Chitt Productions

Still here!

2011-12-13T03:53:00.002-07:00

Howdy folks! If you've come here by random search, welcome! (If so, you're either looking for how to fix a broken SM58, looking for free VSTs, or want to know why the CAD CM217 really sucks)

If you're here because you're looking for CHITT (maybe you were feeling nostalgic for the old days, who knows?) never fear, we're still here, just a little incognito lately (unless you've followed us on el Facelibro-- then actually you're probably up to date with the latest in navel-gazing fashionista hype).

In any case, it's been a busy year. To sum up all up (in no particular order):

Congrats to the Coyote, who jumped a sinking ship for higher ground and went public with his involvement with 307 Magazine, a statewide glossy mag featuring Wyoming curiosities, entertainment, and culture.

In other news, several bands braved record-setting winter cold to record their albums with CHITT at End of the Earth Studios in Laramie WY:

Blume, psychedelic metal-esque hard rockers from Laramie signed up for two EPs, Sundance and Hecklers, Hoodlums, and Thieves (both available at Bandcamp). The CD release party at EoES was a rager, the stuff rock and roll legends are made of, complete with a human tooth (incisor) found on the floor the morning after (sorry Chip, really).

Flatbed Love Truck also came to EoES to record their premiere LP. Drawing together an impressive roster of musicians from around the region, FBLT comes from Americana roots and has an edgy timeliness that is worth seeing live whenever the opportunity arises.

Molina, Denver-based Wyoming-raised hip hop activist-artist-visionary (after recently completing his full length album Name and Town with CHITT in Albuquerque) came to Laramie to record the vocal dubs for his Build 2020 manifesto, an epic spoken word album combining a social conscience with beats from HipGnosis and Diles, with cuts by the legendary DJ Icewater (whom you might know from the Pharcyde or Shing02).

Mannequin Rituals had a minor setback this year, a disappointment to many longtime fans-- the new release Farewell Unknown is finished and is ready for duplication, but the record label has decided to shelve the project indefinitely for unspecified reasons. While the label might not be ready for an official pressing, luckily there are others means of adding to your growing bootleg collection. Never fear however, there are rumors circulating that the Ritual's music is gearing up soon for more feature work in film.

Redbush recorded a demo for their following EP, but in the end decided that "Protools" just sounded cooler. Can't argue with that. But still, there's something epic about a guerrilla recording with its old skool clicks and pops that holds its own.

Hot Mess also stopped by for a quickie mastering job. Dang, even Dead Prez showed up for an evening.

Last but not least, keep an eye out for the official release of the 2011 What Fest documentary this Friday 12/16/11, directed by Levi Wells. This year's crowd drew well over a thousand fun lovin' folk to the middle of nowhere for an epic festivus. Over 20 bands played on the roster, many of whom CHITT recorded for posterity. The documentary features three Wyoming original bands, with commentary from wise Whatfestarians. In the meantime, whet your appetite with one selection from this year's What Fest featuring Patti Fiasco:

Not to leave anyone out, there was so much music there's little room to list them all here. Thanks everybody for a crazy productive year, and see you soon in 2012!

Results from the What Fest 2010

2010-08-18T19:28:00.004-06:00

The results are in from the What Fest 2010-- all of the bands were recorded this year for an upcoming film of all the What mayhem. Here's a brief sneak preview featuring photos and live audio from the Patti Fiasco, recorded by CHiTT Productions.

Prepare for What Fest 2010!

2010-07-15T04:33:00.004-06:00

What Fest 2010!!!!

What: Tons of bands, tons of debauchery. 7th annual festival!

Who: Click here for the band line up.

Where: This year two nights at Edelweiss, 30 miles north of Cody on U.S. Hwy 120. Bring a tent, lots of beer and provisions, and get ready to partay!

View Larger Map

When: July 30-31^st (last weekend in July) music starts around 4 pm on Friday.

Why: The best damn time you'll have near Cody WY, guaranteed. Free camping, free admission, why the fuck not?

Check out the website for more details. Don't miss out. And check out below for a video of last year's fest:

SOULAJU has ARRIVED

2010-03-23T15:40:00.005-06:00

Papers the Movie releases official trailer

2010-03-10T14:41:00.004-07:00

The documentary film "Papers the Movie" has released an official trailer for the film which is currently exhibiting in many locations across the country. "Papers" is the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status. Contact them to host a screening in your area.

Coming soon!

2010-03-10T14:31:00.004-07:00

Check back for more details!

More essential free VST effect plugins

2010-03-04T20:10:00.009-07:00

Ok gang- a new installment on what we've found to be the best free (or nearly free) VST plugins available. This list is incomplete, but will be updated as the list grows. It's divided into types of VST effects, with bundled packages at the end of the list. Included in the list is freeware, donationware, nagware, shareware, etc. but no crippled versions, so they're fully usable without paying a dime... (some work on Macs, some don't)

Reverb:

Ambience VST for Windows 2000/98/ME/XP (awesome reverb sounds but a CPU hog and buggy with multiple instances. Donationware).

FreeverbToo

DaSample Gl aceVerb (not a soft-tail reverb, but usable at times)

Anwidasoft DX Reverb Li ght

RoomMachine 844

SIR Impulse Reverb

(for impulses to load of real rooms, etc see here and here)

Re verberate by LiquidSonic

Epicverb

MoVerb - (a little heavy on CPU use)

Delays:

Tal Dub II

Voxengo Tempo Delay

Mykrasound Stereo Echo

Analogic Delay and Bionic Delay

ArcDev Noise Industries ET-200 - Virtual Effect

Other Plugins and Packages:

J eroen Breebaart Plugin Pack -- includes brickwall compressors, broadcast plugins, Omniverb spatial enhancer, Ferox Tape Simulator, Time machine and SEND spectrum enhancer.

Antress Modern Plugins -- loads of modeled compressors, limiters and preamps available.

Fhromage

How much to record? A CHiTT price list (aka FAQ)

2010-01-25T22:00:00.004-07:00

Welcome to the FAQ page!*

Q: How much do you normally charge to record?..............

A: CHiTT is cheap-- that's where it got its name.**

For recording sessions:

We operate on a "trade up" pricing structure. Make an offer, we'll negotiate. Preferred methods of payment include valuable quantities of raw materials, seeds, ammunition, combustibles, dry goods, canned goods, rare items (included but not limited to firearms, memoirs, curiosities, etc), metals (in stockpile quantities), engines, generators, solar panels, machinery, tools, etc...

Even more manageable, if you can provide a "trade up"*** microphone or piece of outboard gear that is not already in our inventory, we'll call it a deal and give you an 8 hour session and mixdown as trade

For live shows including recording:

For the shows that work with our schedule, we ask for a reasonable cut of the bands' gross (e.g. $50 for 3 bands) and food, or "reasonable" trades and food.

*Welcome to the asterisk section!
** In town travel included in deal. Out-of-town pay gas and guarantee safe roof overhead for 3 persons night lodging.
***(out-of-pocket cost $150 or less, or a cool trade)

Greenhorse Live at UW Gardens 11-19-09

2009-11-21T15:19:00.002-07:00

Greenhorse, an electro-pop band currently out of Sheridan, WY rolled through Laramie again and played this time in the Union Gardens. Good crowd, good music. The Gardens is a tiled venue, so the tracks are a little reverberant and bright.

Gear used in recording:
Vox: Sennheiser 421
Guitar: Sennheiser e609
All else DI
Channels direct out from Soundcraft GB-4 to Presonus Firestudio.
Some of the VST plugins used for effects: Ambience, GVST Plugins, "SHEPPi" Spatial Enhancer, among others.
Recorded 16 bit 44.1 kHz in Reaper.

Greenhorse Live at UW Gardens 11-19-09 MP3 192 kbs, Free Download

Underground doesn't mean un-noticed

2009-11-17T10:42:00.002-07:00

Happy All Hallows Eve from all of us at CHiTT

2009-10-30T09:07:00.003-06:00

Be merry. Be Creative. Be Safe. Cheers from Patrick Bateman (Dustin Neal)

Quick update: Matt Wood (Driftwood, Mannequin Rituals, Last Coyote), Danny Capazoli (Notwhole), Dustin Neal (Driftwood, Mannequin Rituals, Basement Dwellars) is working on a collab project headed by Danny Capazoli titled Wake of Sorrow. Several tracks have started the writing process and recordings are getting underway. Stay tuned for progress on this project.

Muses for the mannequins: Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, Caspian: Tertia 2009, Soulaju unreleased album (so good!), Baroness Blue Record.

2009-10-19T17:06:00.004-06:00

CHiTT Productions/Molina Soleil/Mannequin Rituals

DIY

or

DIE

Papers The Movie after party, 2009

Wizard D and the Red Carpet Pimpstress on Molina Soleil and Aju's New Release

2009-10-07T21:03:00.007-06:00

Featured below is an interview about the much anticipated upcoming release from Molina Soleil and Aju. You heard it here first:

or download it here.

Molina Soleil and Aju back at it...

2009-10-02T12:00:00.005-06:00

Molina Soleil and Aju returned from one film festival premiere and are back at it emceeing a screening of a film called Homegrown: Hip Life in Ghana. They're also appearing on radio with some heavyweight poets Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets and Queen Godis. For more information on the film, check out www.cafenuba.com.

Papers the Movie rolls out the red carpet

2009-09-30T14:44:00.004-06:00

We rolled into Portland, OR this last weekend to attend the premier of Papers the Movie. The sold out theater was a beacon of insight and stirred conversation after the movie was shown. We sat in wonder as we saw Molina Soleil and Aju perform before the movie started and listened carefully as Mannequin Rituals tracks played in the score of the film. It was a creative weekend and a win for all D.I.Y. inspired artists.

Corporate bid for independent artist FAIL

2009-09-22T22:25:00.004-06:00

Received by an anonymous musician and user of Sonicbids, re-posted here:

Hi (Sonicbids user),
Last week, we sponsored a free webinar presented by Billboard and BrandWeek about matching independent music with consumer brands like Gap, Jeep, Converse and more.

The music world is changing and our mission at Sonicbids to help our members prepare and take advantage of this new world order. (The good news: independent music is more in demand than ever before.)

You can check out the webinar FREE by clicking here. You can also read a short recap on my blog which you can also use as a forum for the Q&A to continue.
Rock on.

Panos
Founder

Independent music is in demand precisely because it is independent--i.e. not superficially attached to corporate sponsorship just to achieve commercial success. What's this slimy "new world order" aftertaste? No thanks-- independence is freedom, and real freedom, well, that's just plain revolutionary.

Prevew of Asia Jazz Project "Sacred Paths"

2009-09-14T18:00:00.006-06:00

For only a limited time, we're releasing a preview of selected songs off the upcoming Asia Jazz Project's "Sacred Paths." The disc features vocalists Molina Soleil and Aju. Check out the previews below, and buy the album below through PayPal.

Rise Mantra

Letters to the Moon Pt 1 (Heart in Motion)

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 3 (Son Como Sangre)

City Night Speak

Sacred Paths

Buy the album using this button below:

Jazz Ensemble and Hip-Hop Fusion Duo to Release Experimental Spoken Word Project

2009-09-14T17:54:00.001-06:00

Denver, CO - Asia Jazz Project and Hip-Hop fusion duo Molina Soleil & Aju have joined together to release a unique blend of music--experimental jazz musicianship paired with male and female spoken word vocals. Titled Sacred Paths, the 55-minute project explores themes of life rituals and transformation, love and distance, environmental destruction and human spirituality. Asia Fajardo-Wright’s smooth and buoyant sax style tastefully balances the reflective and influential words of Molina Soleil & Aju.

The album also features the work of seasoned producer and magician Will Ross--an underground music renegade who has recorded and produced dozens of DIY projects, ranging from Hip-Hop to Rock to Bluegrass and now Jazz. On Sacred Paths, Ross flirts with a variety of production styles, from earthy to industrial, creating a distinct mélange of sounds that constantly teeters between concrete and metaphysical realms.

Rounding out the talent on Sacred Paths are musicians Antwon Owens and Luis Chavez on percussion and Lewis Mitchell Neeff on keys. The first printing of Sacred Paths will be released independently by the Wyoming-based arts collective CHiTT Productions, which has been supporting independent musicians since 2005. Sacred Paths will be available for purchase on CD Baby and Itunes.

~~~~~

Molina Soleil & Aju are pure fusion. The genre-bending duo blends cultures, languages, and artistic styles, pairing masculine and feminine energies, fire and water. In addition to Sacred Paths, Molina Soleil & Aju are slated to release a full-length Hip-Hop fusion album with DJ Icewater in November 2009 titled Soulaju.

www.myspace.com/soulaju

www.sonicbids.com/soulaju

Asia Jazz Project features the eclectic sound of Asia Fajardo-Wright. Ms. Fajardo-Wright is a 25-year old saxophonist and composer who draws inspiration from her work as a traditional Aztec dancer. Sacred Paths is her first album release. Asia is also set to release another album this fall with her Latin/Reggae group Mono Verde.

www.myspace.com/asiajazz

Papers Premiere!

2009-09-03T19:40:00.003-06:00

Save the date and don't forget to buy your tickets for the Papers Premiere on Saturday, Sept. 26th, 7pm at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR!!

Tickets for the Papers Premiere and Papers After Party are now available for purchase online at: http://papersthemovie.com/

Come kick it with CHiTT, Mannequin Rituals, and Molina Soleil & Aju!

Support underground art and music! We hope to see you there.

CHiTT Moving Forward

2009-08-07T23:37:00.002-06:00

Chilling on the coast with dear friends, the sound of waves rushing in the background. Under the council of sacred grandmothers. Never underestimate power of donated time, love, good energy, and endless creative potential to bring you to places you never expected.

Con paz,

CHiTT

More Summer Inspiration from CHiTT

2009-07-14T12:45:00.003-06:00

CHiTT's Summer Inspiration

2009-07-07T23:47:00.000-06:00

MyAmerica

2009-07-02T17:12:00.004-06:00

Benefit CD to raise money for film by and about immigrant youth

“My America” CD release: July 4, 2009

CHiTT Productions has produced a benefit CD for Papers― a forthcoming full-length documentary by and about undocumented youth.

The CD, titled “My America,” is an independent music compilation. It features the work of emcees, spoken word artists, DJs and musicians from communities across the U.S., including the Bay Area, Denver, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, and Harlem.

This diverse collection of poetry and music addresses race, gender, and social class issues, challenging dominant notions of immigration, democracy and citizenship. All proceeds will go the making and distribution of Papers, which will begin screening in U.S. cities in September, 2009.

Papers is a story about undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status. Currently, there are about two million undocumented children who were born outside the U.S. but raised in this country.

Graham Street Productions is producing the film in partnership with Film Action Oregon. They are working in collaboration with youth who want to tell their stories and community organizations around the country who are working to change immigration policy on behalf of these young people. Youth are actively involved in all aspects of the production.

For more information about Papers, visit www.papersthemovie.com.

Supporters can purchase the CD and make tax deductible donations on the website. Individuals, schools, and organizations interested in co-hosting a screening of the film can also contact Graham Street Productions via the website.

Download MP3 album here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?24cttgihdey

Download compressed files, unzip, and upload music files to media player
Download includes high-res jpg images of front and back cover + press release

***SUPPORT THE FILM***
Make a tax-deductible donation for the mp3 download or order a hard copy via pay pal here:

http://www.papersthemovie.com/donations/index.html

Hard copies can be ordered at http://www.papersthemovie.com/myamerica.html

Chitt releases benefit CD for Documentary

2009-06-27T02:31:00.004-06:00

CHiTT Productions has finalized the "My America, Papers Documentary Benefit CD", and is rolling full speed with the release of the album. Molina Soleil has put together an amazing lineup of artists that tell the story of freedom, strength, activism, and political poetry like few artists can. Featured are E.G. Baily, Molina Soleil, and Mannequin Rituals, along with DJ Icewater and other amazing artists. The album will support the independant documantary "Papers" a tale of undocumented youth in America, Produced by Graham Street Productions.

Check back for mpre info on a FREE download of the album, plus info on how to support the film and purchase the limited edition album.

Redbush on KOCA Radio

2009-05-14T10:28:00.004-06:00

Ok, so this has been posted before, but with a link to the premix preview that wasn't meant to be made public, so we're re-posting with a proper link this time.

Redbush, aka Mr. V, hailing from little ol' Laramie WY, rolled into low-power FM KOCA radio and delivered a solid performance that ranks as one of the best that no one ever heard. Luckily, all was captured to digital for posterity, and released to the public for free here:

Redbush live on KOCA radio
MP3 192 kbps

Redbush/Mr. V recently played their "last" show in Laramie, but the rumor mill has it that they might be back for a few more shows before the name dies for good. Let's hope so.

In other news, CHiTT recently worked with Rx Bandits on a live show in Laramie WY (link available upon request only at this time), and interfaced with a video crew to record one of the last Spangler/ Mr. V shows at the ramshackle "Hickey House" under the viaduct. When that project gets completed, we'll update with links...

Papers Documentary

2009-04-13T00:11:00.005-06:00

Check out the trailer for the upcoming documentary Papers by Graham Street Productions, a "story about undocumented youth and the choices they must make as they become adults without legal status" -- featuring music by Mannequin Rituals and Molina Soleil, produced by CHiTT Productions.

CHiTT is currently finalizing a CD compilation to promote the film, featuring work by Molina Soliel and Aju, Tru Ruts, and other selected artists. Check back for more details.

RUMSFELD recording EP--Fumes

2009-04-05T13:41:00.004-06:00

Rumsfeld has entered the dungeon to write and record its EP Fumes.

The EP will feature 4 tracks of new material anticipated to live up to doomy nature its namesake implies. 3 of the 4 tracks have already begun the recording process.

After the recording is finished Rumsfeld plans on playing shows around the area. More on this as info is available.

CHiTT moves to the bunker

2009-03-26T15:37:00.007-06:00

>>>>Incoming transmission<<<<<<<<.[.[.[.[.[.[.[.[.[.[~~~~~=+~":{CHiTT} Winter is almost at its end and the seasons are moving into position.

With the changing of the guard comes new projects and ideas.

CHiTT Productions will relocate to an undisclosed, centralized location. We are in the process of setting up our new headquarters in an underground bunker (yes this is very exciting). Inside this bunker will be our guerrilla studio along with sleeping quarters for all the members, a kitchen with a microwave and a fridge filled with BEER. It's important to know that each member does have black pants, shirts, boots and $300 in personal burial money.

CHiTT will also have its mobile command unit ready to roll and it will be touring across Wyoming this summer recording audio, capturing video, taking photos, painting pictures, and documenting the wasteland. This is important to all underground bands in Wyoming who would like CHiTT to come setup a guerrilla recording and make an EP. It's amazing what we can do for $200 and a case of beer.

PROJECTS IN THE WORKS:

Name: Cubicle

- The Cubicle EP will be out later this summer!

The first track has been recorded and will feature instrumental music from "the void of the office." It might have a few surprise guests appear as well. Look forward to more progress on this gem of corporate refuse.

Name: Mannequin Rituals

- Mannequin Rituals music to be featured on "Papers", an independent documentary coming out from Graham Street Productions. Check out the trailer here: http://www.papersthemovie.com/w.papersthemovie.com/

Also, look for new Mannequin Rituals to come out soon.

Name: Basement Dwellers

- Basement will be recording a new EP titled "Gott ist Tot" coming out later this summer. Their self-titled EP is out and will be available for FREE download. Check back here for details. They are an industrial, instrumental, basement blend of soothing trance like grunge (I guess). Their first EP is a must have for fans of the underground music scene.

Name: Redbush LIVE at KOCA

- Don't forget to check out Redbush LIVE at KOCA
this recording is sweet and the band wailed, playing some monstrous tracks. SO, show some support and check them out and show them support.

That's all for now... Oh wait, check back for the big news about RUMSFELD

New Guerrilla Recordings - CHiTT 2008-2009 Sampler

2009-03-01T12:05:00.007-07:00

It's been a while-- we've been too busy living life to write about it-- but CHiTT has stayed busy recording new projects with local artists. Here's a few tidbits of what we worked on in the recent months:

Redbush Live on KOCA Radio, Novemeber 16 2008--

Rolled in to an impromptu recording session at Laramie's low-powered FM community radio station. Set up shop within an hour and ran a separate mix for the live broadcast. Radioland listeners (all 5 of them) weren't all that impressed due to our line-level output massively clipping their ancient, barely functioning microphone preamps. If I'd had a spare DI, we might have avoided the problem. The multitrack recording turned out great though, provided in its entirety here for free. We additionally used an AT2021 microphone as an area mic, which added a roomy, Steve Albini sound to the drums. Here's a preview:

Chase the Moment, Live at the UW Gardens, November 22 2009.
A quick an easy live setup, using borrowed microphones (Sennheiser e609, AKG C-1000, Shure Beta 52, etc). The venue is like mixing sound in a bathtub-- the floors are tiled and the space is overly lively. The recording refelcts a similar quality:

The Upbeat Project, Live at the UW Ballroom, February 11 2009.

A similar multitracking situation-- we already ran a full sound reinforcement system for the band, so we just patched direct outs from each channel on their Allen & Heath board into our gear. The massive drum kit was only mic'd with a kick (Beta 52- thin!), snare (Sennheiser e604 - yikes!) and two matched Rode NT-5 mics (nice!)-- overall, too few mics for a drum kit, but good enough for guerrillas.

Ghosts of Predators Past, Live at Lovejoys, February 20, 2009.

Live bar setup, with CHiTT's normal line of gear.

Other Projects: Sat in with a home session with the Patti Fiasco in January 2009. Overdubs and additional tracks planned for the near future. Check back for more details.

Stay tuned for more. In the meantime keep busy making art-- after the crash, we won't have as much time for such things.

DNC -- Democracy In Action

2008-08-26T13:11:00.003-06:00

The DNC in '68

2008-08-24T22:34:00.002-06:00

The death of free speech at the DNC

2008-08-15T10:37:00.003-06:00

Surprise, surprise-- the "party of change" is afraid of the potential of "free speech." Protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver late August will be relegated to "free speech zones," because security supersedes freedom in this Orwellian, post 9/11 world. Those not happy with keeping their voices confined to zones where their speech is contained and neutralized will find a newly built home at "Gitmo on Platte," complete with stun guns and barb wire fences:

Adrian H. Molina - Up Before the Sunrise Free Preview

2008-08-07T10:13:00.004-06:00

It's finally here-- after long wait, CHiTT Productions has teamed up with Adrian H. Molina and Mannequin Rituals to release Up Before the Sunrise. It took a lot of effort to put this album out and we're pleased with the final product.

We're offering up for free download a half-album preview in 128 kbps MP3 format. Please check the "Album Order Info" document for details on how to obtain a hard copy, or check out http://www.digstation.com/adrianhmolina to purchase the full album in digital format.

This album was recorded and released without a budget, so if you dig the tunes, please be sure to send your support to Adrian and buy an album.

Adrian H. Molina with Mannequin Rituals - Up Before the Sunrise (2008)
Half Album Preview - 128 kbps

What is Capitalism?

2008-07-31T00:36:00.001-06:00

Cut for time, from the Internet Archive.

Live acoustic recording -- Carrie at the Friendly Store

2008-07-23T10:26:00.005-06:00

CHiTT has been hard at work getting ready to release several upcoming projects, but in the meantime, we're posting an impromptu live recording from a sleepy bar in Centennial WY. Carrie is a powerful vocalist and songwriter whom we hope to work with in the future on a full studio album. Her song "Comin' Round" is just one example of her arresting abilities to translate emotion through song:

Recorded on-location with a goal toward simplicity, we set up with stereo AT2021s in the neck and bridge position, a SM57 just above the sound hole (primarily for live sound reinforcement purposes) and a SM58 on vocals, all multi-tracked to hard disk.

After reviewing the audio I determined that while the AT2021s sounded great on the rest of the songs, Carrie's playing style during this song didn't really agree with the mic placement. The SM57 was originally set up just as a mic for boosting the acoustic through the PA, but in this mix it became the primary mic, adding a low end presence and a more forgiving interpretation of the string-slap sound than the AT2021s. The AT2021s ended up in a wider stereo spread buried under the SM57 track, and I routed those condenser mics to a woodsy, long reverb, which was routed back to the mix in generous amounts. There's a fair amount of bleed from the bar crowd that gathered to chat, but it doesn't really detract from the recording, instead lending to a sense of authenticity.

New song from Chase the Moment

2008-07-11T16:12:00.006-06:00

It's been a while since any updates, but rest assured that CHiTT Productions is staying quite busy. In an effort to stay up to date, we're posting the latest recording from Chase the Moment, comprised of former members from A Switchblade Affair.

The following song "Relic" was recorded on location in the band's basement in Cheyenne Wyoming. CTM setup drums in their main practice space and ran their amps into the surrounding rooms for maximum isolation. The music was recorded live with no overdubs, and vocals recorded later that month. Check out their page for info on their upcoming tour, and click the play bar below for the song.

And some photos from the recording session:

How to Fix a Broken Dynamic Microphone

2008-05-02T13:26:00.014-06:00

Buying microphones used is a great way to add gear to your inventory without putting a big dent in your budget. Most of the time, used gear will show cosmetic damage on the housing but will still retain much of its sonic clarity. As long as the microphone capsule and diaphragm aren't damaged, the microphone will still perform as expected. In the end, it's not how the microphone looks, but rather how it sounds that matters.

An even better way to save money buying used gear is to search for deals on "broken" or non-functioning gear. Sometimes you can discern from the product description what might have gone wrong with the microphone, but other times you just have to take a leap of faith and hope that the damage is something that can be fixed. This assumes you have a basic working knowledge of how to use a soldering iron-- if not check on the web for some tutorials about soldering, and practice first on a non-critical piece of gear to hone your skills before moving on to a mic.

This how-to specifically applies to a Shure SM58 or SM57 which I have found to be one of the more difficult dynamic microphones to fix because of the delicate construction of the mic. The same repair concepts apply to pretty much any dynamic mic, and may be actually easier to implement with other models and brands, depending on the housing, wiring and microphone capsule. (Condenser microphones are infinitely more difficult to repair. Since a condenser mic element is especially fragile and more susceptible to vibrations and shocks, any damage might be beyond repair; purchase broken condensers with caution.)

First off, with a non-functioning microphone you have to determine the most likely area of malfunction. Carefully unscrew all the pieces and inspect them for wires that are not connected or loose. Most frequently, the cause of a non-working microphone happens when a wire disconnects and breaks the signal flow-- in this case a quick re-soldering job will get you up and running in no time. If the wires are still connected toward the front of the microphone, find a small flathead screwdriver and unscrew the XLR connection from the base of the mic and remove with pliers.

The photo left shows the most typical problem with mics. One of the connecting wires to the XLR has been disconnected, which can be easily reattached with a touch from a hot soldering tip. If more than one wire is disconnected and you're not sure which wire goes where, try to find some documentation from the manufacturer to give you more information on the original wiring setup. (Note: the XLR ends on the SM58 at left don't match Shure's wiring diagram. Shure microphones have gone through several wiring permutations over the years, and this particular mic is over 20 years old, so for whatever reason has 4 wires instead of 2 or 3.) If it is in fact a wire that's come loose, you're lucky; this is the easiest fix and makes you feel like a bandit from all the money you saved on a "broken" mic.

The more tricky fix comes into play if there's no visible signs of disconnected wires at the XLR end or in the middle of the mic. If not, there's probably been some kind of damage to the wiring of the microphone capsule-- the type of damage will determine if you can fix the mic or not. You'll have to carefully disassemble the microphone capsule end from the wires on the base of the 58, first by de-soldering the base wires from the metal terminals at the end of the capsule and unscrewing the center nut and any ground wire (if present). Then you'll have to slide the entire capsule element out of the microphone housing, making sure not to cause any further damage to the capsule from the force of the disassembly. Removing the capsule from the housing will take some nudging and wiggling to get it out, and once removed you might not be able to get it back into the housing as snug as it was before.
When de-soldering and taking apart the capsule element, it would probably be best to take pictures of how the mic was assembled for reference, and clearly mark exactly how the wires connect to the capsule and the diaphragm. When reassembling the microphone, you want to make sure the correct wires are connected back to their origins, otherwise you will reverse the polarity of the mic, and it won't function the way it should (although you'll still get a signal).

Once taken apart, you'll be able to see where the damage has occurred to the microphone capsule. The most frustrating part of a 58 or 57's construction is the delicate wire that leads from the coil under the diaphragm, between strips of yellow tape, down the magnet of the capsule, and finally connects to metal terminals secured on a wafer on the center post of the capsule. Dynamic Shure microphones are extremely durable, but if anything is really going to "break" on these mics, it's going to happen in the few exposed centimeters where the delicate red wire connects to the metal terminals. Fixing this requires near-surgical precision and a steady hand.

If indeed the little red wire has become detached from the metal terminal, you'll have a hard time soldering it back on. The red coloring is actually a type of plastic shielding, so solder won't readily adhere to the wire without some prep work. First, carefully peel back the top layer of the yellow tape with an Xacto knife, being careful not to rip the red wire in the process. With some electrical tape, secure the top layer of yellow tape out of the way, and separate the red wire from the bottom piece of yellow tape. With a lighter, move the flame close to the wire, making sure to never touch the wire directly, and only exposing the wire to heat for a very brief instant. This will burn the shielding off of the wire and leave the wire exposed, but if the flame is too close, the wire will burn, and then it's probably game over.

Now the tiny wire is probably too brittle to reattach to the original terminals, so the next step is to manufacture an alternative method that will leave the tiny wire securely in place while allowing you to make a connection with the colored wires from the base of the microphone. You'll need some copper desoldering braid, some soldering flux and the rest of your soldering tools.

With the desoldering braid, cut a piece the length of the capsule magnet and poke a hole with a pushpin through the braid. Thread the tiny wire through the piece of braid and tape the braid on top of the yellow tape to hold it temporarily in place. Put a little bit of soldering flux over the hole where the tiny wire is threaded-- this will help ensure a good bond between the braid, the wire and the solder.

Next, solder over the hole, filling it in and letting the solder run down a portion of the braid. Don't use too much solder, but make sure that you've used enough solder to make a solid connection with the tiny wire. It's OK if not all portions of the wire adhere to the braid-- as long as you've made a connection somewhere along the braid, it's probably sufficient to pass signal from one element to the other.

Once the wire and the braid are soldered, lay the top piece of yellow tape back over the braid and secure the whole thing in place with a couple of wraps of electrical tape. At the bottom of the mic capsule, solder a spare piece of wire to the braid-- this new wire will jump the gap between the mic capsule and the base of the microphone. Once again, be sure to note which side of the microphone corresponds to which color of wire, otherwise you run the risk of reversing your polarity.

Inserting the capsule back into the housing is a difficult squeeze since there are several new layers of tape, but with enough care, the capsule should eventually fit into place. Twist the extension wires with the original wires from the base and solder the connections, then shield off the wire with a strip of tape. Screw the top portion of the mic back into the base and test the connection-- if done correctly, you should have a functioning microphone once again.

*Edit* Check out Shure's documentation for the SM57 here and the SM58 here. Here's a quick wiring diagram provided in the SM57 manual:

Adrian H. Molina & CHiTT Productions release "Beyond Sundown"

2008-03-06T11:12:00.009-07:00

CHiTT Productions is proud to announce the preliminary release of Adrian H. Molina's newest track "Beyond Sundown." Adrian's first CHiTT produced E.P. release Representin' 4 Life was a more traditional hip hop album, but this newest release signals a fresh artistic direction. Featuring music by Mannequin Rituals and vocal appearances from Helen Chanthongthip and the vastly talented Day Acoli, "Beyond Sundown" is a politically charged dystopian middle finger to Big Brother. Check out his MySpace page for a free download, or click the play bar below for a streaming preview.

Update: New Video for Beyond Sundown Released

Free Guerrilla Recording: Three bands at the Buckhorn

2008-02-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

From the vault CHiTT Productions presents a live recording from the Buckhorn Bar: the Ghosts of Predators Past, the Neo-nostalgics, and Driftwood. Recorded on location December 14, 2007 at the Buckhorn Bar in Laramie, Wyoming.

Free download:
CHiTT Productions Presents the Buckhorn Bar
December 14, 2007
Ghosts of Predators Past, Neo-nostalgics & Driftwood
192 kbps 65 Megs

All parties involved in the recordings retain their original rights to their creations. You are free to download and distribute this album for non-commercial purposes only.

Sample songs from the full album:
Ghosts of Predators Past:

Neo-Nostalgics

Driftwood

Gear used in the recording of this show: Shure SM58 (vocals), Sennheiser e609 (guitars), Shure Beta 52 (kick and bass), Shure SM57 (snare), Sennheiser e604 (toms), AT2020 (overheads). Multitracked to hard disk.

If you would like to contribute some spare change to CHiTT Productions, click on the PayPal button in the side bar. Every little bit helps.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

2008-02-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Get your gun, and meet us at the hillside...

On Piracy: Steal This Film II

2008-01-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Before I have to get in another bar conversation that follows the lines of "you wouldn't go into a 7-Eleven and steal a candy bar would you?" I wish we could all at least get on the same page:

If it floats your boat, you can donate to the project at their website.

Guerrilla Recording: El Cheapo Mic Review

2008-01-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

In our last installment, we resurrected some live guerrilla recordings from the vault and released the results for free download.

Download: Follow the link, click "continue," and click "download file" for free download.

Dies Irae, Live at the Ranger, 3/24/07
3 Songs, 192 kbps, 21 MB

As I mentioned before, we didn't have our usual trusty supply of gear that night, but we came up with enough gear to record a minimalist setup. We ended up with 7 inputs separately tracked to our DAW, recorded with a flat EQ and no real-time processing so we could tweak the tracks during mixdown. As for our microphones, we were forced to go with what we could find or borrow in true guerrilla fashion. For the drum mics we acquired from a local band the surviving pieces of a CAD Pro-7 Mic Kit: a kick & snare mic and two tiny overhead condensers. For the guitar we found an Audix I-5 dynamic mic, and the bass was recorded through a DI box because the bass cabinet had a rattle and we were short a decent bass mic. The vocalist had his own SM58 which topped out our minimalist track list at number 7.

We weren't expecting spectacular results from this borrowed equipment, and well, the raw tracks at the end of the night confirmed our expectations.

First off, lest anyone be misled by the model name of the drum mics, rest assured there's nothing "pro" about those CAD microphones. Tracking drums for Dies Irae should have been a cakewalk-- the drum set was beautifully tuned and the drummer's a solid player, but these microphones couldn't keep up. The CAD kick and snare mics had no usable definition regardless of placement. There was so much excessive bleed between the CAD mics that EQing each to sound reasonable was a real chore, because for example, boosting the snare mic to get that "crack" meant that some other part of the drums would emerge with unnatural emphasis and mess everything up. No amount of EQ to the kick mic could make the "thwack" come out (although the bleeding snare became more apparent and even more awful sounding). Judging from the raw tracks, I'd suspect that both microphones have a frequency response similar to string & can telephone acoustics.

To make matters worse, the CAD CM217 overhead microphones proved completely worthless and crumbled under the decibels the drummer delivered that night. Even though the pad switch on the mic was engaged and the mic preamps were purring with plenty of headroom, the CAD overheads delivered audio that sounded like a truck dragging sheet metal down a gravel road. Check it out:

The final word is that this line of CAD mics officially suck and should be avoided for all recording purposes, unless you're absolutely desperate for drum coverage and flat broke (in which case check garage sales and pawn shop dumpsters). If you're at all interested in fidelity in your recording, you won't find it with these cheapie drum mics. (Studio gear elitists can emit a big "duh" here-- hey, we're just clarifyin') There are better alternatives for mic'ing drums on a budget, and these ain't it.

For the guitar, we ended up using an Audix I-5 dynamic microphone, even though we had access to a trusty SM57. At this point, the whole recording was turning out to be a microphone experiment any way, so we decided to check out the Audix mic first-hand. The I-5 has a reputation for having a brighter sound than a 57, and sure enough, the guitar tracks we got were lightbulb bright, and Brillo-Pad harsh. To be fair to the Audix, the guitarist was using a Mesa Boogey dual 12" combo with its settings unchanged from a recent jazz gig, so the rig was already a bit bright, but the I-5 seemed unable to translate any of the beefy end regardless of mic placement, even though the I-5 also has a reputation for a warmer low end. While this microphone might be suitable for other guitar tones, amp/speaker characteristics, or genres of music, using the I-5 on this occasion left our guitar without any warmth in the low-mid end of the spectrum. We wanted Dimebag, and all we got was a nickel.

Recording the bass was about a simple as it could get. The bass patched directly into a DI Box and fed parallel signals to his amplifier and our mixing board. Even though the bass was thick and full for the live audience, the signal we received was nothing more than what the instrument pickups delivered. Without the amp and speakers to shape the instrument's sound, the bass was expectedly naked and thin. We knew going into the live recording that in order to get a good bass sound we would either have to re-amp the bass track afterwards, or emulate a bass cabinet with an appropriate emulation plugin.

Here's a snippet of all the raw audio; first the bass, then guitar, drums and vocals:

After inspecting the raw audio, it would be totally forgivable for an audio purist to write off any hope for salvaging this experimental recording; after all, the overheads are massively clipping and the instruments don't sound as good as they did live.

Still, since guerrilla recording is all about doing the best with what you have, CHiTT set out to show that the darkest hour is just before post-processing. In the world of digital audio, nothing is completely lost, and with enough knowledge, the right tools, and a little hocus pocus, you can clean up anything. Here's the same audio snippet after a couple of hours of tweaking in the studio (with all tracks up at once):

In our final installment in this series, we'll cover exactly what we did to fix the tracks to the best of our ability and arrive at a fan-worthy bootleg despite using cheapo microphones.

Free Guerrilla Recording From the Vault: Dies Irae at the Ranger

2008-01-04T13:31:00.001-07:00

It's not quite spring yet, but the time has come to clear some space off our hard drives to make room for upcoming recording projects. As I was backing up sessions to DVD I came across a CHiTT guerrilla recording of Laramie metal band Dies Irae captured live at the Ranger Bar last year.

We rolled in to record that night as kind of a last minute decision. We were short our usual selection of microphones and hardware (which were probably snowed in somewhere across the state) but we cobbled together what spare microphones, cables and hardware we could find and decided to let the tape roll anyway. Dies Irae always draws a rowdy crowd, and at the very least we just wanted to capture the energy of the evening, even if nothing usable turned out from the recordings. In the end, as we expected, neither the band nor CHiTT Productions thought the material stood up to our expectations for an official release, so we decided to scrap the tracks and go with stronger material.

Still, we find it a shame to let good efforts go to waste, so before I made the final purge from my hard drive we selected three tracks to release for free download. Even though we felt the recording and performance weren't top tier that night, it was an intense evening and we thought we'd offer this brief snapshot of the energy released that night (read: heavy metal umlaut). Even more, it's an argument for the hypothesis that you don't have to own elite gear or have bourgeois audio attitudes to produce decent recordings, and this is a good example of how even the worst recording conditions can produce solid, fan-worthy tracks in the end. Remember would be naysayers: the digital age is also a revolution.

Download: Follow the link, click "continue," and click "download file" for free download.

Dies Irae, Live at the Ranger, 3/24/07
3 Songs, 192 kbps, 21 MB

In the next post, we'll give a complete rundown of the recording setup we used that night including scathing reviews of the sub-par gear we used, and what we did later to clean things up.

Here's to independent artists and other malcontents...

2008-01-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

Change is in the air. 2008 is upon us and we look forward to the future and all the new opportunities it will bring. Raise your glasses high and let's toast to 2008 being a productive, creative, and inspiring new year. Get your battle plans ready and meet us at the rendezvous point.

Special thanks to all the cool cats we work with. We look forward to doing more with you in the future.

CHiTT Productions

Neo-Nostalgics live at the Buckhorn

2008-01-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

Here's some video of the Neo-Nostalgics show at the historic (and uniquely aromatic) Buckhorn Bar on December 14th, 2007. CHiTT productions was there providing sound reinforcement and recording all the bands on the bill that night. Thanks in part to a rotating radio promo the bar was packed late into the night-- the best turn out in Laramie in a while, especially considering that finals were over and a lot of students were gone. Also on the bill that night were the Ghosts of Predators Past and Driftwood. Check back soon for a compilation album of the bands on the bill that night and more videos as they surface.

Using Digital Reverb Plugins to Spice Up Dry Audio

2007-12-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

Reverb is the spice of your audio. Without some sense of reverberation, whether natural or digital, your mixes will inevitably seem lifeless and boring. Too much reverb or the wrong type can unnaturally spoil your audio endeavors, like adding the wrong flavor to an otherwise good recipe. The key is using the right ingredients, knowing how much too add, and knowing when to stop when the mix is just right.

Here's a short clip from the Neo-Nostalgics upcoming album, a tune called John Barber. As with most guerrilla recording environments, the space in which we were recording didn't afford the best acoustics (no high ceilings, no wood floors, etc.-- a basement, basically), so we close-mic'ed every instrument to reduce the amount of room ambiance, since setting up a room mic to collect some natural reverb wasn't an option. As we expected, our final tracks were pretty clean and didn't have much of the unwanted room sound in the mix, but the tracks sound bare-bones dry and don't have that "sparkle" a nice room would provide:

In close quarter recording spaces, the trick is to fake ambiance with digital reverb while not letting on that it's an artificial addition. I start by searching for a nice effect that emulates the sense of real space, but I pay close attention to how the reverb colors my audio, especially if it adds unwanted mud that detracts from the fidelity of the dry source audio. On the other hand, some reverb parameters might react a little too brightly and actively on some transient peaks (like snare cracks or sibilant vocals) which will unnaturally emerge from the mix in ways that real acoustic reflections would never behave. This is a dead giveaway that you're using canned ambiance. To avoid this, I look for a reverb that provides "cutoff" parameters which allows control over what frequencies are included in the effect. For reverbs that don't include this option, you can always bounce a 100% wet signal to its own track and manually apply equalization to get the response you're seeking.

To fake the natural ambiance we're missing from the mix, I add the same base reverb effect to most of the instruments in small amounts. For starters, I'll often choose a small room or hall setting without a lot of bright coloration and a shorter decay time; we're shooting to make the audio sound like it's sitting in a unified space, but again, we don't want the reverb to sound distracting or unnatural. I'll add it to the drums first-- if the reverb blends well and sounds natural with the drums, it will probably sound alright with the rest of the instruments in the mix. I generally don't add any (or much) reverb to the kick or the overheads because reverb on these tracks often ruins the clarity of what we've recorded. For the snare and the toms, I'll add just enough reverb until I notice the effect, and then I'll back it off until I can't notice it anymore. I find the ideal amount of reverb occurs in the area between noticing it and not noticing it, but ultimately it's a matter left up to taste and the style of music you're working with.

After the drums are sounding good, I'll add a small amount to the rest of the instruments to bring them into the same "space," trying to find the right amount that sounds natural for each instrument and always auditioning the wet/dry ratio with the rest of the mix. Keep in mind that the more reverb you add, the more "removed" the original audio will sound from the mix, and the more predominant and possibly distracting the fake ambiance becomes. As a general rule of thumb, you don't want the effect to overtake the natural balance of your mix, so in most cases, a little bit of reverb goes a long way. For my tastes, I find that the snare and the toms will receive the most amount of reverb (e.g. 5% to 15% wet), and every other instrument gets the same effect in less amounts (anywhere from 1% to 12% wet). If I choose to apply different reverb effect to other instruments, I have to be careful that the different settings don't create a conflicting sense of space (unless of course that's the effect I'm going for) and aren't adding subtle tonal and EQ imbalances. Simply put, you don't want different reverb settings to conflict with one another. If I do use different reverb settings for different instruments, a tiny amount of small room reverb added to all tracks will hep smooth over the overall finish and bring all the tracks into a sense of unified space.

After auditioning several reverb settings for the Neo-Nostalgics track, I decided on a lively, bright, medium sized room, to give the overall mix a live jazz club feeling. The reverb turned out brighter and more active than I usually choose for a mix, but in this case, such a decision seemed appropriate for the feel and style of the music. The vocals have a different reverb plugin with a slight stereo delay effect, but I added a tiny amount of the original room reverb to to the vocal to soften the edges and place the vox in the same "room" as everything else. Overall, the room reverb is most apparent on the snare and the guitar, and the vocals now have a shimmer they didn't before, but the cumulative effect is still subtle:

Check back soon for a compilation of links to the most useful free VST reverb plugins available on the web. While you'll get better, more natural sounding results from the higher-end and more pricey plugins, there's still a lot of quality reverb plugins for free that will still do your recordings justice.

CHiTT Productions Presents a Live Recording in Progress

2007-12-14T02:29:00.000-07:00

CHiTT Productions back at it. 3 bands, one night, live recording. Check back for more details and downloads soon.

Screenprinting step-by-step with CHiTT Productions

2007-12-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Kilgore Smudge Lives... in Casper Wyoming

2007-11-29T23:06:00.001-07:00

Back in the day before MP3s and CD burners, coming across new good music was a hard thing to accomplish. Radio spoiled early our ability to mindlessly enjoy depthless pop music, and then we grew up to spend countless summers watching the same numbing rotation of mass-produced musi-tainment on MTV. We watched as the independent rock stations in our city got swallowed by Clear Channel hell bent on making all music mediocre and safe for the masses. We just begged for something listenable to make its way to the airwaves, which it never did, so instead we spent our time in the wrong parts of town at the best CD stores rifling through the collections in search of buried treasure. Sometimes we might have heard snippets of an album, or seen a stellar performance on second stage somewhere, and we'd search the racks hoping we might find the CD of that band that nobody's ever heard of. But even if we fount it, making that purchase was always a gamble. We risked forking over our last 15 bucks for a CD that might be half rotten.

Those were the days when kids still ripped tapes for one another to pass along music that hadn't made the mainstream. Here was music on the cutting edge: dynamic, creative, interpretive, raw, and without the glitz image, just a sound. Music that took the last 30 years of innovation as its roots and transformed their sounds into true examples of musical evolution. Not flat, postmodern disruptions of old paradigms, but instead articulate responses to the past presented in new, edgier formats. "Undiscovered" bands really lived the music because the money hadn't had a chance to corrupt their aesthetic standards yet. The underground, liminal areas are always the staging points of innovation, but a place where the profit motive of the culture industries have not yet penetrated, so good music without a mass distribution deal spread by second and third generation tapes.

My high school buddy lived in Florida and came across a tape of band called Kilgore Smudge and passed it along to me. I listened to that tape until it broke. I searched high and low for the CD version but even the stores that catered to more independent tastes didn't have it and couldn't manage to special order it. It wasn't until years later when the band got picked up by Warner Brothers and released a second album under the name Kilgore that I finally found a used copy of their first CD. Their second album, naturally to an old fan, didn't have the same feel that I heard off of that second-generation tape; maybe it was a combination of the hiss and odd pitch warbling from the tape medium mixed with the sounds of a smaller productions budget that made the first release seem authentically untouched by mass culture. Still, their second album was leagues ahead of what got airplay at the time, but as most bands capable of becoming legends do, they faded into obscurity for reasons of their own.

Flash forward to today-- in a bout of nostalgia I went out on the internet looking for Kilgore's second album, because after loaning my original CD to several friends it finally disappeared before I had a chance to rip it to MP3. I'm not feeling very warm to paying $15 bucks for a used CD, because I don't even own a conventional CD player any more. Furthermore, I already went through two hard copies of the CD and I'm not buying the third on principle, especially because the original members of the band will never see any of that cash. In any case, I feel like I already own stock in this band I never even got a chance to see live, just because I tried to keep their music going by passing it on to others who had never had the luck to hear them. Hell, I would pay for some DRM-free MP3s, but after a quick search on the net, I find not a lot, and even the *cough* less legal avenues turn up nothing. R.I.P. ONIK: I would have liked to known ya, but I was just a kid...

Although I didn't find the album I was looking for I did find a lovely time capsule of obscure band trivia (thanks to our cultural pillars of information, Myspace and YouTube). Heres an eye-rolling, forehead slapping example of the worst reporting that the mainstream media has to offer. Straight from the unforgiving desert, Wyoming's very own sorry excuse for a news channel K2 interviews Kilgore and tries to paint them as the shocking, bad influences they never were:

And since I can't currently find their album, here's a live song off of their first album, with a grit and intensity I haven't seen for a while. How I'd love to get my hands on a couple of bootlegs, but the internet isn't quite yet the library I'd like it to be...

Guitar Mic Techniques for Guerrilla Recording

2007-11-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

As another addition for your guerrilla field manual, several short video tutorials on the basics of recording guitars. CHiTT Productions weighs in with other insights after the jump.

Recording guitars on fly? The slightest microphone adjustments, not to mention the microphone you pick for the job, can be the difference between a full bodied sound or weak tracks. Remember, isolation is key in guerrilla recording, because your room might not be ideal. The best and clearest recordings most often come by capturing a faithful representation of the source material without a lot of unnecessary coloration or haphazard experimentation. You want your tools to be as transparent as possible, only adding that coveted "character" (whether from a mic or an effect) only when it's necessary.

Often we choose to record with one mic as the "transparent" mic in a close-mic position (with as little room sound as possible, positioned at the "sweet spot" of the instrument/speaker). If we've got extra tracks to play with, then we'll add another mic for experimentation, maybe off axis or placed further back in the recording space. Once the mix is sounding pretty balanced in its later stages with just the dry mics laying the foundation of the mix, then we add the tracks with more daring mic positions to spice the overall flavor or character. We might even choose later on to swap out the experimental track for the conventionally mic'ed one if it sounds good, but we'd hate to be trapped down the road with a mix full of experimental mic positions that can't be used because we weren't hearing something right at the time. While and entirely close-mic'ed mix will sound, well, like a closely mic'ed mix, unless you're recording in the Taj Mahal of locations, you're probably better off letting digital reverb liven up a mix while guerrilla recording.

The quickest and truest way to get awesome tracks while guerrilla recording (since in the field we don't have the luxury of a sonically balanced mix station/control room) is to get a pair of Extreme Isolation headphones and a 30-50 ft. headphone extension cable. Get right up in the thick of it with your isolation headphones on and solo the channel of instrument in question and move the mic around until you get that sound. What's that sound? Shoot for what you imagine it would sound like if you took your headphones off and stuck your ear right close to the speaker or instrument (pain threshold notwithstanding). Let the music be as dirty as it wants to be, but good guerrilla recordings come from being as clean as possible right up front (i.e. good gain structure, isolation, conservative mic placements, etc.). We experiment in the field when time and tracks permit, but save most of the fun for the non-destructive mixdown stage.

Since guerrilla recording is often without a budget, chances are you're not going to have golden mics at your disposal. Never fear, budget mics still can kick some serious burgeios butt, and you'll never end up missing the cash you would've spent.

For electric guitar speaker cabinets, the Shure SM57 obviously ranks as the most accessible and time-tested solution for close mic'ing speakers. The best part of this mic is that it still turns up in yard sales, 18 years old, dented and still working; still a perfect addition to the mic stash, and it can mic just about anything else in a pinch. But for ~about~ the same store price as the 57 the Sennheiser e609 wins the day for guerrilla recording, even if it is just a little too pretty. It makes close-mic'ing a breeze because it hugs the grill and its supercardioid pattern rejects bleed from other instruments in your small recording space or live situation (works great for toms too!).

For acoustic guitars you've got to go condenser. The SM57 sounds too "rugged" and unintentionally lo-fi in most applications (although there are times it can actually clean up some really bad sounding instruments). Ideally we'd love to use condensers with crystalline rapport-- of course, everyone would, but they're hard to come by on a beer budget. Rode mics, such as the NT-5, seem to be the mid-pro level choice for honest and accurate mic'ing, but for the price, we've never laid our hands on a pair so we can't vouch for its authority (any donations?). More modestly priced are the awkwardly vessel-like AKG C-1000s. Nice presence with clarity, but enough bottom end to feel the wood of the guitar. If you're recording in a suitably vibrant room with little extraneous noise, the standard cardioid pickup pattern will pick up a nice amount of room sound. If not, the hypercardioid capsule will tighten the pickup pattern without sacrificing too much range.

On even more of a budget? The AT2021 is a versitile small diaphragm condenser that just works. Although it's a little active and bright in the high end while still managing to be less articulate with the high-mids, its still a reasonably impressive and budget-minded choice for recording detailed instruments. The selling point is that the AT2021 comes only with the AT2020, its side-adress bigger brother, sold as the AT2041 package. With a little searching you might find both for lower than its minimum advertised price, costing only about as much as a new SM57 in a store. Both mics share the same capsule design, take high SPLs and are very versitile, whether overheads, vocals or instruments, without adding too much flamboyant color.

Adrian H. Molina Live

2007-11-25T14:24:00.001-07:00

Mannequin Rituals New Album Coming

2007-11-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

Audio Recording Services, Guerrilla Style

2007-11-14T23:50:00.000-07:00

In times such as these, artists and thinking people must fully embrace the tactics of the guerrilla in order to survive. Organize in small bands, know your master plan and create backups, always stay on the move, strike quickly and with vision in order to take advantage of the adversary's inefficiency and immobility.

Guerrillas thrive on the unknown and use it to their advantage, turning the flaws of the system into opportunities for upheaval. While bureaucrats spend time trying to maintain control of territory and capital with tired old traditions, guerrillas know that the true prize is in the heart of the people, and only through unconventional exploration can this gem be revealed.

In keeping with this rich and empowering tradition, CHiTT Productions practices the art of guerrilla recording. The adversary is the big-business culture industry, with its spit-shined factory lineup featuring uninspiring permutations of the same product asking extortion prices. The revolutionary goal, therefore, is to produce an entirely different form of culture which rivals the methods and productions standards of the mainstream without compromising our underground ethics or driving us into serfdom. In this mission we understand we are the underdogs and our tools aren't nearly as pretty as the bourgeois elite, but underneath the grit in our work there's an authenticity all the money and studio "magic" in the world couldn't buy.

The tactic of guerrilla recording is to travel lightly and with purpose; bring only the things you need to get the job done right, know your tools, move into the new environment quickly, take stock of your resources, setup operations, and roll the tape to capture the vibrancy and spirit of the creative process as faithfully as possible.

CHiTT Productions specializes in multitracking live band setups-- this means that each element of the band is individually recorded on its own track, up to 12 tracks at a time and up to 48 tracks total, so each instrument can be fine-tuned afterwards for the perfect mix. The recording process is simple-- we come into your home territory with our laptop and DAW and size up the acoustical situation. You jam in a small basement? An aluminum storage shed? A cardboard box? Not a problem. We can make the trickiest recording environments produce quality recordings. We'll arrange our instruments and mics for optimal acoustic isolation and setup shop in a flash. After a quick but organized line & monitor check, and a quick playback test to see how the situation sounds, the band is ready to record.

In order to get the best out of your guerrilla recording, your group should be aware of the following suggestions and tips:

Practice, practice, practice. Often bands don't realize that their material is a bit rusty or "unsure" until they hear their recordings played back to them. Spend the time to really listen to your music (turn the volume down for starters, or play acoustically if you have to). Sit down with your band mates to hash out the dirty details of each song's arrangement, dynamics, tempo, notes, etc. Unsure of what your mates are doing during a particular part of a song? Figure it out before your scheduled day to record, because all the inconsistencies will appear later on the tape for everyone to hear in high fidelity. You don't really want to waste your time (or ours) fixing problems with overdubs later, do you?
Toubleshoot sonic problems before your day to record. What's that ringing when the drummer hits the toms? Why doesn't the kick drum have any "oomph?" What's that noise coming out of the guitar players speakers? Buzzing frets? Loud ventilation system/roommates, etc.? The list of potential problems is endless. It's always best to give us your sweetest sounds from the beginning, and weed out the bugs beforehand, because if it sounds bad going in, it's going to sound bad coming out. Be eternally picky; this is your art.
Tune, tune, tune. The dustbins of audio history are filled with otherwise great performances ruined by out-of-tune instruments. Tune often and with great care, as if the lives of your loved ones depended on it. Every time the recording stops or a song ends, every tunable instrument should resynchronize to its glorious tonic calibration. Unless you are certifiably blessed with perfect pitch, you should own an electronic tuner and make sure that it is perfectly matched to every other tuner in use during recording. If your instrument cannot stay in tune, borrow one that can. Your listeners will thank you later.
Know what you want to accomplish with your recording session beforehand. What songs are you going to record? Do you want to play the songs straight through like a live show, or do you want to work on one song at a time until every element is layered and nuanced? Do you want to experiment with your sounds, or do know exactly what sound you're after? Keeping a clear aim of what you want to accomplish keeps the process running efficiently, since both time and money are limited resources.
Communicate effectively with the recording engineer. Need some more of an instrument in your headphones? Not pleased with the sound of that reverb? Too much guitars in the mix? Just say so, because we're not clairvoyant and it's not going to hurt our feelings. We'll work with you to make sure you get the sound you're after.
Be patient. Audio recording is a laborious process to get right. While we've got the process down to a quasi-science and move pretty quickly, setup and tweaks take a little time. The more everyone can stay focused on the process and not get sidetracked, the more time can be spent recording.

Check out our featured artists for examples of our work. If you're interested in recording all or part of an album, whether a live show or in your jam space, contact us to discuss your options and check our availability.

CHiTT Goes Guerrilla with Neo-Nostalgics

2007-11-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

CHiTT rolled in to the Neo-Nostalgics' practice space to do some on-site guerrilla recording Tuesday.

Gear setup went quickly and seamlessly until we ran into a nasty electrical buzz, which is a common malady in many home-based electrical situations. After tracking down the buzz and eliminating it with a trusty $0.69 ground lift adapter, the Neo-Nostalgics rolled through their songs in two easy sets. Drums were multitracked with a mic and a track for each piece in the drum set, a Shure Beta 52 on kick, Sennheisers on the snare and toms, and AT2020s for stereo overheads. Keys and bass were recorded direct, and the guitar cab was recorded using a Sennheiser e609, isolated in a separate room in the basement.

All in all, we've got 8 tracks spanning 9 or so songs, with vocal tracks anticipated to be completed in an upcoming session. Mixdowns will come soon afterwards, so we'll keep you posted on the developments.

Yellow Ribbons, Postmodern Times 2012, and the Media

2007-11-14T00:03:00.001-07:00

Posmodern Times, 2012

How the News Works

Where has D. Neal Gone???

2007-11-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

We just got an update as to where Dustin Neal has been for the last 5 days. Stricken ill with salmonella poisoning, that's where. But that's not all. He was later seen wandering the tracks north of Casper with a jar of moonshine accompanied by an unidentified individual. It is speculation that it was a member from The Last Coyote. This part is not confirmed as of now, however, the Carpet Tunnel Studio doors have been closed for 5 days and there have been reports of The Last Coyote seen stumbling around down there. A note was found in a whiskey bottle reading delusional ramblings of a man with salmonella poisoning, new tracks coming out, and a possible, Last Coyote/John Posten Project split.

Drum Mic Techniques from Various Sources

2007-11-06T11:21:00.002-07:00

Drummers: can't live with them, can't really jam without them. For as much as they're the bane of the rest of the band's existence, they're the life and soul of rock n' roll. As a sound engineer, you're better off learning how to best capture the sonic onslaught they give you, and leave the rhythm (and the excuses) to the "experts."

Recording drums is one of the hardest tasks to accomplish properly. In between all the incessant noise there's a lot of nuanced soundsmithing going on (no shit!), so the sooner you learn how to best capture the character of the percussion (no matter the inherent deficiencies of the drummer) the better your mixes will sound. The following are several introductions compiled (pilfered) from the web.

Probably the simplest method that delivers surprisingly good results is the Recorderman method and only requires 2 condenser microphones to capture the whole kit.

For a little more complete mic'ing setups check out the following:

And for a discussion of the finer nuances of capturing the drums as a complete instrument:

Free 31-band Tones for Reference

2007-11-06T10:28:00.001-07:00

I created these tones as a reference for live sound engineers who need a little help finding and remembering those pesky feedback frequencies. Broken down by the frequencies you'd find on on a 31-band EQ, the frequencies below 50 Hz are sine waves, and the rest are squared sine waves up to about 10,000 Hz (10 kHz), above that the tones go back to being sine waves. The choice to make the tone a sine wave or a squared sine wave was purely aesthetic on my part.

Be really careful sampling frequencies below 50 Hz, because if you don't have speakers that can push that low, it's going to sound really bad and might send your speakers into a tizzy. If you can't hear the frequencies above 16 kHz, your speakers might not push that high or you've got hearing loss similar to mine.

Frequency tones are encoded in MP3 at 160 kbs, peaking at -3 dBs. Click the link below, click "continue," then click "download" for the free 6.4 MB download and unzip.

Free 31-Band Reference Tones Download

Essential Free VST Dynamics Plugins for Powerful Processing

2007-11-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

The key to a full mix is to control your program material. Tame your transients, add more punch in just the right doses and cut the bleed from unwanted audio leakage. Dynamics processing can be the hardest thing to get right, but if you harness the basic elements, go easy at first and follow your ears, you can do wonders to an otherwise uninspiring mix. The following is a list of essential free plugins for the VST host application of your choice. Enjoy, and remember to support the developers.

Compressors/Limiters/Gates:

GComp Compressor | Windows VST
Probably the best sounding and prettiest free compressor I've used so far. Controls are extensive for a simple compressor: input/output gain, RMS/Peak, Attack/Release, threshold for the compressor and a limiter with softener. Best of all, it provides a waveform view to preview how your audio is getting chopped when you set the controls. But don't forget to use your ears. The GMulti is basically the same as the GComp, but with multiband capabilities and stereo enhancers. Both plugins would be the go-to compressors in most cases if they included a gate/expander, but to compensate they can be used in conjunction with GGate or substituted with GComp2.

BuzzComp Free Series | Windows VST
Less refined than the GComp plugins, the BuzzComp series still finds its uses in many mixes. The GeneComp plugins in the Buzz pack don't seem in my opinion to be very useful due to a lack of any metering capabilities which allow you to see what the compressor is doing. The GranComp hard compressors however include both a single band and multiband compressor with meters which are far more mix-friendly. I've used the multiband compressor for general mix "fattening" and it includes several presets to get you started.

Fish Filets Channel Insert Package: | Windows, Mac 9 and OSX VSTs
Includes a compressor, de-esser, and a gate/expander. While the processors are not always as transparent as they could be, there are times when it's good to have a little "bite." When bite isn't what you're looking for, it's got a soft-knee switch to smooth things out. The gate/expander I've found to be especially useful on kick, snare and toms for getting rid of leaks from other instruments and pumping up the volume.

BuzzMaxi 3 Brickwall Limiter/Maximizer | Windows
For controlling those transient peaks that clip an otherwise consistent mix, I'll place BuzzMaxi last in the chain on the master channel, with its output ceiling set to a safe -0.3 dBs on "aggressive" mode. For a quick overall raise in loudness for scratch mixdowns (for preview purposes), I'll switch the mode to its softer setting, lower the ceiling to maybe -0.5 and crank up the "makeup" volume a couple of dBs for fairly transparent results. You don't really want to use just a limiter to raise the loudness of your material (that's a job better suited for a multiband compressor) but when in a pinch or a hurry, this plugin can help acheive greater stature in the loudness war. Apologies to Bob Katz.

And a final note on dynamics processing, a video examining the plight of the loudness war and why you should use care when messing with compressors:

A TEMPEST TO STORM

2007-11-05T12:20:00.001-07:00

John Posten came into the Carpet Tunnel studios in Casper this weekend. It was a brief session wrapping up vocals on his new track A TEMPEST TO STORM. The track is a strong song putting the listener in the middle of an acoustic storm with crashing waves and thunder from above. His melodic voice pulls you through the storm and leaves you on the rocks drenched.

He will be recording new tracks in the next few months to come. Check out his song on his myspace page or under our listed artists.

Another Documentary on Hypocritical Democracy

2007-11-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

John Pilger's documentary The War on Democracy, since we have so much talk about instilling democracy in the world lately. Not about music, but important nonetheless.

This is what our democracy will look like

2007-11-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

In a move typical of military dictatorships parading as functioning democracies, our Pakistani partner in the War on Terror 6.0, has descended into martial law by decree of the president. Musharraf suspends the constitution to curb the "rise of extremism" which no doubt has risen since his ties to Washington have grown more closely. Coincidentally, of course, the suspension of the constitution prevents the Pakistani Supreme Court from ruling on the legality of Musharraf's presidency.

All of this will cause barely a hiccup in U.S./Pakistani relations since all's fair when participating in the War on Terror. Unless, no doubt, you're on the other side, then very similar political actions will be vilified as an example of the enemy's treachery.

The rules are all messed up, and the job of the referee is relegated to the biggest bully.

But this is the honest underbelly of how governments function, democracies or not, and ours will operate no differently when enough danger is presented by whatever opposition to the powers that be. The leaders know that what cannot be mollified through propaganda and bribery must be crushed.

And this is how the War on Terror becomes the Reign of Terror. Menkcken acutely understood the power dynamic when he said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Let's hope that Americans have not grown so complacent that martial law becomes an acceptable solution for our hobgoblins.

For an interesting glimpse into the transitory nature of political power and it's dirty tricks, the documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is an invaluable perspective:

The Eye of the Controller

2007-10-31T15:39:00.000-06:00

CHiTT Productions samples politics, fashion, and bad taste--

Recently we have been developing interesting concepts for DIY style t-shirts. We went for a "bringing back corruption to the White House" theme. Obviously, with the election race underway, why not have a shirt featuring a scandalous, dead, ex-president? The first prototype was created and we feel strong about our results.

If you have any comments about our shirt or are interested in buying one or MAKING ONE YOURSELF, please feel free to contact us.

Till then, remember NIXON '08.

2007-10-31T13:43:00.000-06:00

Don't let the bogeyman get ya'.

Peace.

When Pigs Fly... A Brief History of Record Industry Suicide and Other POVs

2007-10-31T08:56:00.000-06:00

For those who haven't seen it, this article is probably the most astute rendering of why the music business of late is completely fucked. It's time for an overhaul in the way we produce and distribute art, music and culture from the ground up.

FTA:

At the top of all this is the rigged, outdated, and unfair structure of current intellectual property laws, all of them in need of massive reform in the wake of the digital era. These laws allow the labels to maintain their stranglehold on music copyrights, and they allow the RIAA to sue the pants off of any file-sharing grandmother they please. Since the labels are owned by giant corporations with a great deal of money, power, and political influence, the RIAA is able to lobby politicians and government agencies to manipulate copyright laws for their benefit. The result is absurdly disproportionate fines, and laws that in some cases make file sharing a heftier charge than armed robbery. This is yet another case of private, corporate interests using political influence to turn laws in the opposite direction of the changing values of the people.

This is set to be the biggest issue facing the new millennium, an epic struggle of freedom and human culture versus the interests of capitalism. Unfortunately, those who stand to lose the most have the least ability to shape the public discourse surrounding the real issues at stake: power, control, and access to culture outside of a capitalistic economy.

For those green artists new to the beast of the culture industries, I always direct them to the sobering article written by legendary producer Steve Albini, The Problem With Music. This should be Rock n' Roll/Music Business 101 introductory text. Enough with the dreams of fame and stardom; the road to success is about as dirty as it gets. Albini's not exaggerating the least bit when he says that "Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit."

And if Albini's insights aren't enough to convince the budding rock star that there's a filthy future in the biz, the biggest losers being the artists themselves, Courtney Love weighs in on the subject with similar conclusions. To her, the real criminals are not the pirates, but instead the greedy record companies who fuck the artists and have the gall to turn around and call music lovers "thieves."

So kudos to bands like Radiohead, Trent Reznor and Saul Williams for having the courage to try something that flies in the face of the biz's conventional wisdom. They are the true entrepreneurs. With a little bit of innovation and creativity, we all might just be able to come up with new ways of promoting the arts without screwing the artists, all while bringing the palaces of elite media corporations crashing to the ground.

Driftwood releases 2003 EP for free

2007-10-29T16:41:00.000-06:00

Driftwood Project, Chitt Productions' quasi-metal band, has decided to release their 2003 self-produced album to the public for free download. From their Myspace post:

"We've thought a lot lately about what we stand for as a band trying to make art and music in this day and age. With the advent of digital technology, is easier than ever to make a quality product and D.I.Y. it the whole way without wasting too much of our time or money. While we would love to make a living producing our music, fact of the matter is we rarely ever see compensation for what we do, and it doesn't look like that fact is going to change any time soon. So what? Even though we don't make any money playing music doesn't mean that we're going to fold our hand and quit. We love what we do and the music we create (for the most part) and that's what drives us to continue down this road less travelled.

So in the interest of putting our money where our mouth is, we're going to start releasing for free the music we've put so much effort into, because what good is making music if no one hears it? We'll still sell CDs at shows for a pittance, because face it, someone's always willing to cough up a couple of bucks to support something they enjoyed, but just because you don't have any money (or you're just a cheap-ass) doesn't mean you can't own a piece of our work if it interests you.

So here's Driftwood's first self-release from 2003-- an experiment in the D.I.Y. ethic from start to finish. It was a noble first attempt from which we learned many valuable lessons.

So download away, because music, art and culture should be as free as the air we breathe. Just let us know if you did, because it's nice to know someone gives a shit. We'll release more of our recordings in a similar format in the future-- stay tuned.

---
Driftwood"

While we understand that not all of our artists will choose to go a similar route, we support Driftwood's decision to release their music for free download since it's their music to begin with. Hopefully other artists will be inspired to follow suit.

Download Driftwood's 2003 EP for free here. Click "continue," and click "download" to download the zipped file.

Mo' Brown rolls into the studio again with Chitt Productions

2007-10-29T14:17:00.001-06:00

Mo' Brown (aka Adrian H. Molina) rolled into the Carpet Tunnel Studios in Casper last Sunday to work on his full-length album, scheduled for release in early 2008. Work proceeded quickly as tracks were laid for 3 songs, ranging from more traditional hip-hop arrangements to metal-infused melodies written by Mannequin Rituals frontman Dustin Neal. Joining Adrian in the studio was long-time friend/artist Helen Chanthongthip who laid vocals for two tracks, including Beyond Sundown, originally a Mannequin Rituals track. Check back soon for more information on this upcoming album, along with sneak previews to other featured artists under the Chitt Productions banner.

The CHiTT List: Operations Manual and Gear Inventory

2007-01-01T19:32:00.002-07:00

Current gear includes a mix of computers and peripherals sufficient to record simultaneously up to 12 tracks of CD quality audio (expanding soon to 16). Overall projects are expandable up to 48 tracks. We use firewire and PCI audio interfaces and our software platforms of choice are from Steinberg and Image Line ... & Adobe, reluctantly, when we have to...

If you must know, we use Windoze.

All other recipes are trade secrets, exposed only by communique at CHiTT Productions current headquarters.

CHiTT Productions uses a selection of industry standard microphones in the guerrilla recording process. Most of our constantly expanding inventory is owned by CHiTT Productions, but since we're not rich and still have to work day jobs until this revolution sparks, we rely on the networks we've created to help us get the really extensive projects completed. No person is an island in this journey, and we've got comrades along the way.

That being said, mics are a collectively owned venture. CHiTT Productions owns a base inventory that can run "standard" band setups, but we also have a network of kind souls always willing to loan a piece or two from their personal/band collection when the input list exceeds our current inventory or calls for something particularly snazzy. We're open to negotiotiations.

Currently stockpiled models include (but not limited to, and always in flux):

Shure SM58
Shure Beta 58
Shure Unisphere I 565SD
Shure SM57 Unidyne III
Shure 545SD
ATM63
AT2020
AT2021
Sennheiser E835s
AKG D8000
500 W 12 Channel PA
15" Mains, 15" Monitors
5" 75 W Studio Monitors
Array of line mixers, signal routers, amps and headphone amps
An ever-decreasing supply of good, functioning headphones (best to B.Y.O.H.)
A mind-numbingly huge collection of cables, adapters, cords, etc. all neatly wrapped, tagged and stored
Mic stands
MiniDV Camcorder
Hi8 Camcorder
MPEG Harddisk Camcorder
Time Machine w/ flux capacitor
VST Processors, Effects and Insruments galore

List up to date yet still vague as of 1/2008. Donations always accepted.

What is CHiTT Productions?

2007-01-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

CHITT Productions was started by a couple of bad motor scooters tired of the glossy finished mainstream media machine. We produce underground music, films & graphic design projects guerrilla style: on the cheap, on the fly, and on the run. Our goal is to produce quality art while supporting the local scene that makes creative collaboration possible, fresh and exciting.

CHiTT helps artists take their work to the next level, whether it's out of the basement and onto a stage, or recording a multitrack demo complete with graphic design and online promotion. CHiTT grows as an ideology when we hear more collective voices telling the tale of the world through artists' eyes.

Art is not a commodity. Art is a way of living and a vehicle for creative activity and a seed for social change. Art is a form of expression that separates the magi from the masses, and every artistic act that occurs outside of the capitalistic marketplace is inherently a political statement and a defiant challenge to the powers that be.

CHiTT Productions is a testament to the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic in the bittersweet postmodern age of digital living. While we might arguably be more happy sitting under a tree strumming homemade instruments, we're going to use the technological tools at our disposal to spread our messages until the day this whole mess comes crashing down. When it does, we'll meet you by the aspens, and we'll trade stories of all the fun things we created while it lasted.

As digital technology becomes even more accessible to common people, artists have access to more creative devices than ever before, at a fraction of what it would have cost previous generations. While CHiTT Productions feels we produce a quality body of work given the tools at our disposal, we're not greedy and we're not in it for status. We strongly believe that it's more valuable to impart the DIY ideology to others rather than horde the means of production to ourselves. Consequently we plan on sharing all the useful insights, tools, tricks and tips that we discover on our journey in hopes that others can benefit and draw the inspiration it takes to make a habit of being creative.

Contact us if you live in the Laramie/Casper WY region. We currently do music/speech recording, live sound engineering, graphic design projects and video production if the cause is right. We don't care if our sound ain't bourgeois, it's still da CHiTT.

CHiTT Productions Goodies Page

2006-06-06T22:09:00.010-06:00

If you're reading this, you either really enjoyed this site and dug through all the various links until you found the mother-of-all-CHiTT-eastereggs, or Google magically found its way to this site and the obscure free MP3-ness you were looking for in the first place. So here it is-- the abandonware, off the beaten path, archive of stuff we've recorded over the years that doesn't have an official release page.

Some of these are live recordings (simple board patches or full multitrack setups), some are studio recordings (either unreleased, forgotten, or abandoned). Some are rockin', some are intimate, some are raw enough to fit the tabloids, but it's safe to say all are without pretense.

If any are password protected, please email us and we will post or remove the password. If you are one of the bands listed below and are opposed to the free publicity and fan appreciation this affords, please email us and we'll remove the link. This is an easter-egg post, and we have no intention of "stealing" music--just perpetuating art. We feel this is a valuable record of the local arts community, non-commercial, artist rights reserved, abstracted in ones-and-zeros, an educational tool, a general insight, fading memories in a lossy bitrate, etc...

(all songs recorded, engineered, mixed, un-mastered by the CHiTT collective)...

Jalan Crossland Band at the Alibi, 8-17-2008, Laramie WY, (web), (ms), Set One & Set Two

Basement Dwellars, 2009 Download

CHiTT Productions at the Buckhorn, 12-14-2007, Laramie WY, Download

The Patti Fiasco, (ms), Coal Creek Coffee Company, Laramie WY, 11-2008, Download

Hogback at the Buckhorn, (ms), 11-2008, Set One & Set Two

The Zarks at the Alibi, 8-17-2008, Download

The Upbeat Project on Prexy's Pasture, (ms), 4-08-2008, Laramie WY, Download

The Upbeat Project at UW Ballroom, (ms), 2-11-2009, Laramie WY, Download

Ghosts of Predators Past at Lovejoys, 2-20-09, Laramie WY, (ms), Set One & Set Two

Infidel Castro and the Heretics, Yet Unreleased Studio Sessions, 2009, Download

Redbush on KOCA, (date?), Laramie WY, (ms), Download

Rumsfeld, Jam Session, 7-8-2009, Casper WY, (ms) Download

Rx Bandits at UW Ballroom, 4-15-2009, Laramie WY, (web), (ms), Part A & Part B

Spangler at the Hickey House, 5-3-2009, Laramie WY, (ms), Download

Adrian H Molina Up Before the Sunrise, AKA Molina Soleil, Studio Release, (ms), Download