Peak Recording, Bozeman, MT (2025)

12/16/2025

This is a shot of the control room here at Peak recently during the mixing of Bob Nell and Mike Bisio’s new album, “We Are Here”. You can tell it’s a real photo because the room is a little messy, not “prettied-up” and posed or staged.

I have no idea when it will be available for purchase or to stream, but keep your eye (better yet, your ear) out for it, as it sounds great and is filled with great tunes (all Bob originals) and great performances. Bob is a seriously good jazz pianist and composer!

It was really fun to record as it was all done live with no overdubs. When you listen to it you’ll hear exactly what I heard during the recording, only better, as a formal mix done after the fact is almost always better than the live mix. Makes sense as when you can work on a mix for a few hours rather than just a few minutes, it’d be hard not to get something better.

I think we were working on “Interweave” when I snapped this. Notice the Neve summing mixer pulled out from it’s rack for ease in reaching the controls. If I want to listen to the little Avantone monitors, I’ll push the Neve back so it’s not in the way of the speakers.

Using the Neve is part of my “record digitally and mix analog” thing. Don’t get me wrong, I do my share of mixing “in the box”, but for great music projects like this, analog is the way to go.

From the Neve the mix is recorded to a Tascam solid state recorder at 44.1/24 bit. Then it’s time to master the album. Mastering music these days is basically just making sure that tonally the music has a similar sound and is on a par, volume-wise, with contemporary recordings in the same genre out there.

I don’t claim to be a mastering engineer, but I do wind up mastering many of the projects I record. As all the tunes were recorded at the same place, with the same gear, with the same recording engineer (me), the mastering process was fairly simple. The main tools I use are compression, limiting, and equalizing plug-ins. Bob brought in a relatively recent CD he liked and I used that as a guide. I wound up doing just a little eq and then compressing and limiting to get the volume up, and if you were wondering, the “volume wars” are still a thing. That CD Bob brought in was LOUD!

I’m biased, of course, but I think “We Are Here” is a seriously good-sounding record, which I attribute to a great piano, a great recording (pats self on back!), and mostly, great performances by the musicians: Bob Nell, Mike Bisio, Adam Greenberg, and Austin Belluscio.

The other image features photos of all the players taken by Ginny Barry here at the studio, and she did the graphic design as well.

11/09/2025

I’ve been working on a six-song project for Greg Lucker and his band Wolfbones, and on a session last month Greg was in to do electric guitar tracks for the song “Shooting Star”.

Greg had a new guitar rig, starting with a PRS guitar (used, I think), a Friedman amp he bought from a friend, and a used Friedman cabinet he got from Music Villa. It was all in like brand-new condition and sounded great.

Greg did two rhythm tracks for the song. Two tracks, played as close as you possibly can to the same way, sound much bigger than a single track, especially when you pan them left and right in the mix.

In recent years it’s become a “thing” to mic a guitar cab with both a Royer R-121 ribbon mic and a Shure SM57, so much so that they make a mic clip that will hold both of these mics in the correct (coincident) position.

I’ve used that setup before and gotten good results, but this time I wanted to try something a little different. So I swapped out the $89 SM57 for a $2500 Peluso 22 47 LE large-diaphram tube condensor, a modern-day “clone” of the Neumann U47 tube mic. I ran both mics through Vintech X-73i preamps, which are modern-day “clones” of the Neve 1073 preamp. These “clones”, while not always exactly identical to the original units, have the advantage of new components and parts and work pretty much everytime you use them, something you can’t always say about the authentic vintage ones.

I also took the guitar signal direct, going into a Radial J48 d.i. and then through a Grace M101, keeping the signal as pure and unaffected as possible, so each guitar take had three separate tracks; two mics and one direct p/u.

Sounds like a lot of effort for a rhythm guitar, but we were rewarded with a great sound, due in large part to the guitar rig, but also to the mics and pres that were picking it all up.

Greg mentioned that he’s since added another cabinet to his guitar sound, so if we do the same style of micing, next time we’ll be doing five tracks for each part. Electric guitar fun!

10/22/2025

Tyson Vick was in last month doing the second block of vocal sessions for his movie musical, “Robin Hood: The Golden Arrow” You can see my FB post on July 22nd about the first sessions, which took place in June.

This one was seven days as opposed to the first being three days. We got a lot done but still have plenty left to record.

Cheryl Sheedy, Maddisen Sheedy, Coco Douma, Dalton Weaver, Clayton Oberquell, and Kieran Beebe all returned to sing, and we did have some new singers, too. Victoria Perl, who is singing the role of Maid Marion, flew in from Ohio to record her parts, and Andre Roy came from LA, I think.

We also had a new musical director as Lizzie Webb couldn’t make it due to scheduling conflicts. Halle Martin came from LA and filled that position, and just like Lizzie, she did a great job, as well as being super to work with.

Pictured are Victoria Perl (what a voice!), Halle Martin, Tyson Vick, and Andre Roy.

Like the first sessions, there were no prima donnas, just hard-working singers who didn’t complain and were fun to be around.

I set up the studio the same way as I did for the June sessions; Halle, the musical director, in the isolation room with a keyboard, and four vocal “booths” constructed of movable acoustic panels in the studio facing the iso room, so the singers and Halle all had eye contact.

It was a lot of work over a whole week, but the camaraderie and lack of drama made it a great experience.

10/14/2025

I’ll be finishing up my work on Sarah Kirk’s new release, “This Blest Assurance” soon. This is the follow-up to her 2021 album, “Still Our Refuge”, and consists of eleven tracks of familiar and not-so-familiar solo piano pieces.

Sarah recorded these tunes on Peak’s Yamaha C-6 grand piano over the last two months, recording two or three at a time, but on her last session she was motivated to finish up the recording and wound up doing the remaining four tracks, completing that phase of the project.

Sarah plans on doing a limited run of CDs, but most people will probably find her music on the various streaming platforms, notably Spotify and Pandora.

If you’re interested in a limited edition CD copy of Sarah’s first album, “Still Our Refuge”, or her soon-to-be-released new disc, “This Blest Assurance”, you can reach her at: [email protected].

09/17/2025

I had a really fun project in the studio several weeks ago; the Bob Nell / Mike Bisio Trios. It’s “Trios” and not “Trio” because it was actually two different combos, one with Bob on piano, Mike on bass, and Adam Greenberg on drums, and the other with Austin Belluscio on drums.

We recorded for two days, the first day with Austin on drums, and the second day with Adam manning the kit. We recorded the same 14 songs each day, with the idea being that the best takes of each song, whoever was playing drums, would make the final cut.

Fourteen songs in one day seems like a lot, and it is for most genres of music, but for jazz, with players of this calibre, it’s par for the course.

The songs were all Bob’s compositions, I think, and it was pretty special having a private concert in the studio that I “just happened” to record.

Bob’s a local (Bozeman) guy and a monster pianist and composer, Mike is an acclaimed bassist from NYC, and Adam is familiar to many around the area for his drumming. Austin was “the kid” on the sessions, being the youngest, but I’m sure Bozeman audiences will be hearing more from him in the future.

The drums were located in the isolation room, and the piano and bass were both recorded in the main room. I used five of my movable acoustic panels (used in this fashion, they’re often called “gobos”) to create a wall between the piano and the bass. The idea was to increase the amount of isolation between the two instruments. This generally helps if any editing is required, and also aids in getting better sounds. Oftentimes (but not always) the “spill” or “bleed” from one instrument into another instrument’s mic(s) can degrade the sound quality. In this case, the isolation exceeded my expectations: we had virtually no bass showing up in the piano mics, and very little piano in the bass mic. It didn’t hurt that the piano, on full stick, was covered with blankets, either.

The panels used for the wall were all 6' high and 2' wide, with the exception of one panel, which was 4' high. This one was placed to allow Bob and Mike to have eye contact, and the wall was oriented to allow both both of them to see Adam or Austin in the iso room.

Everything was done live in the studio, no overdubs. And while some editing is a possibility, it’ll be minimal at most.

Mic’ing was pretty standard; the drums were a small jazz kit (2 toms) and each drum and the hi-hat was mic’d, with a stereo overhead rig to capture the cymbals. The piano had three mics arranged in a line recording the low, mid, and high strings, and the bass had my U47 clone, a Peluso 2247LE, providing the majority of it’s signal, with a just little bass pick-up added in for flavor.

I have no doubt mixing will be pretty straight-forward too, as this type of music isn’t “created” in the studio as much as it’s “captured”.

Ginny Barry took most of the photos (the good ones) shown here; I took the two shots through the window; one is my point of view in the control room, and the other is the one that shows the full length of the wall in the studio (Mike and Bob are in there, too).

I have no idea when this project will be done and available to listeners, but I do know that there’s a lot of great music here!

08/30/2025

Richard Schiff was at Peak Recording recently reading a Philip Roth book, “The Plot Against America” (published 2015) for a BBC radio program, Book At Bedtime. The book is an alternate history novel exploring what it would have been like if Charles Lindbergh had won the 1940 presidential election, and told from the point of view of a young Philip Roth.

The book we recorded was abridged and maybe half the length of the full novel, and so took only two days to record. It's in ten parts and will air over two weeks. Fay, the BBC producer/director, was linked with us via Zoom, and due to the 7-hour time difference, when we were finishing up each day at about 4pm, it was 11pm in The UK.

You might recognize Richard as he had a pretty big role on the NBC show, “The West Wing” and even won an Emmy for it. I’ve never seen that program but I’ve seen him in many other TV programs and movies.

Anyway, he did a nice job and we finished in 11 hours, which is less than Fay had estimated.

I recorded Richard with a Neumann U87 going into a Vintech X73i preamp, my favorite voice recording setup. I didn’t use any compression and as I recorded at 48K/16-bit, it was a bit tricky when he was ACTING (getting louder), but we got through it and it all worked out. I think it’s scheduled to air sometime in September on BBC Radio 4, just in case you want to hear it!

08/24/2025

Marley Ball was in last week recording two cello pieces, covers of “Autumn Leaves” and “You Are My Sunshine”.

It’s always fun having Marley in as she’s such a positive person and nice to be around.

We not only recorded, we edited, mixed, and mastered the two tunes so they’re all done and might even be online as you read this.

I mic’d Marley’s cello with a Peluso 2247LE (a modern U47 clone), which is a large-diaphragm tube condenser, and an EV RE20, a large-diaphragm dynamic. The plan was to use whichever one sounded best, but when I had them both up with the polarity switched on one, we agreed that was the way to go. They each went through Vintech X73i preamps.

08/11/2025

Rich Hall was in a few weeks ago doing ADR for a new film, a re-make of "The Running Man." I think Rich is known more for comedy than acting, but he's pretty good in the small role he has in this film.

If you don't know, ADR (automatic dialog replacement) is where we record, after the fact, lines for a film or TV show, that for some reason weren't usable. It could be an interfering noise, or maybe just not clear.

We were linked up (via Zoom) with the director in London, and as Rich only had about five lines to do, he was done pretty quickly.

07/22/2025

Last month I had Tyson Vick in along with a bunch of singers recording vocals for the film he’s been working on for several years, a musical called, “Robin Hood: The Golden Arrow”. He told me it’s derived from an opera of the same name.

Tyson, who’s a graduate of the New York Film Academy, is directing and producing the film, and he’s been working on this project for two years.

We’re recording the vocals to really nice orchestral tracks done by Supreme Tracks, a production company in New York City.

Lizzie Webb, Tyson’s musical director, is a long-time friend of Tyson’s (they met in 2nd or 3rd grade in Cut Bank) and she’s been working in the theater and music worlds for years. While I was doing the actual recording, Lizzie was “driving the bus”, that is, she was organizing the singers, making sure they were singing the correct parts, etc. She was a dream to work with, genuinely nice, and very competent. She did a fantastic job!

I set up the studio to record four singers at a time. I created four “iso booths” using sound baffles. Although each “wall” between the singers was only four feet wide and six feet tall, it was amazing how much acoustic separation they made. Tyson will be sending the vocals back to Supreme Tracks for mixing, and I’m sure they’ll appreciate the control they have in the mix due to the separation.

I set the “booths” up so they faced into the isolation room so the singers could easily see Lizzie, who was set up with her keyboard in the iso room. She used the keyboard for rehearsing the singers, working out parts, checking notes, etc. The keyboard won't be a part of the final mixes.

I mic’d the singers with two Audio-Technica AT4050s, a Neumann TLM 103 and a Mojave Audio MA-301fet, all large-diaphragm condensers, and they each ran through Vintech X73i preamps with no compression. The mics are all good vocal mics and the preamps are modern-day Neve 1073 clones, but as usual, the main factor in getting quality vocals is to hire quality singers.

We had some songs with just a singer or two, and others where we recorded four singers, and then tracked four more for eight total. Some songs will have even more voices once we get them all recorded, and with the quality of the singers Tyson hired, they sound fantastic. A standout was Maddisen Sheedy, who is only 15 years old, but wowed us all with her performances.

You can get a little more information about Tyson and the film at robinhoodwebmusical.com.

We’ve got at least one more multi-day session coming up in September, and I’m looking forward to hearing more great music then.

Peak Recording

12/16/2025

11/09/2025

10/22/2025

10/14/2025

09/17/2025

08/30/2025

08/24/2025

08/11/2025

07/22/2025

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category