CutSnake Studio

Finally a new studio CD from the Okapi faction. (We’re using a slightly different name this time, given the musicians involved.)

We started recording this back in 2007, but put out the live CD before completing this.

We’ll be giving it a proper launch in January 2011, but it’s already up at CDBaby if you want to have a listen.

This Chinese ribbon mic comes in various colours under various names. Here in Australia it’s available as part of the Legacy brand. The Legacy variation isn’t listed at recording hacks, but a bunch of other re-brandings are.

I got one secondhand, and wanted to open it up and remove some of the mesh and filters. But I couldn’t figure out how to open the case. Finally saw a photo on Michael Joly’s site that made it clear how the covers came off.

Here’s some photos I took that hopefully make the situation clearer. Basically the covers are held on with tabs that slide into slits. My mic seems to have a few broken off…

The studio album we’ve been working on since finishing Haram Homebrew will be called Plenty.

Should be out this year, but in the meantime, here’s the single at CDBaby: Age of Plenty.

Here’s a song from our semi-acoustic side project, Kizungu 3.

Nhemamusasa -Kizungu 3

A Zimbabwean mbira song we learnt from Noble Mashawa, with a local lyrical twist.

Ah, the months have slipped past. What’s been going down at Cut Snake?

At the end of January the senior members of Okapi Guitars recorded a handful of songs in semi-acoustic mode: acoustic guitar, congas, tastefully muted electric guitar. The Babu Three, perhaps? Los Trios Muziki?

A little more tweaking should see these tracks finished soon.

Karifi came in at the end of February for a drum recording session. Wonderful traditional drums. Must have been a dozen of them here.

The Heil PR40 sounded great on these.

I did a little recording for this CD back in November 2008, mostly additional drums and vocals. Most of the work was done by Craig Tudman at Lorikeet Studio,

Glad it’s out, it sounds great.

I’ve just returned from a trip to California and Mexico. I sought out musical gear shops in various cities, but didn’t completely fulfil my dreams of bringing home heaps of cheap microphones, preamps and other goodies.

What I did bring back was:

1. Tascam US-144 USB audio interface
I bought a netbook (Lenovo IdeaPad) to travel with, and decided that after returning home I would try to use it as the basis for a portable recording setup. The Tascam US-144 was pretty cheap at Guitar Center in San Francisco. I’ve been tweaking the setup, using Wavelab as recording software.

2. Heil PR40 microphone
In LA I went to West LA music on Santa Monica Boulevard with the hope of being able to buy some cheap ribbon mics. They didn’t have any in stock, but they did have some Heil microphones. I’d read good things about these, and the price was good.

3. Audix CabGrabber
I’ve wanted one of these for a while, but the local price is too high. Looked for it in SF and LA, and finally found one (the last one in the shop) at EasyMusic Center in Honolulu.

I’ll let you know how I go with each of these when I get some time to use them.

If you hang around some of the home studio discussion boards, such as Gearslutz or TapeOp, you’ll see lots of discussion of low-end (i.e. affordable) home studio gear that’s hard to find outside the US. Cut Snake Studio is in Australia, and the local price of some of this stuff, if it’s available at all, is typically two or three times the cost in the States.

A bunch of our studio equipment has been sourced from overseas. It’s relatively uncomplicated to buy microphones from the US or Europe, so Cut Snake has microphones from Europe (tbone, Oktava) and the US (Karma, Kel) in the collection.

Case in point: the ART MPA Digital preamp is available from some Australian retailers for prices from AU$700 up to AU$1100. I’ve seen it on US eBay for US$279, or, at today’s exchange rate, about AU$310. A half or even third of the local price: a substantial saving.

But there’s some disadvantages to buying gear directly from the US: the voltage is different, and the warranty probably won’t apply. And, of course, you need to pay a shipping fee that can add substantially to the final cost of the item.

I just want to provide some information about the power supply voltage on some MPA units, since I couldn’t find any webpage that discussed this.

The ART MPA Digital preamp (and maybe some similar ART gear) can easily be switched from 110 to 220/240 volt input: the fuse holder underneath the power cord plug can be configured for either voltage. The photo here shows the preamp configured for 220/240 volts. By removing and flipping the fuse holder you can swap the preamp to 110/120 volts.