Endorser Update
PHOTO : ROSS HALFIN
JOEY AMEY
IDA NIELSEN
Danish bass player Ida Nielsen has recently added the Caveman Audio BP1 Bass Preamp to her pedalboard . Nielsen has released five albums and is touring regularly with her band , Ida Nielsen & The Funkbots . The BP1 is essentially a 1073 preamp design , but it has been surrounded by an input buffer and several audio transformers in a complete solution that was conceived with the needs of professional and touring bass players in mind .
“ It has been along on the first live gigs , and the results have been more than satisfying ,” Nielsen says of the preamp . “ Before I started using the BP1 Bass Preamp , I didn ’ t know I needed one , but after I started using it , I found that it is a crucial element to get the bass sound I want . BP1 is the core of my sound , and it makes my bass blend perfectly in the mix .”
Porter & Davies has welcomed several new additions to its evergrowing family . Among the new artists on the company ’ s roster are Joel Amey of Wolf Alice , Jack Lawrence-Brown with White Lies , Ashton Irwin of 5 Seconds of Summer , and more .
This summer , Porter & Davies is supplying drum thrones , stage platforms , and more to a huge number of touring musicians on major tours all over the world , with renowned artists like Olivia Rodrigo , Avril Lavigne , and Ed Sheeran . Amey has recently purchased three BC2s . This light , portable , tough tactile monitor allows him to feel and experience what he plays with more response and sensitivity .
It was instantly a game changer ,” says Carl Griffin , Wolf Alice ’ s tech and monitor engineer . “ Can ’ t express how much I love those things ! Joel was instantly more comfortable on the kit and with monitoring , too .’
SNARKY PUPPY
JUANITA CARVAJAL
As she focused her attention on her second album , Argidulce (“ Bittersweet ” in English ), which is set for release this July , Columbian artist and producer Juanita Carvajal was in search of new studio monitors that she could trust to bring her music the groove and bass she desired . After working with KRK in the early days of her career , Carvajal turned to the KRK ROKIT 5 White Noise studio monitors . Carvajal has honed her craft in every part of the industry for the past decade , between working on tour , songwriting , producing , and performing live under her stage name , Soy Emilia .
“ I fell in love with the sound of ROKITs back in 2010 when the first artist I worked for , Esteman , was using them ,” explains Carvajal . “ When creating Argidulce , I wanted a lot of rhythmic instruments and the groove you get with good bass and drums . My ROKIT 5s really involve those low frequencies in the sound and make you feel it . They put it all together for me nicely . The groove works with the bass , and the drums work with the kick , and it all sounds really accurate . Even when I ’ m mixing through headphones , they sound amazing .”
In February of this year , Snarky Puppy set out to record its seventh live album , Empire Central . The acclaimed Canadian band used what has become a signature live recording format : shunning a formal studio environment for a converted venue space with a small , intimate audience all listening on headphones . An obvious hurdle with this approach had to do with bleed from live mics . Additionally , external noise coming from the less-than-acoustically-ideal setting would be an issue . With 20 band members and over 100 channels of audio , keeping mic bleed and noise to a minimum was critical . Snarky Puppy producers Nic Hard and Michael League knew that having control over each instrument ’ s input signal would be important . For this reason , direct inputs to the console would be the best solution . To address the challenges , Hard and League turned to Radial DIs and line-level splitters .
“ We knew that the biggest challenge , recording-wise , was going to be bleed ,” says Hard . “ And we ’ d need mics on the drums , but felt that everything else could run direct , using amp sims on the guitars . We used about 20 DIs for the show , including a DI for bass guitar and Mike ’ s Moog Model D keyboard bass synth . We used Radial HDIs for bass because we needed a high-end , studio-quality sound out of the basses . And then the rest of the instrument inputs were the Pro D2s , J48s , and ProDIs .”
46 CANADIAN MUSIC TRADE