The Tracking House KC

09/07/2026

🎙️ MIC MONDAY: Beyerdynamic M260

When you think ribbon mic, something shaped suspiciously like an SM58 probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

Most people know Beyer’s legendary M160 — but the M260 is its lesser-known sibling.

Where the dual-ribbon M160 has that punch and focus we love on drums, the single-ribbon M260 leans a little smoother and more relaxed. Around here, it’s become a favorite on acoustic guitar — woody, detailed and forgiving without losing the personality of the instrument. Our buddy Brad loved it to soften up hats.

Later M260.80 versions, like this one, incorporated a low-frequency roll-off, helping control proximity effect and making the mic a little leaner down low than earlier M260s.

Same wonderfully weird Beyer idea:

Two older ribbon mic designs that don't particularly look like "classic" ribbon mics.

09/06/2026

🎹 IF 1978 MET 1983 IN 2026.

Jack dropped off a Yamaha DX7 — 1983 in all its glassy, digital glory.

A synth that helped write the vocabulary of the ’80s.

We figured it should meet the Chase Bliss Big Time — with one foot reaching back toward 1978 and the other planted firmly in 2026.

Old new synth. New old delay.

Turns out 1978 and 1983 have plenty to talk about in 2026.

Welcome to the wall, DX7.

Less polish. More record.

#1978 #1983

09/05/2026

🎧 All-Time Starting Five: Patrick

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

And if an artist cancels a session at Ocean Way Nashville…

does the session still happen?

The call came just before ten. Artist sick. Session canceled.

Studio A—the old church sanctuary—was supposed to be empty.

Then the Leslie started turning.

Cory Henry was sitting at the B3.

A kick drum sounded across the room.

Steve Jordan climbed out from behind the kit.

There was movement behind the Ampeg.

Sonny T walked out carrying a bass.

Four guitar notes came from somewhere near the iso booths.

Tom Bukovac was sitting on a road case.

He may have been there all morning.

Then a booth door opened.

Joey Landreth stepped out with a slide on his finger.

By noon, tape was rolling.

By three, they had a record.

They called it After the Benediction.

Deep and unhurried. Gospel harmony hanging in the rafters. Jordan and Sonny underneath it all. Bukovac around the edges. Landreth drifting through the middle. Cory's B3 holding it together.

Nobody remembered writing any songs.

Old studios collect things. Dust. Broken cables. Half-finished songs. A little bit of everyone who's ever played there.

Maybe if you leave the room empty long enough, some of it starts playing back.

🥁 Steve Jordan — Drums
🎸 Sonny T — Bass
🎹 Cory Henry — B3
🎸 Tom Bukovac — Guitar
🛝 Joey Landreth — Slide Guitar

The band? Patrick’s All-Time Starting Five.

09/04/2026

🥊 1v1 // EPISODE THREE IS LIVE 🥊

Is the Strymon Flint still the King of Tremolo?

Or can the JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk fight its way to the throne?

🔴 John — Harmonious Monk
🔵 Martin — Strymon Flint

Three rounds. Two players. One pedal to rule them all.

Watch the full episode now on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaNiFtb_2E

Then come back and tell us who won:

🥊 FLINT or MONK?

09/03/2026

💥 PEDAL CHAIN: Overkill 💥

No budget. No restraint. Just build the ridiculous board.

Addison pulled together a chain where every slot is doing a little too much.

🎛️ COMP: Origin Effects Cali76
🔥 GAIN: Analog Man King of Tone
🌊 MOD: Effectrode Wobbulator
⏱️ DELAY: Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man
🌌 VERB: Chase Bliss CXM 1978

Studio-grade compression. Legendary dual overdrive. Tube-driven modulation. Bucket-brigade delay. Motorized, Lexicon-inspired reverb.

Five pedals. Absolutely no weak links.

If you were building your own Overkill chain, what five pedals are making the board?

Drop your picks in the comments.

09/02/2026

⚡ NEW SERIES: BOARD BLITZ ⚡

55 seconds. 5 pedals. Build your board.

First up: Ben — Bar Band Bassist.

His board:
JHS Colour Box
Strymon Deco
Effectrode LA-1A
Boss OC-3
EHX Small Stone

Did Ben nail it—or what are you swapping out?

BOARD BLITZ — EP. 1

09/01/2026

🛠️ WORKBENCH WALKTHROUGH: Splendor Gets a Neck 🛠️

The Splendor Offset is back on the bench.

This time, we’re tackling one of the biggest pieces of the build: the neck.

We found an old Ibanez Roadstar neck that looked like a promising donor, so today we’re finding out how well it actually fits — and what it’s going to take to make it part of the Splendor permanently.

This guitar has been a little bit Jaguar, a little bit Japanese oddball, and a lot of figuring-it-out-as-we-go.

The end goal is still the same: take an interesting old offset and turn it into something genuinely useful in the studio without sanding away everything that made it weird in the first place.

One more piece of the puzzle.

Would you have kept hunting for an original neck, or gone donor like we did?

08/31/2026

🎙️🎙️ MIC MONDAY: Shure 576 🎙️

I love finding microphones I've never seen before, and these definitely qualified.

I picked up this pair of Shure 576s from a defunct radio station in Jefferson City, Missouri. Introduced around 1963–64, the 576 is a fairly rare, pencil-thin omnidirectional dynamic designed for television, radio, and professional recording.

Despite being more than 60 years old, Shure spec'd these little dynamics at an impressive 40 Hz–20 kHz.

They're an obscure piece of early Shure pro-audio history—and having a pair makes them considerably more useful around the studio.

What would you put them in front of?

StudioGear RecordingStudio TheTrackingHouse

08/29/2026

08/29/2026

🎧 All-Time Starting Five: Ben

Keith Jarrett was scheduled for two nights at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.

There was one problem.

When Jarrett arrived, the house piano was in no condition to perform. Repairs and scheduling conflicts pushed the concerts back two days.

Suddenly Jarrett had 48 hours in Rio and a rhythm section with nothing to do.

So he booked time at Estúdio Transamérica and brought Jack DeJohnette along.

Jaco Pastorius was already there.

Nobody seems to know why.

According to the assistant engineer, Pastorius was discovered in the bass amp room with his fretless, an open bottle of cachaça, and several suspicious white lines arranged across a gold record of Getz/Gilberto.

Jarrett asked if he wanted to play.

Jaco replied, “I thought that’s why I was here.”

Nobody corrected him.

The plan was simply to rehearse.

Then Milton Nascimento stopped by.

Milton played them a handful of songs he’d been working on. Somewhere during the second one, Jarrett stopped treating the afternoon like a rehearsal and told the engineer to start rolling tape.

By midnight, they were making a record.

Milton returned the next day with a young guitarist he insisted Jarrett needed to hear: Pedro Martins.

Pedro plugged in.

The theater eventually called to say the piano was ready.

Nobody answered.

By the time the concerts finally happened, the five had recorded nearly an album’s worth of Milton’s songs—Brazilian songwriting stretched through Jarrett and DeJohnette’s improvisation, Pedro’s guitar, and Jaco doing absolutely nothing anyone had asked him to do.

The tapes were eventually shelved after Jarrett reportedly objected to the project being described as “fusion.”

🥁 Jack DeJohnette — Drums
🎸 Jaco Pastorius — Bass
🎹 Keith Jarrett — Piano
🎸 Pedro Martins — Guitar
🎤 Milton Nascimento — Vocals

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“One of the unforgettable records of Brazilian music, largely forgotten, made by five people who were never really in a band.”
— House Review, 2026

The band? Ben’s All-Time Starting Five.