Ear Warmup #3: Sting "Ten Summoner's Tales"

Song: If I Ever Lose My Faith in You

A good tight low end but without being over compressed can be hard to get. This song is a great example of good pop low end a bright overall record, but with a smooth top.

Nominated for six Grammy awards and winning in 4 categories; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Long Form Music Video.

Recorded at the Lake House and mixed by David Tickle at The Townhouse. Mastered by Bob Ludwig.

What Else to Listen For:The tambourine that drives the verses. Covered in reverb of course, after all the 80's just ended a few years ago at this point. All jokes aside, the tambourine acts as a bed for the other instruments, giving the song a dimensional quality not heard in today's hits very often. 

Ear Warmup #2: Soundgarden "Down On the Upside"

Ear Warmups #2: Soundgarden "Down On the Upside"

On this album, Soundgarden opted to not work with a producer, sticking strictly to the creativity and ideas of the band. Engineer Adam Kasper became an unofficial producer and did most of the engineering duties on the album. 

The band kept things simple and moved fast, leaving in ambient sounds and guitar noises.

Mixed by the band themselves with the help of Adam Kasper, this is a great example of a project with the artist's vision intact from start to finish though a bit long, this is a fully realized project by Soundgarden. Mastered by Dave Collins at A&M. The mastering shows respect towards the dynamics of the performances and honestly who could do better on a project like this? 

Listen and comment if you like.

Ear Warmup #1: John Patitucci "Mistura Fina"

I wanted to start off right because maybe some stuff is going to click for many of you. 

The point of Ear Warmups other than to condition my ears to what good is in the morning is to ease into having to use them but without the pressure of the client's work. 

So, today's track is from bassist, John Patitucci's "Mistura Fina". His style leans toward Brazilian grooves as do most his productions. The first thing that's most important is this is expertly composed music by the best musicians in this field; Alex Acuña, John Beasley, Peter Erskine (my favorite drummer), João Bosco, Dave Weckl, Steve Tavaglione, Michael Shapiro and John himself. 

My point is...great musicians with great minds for composing do great albums make. 

Listen especially for the tight center bass/percussion relationship and the trade off between the guitar that's panned as "ear candy". They trade the attention effortlessly. 

Making the work much easier for Bernie Kirsh who engineered this album. Look up his other credits while you're at it.