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U47 microphone build

7 min read

The COVID pandemic has changed so much for so many lives, mine included. Deciding to use the gift of discretionary time to full advantage I set out to do something I’ve always wanted to do – experiment with building tube microphones! (Let me be clear that I am hardly an expert on tube circuit design so please be gentle if there are any inaccuracies below.)

For a number of reasons, and fueled by our success in building four extremely musical and often used Neumann U87 clones in 2015 (read that article here), I chose this time to build a pair of U47 type mics. I am fortunate enough to own many great microphones, including 2 Telefunken U47’s (more on those in a minute) but was lacking a set of mics with what I fondly think of as “47-ness,” the warmth, open bottom end; silky smooth extended highs, and a notable proximity effect boosting lows without an inherent compression signature. (more…)

music Theme Park

SeaWorld Orlando’s new POP and Electric Ocean shows

1 min read

This Year, we were honored to compose and produce all the music for two new SeaWorld events; Pop, a bubble art show featuring 19-time Guiness World record holder Fan Yang and Electric Ocean, a night-time EDM event featuring Cirque style acts and ending in a Fireworks spectacular.

Pop was a great team effort… composition by Chris McDonald and Kurt Goebel with composition design by me and orchestrations by Chris. The score features harp and a 16 voice choir along with heavy synth work and a 64 piece orchestra.

Blog Post music Theatre

2015 Projects! Construction! Projects!

4 min read

2015 was just a crazy year with both production and construction. I would never have survived it without the tireless help of the entire team here at DRR&P.

Projects:

We started the year with a full load of productions; Sea Lion High, the new sea lion and otter show for Sea World; new Junior musical versions of Peter Pan (the 1954 musical), Honk, Dear Edwina and Anything Goes; and a new full length musical (and Jr. version) based on the animated film Madagascar! In here somewhere I also managed to mix the score for a video game; more when that’s public.

Construction:

From April to November 2015, we made it through a massive expansion of our studio building, adding a big, new orchestra recording space to studio A and an entire new studio suite, Studio D (complete with another lounge, shop, and two more bathrooms), to our facility. (more…)

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The Big U-87 Mic build post

1 min read

A few months back, we built four U-87 clone microphones here at the studio. They’ve since been in regular use in many of the roles an 87 might play in a busy studio; string section, saxes and other winds, lead and group vocals, guitars and amps, and they are fantastic. They have all the depth, tone, accuracy (and inaccuracy) and proximity effect signature of microphones that cost at least 6 times as much.

Since so many people have been asking for details on the build, my friend and colleague Daniel Noga, who headed the whole mic build project, did this great write up on the entire process from ordering parts to listening to the final build. (more…)

Blog Post music

Santa’s Village Parade Tokyo Disneyland

1 min read

Thought I’d share this fan video of the Christmas parade I just did in September. Though it’s hard to discern the individual float audio, you can get a rough idea of how complicated the audio production for a parade can be. There are looped sections for marches, and each float has it’s own unique overlay music and voice playback that has to be perfectly synched to the underlaying music playing through speaker systems along the parade route.

Caution: the first section loops until around 5:09… this may cause you agony, so feel free to skip ahead!

Blog Post music

Ribbon Mic Shoot-out

6 min read

There are so many wonderfully documented mic shoot-outs, comparisons and evaluations (some of which are exhaustive) that it would seem that everything that can be said, has. But recently, after modding one of my pairs of ribbon mics ( I put Lundahl transformers into one of my pairs of Cascade Fat-Head mics), I was setting up for a comparison test between the un-modded and modded mics when I decided to add another 4 different ribbon mics and place them all in front of a guitar amp. Some of the results were just as expected, but a few were surprising, even after using some of these mics for decades, and I felt that this was too fun not to share.

The contestants:

note – Because I was using electric guitar for the test, I left a few of my favorite ribbons out, like (more…)

Blog Post music Theme Park

Shamu’s Christmas San Diego

3 min read

We recently completed work on a new Shamu show for SeaWorld San Diego, Shamu’s Christmas, opening this November for the holiday season. DRR&P worked directly with the creative team at SW San Diego and composed, arranged and produced all the music for this production.

The show features Orcas (of course), live male and female host/singers and a live sax player. As the directors wanted a spectacular show that featured exciting animal choreography yet still retained a warm holiday and family spirit, we felt it called for a score that combined both classic orchestral moments as well as driving percussive, rock and pop elements. (more…)

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