 |
Summit
Users Articles |
Bryan
Carlstrom, Producer/Engineer |
|
“Summit
Gear is His Secret Weapon” |
|
Bryan
Carlstrom has "the rack", consisting of,
at last count, 72 channels of Summit gear. His credits
include: The Offspring, Alice in Chains, White Zombie,
Social Distortion, PIL, Poe, Love Spit Love, Spinal
Tap, Project 86, Stabbing Westward, Mary's Danish,
4 Non-Blondes, Anthrax and others. He has recorded
over 25 albums for Dave Jerden produced acts.
According to Carlstrom, "Summit Tube Technology
is my secret weapon for high performance audio. I
record straight through Summit's gear. It makes recording
so easy!”
“I record every microphone and every instrument
from the beginning of a record to its very end through
Summit’s tube gear. After listening to every
Mic Preamp on the market, I found Summit to be the
best I have ever heard. It's as if I can reach out
and actually touch the sounds. Every musician that
I've worked with has said, Wow, that's what my instrument
really sounds like, when
they hear it run through
Summit tube gear. Tube gear has to be high quality
to reproduce sounds that are this close to the real
thing. Summit Audio makes ultra high quality tube
gear. That's why I use it on every record I make."
|
|
|
|
“Armand
and I were totally blown away by the
TLA-100A’s sound!” |
|
Vinx
De’ Jon Parrette, Artist/Engineer, and
Damon Gramont, Sales Manager of Summit Audio |
|
Vinx
Parette recently acquired a TLA-100A tube-leveling
amplifier, adding to his current arsenal of Summit
Audio gear, for his latest album project entitled
Best Kept Secret. Appearing on the album is Top rated
bassist Armand Sabal-Lecco who’s credits include
such notables as Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Jeff Beck
and Stanley Clark to name only
a few. “Armand is easily rated one of the top
ten bassists in the world today,” says Parette.
After hearing the TLA-100A at work, Vinx recalls Armand’s
reaction, “Armand’s Eyes lit-up when he
heard his Bass rig through the Summit Audio TLA-100A.
He absolutely loved it!” Vinx plans to co-write,
record and tour a project with drummer Stewart Copeland
from The Police, bassist Stanley Clarke and guitarist
Joe Satriani. |
|
|
|
|
“I
look at gear as a colour to choose from” |
| Joe
Chicarelli first discovered Summit Audio back in 1985
while working on a project in Los Angeles.
Being a huge fan of
vintage tube gear, he discovered Summit Audio’s
EQP-200B to possess vintage character with improved
frequency response and rugged durability.
In
a recent interview Joe shared with us some of his first
encounters with Summit Audio gear: “I started
using it, (EQP-200B), on loan for a few days and found
that there were certain things it did perhaps better
than a Pultec |
|
.
The Pultec has a little bigger grittier kind of sound…but
the Summit has more of a sizzle and clarity and openness
on the top end - where sometimes the Pultec can still
be a little dark. I found there where certain vocals
and snare drums and things that the Summit almost
did better than my trusty old, gosh what is it, thirty,
forty year old equalizer, probably made in the early
sixties.”
“One
of the first albums I used it, (EQP-200B), on was
a Tori Amos album I did in the late eighties and used
it on her vocals. Around that time I started seeing
the 100 limiter, (TLA-100 Tube Leveling Amplifier),
popping up in some studios and I thought oh wow, I’ve
never heard of this, Summit, so they’re kind
of making something that’s like an LA-2A….
I tried it and it’s in the same family as a
classic LA-2A.
I
found I could use it (TLA-100) on vocals that I needed
to squish a fair amount but didn’t want to lose
all the nice top I got off the microphone. So it’s
a great alternative for me where sometimes the LA-2A
has the right characteristic but perhaps is a little
low-fi . . . where the Summit seems to maintain the
integrity of the signals. I‘ve used that on
a bunch of vocals from Elton John and Shawn Colvin
and lot’s of other people and I find I can use
just a tiny bit of it, or a lot of it just depending
on what I need.“
More
recently Joe has added the TD-100 Tube Direct Box
to his arsenal: “You know I’ve probably
used just about everything in the line. I have one
of the direct boxes, which I use often.”
“I
look at gear as a color to choose from and every piece
of outboard has a sound. There are certain times you
want a real old fashioned bass sound and sometimes
the best thing for that is some dumb old transformer
box. Other times you want something that’s warm
but pretty punchy, big and high-fi. And, I find that
the Summit Audio TD-100 comes in pretty handy for
that in that it has a bit of that tube sound, makes
the bass spread and big, but it also keeps the transients
there and you get the feeling (especially with somebody
using a five string bass or an eight string bass)
that it goes down really, really low where a lot of
the other tube direct boxes, the Demeter which I am
a big fan of, is very colored and sort of muted on
the top and chopped off on the low bottom.”
“So
there are times when that works great, there are times
when the Summit has more integrity in the audio, just
all the frequencies come through.”
|
Bart
Chiate “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
For the past fifteen and a half years Bart Chiate
has been mixing and recording the best artists in
the business on almost a nightly basis. From the Arsenio
Hall Show and the American Music Awards to his current
gig with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! Bart uses
his Summit rack on all guest artists to the show with
the exception of his newly acquired TLA-50’s,
which he uses for the house brass instruments.
Bart has been a
fan of Summit Audio products from the beginning
and it’s their ease of use and quality sound that
is so appealing in the fast paced and dynamic arena
of live performance recording and broadcast. Bart recently
recalled when he was first introduced to Summit Audio
gear as he began working on the Arsenio Hall Show fifteen
years ago: “A friend of mine suggested I give
the Summit
Audio TLA-100A a try, so I asked for one. He brought
me three and now I have eight channels of Summit compression.
Enough said.” Bart’s favorites in regards
to functionality are still the Tube Levelers: “They
are simple to use and sound great. I am particularly
fond of the TLA-100A and TLA-50 because of the ease
of having only two knobs to set to get results.”
|
“Now
I have eight channels of Summit Audio Compression.
Enough said.”
|
Damon
Gramont (Summit Sales Manager) in his
new vocal booth! |
|
Vocal
Isolation
Finding a space to track vocals at home can often
be a challenge. Isolating your performances from all
the noises that present themselves in a residential
space, not including the buzzes and hums of your studio,
can take quite a bit of work and you still may not
get it just right. I used to track from a closet until
I got tired of running to and from the space to start
and stop my DAW. Punching in and out was a real time
killer too. Recently, I have tracked some of the best
sounding vocal tracks ever from the driver’s
seat of my car!
The sound is simply the best: quiet, detailed and
balanced.
If your car has a sunroof to drop your mic and headphones
through you are in great shape, although routing through
the driver or passenger windows works ok. The glass
of your windshield is like looking into your control
room. I typically find myself working alone so with
a wireless keyboard to remote control my computer
DAW, I can stop, start, playback and rehearse my parts
with ease. Watching meters is also a snap! - By Damon
Gramont (Summit Sales Manager)
.......... Or you
could take a look at Pro Booth!
|
|
|
|
|
