Phil O'Keefe

:mad: White gloves, yes - I admit to having worn those before. But they were not long. The gown however, is another matter all together. It was long... oh waitaminute...

Thanks. I did the MP3 conversions, but other than that, I didn't do anything beyond what Bill did. And to be honest, I was pretty happy to hear Bill make a few comments such as "well, I had to do some EQ on this one - a cut at 5k..." And when I asked him how much, he said "about a quarter dB". And on another track, it was "well, I'm sitting here twirling knobs, but it's not sounding any better - it sounds great the way it is". It's always nice when you hear the mastering engineer say stuff like that. The MP3 converter I use is pretty darned cool - dBPowerAmp Music Converter. It uses the LAME (or if you wish, Blade) MP3 encoder, and while I am still not the world's biggest MP3 fan, the LAME encoding seems to have less of the objectionable side effects to my ears. I always do MP3's at at least 192 - anything less and it is just too annoying to me. The other cool thing is that it's free. Download located here.

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. I'll be sure to pass them along to the band. I noticed there's a few questions, and I'd like to answer them all, but OTOH, in the studio, I'm like a confessor - and I will not break the sanctity of that without getting permission first. So I'll ask the guys how much they feel comfortable with me sharing about their performances in the studio, and if they're okay with me answering some of the more personal questions, I will. I will say this much though - these young men can actually write, play and sing. Did I use modern studio tools and techniques in an effort to present them in the best possible manner? You bet! That's part of my job. And if I'm going to present them to an A&R rep, which I would like to do, then they're going to expect that. So yes, I used the toolbox, in what I hope was a musical and unobtrusive way. But it's not a "manufactured" production - far from it. I'll say no more without permission. Signal path and so forth is my baby really, so I can comment comfortably there. Tyler's lead vocals were the ELUX 251, with a Stedman pop filter... pretty close range, but that varied. That went into a Vintech Dual72, followed by a Aphex 106 - just tickling the comp at a couple / few dB of GR max. What I did with it in PT, and then on the way back out will have to wait until I check on a few things in the studio to confirm them. I'll post more about the guitar and bass parts a little later when I have a bit more time.... Thanks again for giving it a listen everyone, and for the comments!

Originally posted by gsHarmony The vocals are damn good. If that is a Soundelux 251, then I just bought one. Time to break out the plastic... they're world-class mics. How do you get the scratchy record effect in "fall on me"? You like that? Cool! You can get the plug-in that I used for that, for FREE, right here.

Here's three new songs from a new band I'm producing. Three very nice young guys (all 19 -20) who were easy to work with and just good humans. I had about 3 days in the studio with them, then spent a few more days on the edits and mixes and mastering - mastering done by Bill Dooley at Paramount. http://www.philokeefe.com/20060428/ts_for_intention.mp3 http://www.philokeefe.com/20060428/emily.mp3 http://www.philokeefe.com/20060428/fall_on_me.mp3 I thought some of you might be slightly interested in checking out some of what I've been working on lately. Many of the guitar tracks are my Epi Casino through my new pedalboard into a Fender HR Devile, and we used a lot of Memory Lane delay, as well as a fair amount of Demeter Compulator and Lovetone Brown Source on them, as well as some other stuff. Piano is a Motif 8, and the additional keys on Emily (played by me) are an Oxygen 8 II with the new Digidesign Xpand softsynth. If you have any q's on what I used on anything else, feel free to ask. Full album is scheduled for early this upcoming winter. One Year Yesterday's MySpace page can be found here. Hope you enjoy them.

Well, I'll let you folks in on a couple of secrets. A few years ago, I told my wife I wanted a Lava Lamp for Christmas. Every studio MUST have one - it's the law or something. Anyway, she goes down to Spencer's, and instead of your standard Lava brand motion lamp, she gets me some sort of off brand clone. Except it doesn't look like the standard Lava lamps... it's a big rocket shp. Except everyone, and I do mean nearly everyone, upon first seeing it, tells me it looks like a giant phallic symbol. And you know, it really DID! So eventually, I go to Radio Shack for something or another and I get two of the little mini Lava Lamps... but I've still got this giant phallus sitting there. And I can't get rid of it, because after all, it was a gift from the wife... so anyway, that's the lamp that hit the deck. And no, I did NOT mean for that to happen... at least that's the story I'm sticking with. OTOH, if one of them had to break, I'm glad it was that one.

Originally posted by toddlans so then i guess now you should be getting a giant disco ball. definitely.....giant and shiny. satisfied customer's friend: "Your album sounds great man" satisfied customer "Yeah I know, Phil O'Keefe is the {censored}, but when I went for the mixing session he had this giant disco ball and wouldn't turn off the strobe light. I couldn't tell what the hell he was doing or why he was dancing, but it worked." ROTFL! Great suggestions guys - thanks a bunch.

It was sounding great until I got to #5 Dak.

I figured it was some sort of a wax or glycol / glycerine compound / mixture. Shouldn't be too hard to clean up. I hope.

Okay, so who's broken a Lava lamp? And more importantly, any suggestions for getting the stuff out of carpeting?

Originally posted by offramp Good for you on the 10-minute response time. You are, indeed an extreme minority. Run with it, Forrest. Run. I've played hell trying to get though to MOTU a time or three myself. In fairness, I have to say it's been a couple of years since I've called them, so maybe things have changed for the better. The new box looks pretty cool. If it sounds good, that's a lot of bang for the bucks. I've never been that impressed with MOTU's preamps in the past, and their older converters didn't knock me out either... but the newer stuff is definitely better, and the jury is, of course, still out on the sound of the new unit until everyone gets a chance to hear it. But that IS a lot of I/O and features for a portable, bus powered box. I imagine they'll sell a lot of them to mobie recording enthusiasts. I've had ongoing driver issues with my MOTU parallel port MicroExpress for a couple / few years now. Nothing serious enough to make me have to replace it - and I almost wish that is was bad enough for that, because I get annoyed having to manually "reset" my MIDI interface so that Windows "sees" it every second or third time I reboot. Outsde of that, it does work fine though, so I just have not felt justified dropping a couple / few hundred on another MIDI interface. That's the only MOTU unit I own, so I can't speak beyond that, but I have heard from some other folks that they've experienced driver issues with MOTU hardware on Win XP computers. And driver issues + can't get through easily on the phone can = a recipe for frustration. So I do hope that both those things have improved. I wonder if you can cascade multiple boxes with the new MOTU - has anyone heard anything about that? I didn't see that feature listed on the Sweetwater site.

I've never tried playing a 24 bit file on my iPod Nano 4GB... I've used it as a USB flash drive and transported 24 bit files with it, but that was strictly using it as a data drive and not as a player. Worked fine for that. For personal playback, I have mostly 192 kps MP3's, and some 16 bit files.

...sneakernet is a longstanding joke. It means to put something on disc and walk (in your sneakers/ tennis shoes/ sandals/ barefoot) to the other computer. Yup, that's exactly what I meant.

Or, if you'd rather not connect the DAW to the Internet at all, you can use a second computer to D/L any upgrades and then burn a disk and sneakernet that to the DAW machine for installation. I tend to do things that way. I virus check the disk twice - once at the Internet machine and then again at the DAW before installing anything. Most any copy of Win XP you're likely to find in the stores these days is SP2, which has most of the major updates you're likely to want / need. A lot of the times, the updates are just patching Internet-related security holes, and you really don't need those unless you're taking the machine online. IOW, unless it is an update that addresses a problem you're having, I normally would recommend just a standard SP2 installation. Of course, you can choose what to install, which I recommend. I pull MS Messenger off, as well as a few other things I don't need. The less that's there - beyond the stuff I have to have - the better I personally like it.

Originally posted by Warhead Pick a good pc and just start recording! They don't get old "that" quick. War In general, I agree with this. Unless you're running a studio with paying clients for a living and need all the power you can get your hands on, there's no need to go out and constantly worry about having the latest / greatest / fastest. Okay, so I do fall into that category, and I tend to rebuild my systems every 18-24 months. But I do it myself, and while I can understand why it make some people nervous, or some people don't want to be bothered with it, it's really not all THAT hard. There are tutorials online, and most people who can follow a few simple directions, go slowly and check their work, and who can handle a screwdriver can get through it. Software installation and conflict troubleshooting isn't always easy for the faint of heart or noob (or even seasoned vets at times ), and for them, a pre-configured system from a good DAW computer specialist company like ADK can be perfect Or in some cases, even off the shelf, mass market systems from companies like Dell can work. IMO, they're not always the best bang for the bucks choices, or horsepower kings, but they can work. I've had that "5 minute state of the art" system a few times over the last few years (I've been the DaveC score champ on the DUC more than once ), and it never stays on top of the heap for long. But my Athlon XP 2700 system from two generations / three - four years or so back was king of the hill at one time, and while it doesn't hold a candle to my current dualcore 4200, it can still work with PT LE just fine. Not as many plug ins, and not as many softsynths, but it can still do some pretty good recordings. And you can pick up a system like that these days for just a few hundred bucks. For most people, I don't recommend the very fastest stuff on the market. You pay a premium for that last bit of speed and power. However, a step or two down from the top is usually pretty affordable and offers much of the high end power - or at least more than enough power for most user's needs, and a level of capability that will last most people for at least a few years before needing to be upgraded. But you have to consider what your individual needs are and decide accordingly. Again, if you know the parts you want to specify, but don't want to do all the assembly yourself, many shops will do some or all of the assembly for you for a reasonable price. www.monarchcomputer.com has barebones systems, with the PS, CPU, RAM and mobo installed in the case for you - just install the drives and other goodies you want, install the software and you're ready to go. I think they only charge $45 or so for this level of basic assembly over the cost of the raw parts. Or have them (or any of several other companies) build you a complete system for a little more. Or go all out and have Scott at ADK build you a turnkey DAW system, or go buy a Dell and install the DAW software / hardware yourself and hope for the best... All of these things can work, and what's best really depends on the user, their confidence with building and troubleshooting, their budget and their performace needs. But in general, the more work you want someone else to do for you, and the more customized you want it, and the higher performance the parts you specify, the more you can expect to pay for the system. That's ecconomics 101. Where's Stephen when we need him? He's the ecconomist.

Mr. O'keefe I really don't know what is wrong with keeping this thread open now that I'm part of the thread and why wasn't closed before when I didn't have the chance to explain my side of the story and Mr. Anisman was "Joking" about me. Now that I'm finally explaining everything in a rational proper way and with actual proof of what is going on with Mr. Anisman. thanks for considering to not delete this thread and give a chance to finally clean my reputation. sincerely, Charles Rivera President Mastersonics Media Inc. Again, as I said, I've kept the thread open, and BOTH of you have indicated that you're okay with that decision. As far as me leaving it open before you arrived and started participating, I stand by that decision. It's an open forum, and if you disagreed with Todd's comments, you were welcome to register and respond - which is exactly what you did. So from my point of view, "no harm, no foul" - at least on my part. Fair is fair. And I believe I've tried to be fair to both of you. I indicated to Todd that it was okay to voice his concerns, but also that fairness requires that he let us know if everything worked out okay in the end. IMO, and this is JUST my opinion, there has been some serious miscommunication between the two of you. That's unfortunate. I also think the language issues might be contributing to that problem. First of all, Todd's "joke" comment. Here it is: The Joke here is FEDEX won't honor his claim, as it was shipped poorly. IMO Charles, it appears that you may have misunderstood that comment and taken it as a personal insult, or making light of your son's accident, which from the context, it was not intended as either one IMO. Yes, Todd appears to have initially been suspicious of the accident claim, but that was probably due to the lack of communications, or the other problems that he was experiencing with the deal. Remember, the original arrangement was for the controller to ship quickly, and while unforseen problems can arise, and apparently did in this case (I'm very sorry about your son's accident Charles, and I too wish for a speedy and complete recovery for him), when you're talking about $2,000 you've paid for something that hasn't shown up as agreed to, within the time frame agreed to, I can understand how someone might get nervous. And IMO, when there IS a delay or unforseen problem, it is the responsibility of the person with the problem to contact the other party and explain the situation and work things out. In other words, if you're the buyer and an emergency comes up that will delay your payment, you need to contact the seller and let them know. Likewise, if you're the seller and a problem comes up that will delay shipment, it is your responsibility to contact the buyer and let them know about the situation. I realize that something like this will be the last thing on your mind when you have a sick or hurt child on your hands, but OTOH, a quick phone call would take less than five minutes, and would have possibly gone a long way towards clearing things up. That's why I recommend ALWAYS getting contact info - including phone numbers - when dealing with online purchases. And again, the person with the unforseen problem that is delaying their upholding their end of the bargain is the person with the responsibility to initiate that contact IMO. Previous dealings with third parties (such as Charles' Avalon sale to someone else) are no guarantee of smooth transactions with other people - just evidence that the previous deals went well; which may bode well for the current and future dealings with that particular seller. That holds true of Ebay feedback too IMO. I appreciate that Charles provided Todd with that contact information, but beyond that, I don't see how that applies to this particular deal. We can get into the FEDEX stuff, but that's not that big of a deal to me, and irrelevant in the long run. Yes, FEDEX isn't supposed to deliver damaged packages, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen sometimes. I personally have gotten boxes delivered that had obvious external damage. Fortunately for me, they were so well "overpackaged" that the internal contents were fine... but had they been marginally packaged (and IMO, your packaging COULD have been better Charles - I don't know if that's the cause of the bent faders, but on the other hand, after looking at those photos, I wouldn't rule that out either), that could have been a different situation. And when shipping something of great value, you can never "under-pack" it IMO. Brittanylips had some good comments. But as far as this transaction goes, you're son has nothing to do with it. I agree. The only way your son's unfortunate accident has any relevance to this discussion is as an explaination for the delay in shippment. I think we all understand the priority is with your son and taking care of him. But again, a phone call or email explaining that is still your responsibility, and would have only taken a moment or two. And if things were so serious as to prevent you from doing that, then I would expect a bit of concern and unhappiness on the part of the buyer, and be willing to accept that - again, your child is the more important priority, and if you feel the need to attend to them, I can support that - but I personally would have been willing to take a little "heat" along with that decision. In practice, FedEx drivers deliver torn and damaged packages. I know that I've gotten them. But that's not the issue as far as Todd is concerned. He gave you money and did not receive the item as advertised. From his perspective, it doesn't really matter who damaged it. He has a right to reject it. If you buy a TV from Circuit City, and it arrives busted, you return it. Imagine if the sales guy at Circuit City justified a damaged TV with personal sob stories and passing the buck, and would not take it back. Are you OK with that? You just paid for a TV and it shows up busted, but, well, the salesman just had a personal problem, the shipping company was a little rough, I know you paid all that money but really, the gash on the plasma screen isn't really that bad.... Good faith buying and selling includes the right to return broken products without hassle. If you were acting in good faith, you would simply take back the thing, and return his money without fuss. So, why not do the right thing, now and forever? Sell stuff with the good faith understanding that if it a customer is not pleased, you allow them to return it quickly and easilly. No sob stories. No tears. No passing the buck. Just honest, gracious, good faith buying and selling. To me, that really sums everything up nicely. If I sell something to someone, and they're not satisfied with it, I'll give them their money back. Personally, my reputation is more important than enforcing a sale when the other party is not happy. That doesn't mean I condone rolling over and being abused, but I honestly don't see that as the case in this situation. The product isn't what the buyer was expecting to get, nor in the condition they expected to have it show up in in exchange for their money, and they were wary and concerned after things didn't go down as originally arranged. if I was the seller, I'd chalk it up to bad luck and unfortunate circumstances, and accept the return, and look into my insurance for compensation on the damage. If the investigation by Fedex determined that the damage was due to improper packaging on my part, I would chalk that up to a "expensive lesson learned". If they determined that the damage was done by the buyer, then that's something I might consider taking further action on, or at least trying to work out a fair and equitable solution between us. What I would NOT do under any circumstances is get ticked off at the buyer when the original delay was MY fault, and then resort to personal attacks and threats of violence. Once that happens, you can pretty much forget about ever getting a satisfactiory resolution to any disputes. My advice for what it's worth: Todd: Return the package, and stop payment. Charles, take the return, then file an insurance claim. Todd: Once Charles has taken the return, post (on every forum where you've described this situation) that it is resolved and that the seller accepted the return and that you're not out any money. Charles: Pack your stuff a little better next time, and on big bucks sales, REQUIRE a signature for delivery. Good luck to both of you - I hope it all works out okay for both of you, and Charles, I sincerely hope your son is doing better.

Well, both of you have PM'ed me and either asked to leave it open or said you'd be okay with it if I decided to leave the thread open... so for the moment, open it shall stay. All I ask is that you each think carefully about what you have typed before hitting the "submit" button, and that you keep it as civil as possible. I have not had time to read the whole thread - I'm dealing with a MIDI problem that is consuming all my time at the moment, but I shall read it - every word - later, and will respond if needed. Remember the forum motto - "Be excellent to each other". Thanks, Phil

Originally posted by EerieDreamZ Also, no matter WHAT the outcome is...please drop in and let us know what happened. Best of luck Mick + 1,000 If it turns out it really is a scam, we want to know about it... OTOH, if it's legit, and if the guy had a real problem and makes good on everything, fairness dictates that we should hear about that too. Good luck - I really do hope this all works out for you.

Wow, I'm sorry to hear about that. I hope it all works out okay.

Welcome bowman20! Nice to have you with us!

Originally posted by Matt Hepworth I've got some USA made Mackie HR824's that I, unfortunately, need to sell. I like 'em alot, but I like my Dynaudios more. $SOLD! I may only have a few posts here, but I'm sure Phil will vouch for me. Thanks! Who are you again? Yup, Matt's one of the "good guys".

Good to have you back with us Rhino! So, where did you go this summer? I hope you had a good time!

I like wide acoustics too.. especially when you have a really stripped down mix like that, with only a few elements. IMO, it was just a bit TOO wide though... but that's what comes down to personal preferences. I certainly had zero beefs with the overall guitar tone. Nice job.

hethaerto4, that was a nice recording. I've always liked that song. Cool guitar tone too... but IMO, it's a bit "wide" on the stereo. Maybe pull that stereo delay in a little tighter? IOW, I'd try a little shorter delay time to narrow it a wee bit. But the tones are good and the mix balance sounds really good. Nicely done!

Hi Bob - good to have you with us! I was just looking at your site and I saw the THD Univalve combo unit - I've got a Univalve, and a 1X12 combo for that would be sweet! I hope they eventually release that!