The Ozone Lair has opened its door to the public and we are excited to start working with you. Please visit our myspace at http://www.myspace.com/ozonelair, to hear samples of many different styles of music that have been recorded here.
We've been running specials all year long so ask about the current ones when you contact us.
We are throwing a little party here at the O Zone Lair in celebration of the holiday season and our good friends Gunslinger coming down from Tennessee.
Their friend Jenny Wood is playing an early show in Atlanta and will be coming over to perform with them.
And of course the 13DM crew will do some jamming since it is their base camp.
We will be recording this as always so stay posted for some fresh tunes post party.
Live Recording @ Wonder Root - ATL - August 23rd 2008
For a review of the entire event, please check out O Team Press.
Let us start with the fact that we were hoping to have 16 channels to record with, instead we only had 8. This is not bad for 3 of the 4 bands that performed, but even still, we made it work. For any Horns, Keys, and Vocals, we ran some mics through a PA for the live sound, and then I put a mic in front of the PA instead of running direct out from the PA because that was not working out.
The sound, live in the room, was excellent, and that seemed to transfer over well onto the recording. The 13 Day Mission jam has everyone individually miced and no one running through the PA. Probably the best recording ever of the 13DM quartet and one of the best live recordings I have captured to date.
The other bands came across just as clean and even the stuff that came through the PA mic was not terrible. You can hear a clip of all the bands below.
Drums - 2 DR-HX1 Condensers - Overhead - 1 SM57 beta - Snare - 1 DR-KX1 kick drum mic - 2 DR-STX1 - Floor Tom, between other two toms
Bass - SM58
Guitars - Audix I-5 - 1 DR-STX1
For this live session we used the Audix I-5 again for guitar, but with better placement it did not pick up much outside noise at all allowing the guitar to shine bright. I moved the SM58 out from the speaker about 3 inches or so and that seemed to grab more of the low end much clearer than having the mic pushed all the way against the speaker. Also, we replaced the condenser mic over the toms with another dynamic tom mic. So the two regular toms and the floor tom are all being miced with the Digital Reference tom mics. This made a huge improvement in the quality of the sound of the toms, they came out much more natural as opposed to very crisp and bright.
Zechs Marquise, along with 13 Day Mission, performed live at the O Zone Lair for a slew of Atlanta area fans. This was the first real show that O Zone Lair hosted and we definitely tracked it. Unfortunately the 13 Day Mission set audio did not turn out so great, and we did not get any video. We did however get some really great tracks for Zechs Marquise.
Zechs Marquise were all really great guys and their music was jamming hard. For a review of the evening please visit O Team Press.
For a review of microphones and other ideas used, read on :)
Before the show I decided to hit up the music store and pick up a few more stands, wires, and a new mic that I had been eyeballing and hearing good things about. The Sterling ST51. It's nothing too fancy but received quite a bit of good press throughout the internet and was definitely in my budget. Come to find out it is not the greatest at recording toms like I had hoped it would be, based on my previous use of the M-Audio Nova that seems to be a bit warmer. The Sterling is very bright and somewhat crackly the way that I used it for this recording. I look forward to testing the Sterling out with some vocals, and I am positive it would do better as a room mic for the drums than pressed right up near the toms.
Guitars - Audix I-5 (picked up a lot of surrounding drum noise) - 1 DR-STX1 (hardly any surrounding drum noise)
I would like to pick up a few more 57's or 57 Beta's for live guitar recording. From past experience they pick up very little noise from the sides unlike the I-5. The DR-STX1 that I used for this show is actually a tom mic but turned out a decent recording.
The entire set will be online in the near future, but for now enjoy this video plus a pretty solid mix of the audio.
We have just confirmed a show for Sunday June 29th here at the O Zone Lair. Zechs Marquise is stopping by to celebrate their Atlanta area fans. We will also be cooking out so get here early. Doors at 2pm, music starts around 6pm.
