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| Who we are....
2nd Floor Recording Studio is located in Fountain Valley, California (Orange County). We provide a private and discrete environment where musicians can work at their own pace.
The studio combines the best of analog and digital equipment to meet the needs of today's recording artists. We feature gear by Neumann, Sennheiser, Royer, Shure, AKG, Universal Audio, Pendulum Audio, Avalon Design, FMR Audio, True Systems, Empirical Labs, Gibson, Marshall, Fender, Martin, Mesa Boogie, Line6, Vox, Pearl, Tama, Roland, BOSS, Tascam, RME, Steinberg, Sony and other fine companies.
For more information about the studio, please contact us by email at Dave@2ndFloorRecording.com
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Photo 1/13/2011: Wish I could say I recorded this rock legend, but I didn't. However, he was kind enough to pose for a photo, sign an autograph, shake my hand and exchange a few pleasentries .....
Here he is ..... bassist for the band 'Cream', Mr. Jack Bruce. I saw Cream play live in the late 60's (Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker) at the Inglewood Forum. WOW !!!
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| Dave Williams (left) with rock legend Jack Bruce |
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So, what's new to the studio ...... We keep adding gear (almost) every month.
October 2011: We just added an Avalon Design vt-737sp mic-pre to our gear rack.
Mid-2011: We added an 8 channel Presonus ACP-88 compressor/gate. This will be used mainly with drums. We also added a new camera to our video production -- the sony NXCAM HXR-NX5U. This is a great digital camera that can be used for video production in very low light (1.5 lux). It's already been used on several shoots, including 3 music video's that we did for Grammy nominated jazz pianist Peggy Duquesnel. We also shot a live performance by Sugah Daddy in Lincoln City and produced 28 video's from that performance.
February 2011: We added a very nice Sony wireless lapel mic for video shooting. We used the mic for shooting a glass-blowing session at Pacific Artglass and it worked flawlessly. The kiln was way too noisy for a directional mic, and the lapel mic worked perfect. We've also added several stereo mic's for video production. Can't have too many mic's.
December 2010: Just added on 4 JBL Eon powered speaker cabs and some additional speaker stands. I grabbed a new Line 6 wireless setup for my bass and a 4 pack of mic stands (they tend to wear out from all the abuse). Added some NewBlueFX software for the video production side.
August 2010: Over the last few months, we've been adding video equipment to the studio. Our main camera is the Sony HDR-FX7 but we also have a smaller HD (1920x1080) Sony camera for tighter shots. We added a camera dolly with 50' of track and an 8' boom which gives the camera a swing from floor level to about 10' high. We also have the ability to do chroma-key with the addition of a 10x20 green-screen backdrop and truss. We also now have white and black backdrops too. We'll be filming three music videos for Sugah daddy in September which should be a lot of fun. Almost forgot, we added a set of Sennheiser Tom mics for drum track recording.
September 2009: We just added the Monster midi 3 drum set (software) for Toontracks. This upgrade includes 400 pre-recorded drum fills. I've been using Toontracks/EZDrummer on several songs. The patterns are really good, and the sound samples are great. I've been wanting a greater variety of fills (4/4 and 2/4), and this package has it. Can't wait to try it out (tonight).
August 2009: We added more mic stands to replace some of the aging ones we've been lugging to shows. We also added on an extra disk drive .... I think we now have over 5 Terabytes of attached storage. We had the Panasonic Ramsa DA7 mixer disconnected for quite a few months, but it's been reinstalled and adds to the number of live tracks we can record simultaneously through our Fireface 800's (using light-pipe to make the connection).
July 2009: Our friend Dana Angle has donated an Oktava MK-319 mic to the studio, and our friends from The Chin Beards donated a 1TB hard drive which now gives us about 5TB of attached storage. We're replaced a few mic stands ... they tend to take a beating, and added Superior Drummer software (VST plugin) which integrates with ToonTracks. We also added Steve Slate drum gigs last month ... there's some killer RedHotChiliPepper style drum samples.
March 2009: We just added ToonTracks, a drum looping software, to our bag of tricks and have been experimenting with it onThe Frenge's songs. This allows us to add some great drum tracks to songs where the artist may need percussion, but doesn't have a drummer. Nothing beats the real-deal, but this software is the next best thing.
January 2009: Last November we added a UAD-2 Duo card to our main PC and added a couple more Universal Audio plugins to the list. This was a very welcome update that gave us the capability to run many more plugins simultaneously. Well ... here we go again. We just added the UAD-2 Quad Omni which adds 10x's the processing power of the UAD-1 card that we had been using for the last few years. In addition, the Omni pack includes every plugin that Universal Audio offers. For a small studio, this is amazing. The UAD-2 card takes all the effects processing off the main CPU of our PC which allows us to do much more processing than we could ever do before (compressors / reverbs / EQ / special effects). The card and effects list for $5000, but we did a little better than that. Now, we're making it available for all our projects.
December 2008, we added a new Epiphone Casino acoustic-electric guitar to the rack. The Beatles purchased three of these guitars in the early 60's and used them extensively on their albums. There are many pictures of John Lennon playing his Casino while performing live and in the studio. We should have a professional setup done on it in a couple of weeks, and then it'll be ready for album work. Just in case you were wondering, ours has the natural finish, much like John's after he stripped off the original color. It's beautiful.
During the summer of 2008, our friend Dana Angle gave the studio a very special gift. It's a Kramer bass guitar, circa 1971. Definitely, one of the earliest basses made by Kramer. The bass weighs 10 pounds ... ouch ... and the neck is aluminum. I don't think you'd want to wear this to play live, but in a studio setting, it's perfect. When you pluck this bass, it rings forever ... and ever. We used it recently on a song by The Frenge where we needed a bass that sustained for long periods, and the Kramer fit the bill. We've also added a new Roland bass stack. The D-Bass 210 and D-Bass 115X provide amazing punch in the high-end and plently of clear support in the low-end. This is a great sounding amp for live performances also.
That's about it for now ... stay tuned for more ....
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| Who's currently in the studio ?
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The Frenge is currently working on their 4th album here at 2nd Floor.
G8 is in the process of finishing their 3rd album. Michael Wessel (lead vocalist) is completing final tracks, and the album should be done by end of this year (2011).
Section 8 has finished recording a 5 song demo and we are making minor adjustments to the mixes. We should be done very soon.
Dana Angle finished his album 'Red Sash' and we are now working on another album of his original music. This is his 4th or 5th (maybe 6th) album recorded here at 2nd Floor.
We recently finished an album for our friends The Budrows. It is amazing what Jason and Macarena can do with a cigar-box guitar, kick drum, tambourine and harmonica .... cool.
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| Dave hangin' with surf master guitarist Dick Dale (Mizirlou) |
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Hey, that's Dick Dale (left), king of the surf guitars, hanging onto Dave Williams (owner of 2nd Floor Recording). Looks like they're having some fun.
Remember 'Mizirlou' from Pulp Fiction ..... well, that was Dick Dale on the guitar !!! And he still rocks like crazy !!!
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| Dave & Robby Kreiger |
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I know this picture looks fake, but it's the real deal. It was taken with a cell phone and I was a bit closer than the other guy who was standing in front of a black backdrop. So who is it?
Well, that's me (on the left), and the other guy ... that's the legendary guitarist from The Doors, Robby Krieger.
He grabbed a Gibson guitar and right there in front of about 100 people played his famous guitar licks from the Doors song "Love Me Two Times", then autographed a picture (on my wall at home), and let us take this snapshot with a cell phone (thanks Marco). He was way cool about it all.
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| Dave & Gene Simmons |
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OK ... I know this picture is funny, but I'm posting it anyway.
In the middle of the picture is Gene Simmons (KISS). It was almost impossible to get close to him, so I walked around the ouside of the NAMM booth and my buddy Martin took this picture while I stood in the background, looking through the metal truss (the one holding the booth upright). If you magnify the picture about 10 to the 14th power, you can see it's me.
I later got within about 3 feet of Gene, but no picture with him, and his security team kept everyone at a safe distance, so there's no autograph .... nice guy though. And he was having a good time at the show.
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| Dave & Kerry King - Slayer |
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Hey, there I am (Dave, on the right) getting an autograph from Slayer guitarist, Kerry King. He was very cool about the autograph which is now hanging on the wall in my studio.
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| Dave & Alex Grossi - Quiet Riot |
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| I had the pleasure of meeting guitarist Alex Grossi (Hookers & Blow / Quiet Riot / Beautiful Creatures) and I gotta tell ya', he's a very nice guy in addition to being one of the busiest guitarists on the planet. We talked for a few minutes and he let me take this picture.
If you haven't heard him rock ... you're missing some great music.
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