News

By Janice Brown

New York, NY (September 30, 2005)--Independent record label Or Music recently completed its new production room within Avatar Studios, and will be making its debut during the AES Convention next week. Or Music Studio has been in the works since March, and features a Pro Tools HD Accel system with Benchmark and Lavry Gold converters, along with a collection of vintage tube mic pres and EQs, Dunlavy speakers, and vintage guitar and bass amps, and synths. Visitors on the AES Tech Tour to Avatar, on Friday, October 7 at 9:00AM, will have the opportunity to check out all of the facility's studios, including Or Music.

The production space incorporates a control room and small floated live room, and will be used primarily for Or's own artists, such as Los Lonely Boys and Matisyahu, but will also be available for outside bookings.

"We are very excited to have a home at Avatar, with whom I personally have had a close working relationship for the last 15 years," said Angelo Montrone, Or Music's director of A&R. "We welcome all to come and see the room which features a host of some of the highest end vintage and new gear available."

Designed and built by Frank Comentale, Or Music Studio has been set up primarily to serve the ongoing production needs--recording, mixing, and in certain circumstances mastering--of Or artists, including Los Lonely Boys, Matisyahu, Pure Reason Revolution, Adam Richman, Pitty Sing, and more.

"Our intention is to use Avatar's large rooms for basic tracking, as
I have been doing for years," added Montrone, "and then be able to do overdubs, editing, mixing and mastering in our room. I am a believer that well recorded audio can involve the listener more emotionally. It has been my quest for many years to capture audio at the highest possible fidelity, and the room and it's gear reflect that philosophy. We have some of the highest quality gear--new and vintage--available."

Or's Gear includes vintage tube mic pres by RCA, Altec, Langevin, Mastering Lab and Neve; EQs by Pultec, Manley and Lang; compressors including vintage blackface 1176s, dbx 160s, RCA BA6, Thermionic Culture Phoenix, Drawmer 1968, Summit TLA-100s, Chandler Limited TG-1, Empirical Labs Fatso Jr's and Manley VariMu. The studio also features a vintage Ampex 351 1/2" tube 2 track tape machine modified by Steve Haselton. Monitoring is done on the "7' tall 350 lbs" Dunlavy SC-Vs.

Montrone continued, "For instruments we have 14 vintage tube guitar and bass amps by Fender, Ampeg, Marshall, Silvertone etc. My own small collection of vintage guitars including Fender Strats and Tele's from the 50's and 60's as well as a 40's Martin Acoustic, is available to our artists. For vintage keyboards we have a Memorymoog, Prophet 5, Oberheim Matrix 1000, mini moog and Roland MKS-70. We also have a host of modern keyboards including Roland Fantom, JD-990, D-550, Yamaha Motif, TX816, as well as soft synths such as Reason, Sonik Synth and Kontakt."

Finally, Montrone described, "Even our electrical system has been painstakingly scrutinized. We are using a massive Equitech 50amp toriodal Q transformer, supplying balanced power through some of the highest quality power cables available, JPS 30amp in wall wire. Through listening tests, I have found that delivering clean power through larger than normal cables enhances the sound of the gear."

As a producer, keyboard programmer, arranger and songwriter, Montrone's been cutting tracks at Avatar (and Power Station before that) since 1991, working on albums for Anita Baker, Natalie Cole, Joe Sample, Jennifer Love Hewitt and more. At Or Music, he is directing A&R and serving as a staff producer. Find out more about Or Music by visiting their web site, or paying a visit during the AES Tech Tour.

Or Music
www.ormusic.com