Valvetastic Studio

Single No 2 is out from Dare Club

Your Least Favourite Wonder of the World

I've been working with a talented Westcountry band recently called Dare Club, -tracking, producing and mixing their debut album which is a beautifully bittersweet and melancholy love letter to the angst of adolescence set in an end of the line seaside holiday town. The first single Seagullz is out now. Please give it a watch and listen and a thumbs up if you enjoy it.

DARE CLUB - Seagullz (Official Video) "Seagullz" Released 24th May, taken from the debut album “Roadworks On Memory Lane” coming soon. Follow:TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/.clubInstagram:...

Facebook Marketplace bargain here being tracked onto forthcoming material this morning. This lovely old lady was born in 1960 and is generating beautiful reed textured tones like she's brand new. I have been adding tremolo and phaser to 3 octave single note motifs and creating what can only be described as 'organic Moog synth pulses. Brilliant fun.

This lovely family today.

Oliver nailing down the drum tracking today, he brought a lovely Gretsch hammered steel snare with him along with some gorgeous dark byzance cymbals and a set of exceptionally tasty Shoeps overheads, Valvetastic is always excited to mix and match any gear that artists may want to incorporate into their recordings.

some guests in for portraits today

Blasting From the past with this FiFiFiddleydee today.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes...UA 2-1176, UA-LA610MK2, UA 2-610, Phoenix Audio DRSQ4, Neve 1073DPD, UA Apollo X8P, 2x Avalon VT373, Focusrite ISA8, UA-LA610MK2...note new Apollo unit not 'screwed' into the rack incurring damaged rack ears, cable tied instead on it's own special shelf for easy access extraction for mobile jobs.

The old king is dead long live the new king...farewell Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 you served me well (and still will on mobile jobs where I need 8 channels and as a back up.) The new thin king (UA Apollo 8XP working great except not allowing me to transfer the plugin licences from my UA satellite firewire onto the new Apollo's DSP, but will let the UAD Satellite unit pass through into logic AS LONG AS I AM USING CATALINA NOT VENTURA of course. Apple love hate relationship 90% hate at present. Currently the big computer is off having a partitioned second Operating system of Catalina installed purely for mixing and mastering where I need all my available DSP from the UAD satellite and the new Apollo simultaneously. Love hate with Universal Audio 90% hate also due to their abysmal customer service. First world problems third world work arounds.

I am lucky enough to know and work with several extraordinarily brilliant Luthiers, today I took the Valvetastic Martin HD35 to the meticulously talented craftsman that is Jeremy from Garland Guitars for a pickup fitting. His work is second to none and I highly recommend that you look him up if you ever need guitar work doing. The man is a genius.Here he is with two beautiful old ladies that he has restored beautifully for one of his customers.

I really really hate digital obsolescence, in particular brands -hang your head in shame Apple, abandoning backward compatibility so when Apple decided to stop supporting firewire (even adapted) it meant that in order to keep using my beloved firewire connecting Focusrite liquid Saffire 56 interface and also my firewire connecting UA satellite plugin accelerator I have had to keep my Macs using the now 3x outdated operating system Catalina 10.15.7 I have plodded on , even installing two operating systems on my MacBook Pro (Catalina for audio by necessity) and a separate up to date OS for all the editing stuff I need for photography and film making-anyway enough is enough, it's time for a massive shift. Say hello to the new core of Valvetastic alongside my ISA 828 comes the UA Apollo 8XP, together 16 channels of full fat tracking in a very neat 1U box, looking forward to getting started, Apple I will never forgive you.

Today's tracking was mostly a gorgeously growly short scale through the fave Valvetastic bass chain. The then the V4-B 100 Watt All Valve Classic head and matching 4x10 then simultaneously into the .berlin and the as well as a line feed through one of the .Blend together to taste for tone that can punch through walls yet sits in a mix like a V-twin in a Harley.

Recorded in 2015 at Valvetastic

Ellie Williams & Dave Ankers 'See The World'

Jamil Sakhawat wearing out the Valvetastic heads this weekend.

JAMIL

A real pleasure to help Caledon record this latest great single.

Find/Keep out now!

Delighted to announce the release of my second single! All links in the bio.

It will become clear from the lyrics that this is an older song of mine, but one that I was keen to record. It was great fun putting it together with Jolyon Valvetastic Studio , Lucy (Southern Fried Groove Queens) and Hannah Vocal Arts so big thanks to you all!

Let me know what you think!

The Andy Grant Band and and I spent a weekend in the middle of nowhere and recorded some new material. I used Logic Pro and de-camped my collection of choice class a pre-amps and Mics all the way to Dorset in my poor old Peugeot for the Audio, and six 4k Lumix cameras with assorted lenses for the video.

Higher Than The Clouds In March of 2023 we decamped to North End Farm for a noisy recording session in the Dorset countryside. We invited film maker Jolyon Holroyd along to film th...

A great week of tracking with Alex.

Hand In Hand out now!

It's taken a while to get here, but my music is out in the world!

Last summer, with our daughter's arrival foremost in my mind, I decided that I wanted to get some songs recorded. Today you can hear the first of those songs.

There's a few people I want to thank for getting me here. Hannah Wood at Vocal Arts was the first person to hear my demos, and she was incredibly encouraging. Without her support and encouragement I doubt these recordings would now exist.

The next load of heartfelt gratitude goes to Jolyon at Valvetastic Studio, who guided me through the recording process effortlessly and made me feel completely at ease, despite being a complete novice. I was so glad for the chance to work together.

A final shout out to Lucy Piper for the drumming expertise she brought to this, it was a joy to work together. Check out her band! Southern Fried Groove Queens

Find it at your preferred link below
https://linktr.ee/caledonmusic

Stephen Stills, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, John Mayer, Pete Townshend, Rory Gallagher, Bruce Springsteen, Townes Van Zandt and hundreds more stars of Music have favoured the iconic Martin D-35, the big bold and smooth three pieced Rosewood backed beauty with that sweet Martin sparkle. Valvetastic has come into possession of this extraordinary example of an HD35 (the even bigger sounding version) which will be available to use at Valvetastic for all future recording artists (as long as their playing style is sufficiently non aggressive :) The Valvetastic collection covers just about all styles, so if you forget to bring your guitar, we have you covered.

Home from Home, Valvetastic is capable of upping sticks and recording Class A pre-amp material in other locations. It does however take a toll on 1. My Peugeot's suspension. And 2. My lower lumbar region. Worth it for artists like the Andy Grant Band though.

Little magical boxes, cleaned, re-wired, added, re-powered, repaired, re-arranged re-soldered, re-jack socketed, re-switched, and finally gazed upon with love....ahhhhh the cathartic process of sorting out Valvetastic Studio's Studio board and mastering room array pedals. Studio Board CIOKS DC-7 Power Unit-Korg Pitch-black, Cali 76 (full size) Fredric Effects Golden Eagle, Fulltone Catalyst, Vertex UltraPhonix, Electro Harmonix Attack Decay, Carl Martin Tremo-vibe Strymon El-capistan Strymon Deco...Mastering Suite Array -Decibel 11 Hotstone SME Power Unit, Boss TU-2, Strymon Sunset, Cali 76 compact deluxe, Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, TC Electronic Hall Of Fame

The Valvetastic Studio mastering Suite has just enjoyed a very classy upgrade to the 'Last minute additional guitar parts' Amplifier with this beautiful 1983 hand wired twin Channel ...As you can see Rabbit is enamoured by it's wonderful shimmering perfection.

All back to normal, tower of power re-wired and installed in the mothership and the live room's all set in Singer songwriter formation ready for next weekend.

prepping for a big project on next weekend, me, the band and three days in a Dorset farmhouse with sixteen and choice mics, seven and about a trillion cables of various types. !!

Huge Thanks to the legendary, and, extraordinarily kind Johnny Kalsi for letting us know his thoughts on the new album...you can hear/get it on the link below thestandingwaves1.bandcamp.com/album/narrow-ocean

Ellorie smashing it out of the park today! What a voice. Making it look ever so easy! Ellorie opted for a and the combination bringing complimentary silver plated velvet flavours to her exceptional tones.