Violin Recording for "Black Martini"

We set up the session early in the morning as we were having a session in real time with our "day and night different time zone" counter part from the states- incredibly talented Joe Johnson.

JZ 11 is our go to microphone these days. Apart from its friendly pricing, it is such a utilitarian microphone that offers the right amount of sonic character for vocals and other musical instruments.

The low mids are tight and the highs are well controlled without much bumps, thus we need not to worry about dipping the sibilance. And we turned to the Porticos for the warm and silky string sound. I would say the mic pre is very musical and surprisingly Mr Rupert Neve has done a very good job on the 5043 compressor. It just gives us the tonal character we wanted easily- musical. We do admit that the pres are not as tight on the low end, but the Silk mode made it up for strings instruments and we particularly love it on the piano. 

We're honored and grateful to have talented people coming into the studio. Great music, great vibe. Click here for some clips from "Black Martini".

Listening to Joe on the other side of the globe.

Tools of trade

HeyMun and Chern Hui @StarMount Studio

The talented singer songwriter is based in Sydney Australia, coming back to KL for a short trip. So it was supposed to be a drop by and say hi trip, but we were all excited to try out some microphones-Telefunken AR-51, JZ V67 and JZ J1 (thanks to Soundbuz for their high standards and relentless support), and a new DAW-Pyramix.

We have heard how Pyramix are known for their superior sonic quality, just that its not as widely used by the commercial studios. Thanks to Stagetec Asia and Merging Technologies, we got the Horus with premium ADDA to try out along with Pyramix Masscore system.

This is an impromptu session and the duo liked the idea. Without much delay, HeyMun had her Taylor acoustic guitar tuned while Chern Hwei was already on the resin for his violin.

We had the duo in the same room, 6 ft away from each other. We used the Telefunken AR51 on the vocals, and V67 for acoustic guitar. The violin was done with our favorite sE RT1 Tube Ribbon (great cinematic strings tone with the mic)

So, that was the first studio session for "Hail", a new original from Heymun about friendship. The performance was magical and we're very happy to be able to capture the moment. Pyramix is amazing, and its true that the sonic quality is of very high fidelity and natural. And we're liking it every second we're on it.(not a good sign)

The whole session was done in a default setting:192khz set at 32 bit. And only going through the Horus micpre and AD. We were amazed by how balanced and natural the mic pres could produce, and the headroom was huge.

Everyone was excited and with much delight to hear what was being recorded. We were using the Lavry Blue all this while and the Horus got the upper hand with a huge margin in terms of clarity, fullness and headroom.

Again, it opens up the discussion about recording/ operating beyond 96kHz. To us, listening is believing and we were impressed by this new system from Merging Technologies. Drop by the studio for your own AB comparison. We would like to have more ears to tell us that we're not "hearing things" in the studio or its the "new gear hype" that we are going through right now.

HeyMun 

Chern Hwei

Beautiful Duet

FUGU@ StarMount Studio

It was midnight and we had FUGU, consist of Chern Hwei(Electric Violin)  and Chor Guan(Theremin) visiting to have their electrifying moments recorded in StarMount Studio.

All set for Round 1

StarWars

Killing the set

Electrifying session

Maestro Fung @ StarMount Studio

One day away from his flight back to NYC, Fung Chern Hwei graced StarMount Studio with his latest composition " When She Spread's Her Wings". It wasn't the usual acoustic setup as we're dealing with Distortion Guitars, Effected Violin and Cello and to fit all in one room with the maximum isolation. Challenging session, but beautiful music made it all worth it. 

Chern Hwei with musicians from Platform 11.

Soundtrack for film at StarMount Studio

Strings and more strings coming in the studio these days. And it's lots of fun and hard work, most of all great effort to everyone involved in the movie soundtrack production.
Mixing cues and matching music to pictures are something new to our engineers and not to mention around the clock tracking and mixing!

We had 2 groups of string players coming in for the tracks and also cutting some rhythm sections and most of all the beautiful voice of miss Bell Foo.

sE Gemini sounds great when paired up with Bell's vocals. It gives such hugging warmth around the vocals, and it is really good if you're looking for the "intimate" vocal feel. Top end was silky and it sits right in the mix nicely.

JZ V12 was use for some "sweet" vocals as the strong mids from the mic and creamy top end gives it a solid yet punchy performance. Its interesting that this FET could produce texture very close to a tube mic would.

Looking forward to the mastering of the movie and will keep you guys posted when the movie is out!

Cross checking strings arrangements : From Left Jin Tat, Felix, Chern Hwei 

Strings rehearsal at the lounge, we might record here next time :)

Edmund Yong on the drums

Studio A live room

One of a few group pictures : From right Felix, Alex, Jin Tat, Cellist Bell Foo, Vincent Chin and strings players.

Sirius Quartet Surprise Visit to StarMount Studio

Sirius Quartet was at StarMount Studio on a surprise visit. It was kind of a " Record and Dash" session. They're just amazing to record. The impromptu performance and intensity was great. 

Ron, Chern Hwei, Jeremy, Alex and Gregor at StarMount Studio

Masters at work

Violinist & Engineer duo @ StarMount Studio

Fung Chern Hwei, 1st violinist of Sirius Quartet dropped by StarMount Studio for an interesting project : a duo of violinist and audio engineer. Its about impromptu music played, tracked and mixed at the same time. The beauty is time and space were preserved and printed on the recording. No post editing or mixing allowed after the tracks were recorded. 

Fung Chern Hwei on violin

Alex Tan on the Zen