useless for drum tracking - and why else have a live room???) and the Yamaha DM2000 console.  From what Matt said, they’re still working on the decay in the live room, so they get a pass - I’ll be curious to see what they’ve done next time I’m back.  The console though, I don’t know about.  If all of the work you do is in the box, what does a digital console get you that a control service doesn’t?  Especially one as convoluted as a Yamaha board?  I had the experience of learning on a Yamaha O2R96, which is basically the same interface.  Unteachable.  And I sure don’t remember how it works.  Good thing Matt was around.

I’ll post pictures and audio later.  [Castle Recording Studio]