Here is the link to my Myspace page, with pics and tunes. http://www.myspace.com/dudgerecording

Recording gear-


Computer Stuff

Apple PowerMac 1.8 gHz G5 Dual with 4GB ram
250GB main drive
250GB music drive
Lacie 120GB firewire external Backup/transfer HD
UAD-1 card x 3
MOTU Digital Performer 5.13
Mackie Control Universal + 8 ch expander = 16 fader control surface
MOTU Fastlane USB MIDI interface for control surface

Monitoring Stuff

Dynaudio BM6A Monitors
Avantone Mix Cubes powered by Adcom GFA-535 stereo amp
Benchmark DAC-1 D/A converter
Ultrasone 650 headphones
Extreme Isolation headphones X 2
Apex HP90 headphones x 3
Mackie HM-54 headphone amp

Rack Stuff

Furman PL-8 Power conditioner
ART PB4x4 Pro Power conditioner
MOTU 828 MK3
2 X Apogee Rosetta 800
Urei LA-4 Silver-face with modded opamps
Drawmer 1968ME
Aphex Expressor 651
JBL/Urei 7110 with optional output transformer
4 channels Sebatron vmp4000e with NOS Mullard tubes
2 channels Sebatron Cygnus X-2
4 channels BAE 312a
2 channels A-Designs Pacifica
Kurzweil Rumour
A Designs ATTY2'D
A Designs ATTY
Roll Music Systems Folcrom analog summing buss
2 x Audio Technica AT8202 inline pads
Radial JDI


Mics

R-F-T AK-47
Peluso P12
Peluso 2247 short body
AEA R84
Beyerdynamic M160
ADK TL x 2
Peluso CEMC6 x 2 cardioid and omni caps
Groove Tubes GT-44 x 2
CAD M179 x 3
CAD e100
EV RE-15 x 2
Shure SM57 x 2
Sennheiser MD421 U5 x 2
Shure SM7B
Beyer M201
Sennheiser e604
EV N/D868
AKG D112
Peavy PVM520i


My instruments-

Drum Workshop white marine pearl-
8x12 tom
14 x 14 floor tom
14 x 22 kick

60's (Oaklawn Illinois) Camco green sparkle-
8 x 12 tom
14 x 14 floor tom
14 x 18 kick

Snare drums-
5 x 14 60's (Oaklawn Illinois) Camco wood snare white marine pearl
5 1/2 x 14 DW Solid Maple snare natural finish
4 x 14 DW brass snare with chrome finish

LP Aspire Congas, hand made Djimbe, shakers, etc.

Cymbals-
14" Zildjian Newbeat hats
14" A Zildjian & Cie Vintage hats
13" Zildjian K Custom Dark hats
20" Zildjian K Custom Session ride
20" A Zildjian & Cie Vintage ride
20" K Zildjian Pre-Aged Dry Light ride
20" K Zildjian Constantinople light ride
18" Zildjian A custom crash
16" Zildjian A custom crash
17" Zildjian K dark crash
16" A Zildjian & Cie Vintage crash
15" Sabian HH extra thin crash
12" Turkish splash
18" Wuhan china
18" Wuhan china with rivets

Drum heads-

All drums coated Ambassador batter heads, clear Ambassador on resonant heads.
Coated Ambassador on front of 18" bass drum, no hole.
22" bass drum gets Coated Ambassador or clear Powerstroke3 batter, with DW vented front head, or head with 5" offset hole.



I have been collecting gear and learning everything I can from online forums and the BAM audio course, and just doing as much preproduction recording, experimenting, and goofing around as I can. I have been doing this since about 2003. I have been playing drums since 1976.

Link to The J.P. LePage Band @ MySpace-

http://www.myspace.com/jplepage

We are doing Blues and Roots music, and have four tunes up.
They are changed up fairly often.
Most are works in progress.
Start with the MySpace and then try to make a record. Ya!

J.P LePage Band Blog

We are starting recording for The J.P. Lepage Band's second CD.

The first CD "My Best Regards" was done in 1997 in a small commercial studio in Winnipeg, MB. We had a good band, and some great additional players on that session. J.P Lepage on guitar and vocals, veteran piano player Harri Vallittu, of the consummate 70's Winnipeg blues group Houndog, bassist Jon Penner (Sue Foley, Junior Brown) and myself Gil Dudgeon (Country Hearts), on drums, formed the nucleus of the group. Special guest appearances were made by Kelly "Mr. Chill" Hoppe on harp (Mr. Chill And The Witnesses, Big Sugar, The Windsor Dukes), Richard Boughton on trumpet and horn arrangements, Sasha Boychouk on tenor sax, Jordan O'Brien-Moran on trombone, and Ilena Zaramba on vocals.


Nowadays, it's J.P, myself and Bernie Thiessen (bass) doing local gigs whenever we can.

We just did a gig at the Winnipeg Jazz Fest on
June 17th, 2006. This was a real fun gig because we had, in addition to our regular trio; trumpet, tenor and baritone. We did some originals and tunes by Wynonie Harris, Fats Domino, Guitar Slim, Johnny Guitar Watson, etc.
All tunes were in the R & B vein which is perfect for me since I'm an old rock drummer trying to play jazz.

We are just starting to do some serious tracking at my home studio, when time permits, between work, gigs and families.


October 28th, 2006

Big Dave McLean came out this weekend.
We did Friday and Saturday night gigs here in town with Dave, and got him to blow some harp on a tune that our trio recorded live, earlier in the week "Cheauffeur Blues"

.....to be continued.

Nice pics.
How did the show go?

So you have a mullard in the mxl v69 mic too. Did you notice a difference? I've read that mike was a little darker sounding/cloudy sort of as compared to some other tube mics within that range that are compared to it.
I wonder how the mullard changed it.

Wow, you have a lot of cymbals.
I've read that the sebatron works really nicely for drum overhead mics.
I'm still waiting to get the mullards I ordered for my sebatron.

evt

The show was a hoot.
We did a show two years ago, but other than that, we havn't played together for 20 years. It went pretty well considering.

We did a couple originals from back in the day, and some Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty, Jason and the Scorchers, David Lindley, Kinks, etc.

Our guitarist's 13 year old son joined us for one tune, too. They did a nice harmony dual guitar solo on 'Mama Let Him Play' by Jerry Doucette. His Grandpa is a classical guitarist and guitar teacher. The kid can play!

The Mullard tube in the v69 is an improvement.
That tube smooths off the highs a bit and is a little clearer and richer in the mids. It's not a huge change but it still makes it a little nicer.

It's still no Peluso, but I liked the v69 more than a Studio Projects T3 that I sold. The v69 is quite warm sounding but still has quite a bit of 'air', and I would say a little more retro sound because the upper mids are not hyped compared to a lot of other mics.

Cymbals.....yeah. I'm an addict.

Well...... while you can tune/muffle drums to change the tone you really can't do much to change a cymbal, so if you want different sounds you gotta have different cymbals.

I have been collecting changing cymbals for 30 years, and finally have all my bases covered with what I consider really good cymbals!
I'm fussy about pitch as well as tonal quality.
I like the cymbals to match together to form a choir. Thirds, fourths you know........

There are an awful lot of really poor cymbals out there. Even if you look at the same model and size of cymbal you can look through a lot of duds to find a sweet one.

Warped hats drive me nuts. When checking out hats I find way too many that are really stupidly warped, and don't mesh together nicely.

I usually only use two crashes, hats and ride, but I have three complete sets that I can mix and match to cover different musical/volume situations.

Rock/Country (louder music)- K Custom ride, Newbeat hats, A Custom crashes.

Blues, Swing (Med volume)- A Vintage ride, lighter hats and crashes.

Smaller places (lower volume)- the K light ride 13" dark K hats, smaller crashes.

Anyway I'm rambling (obsessed sorry)

Oh, yeah I love the Seb on rock overheads with air on and -15 pad. Nice!

I was thinking of getting the CAD m9 tube mic.
I love the CAD m179 mic.

All those cymbals sound cool. Our drummer Bill just got a ride/crash and highhat by Paiste that sound nice. I need to find out the exact models though.

He bought an electronic kit, and although it is cool... We all decided that it was much better, no comparison with a regular acoustic kit.

So, he just bought a used kit and put some new heads on it and he likes it. I haven't heard it yet, but I believe him.

Do you use different drum sticks?
Bill switches sticks a lot. i like cool rods. Volume is important because my voice isn't a very strong projecting voice. He doesn't want to drown me out. I'm glad he's aware of it and has the dynamics. Because a lot of drummers just pound as hard as they can and it's only one volume... 10.

The Sebatron is really cool, I can't wait to get the mullards to pop them in.


evt

I have heard a lot of good things about the m9 too. If you like the m179 (cool mic I've used them and like them too, the m9 could be a good one.

I use Firth 5A almost all the time.
Sometimes smaller sticks for a real quiet gig.
I use rods, blastics, wire brushes, mallets, etc too.

I think every drummer goes through the always on "10" syndrome.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, and playing all rock stuff, I got a regular gig playing with some 50+ year old guys doing swing dance music and jazz standards at a veteran's club. I really had to learn to play quietly right away! I learned a lot on that gig in two years, it was awesome!

Hi Dudge,

Lovin' the pics of the racks. The sebatron cygnus looks right at home! Looks like a nice piece, I would love one. I just invited the J.P. LePage Band on myspace.

Have a great new year!

ev

Hi Evt,

I'm lovin' the Cygnus so far. It's nice to have a pre that's really clean along with all the colored ones.

Thanks for the invite! I'll tell J.P.

Happy new year to you!

Gil

Hi!
I was wondering if you have any further thoughts on the Cygnus.

ev

Hi Evt! I have not had a chance to do hardly any recording this summer.
I was busy with work, family member health issues and a move to a different house.

From my limited use of the Cygnus, I prefer it overall from my collection of pres for acoustic instruments with condenser mics, (CEMC6 or ADK TL) and the R84 ribbon really shines with this pre on acoustic and vocals. It's a very nice pre on drum O/H and room mics, too. It is more transparent and fast than any of my other pres, but doesn't have a harsh or brittle high end at all, (actually a little less bright than my Pacifica), and a very solid low end.

I have a great 19 x 25 space on one side of my new house that is going to become my new studio/rehearsal room. I'll be doing some renovations to this space and doing some acoustic treatment, etc this winter.

I'm pretty excited!

I just completed a five original song project for a three piece bluegrassy group headed by our friend Jess Reimer (who is also of the Doug and Jess Band). This was the first project done in my new room.

We had to get it done fast (four hours) so they decided to gather round the mic and do it live.

We set up two ADK TL's in an M/S configuration into the Sebatron Cygnus X-2, DIed the upright bass with a Radial JDI into the BAE 312a, and the group just gathered round the mics and stepped up when they soloed. We used a CEMC6 into Pacifica as a spot mic on dobro for one overdub and also on some of the live tracking.

Everything turned out quite well.

Given more time for overdubs etc. I would have just used a vocal mic and two spot mics as there were still some volume rides necessary and it was impossible to have separate control of backup vocals and instruments.

We didn't really have time for extra overdubs, or to do backup vocals afterwards.

Different tunes had different combinations of instruments, but included standup bass, acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and dobro.

It was a very cool demo project and I hope to have the opportunity to work with them again.

Post some tracks??

I'll try, but I would have to ask if it's OK.

Tracks from the bluegrass recording are posted on Myspace.

Track 3 and 4 by Jess Riemer.