Claire Heywood - "Python"

Claire Heywood is a singer/songwriter and indie artist from Denver, CO. We tracked this song at Avalanche Recording Studio as a full band.

This is one of my favorite recordings and mixes to date. I was particularly excited about the drum kit, a 1950’s https://www.ludwig-drums.com gold sparkle. Those thuds toms were perfect for the track. Also, mixed this one down to 1/2” tape.

PHIE - “Rat Wheel”

I loved this song immediately when PHIE brought it to me. Most of the music came together in about 3 hours. I was inspired by a Gotye song called “Heart’s a Mess”, I loved the acoustic as a kind of percussion sound. I tried several cajones before finding one I liked. I relied on Splice a lot for samples. Phie came into Flying Pig Studios for vocals and to lay down keyboard parts. We used the Rode NTK this time. I have always thought this was a really smooth tube mic for how inexpensive it is. One of my oldest mics and I still use it. For compression it was the Universal Audio LA-2A on the Apollo.