AmbassadorsUniqueSquared Pro Audio Blog

MOBILE STUDIO

Zack Rocket
June 15, 2012

Ambassadors and the PreSonus StudioLive

This past spring we were deep in the planning stages of the MobileStudio trip to SXSW and WMC/Ultra music week. Since we were going to be headed to SXSW anyway our marketing team suggested that we look for a band that was also headed towards Austin and see if they would be interested in recording a track with us on the way down. The plan was to stop at the cities they were playing in and record a track from start to finish on the road. The band we linked up with was a group out of Brooklyn, New York called Ambassadors, a four piece indie rock band that made great music and was willing to put up with our shenanigans as we recorded their track.

PreSonus powers our MobileStudio with a 24 channel StudioLive. They provided us with a StudioLive to take with us to use in …

MOBILE STUDIO

Paul
March 28, 2012

MobileStudio Adventures

Hey gang!

So we just got back in from Miami after a long and eventful week at Miami’s WMC/Ultra and the week before at Austin’s South by SouthWest Music Conference. We had a great time and are home with loads of content that we are logging or converting from notes to articles.

If you’ve been keeping up at all, you have seen our ongoing coverage of “The Road to SXSW” with Ambassadors. The mix for “Habits” is coming along. I am currently sending a rough to the guys so we can pick up a tambourine track we all managed to forget on our last day tracking together, but that mix will be final and proudly shown for all in the next week. In addition, we have our live coverage of the boys from some of their shows with Lights we caught, as well as their appearances at SXSW.

We’ve …

MOBILE STUDIO

Paul
March 20, 2012

Ambassadors Sessions – #Road2SXSW – Houston and Austin

As Lonely Paul has lauded, the Ambassadors are amazing in the studio, but what he didn’t dive fully into is how they sound live. We had the pleasure of covering their shows in Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston and Austin during SXSW, and they killed it, every time. Thanks primarily to Lights ever growing fan base, Ambassadors have been opening shows to hundreds of young, impressionable ears and leaving with dozens of new fans. Every day, their Facebook and Twitter pages get fans posting and tweeting about their performance, and the response is only positive. Since recording on the Mobile Studio commenced we were able to cover their remaining shows while also being able to sit back, and enjoy them as a fan.

To give an idea of what to expect, Sam is the front man who switches between a floor tom and bass while singing. Casey, his brother, plays on …

MOBILE STUDIO

Paul
March 19, 2012

Ambassadors Sessions – #Road2SXSW – New Orleans

So if you’re keeping up with our Ambassadors story so far, #Road2SXSW, you know we got the basic tracks laid down with Casey and Adam; as well as a dynamite scratch vocal track from Sam. We parted ways with our boys for a few dates and then headed to catch up with them again in New Orleans.

The Mobile Studio actually made amazing time on the way to NOLA thanks to our amazing driver Dave and we secured amazing parking thanks to some friends at the House of Blues. We got in so early that we were able to drop by one of my favorite places to stop whenever I go through: Verti Marte. I won’t go too far into it, but thanks to this institution, Francis Ford Coppola and I have a shared a favorite sandwich. If you go to NOLA and don’t hit up Verti Marte, I’m …

MOBILE STUDIO

Paul
March 16, 2012

Ambassadors Sessions – #Road2SXSW – Atlanta

I want to stress as much as is humanly possible that recording sessions can and often do go badly. There is only so much an engineer can do. We can prep our session, check our wiring, make sure we’re capable of providing things quickly and with ease. After that, there’s an expression: “Crap In, Crap Out.” Everything, really, is up to the band. I always try to focus on creating a positive space where people can give their best performance. In my opinion, the vibe is everything. If you doubt this, try being a jerk to a band and then getting a great track out of them.

On the other hand, Martin Hannett basically created the Joy Division sound by being insanely cruel to the band, but that is another story. Probably a significant detail that their singer eventually killed himself; so do what you will with that. Don’t even …