Check out this awesome and very catchy tune – hello u’r mine – from Exit 18. Performed, recorded and shot completely live in Studio A!
Coral Moons – Live From the Q Region*
We’re starting a new series we’re calling Live From the Q Region*! It will feature performances captured LIVE in Studio A, on “tape” and video:). Studio A can support all sorts of madness, including multi camera shoots and live tracking.
We’re kicking off the series with Coral Moons performing their song Made Up My Mind, and we’ll follow that up with songs from Exit 18. Want to get featured on Live From the Q Region*? Drop us a line and we’ll chat!
Coleman Rogers Photography
We’re really pleased to hang Coleman Rogers’ photos in Studio B’s lounge for the next few months. Coleman is a long time music nerd, if you will – he’s an engineer, a tech, a teacher, a photographer, and like the rest of us – a devoted fan. The work that hangs in Studio B’s lounge is a combination of concert photography and art photography. In his own words:
Coleman spent his high-school years near Detroit, working in his darkroom for the school newspaper and yearbook, as well as the theater. The theater is where he learned to love shooting in the dark. After thirty-plus years in and around Boston and New York recording studios, as an engineer and service technician, Coleman retired and spends most of his time photographing shows and experimenting
with film, Polaroid, and digital photo techniques.In his live music photos, he tries to capture the raw energy of the moment by becoming emotionally involved in the music, paying full attention to the interplay between the artists on stage.
His photo experiments grow out of his Guided Chaos process, where randomness and entropy are part of the process. This current body of work represents a release of intention, where his creativity is centered on play for the sake of play, embracing mistakes and eschewing perfection, with no attachment to a specific outcome.
Coleman’s work will hang for the rest of the year (prints are for sale btw!), and we’re planning on hosting an opening at the end of October. While the work is easy to see if you’re working at Q, we’re happy to show it to anyone by appointment. Please drop us a line to schedule a visit!
Le Couteau – Now You’re Nowhere
Last summer we had Le Couteau in for a two-day lockout session in Studio A. At first the goal was just to capture their sound and release it as close to live as possible. But after hearing everything, the band decided to take their time with the process and we are glad they did. Save for a few hours of guitar overdubs in Studio B, the band tracked their whole record in those first two days. Driven primarily by frontman/guitarist, Jean-Francois Blain, the band blends their various influences to make something familiar to shoegaze fans but unique to each of the players in the band. Phil Murray sang backup and played bass, and Faris Albayya played drums.
Q Engineer Terrance Reeves co-produced and recorded. The album was mixed by local friend, Dereck Blackburn (of Quiethouse Recordings).
Count Zero – Live at Q Division
We were incredibly happy to host local icons Count Zero a couple of months ago for a very ambitious project. They wanted to perform their new record “thought so,” AND a bunch of older songs, live with and without an audience, while we multi tracked the show AND filmed with multiple cameras.
This session would require the highest possible quality of recording (including isolation), careful lighting, and multiple cameras and angles, alongside live sound reinforcement for the audience, and in ear monitoring for the band. We spent quite a bit of time getting to know the material and plotting the set up – and working through all the possible technical pitfalls we’d run into. The band booked two days – one entire day was dedicated to set up, then to recording/performing the set once with out an audience. On the second day we ran through the set at least one more time – with costume changes, and then the audience rolled in and they performed the set a final time (two sets, to be exact). We were able to capture a full multi track of the performance, mix the show live for the in house audience, and capture as many as 7-9 cameras of the performance (oh, and we also ran a secret livestream out to close friends and family of the band:).
Chuck Hargreaves engineered the recording, Izaak Biewald assisted and mixed the live sound, Rafi Sofer oversaw the entire production and took care of lights and cameras, with additional help provided by Q interns Kieh Blevins and Lydia Hazzard-Lael.
Peter Moore and Will Ragano (of the band) mixes and edited the resulting videos – check out this one for their song SOUTH.
