Customer Feature: Shawn Perry
We recently heard from Manley customer Shawn Perry, who wrote to tell us how helpful his Manley gear has been to his recording process. “Most firefighters (my former career in Sacramento) retire to golf and other enjoyable hobbies, but I’m not done engaging with the public, and this experience is filling my soul.”
Check out his impressive home studio where all the tracks were recorded (photos and equipment list below) – and of course, check out the song: “We’ll Be Just Fine”, Class of 78 Band
Thank you for sharing your process and story with us, Shawn!
“The room is ‘L’ shaped with a total of 280 sq ft (small, right?). Drum area is only 8’wide with a ceiling height of 7’9”. Acoustic treatment for the drum area is 6x Primacoustic 24”x48”x1.5” panels (big score from Craigslist). Maybe not ideal by technical standards / calculations but greatly reduced early reflections and tamed the cymbals in particular. I constructed a floor to ceiling bass trap with rock wool wrapped in acoustic type fabric. Also draped some thick wool blankets (army/navy surplus) beyond the kit to further tame the general area with a thin rug covering most of the floor. These treatments took an area that was unusable (regardless of gear) to surprisingly excellent drum sounds. I decided to place a mic in the adjoining stairwell (very reflective wood and sheetrock) to provide what we called “The Led Zeppelin castle recording factor”. That move proved integral to livening up the overall capture and I could slide the door to the stairwell to control both capture and bleed into the drum area. That single fader gave me the ability to make the room sound almost as big or small as I wanted.”
"The Manley Reference Cardioid mic was used on all vocals and I surrounded the mic with an sE Electronics vocal shield to help control room challenges, moving the mic around while also focusing on reducing any computer noise. I found what I thought was the best spot and hit record literally six feet from the desk.
“With my particular collection of Manley gear (so far) I’ve been able to achieve commercial studio level recordings not only for “We’ll Be Just Fine”, but also for other rising singer/songwriters (e.g., Kara Hesse). The Manley FORCE was my latest addition and added specifically to support live drums. This addition (and a lot of room treatment) catapulted my drum sounds to a no compromise level eliminating the need to record anything in another space. The studio had “completely” arrived. (Okay, I’ll always want more gear 😊). The Variable Mu, Enhanced Pultec, and Reference Cardioid mic were used in so many situations where sound shaping and control not only minimized work in post, but just plain made the recording experience more enjoyable. I can’t quite record a whole band at once, but it sure sounds like I do.”
Equipment Details:
Vocal Mic Signal Chain (All vocals)
Manley Reference Cardioid to Manley TNT (tube side) to Manley Enhanced Pultec to Manley Variable Mu to RME interface
Acoustic Guitar/Percussion/Room Mic
Manley Labs Reference Cardioid
Electric Guitar
Bad Cat Hot Cat 30 combo amp, Royer 121 and Shure SM57 mics through enhanced RME preamps
Drum Mics And Signal Chain
Kick - Audix D6 (Interior, Manley TNT - Tube), Sennheiser 421 (Exterior, Enhanced RME pre)
Snare - Shure SM57 (top, Enhanced RME), Sennheiser e604 (bottom, Manley Force)
High Hats (Audio Technica ATM33a to Manley Force)
Rack Tom (Beyerdynamic TG D58c to Manley Force)
Floor Tom (Beyerdynamic TG D58c to Manley Force)
Overheads – Shure SM81’s (both to solid state sides of Manley TNTs)
Stairwell Mic – Blue Dragonfly (to RME enhanced pre)
Acoustic Guitar
(Same as vocal)
Bass
Direct thru Manley TNT (tube side) to Manley Enhanced Pultec to Manley Variable Mu to RME interface
Keyboard
Yamaha Motif, Access Virus 2 direct thru RME interface
Drums – Kevin Blackwood; Kingston, Washington
Bass – Duffy Williams; Kingston, Washington
Lead Guitar – Brian Germain; Kingston, Washington
Mastering Engineer – Pat Lassiter; Madison, Tennessee
Everything Else – (Vocals, Tracking, Mixing, all supporting instrumentation) – Shawn Perry