Taking a closer look at what we have around us.

We've picked up some cables around the studio and decided to look further into the details of how they would work with different instruments, in general we patched them up with Keyboards, Bass guitars and Electric guitars for a quick comparison. 

Cables:

   1.    Klotz Titanium -Germany

   2.    Lava (Retro Coil) - USA

   3.    Lava (ELC) - USA

   4.    Vovox - Switzerland

At first glance

These cables look robust for serious audio work. The cables are of thick construction, so we can be confident that they have ample conductor volume to minimise losses and noise pickup while recording. The jackets also feel durable and robust which ensures that these cables will remain physically unharmed for many years. 

Klotz Titanium

The connector heads are also well constructed and provide good contact with the majority of inputs out there. The Klotz and the Vovox use Neutrik connectors. The Lavas use connectors from G&H Industries. Experienced purchasers of audio cables know that these manufacturers  of connectors are some of the best there is in terms of quality and reliability.

Each cable has its own interesting feature. The Lava Retro Coil is already visually distinct from the others. The real sweet feature is that the retro coil is  the most flexible among the others, providing a lot of mobility for the player should they be using it for guitar and bass. The way it is coiled also allows it to be stretchable, allowing less clutter should the player not require a lot of distance from the amp of interface. 

The standard Lava and Klotz are the most visually discrete among the group, with a basic smooth jacket which gives it a standard industrial look which serves its purpose. The Vovox cable uses a woven jacket and has a braided groove along its length, making it aesthetically pleasing.

How does it sound?

StarMount Studio is Turning 10

We're celebrating our milestone with giving out BeyerDynamic DT770M headphones for every 10 hours of studio time. To make it a sweeter deal, you can choose between DT770M 80 ohm or 250 ohm, or even DT770 Pro 80ohm/250 ohm.

It has been such a wonderful journey, making friends along the way and most importantly growing and sharing experiences together with the music community are just priceless!

Candy Ice D.Va@StarMount Studio

Candy Ice, celebrity and pop sensation was here for her recording on D.Va debut album. Lead by Candy as the executive producer, the young and talented team of Kido Lee (Producer) and Wee Ting (Vocal Coach) came up with some nice tunes, covering fast paced and slow ballad.

Vocal Chain: Tree Audio Branch and Fredenstein F200 for the fast and slow songs. Microphones were sE Gemini MK2 and Telefunken AK47, going into Lavry Blue AD. Tree Audio Branch was cranked up hot, and we worked the opto compressor for the rich harmonics and extra saturation on the song D.VA.

Fredenstein F200 was being used (courtesy of Ganz from Soundbuz) for the ballad. We were looking for a clean and big but not in the face vocals. It was great to have the F200 as it was not only has 2 channels, it has a compressor (transformer) and it can be used as parallel or just pure transformer sound from the compressor. I would say its such a thoughtful and effective way, especially for recording. We love the versatility and wished it could be de tented for a more accurate recall.
We blended Telefunken AK47 with AE2000 just to get the body and top end, mostly from the AK47.
Fredenstein can be clean and also colorful, compressors are forgiving and easy to operate as well.


Links to music video:

Introducing "Studio HD" new addition of StarMount Studio

Things were moving fast in the studio and it has been a while since our last update. 

With much delight, we're introducing the well equipped "Studio HD". Its a vocal-centric recording facility that we have packed in different colors of mic pres and gathered one of the best AD/DA converters in the industry for the one that matters most - vocals. 

The Studio can do up to 12 tracks simultaneous recording, to cater for drums and other instruments recordings. 

The live room is really "live" as we would want to have a more open sound as compared to the ones we already had. It offers a breath of fresh air and we love it after listening to the tracks recorded in the room. Its natural, and sits in the mix easily without much need of an reverb to live up the vocals. 

Its all about the fun of recording and experiment in this new Studio HD. 

The best part is, our main objective for this studio is to make it very affordable so that you can have more time to track your vocals, which is the most important element in the song. 

Its officially available to all starting November 3rd and please do drop us an email for bookings and enquiries. 

Gears List at the moment:

Pro Tools HD8 with Waves Platinum pack and more.

Lavry Blue AD/DA

RME ADI-8 QS AD/DA

Tree Audio Branch

Chandler Limited TG2

Audient ASP008

Audient Centro

Yamaha MSP 7

Our new favorite place.

New room, new sound. Love it.

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

Dalang Post Production and Sound Mixing @StarMount Studio

WeFilm has brought their new independent film "Dalang" to StarMount Studio for post production and stereo sound mixing.

Music was scored by one of the prominent avant garde composer -Yii Kah Hoe. The artistic value was elevated more when the music was paired to the picture. We couldn't stress more about how important audio instills "life" into the video, so we did what we can to guide the audience through the story telling process. 

Our biggest challenge is always in cleaning up the dialogs from the location recordings. Phase reversal and a few more noise reduction/ restructuring plugins were essential and sometimes "life saving". The whole movie was carried by the music and conversations, so we kept foley and sound design at minimum. 

We used sE 4400 and JZ V11 for the ADR. They both have similar character but the V11 has become our favorite go-to microphone for voice over applications. It has a darker tone while maintaining good amount of body on the mids and low mids. Sibilance were much controlled on the V11 compared to the sE4400 which has more top end, less low mids. 

Audient Zen mixing console. 

Steve Long-Director

Maestro Yii Kah Hoe

Jumero @StarMount Studio

You love them on live performances and now Jumero has hit the studio for their first studio release. We like the vibe of the band and decided to work together towards their first EP.
Much thought and effort has been put into this production and we're gonna make sure that it gets the most attention as much as possible. We love to host talented musicians and they're really good in what they are doing, writing songs and having fun.
We like the fact that the band is open to experiment on sounds and approach the songs differently. Exploring different sounds like using coins as triangles, using different unconventional mics for vocals, and we had one track all done with ribbon tube microphones (we like it very much). And the most precious thing is we all learnt from each other and grew as a team. Looking forward to the outcome of this project.

Jared, Ryan and Michael at StarMount Studio

The First Step.

Making the first step is always crucial. We've been extra careful when dealing with audition clips/ tapes session. As this will be their first impression to get into competitions or their favored university. And we are delighted to have feedbacks from clients that they got through the competition or got offered a place to further their studies.

Mainly we were commissioned for piano and vocal recordings. But we did have cello, violin and trombone recordings as well. Regardless of musical instruments, we went full out as if its an album production. Our approach is to capture the most natural, undoctored performance and also making sure that the video looks good too. (very important and yes, we do offer video recording as well).

So, drop us a mail to enquire when you're ready to make the first step :)

Tribute To Yao Min Rehearsal @ StarMount Studio

WVC Trio+ 1 was rehearsing for "Tribute to Yao Min", organized by Han Production and lead by one of Malaysia's top vocal talent/ artise Yang Wei Han. The idea was to rehearse the songs, do the rundown from top til end and most importantly get them recorded. This was good for the other artistes/ singers that couldn't make it for the rehearsal and be able to know whats going on and rehearse by themselves.
Although it was just a rehearsal session, we prep it up like a recording session that the client could use the material for further release.
The band was great to work with and we hook the signals through the Audient Zen, which so far its the best option to get a balance overall band sound when tracking together. After so many matching and pairing, we found that using the same line/ character of pres and A/D converters contributes to the "one-ness" or the coherence in between instruments.

Wei Han coordinating with music director Cher Siang.

Mee Eng and Suan

Music Director.

KJ Wong

Julian Chan

AJ Pop Shuvit

Film Scoring with Ken Hor @ StarMount Studio

We had a thrilling week with Ken Hor on his latest film score for a horror movie coming to the screens soon. We don't think we're allowed to put a name to it yet but we can show you some hardworking musicians responsible for the fantastic music you're going to hear soon.
Ken is a perfectionist and strongly believes in acoustic instruments and tried very very hard to stay away from digital samples as much as possible, so he came to StarMount Studio (we liked to have everything recorded live too) for the job.

As you know the budget for music is tight these days, we worked our best to fit in as many great players as possible for the music. We did the harp at The Harp Academy Malaysia, where we recorded Jee Fei (founder of the school) with our mobile rig consisting Chandler TGII thru Lavry Blue ADDA. It was a straight forward but not easy stereo setup.

We had fantastic strings section back in the studio with violin, viola cello and double bass all together. We love the Audient Zen's pres on strings. They're balanced, clean and with a hint of warmth from the analog board. On the same night, we made use of the Disklavier on the DC-1 Grandpiano, playing back a fugue written by Ken and recorded back as an acoustic piano. It wasn't as simple as we thought, but its convincing after some tweaking were done on the midi.

Lastly the highlight/ theme song was recorded by Mei Sim. Her soulful voice went through sE 4400a to our newly acquired Tree Audio Branch. We loved the harmonic richness and the opto compressor works wonders.

That sums up part of the major highlights for the film scoring. Picture time :)

We do outcalls too

Fantastic Strings section

Tweaking to perfection

The Artiste, Producer and Engineer

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

Live Jazz@ StarMount Studio

Great musical moments were created and captured when Marques (Trombone), Patrick (Alto Saxophone), Wei Xiang (Piano), Kerong (Organ) and Wen Ming(Drums) got together to lay down their works in StarMount Studio. Session was live and we separated the horns, trombone in the Control Room, Alto Sax in the booth, and the rhythm section in the live room.

We tracked the drums and organ through our 16 channel Audient Zen, the horns through the Chandler TG2 and piano through Neve Portico 5043 with the silk on.
We had this on a 2 day session and the sets are great.

Making sure the piano is nice and comfy.

The magnificent trio

Pick your best seat, show is starting.

From left: Kerong,Patrick, Marques, WenMing,WeiXiang, QE and Alex

B.o.B @StarMount Studio

B.o.B was here, laying down some guitars and bass for upcoming release. Great vibe and nice hooks from the multi talented artiste/producer. We had the first taste of FGN electric guitars and bass guitars from Candor Music. All lines were DI through our favorite Radial JDI Duplex and into Chandler TG II and topped with a slight massage from Neve Portico 5043 Compressors. Nothing is more rewarding than to see wide smiles happy clients :)

B.o.B at work

The producer/artiste

QE the recording engineer

B.o.B and Alex @StarMount Studio

FGN electric. Loving the tone.

4 strings Jazz Bass. Fat tone with nice mids. Highly recommended.

Beach Honey @StarMount Studio

Beach Honey (Shanghai) was here for their upcoming singles release. We also had the opportunity to work with Kevin Quah 柯貴民, Singapore based music producer for many A-list artistes in the region.

It has been a great experience being with one of the best music producers in the region, especially on the vocals.

Bihzhu is Nominated in VIMA Awards 2013

Bihzhu is nominated in VIMA Awards 2013 for Best Overall Female Act, Best Pop Song, Best Pop Act, and Best Gender Bender. Congratulations to Bihzhu and Savy, Producer for" Nightingale Tales". Vote and support!!

pictures from Bihzhu.com

"A Whore's Dream" Soundtrack Recording

We had Faraz Khordad coming in for solo piano act. Original composition for a short film titled "A Whore 's Dream". sE 4400a pair, omni, to the Neve Portico 5012 and 5043. Result is a dark yet musical sounding grand piano. It even changed the tone of the usually bright Yamaha. Great stuffs.

Pictures courtesy of Faraz Khordad.

Let the inspiration flow...

Enjoying the moment

Alex and Faraz

One Thing - Faris 'aka' Freeze @ StarMount Studio

We had one of the youngest client in the studio during the Raya Month. "Coolest Faris" aka "Freeze" was here for his recording of " One Thing" by One Direction. It was amazing to see how well prepared and well composed Faris was throughout the session. It was definitely an inspiring recording session for everyone in StarMount Studio.

All set to start recording 

Laying down the beats on the Artisan 

Faris and Family

Listening to his playback...

Pop from HK @StarMount Studio

We recently held sessions for a pop music project from HongKong. The production team brought in their own U87 and SSL 4000 Channel Stripe for the project. Its definitely an exciting moment as there aren't many SSL consoles around in KL and we got to use the real channel stripe rather than using the plugs.
We had Lydia and Rui Ping on the backing vocals, tracked with our faithful sE3300 into the Neve Porticos. Gary Gideon, highly acclaimed sessionist in the pop scene, talendted Ken Chung on bass.

We also had 7 piece strings section, 4 violins, 2 violas and 1 cello. We had the SSL Channel strip on the cello. We're surprised as we paried JZ V67 with the channel strip and the sound was solid, especially on the low end of the cello. The violas tracked with U87 through Chandler TG2 amd the violins tracked with sE3a pencils into Neve Porticos.

Production Team and the Sessionists

Gary working out his magic

Great players. Plug and Play.

Solid, tight bottom