Our Story:
Earthtones
Recording is owned and operated by Benjy Johnson. That's
me. I was bitten by the recording bug while I was still
in college. My very first band was recording a demo at the
time in a house with rented equipment and all I could do was think
how much better it could be. I was supposed to be playing
my guitar parts and letting the engineer do his job, but I kept
thinking about intro's and special effects....more about the big
picture. Little did I realize til years later, that's what
producers are supposed to do! Guess that's how I ended up
being one. Hmmm.
I
spent the following years banging around playing guitar in bands,
working a real job and recording bands and artists for free, while
starting to compile recording gear a piece at a time. I
went from 4-track cassettes to ADAT's to eventually Pro Tools
which is what I use now. I've had lot's of fun and grown
as an engineer and producer along the way. And I've
made some pretty damn fine sounding records.
I
properly opened Earthtones 6 years ago in the current location.
There are 2 main tracking rooms, guitar booths and the control
room. Our "drum room" is about 17x15 feet and
the "other room" is about 14x15 feet. In addition
to this space there are two "guitar booths" which will
each hold an amp the size of a half-stack and are wired for two
mic inputs each. The drum room can be fairly wet or fairly
dry depending on how the room is "treated" at the time
of tracking. It still yields a nice, tight drum sound either
way. A squashed room mic also sounds good mixed in with
the kit. I've outfitted the studio with the Furman headphone
system allowing a custom 4 aux mix of 3 different sattelite stations
throughout the rooms.
My
main goal opening Earthtones was to provide a relaxed atmosphere
to make creative music. Kind of like that first house
I ever tracked in, nice and homey. Kinda like tracking in
your own living room. No stress, low light, very relaxed.
I've
engineered and produced a lot bands from this desk in these six
years. Check our Artist page and you'll see the wide
variety of music that I'm capable of recording and producing here
at Earthtones. I'll admit, I love tracking rock bands,
but I also have done a number of Gospel recordings that have been
major releases, I've tracked and mixed Old Time string bands,
lot's of Hip-Hop, Hardcore Punk, voice-over work for Books on
Tape and Meditaion releases.
I
am a guitarist by trade, but will play almost any instrument that
I have available to make you record sound as good as it can. I've
been credited with playing guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keys,
synths and doing vocals on numerous releases done here over the
last 6 years.
There
are a wealth of old and new instruments available here at Earthtones
to help you complete your project. I've tried to collect
some of the best sounding guitars, amps and drums I can find so
that when the time comes, we're not searching for tones.
Earthtones
is also the perfect place to track and go. For the home
studio producer who has a problem tracking live drums in your
house, we're your solution! With external hard drives, we'll
track your drums here, copy the files to your drive and your back
home finalizing your masterpiece. I've done lots of this
lately and it's just as much of a joy to have a small part in
someone's project, than it is to record it all here.
Outside
producers, we are your home for that perfect piece of the record
you just can't do at your own place. I've tracked choirs,
drums, vocals for outside projects and had them finished and mixed
elsewhere. Bring your own outboard gear and we'll patch
it in so your just as comfortable here as at your own studio
Our
price includes all services listed above along with my engineering
services if needed. E-mail me and we'll get started
on your next project today! I look forward to making great
records and great music with you!!
Sincerely,
Benjy Johnson