Optical Atlas

Robert Schneider posted the following information in this Townhall thread in answer to a question about the new Pet Sounds Studios, which relocated (with Robert) from Denver, CO to Lexington, KY many years back.  It’s an interesting visual-portrait-in-words of a working studio.  [Pictured above is the old Pet Sounds studio in Denver circa the Aeroplane sessions.]

matt is correct, i do a lot of recording sitting on the floor in the family room of my house in a pile of keyboards and notebooks and steve keene paintings and guitars and mic cables–

i do have my full studio set up in my garage (the huge painting is not hung up there yet) with all my pianos and tape machines and huge neotek console and so on from the denver pet sounds studio, and i recorded in there for a couple of years (including the ulysses record) but sort of started recording on the floor in my family room more and more over the last few years, as it is easy for me to record in quick bursts of inspiration there, and it feels more like four-tracking than studio engineering, which makes me feel more creative. also i have a mastering studio in my attic.

all the various rooms i record in at home go by the name of Pet Sounds Recording Studio.

very often, i record at my brother-in-law craig morris’ Garden Gate Studio in western kentucky (the ideal free distribution and american revolution albums were made there, as well as a lot of overdubs on new magnetic wonder), which is a beautiful garage studio, with a bunch of awesome gear that craig built or modified himself in a lovely rural area– again, piles of guitars and keyboards and cables and the guts of electronic equipment flowing onto the floor, just the way i like it–

and i have traveled a lot the last few years, recording at bill doss’s athens studio and otto helmuth’s here in lexington and with other friends in different places– since i sort of stopped engineering records for bands around 2000 (to focus on my own recordings) i wind up needing my larger studio much less often than i used to. plus the sixteen track tape machine is broken down again.

i do mix and master at my home studio occasionally, but i prefer to travel to other studios to produce for other bands at this point, as i really hate plugging in cables mainly : )

hope that is not too much information,

robert schneider

Robert Schneider’s kids’ music project Robbert Bobbert & the Bubble Machine played last weekend’s Lexington FreeKY fest, and there’s photos and a write-up at You Ain’t No Picasso.  There really was a bubble machine!  There’s also coverage of Big Fresh’s set, which looks to have been equally entertaining, and other FreeKY acts which seem to be on an escalating scale of bizarre/wondrous.  Worth checking out.

Paige Dearman has updated her Midget and Hairs MySpace blog with the following note:

So I have recently had a CD come out on Royal Rhino Flying Records and thanks to MySpace networking I have an upcoming show on 5/18 at Red 7! I will give more details about cost and time when I get them. I haven’t played live since I opened up for Elliott Smith so I’m a little nervous but gonna swing it. I also recorded 4 new songs this weekend and need to mix them down and will post them on my page.

Thanks also to Adam for the note.

B.P. Helium has added new forums to the E6 Townhall, including boards for labels Happy Happy Birthday to Me and Cloud Recordings, and bands Dark Meat, Madeline, Nana Grizol, and The New Sound of Numbers. (As of 8:15am CST, I’m still waitin’ for that Major Organ board, Beeps!)

UPDATE: Casper & the Cookies and A Hawk and a Hacksaw have been added.

Elf Power and Circulatory System are two of the spotlighted artists in the latest episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered. Elf Power’s In a Cave is deemed “their best CD of the decade,” and one of the new Circulatory System tracks, “Tiny Concerts,” from their recently-updated MySpace page is played. Listen to the podcast here.

You Ain’t No Picasso is providing an exclusive unreleased Elf Power song, “Venus and Mercury,” culled from the In a Cave sessions.  There’s also a hint that the band will be playing “a certain Chicago-based music festival this summer.”  Head over here for the MP3 and write-up.

The Optical Atlas streaming jukebox has been updated with 10 more songs, including new tracks from Circulatory System, The Instruments, Nana Grizol, Andy from Denver, Great Lakes, Faster Circuits, and Pipes You See, Pipes You Don’t.  Stream it here.