Chris Bishop | Studio Production

This is Read You & Me's latest song, "Love One".

Taken from the Tequila Mockingbird biography:

"Tequila Mockingbird is singer/songwriter Wendy Clark, Paschke and Mark Mauldin on guitar, Rhett Haney on bass and vocals, and the backbone beats of drummer Rob Cameron. Together, they've been a mainstay of the greater Denver music scene, acting as support for national acts like Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers (at the Bluebird Theater) and playing shows at respected venues such as the Soiled Dove, the Gothic Theatre and the Ogden Theatre, as well as one of their favorite frequented venues, the Toad Tavern."

They consider themselves "a mix of alternative country, power pop, and rock." Straight from the Denver area, here's Tequila Mockingbird. This song in particular is a remake of the popular Ryan Adams tune "When the Stars Go Blue" and features less country, and more rock.

Frederic Chopin's "Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61" is a magnificent piece performed by Xiaodan Chen. This particular recording was for her audition/demo CD for admission into graduate work in piano performance. With an emphasis on performance, she is obviously a remarkable pianist. This was a solo project through-and-through, with all Engineering and Production done by myself and was recorded in the open hall of a church.

While this is just a solo piano recording, there were various mic techniques used to ensure the best sound the first time. Such techniques included a Mid-Side pair, standard X/Y configuration, and A/B (Spaced Pair), as well as close-mic techniques, such as X/Y at the rim of the lid and a spaced pair over the low and high strings. In the end, the close-mic'd spaced pair was chosen, as it still presented enough of the room's presence, but was ultimately the most true representation of the instrument's color. Typically, this is unusual to use such close mic's. However, due in part to the requirements of the audition CD, as well as the fact that this is a solo piano with no other instruments or voices, I chose to make this a more intimate, almost ambient, recording.

This rather odd cover of Bjork's "Hyperballad" was performed by local Denver band The Midnight Chirps, now known as Kongtoss. I served as sole Engineer on the song, as well as Co-Producer. The tracking was quite simple, but the mix was much more complex, as the song is very minimalistic. This was the first and only time I have ever used Logic Pro exclusively for tracking and mixing. While it is quite easy, the abilities and interface of Logic Pro, I find, are considerably less intuitive, and thus I've solely used Pro Tools for every project beyond this one.

Adam Starker performs this cover of Iron & Wine's "Flightless Bird, American Mouth," voiced for piano and solo vocal. With his airy tone and somewhat-heavy vibrato, Adam performed this piece beautifully. There were moments of Melodyne to control his often out-of-control vibrato (and some occasionally off-pitch notes), but overall, this piece was a joy to track. This was a solo venture, with no other person to engineer. Production was all on my shoulders, as well.

Travis Erwin is on Resource Faculty as Guitar & Bass Instructor at Eastern New Mexico University. His skill on guitar, together with his love for his family, brings a very personable character to this piece, as he performs this sudo-cover of the famous "American Pie" by Don McLean. This was the very first recording that I embarked upon.