The New Studio C!

Ardent Studios is proud to announce the complete renovation of Studio C! In conjunction with the 45th anniversary of the studio, we’re in the process of upgrading just about everything in the control room – new console, new acoustics, new aesthetics, and much more. You can keep up to date with the changes to Studio C by visiting thenewstudioc.com. Meanwhile, read more in our official press release below:

Ardent in Memphis Guts Famed Studio C for New SSL Install

“Appetite for Construction” Celebrates 45th Anniversary of Venerable Studio

Pictured at Ardent Studios in the shell of the new Studio C control room are (L-R) chief technical engineer Chris Jackson, founder John Fry, and studio manager/Big Star drummer Jody Stephens.

Memphis, TN, August, 2011 – As an integral part of its 45th Anniversary, Memphis’ venerated Ardent Studios is celebrating with an “Appetite for Construction” and completely gutting the control room of Studio C in preparation for the installation of an SSL Duality console.  The studio’s prized workhorse Neve V 40 x 40 console has been decommissioned and will be reborn as a classic sidecar to accompany the state-of-the-art Duality, giving Ardent the best of both vintage and new.

“It was time to bring Studio C into the highly competitive 21st Century world of recording,” stated Ardent founder and the studio’s first engineer John Fry.  ”This room has a legacy that includes landmark work by Bob Dylan, ZZ Top, 3 Doors Down, R.E.M.,and B.B. King, among so many other great artists, and we are keeping that traditional acoustic tracking space alongside our new control room with SSL’s flagship console.”

Adjacent to a 32′ x 26′ tracking room with three isolation booths, Studio C’s control room will house an SSL Duality SE 48-channel console with in-board patchbay (RHS).  Also, the SSL I/O package consists of one Delta Link HD-MADI unit and two Alpha Link converter units for a total of 48 analog I/Os.  With consoles in place worldwide, Duality has established a new industry standard for professional audio production.

Chief technical engineer Chris Jackson decommissions the Neve V 40×40 console in Studio C control room.

Ardent Studios started off with early classics by Sam & Dave, Led Zeppelin, Al Green and The Staple Singers, then racked up hits in the 70s and 80s by ZZ Top, REM, George Thorogood, The Allman Brothers, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Ardent  continues today with recent triumphs by such artists as Sir Cliff Richard, Jack White, Huey Lewis and the News, Smashing Pumpkins, Montgomery Gentry, and Klaus Voorman.  Of significant note is John Hiatt’s “Master of Disaster,” produced by the late Jim Dickinson in the studio he embraced for over 30 years.

The Solid State Logic Duality’s innovative hybrid approach combines a traditional analog path and signal processing along with exceptional DAW control, all within a single hardware surface. Duality has a diverse user base that includes many of the world’s most prestigious commercial recording facilities, on-air broadcast production studios, educational establishments, film & TV score specialists and a growing group of notable private owners.

John Fry cites several reasons for Ardent’s longevity in a recording world that has few survivors from the early days.  ”We’re flexible and we’ve always strived to adapt to the changes in the technology and recording industry.  We’ve also been fortunate to have so much talent on our staff, and long term relationships with successful artists and producers. Also, having a production company, a record label, and a publishing business has allowed us to be one of our own best clients. We expect our new Studio C will be a perfect fit for our continued momentum.”

To learn more about Ardent’s new Studio C, visit:  http://www.thenewstudioc.com

For information about Ardent Studios, visit:  http://www.ardentstudios.com

Record Store Day, Big Star Third Vinyl Reissue

 

For Big Star fans and record collectors the world over, April 16 is going to be a big day. BIG. Aside from just being Record Store Day, it also marks the release of the newest Big Star reissue: The ultimate version of the mysterious, occasionally misunderstood, and almost always under-appreciated Third. Along with a Buck Owens 7″ (featuring early and unreleased recordings), this special edition of Third will be the inaugural release from Omnivore Recordings, and it’s a doozie. Take a look at this exploded view:

From Omnivore’s official press release:

 

Big Star Third [Test Pressing Edition] is a special edition vinyl release limited to 2,000 pieces worldwide. The album has been described as a lost record re-discovered years after it was recorded, one that has seen many track listings, titles and album covers. It’s been dubbed a classic, and an enigma. The Omnivore Recordings edition comes complete with replicas of the original tape box, tracking and lead sheets, mastering card and is pressed on 180 gram vinyl. The new pressing was cut from the original assembly reel, on the same lathe at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis and by the very same engineers who cut it the first time, Larry Nix and John Fry. Pressed on high quality vinyl at RTI, this is the definitive version of this album. In the limited run of 2,000, five copies of the original test pressings signed by Big Star’s Jody Stephens, original mastering engineers Larry Nix and Ardent’s John Fry will be available at retail, randomly, worldwide. Take a peek inside Larry Nix’s Mastering room at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis as Larry, John and Jody prepare the actual new master being used for the new “test pressing” edition on YouTube.

About Omnivore Recordings:

Founded in 2010 by long-time, highly respected industry veterans Cheryl Pawelski, Greg Allen, and Brad Rosenberger, Omnivore Recordings’ vision is to preserve the legacies and music created by historical, heritage and catalog artists while also releasing previously unissued, newly found “lost” recordings and making them available for music-loving audiences to discover. Distributed by EMI in North America and Ace Records UK in Europe, Omnivore Recording’s current artist projects include limited edition releases by Big Star and Buck Owens with future projects by Townes Van Zandt and Leon Russell to be announced soon.

Omnivore Recordings official website: http://omnivorerecordings.com/

Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/omnivorerecordings

Big Star’s Third Performed Live in NYC

Readers of this blog may remember a story about a very special performance of Big Star‘s Third that ran for two nights at the Cat’s Cradle in Carborro, North Carolina in December of 2010. The same performance was reprised in March of this year  in New York City. The performance featured (as did the first) a string section to recreate Carl Marsh’s arrangements on the original record, and an impressive guest list, to say the least: Michael Stipe & Mike Mills (REM), Matthew Sweet, M. Ward (She & Him), Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Mitch Easter, Chris Stamey (The dB’s), Tift Merritt, and Will Rigby (The dB’s), among others.

Jody Stephens (Big Star’s original and current drummer, and the last surviving original member of the band) had this to say about the conceptualization of the original performance:

Sometime around last December John Fry and I got an email from Chris Stamey (The dBs, and producer of the Big Star Third live production). In the email he talked about producing a live performance of Big Star’s Third LP and was asking if I would participate. He also was hoping Alex would join in. I walked over to John’s office to see if he had read the email… he had. I think we both said “Is he crazy?”

Chris approached Carl Marsh (brilliant Third arranger and player) about recharting the string arrangements. Carl agreed, then John agreed to pull the stings off the multitracks to facilitate the process. The project was moving forward… slowly.

Alex’s passing away in March added a new sense of purpose to the project and we all started thinking that Chris’s crazy idea was actually a very sincere way for us all to share a fascinating experience.. it became a blue moon in the sky.

We got this email from Chris: “We just had our first reading of the string parts for the Big Star Third concert. just with a quartet of the four first-chair players, all excellent musicians. It was an unforgettable experience to hear that music come back to life in the room. I wish you all could have been here. I guess you will, eventually.

We didn’t get the score for ‘For You’ until 10 minutes before they arrived, at 10 AM this morning. We started with it, and the room filled up with that great beauty. After that it was revelation after revelation.”

When we all came together at Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC on Decembner 8th for the first rehearsal together it was indeed revelation after revelation. Odd how a dark and melancholy record can bring out the best spirits in people. Everyone was so committed to the performances.. players and audience alike. I wish everyone could have been there.

All the crazy ideas are the best ones!

This show precedes another very exciting piece of news for Big Star fans and vinyl enthusiasts: the re-release of Third on vinyl through Omnivore Recordings, set for Record Store Day 2011. From the announcement on Omnivore’s website:

We’ve got a brand new pressing of Big Star’s Third on 180gm vinyl! This is the Test Pressing Edition that commemorates the original 14-song version of this album among albums and comes stuffed with replicas of the studio tracking sheets and lead sheets. This limited edition is being cut from the original assembly reel, on the same lathe at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis and by the very same engineers who cut it the first time, Mr. Larry Nix and Mr. John Fry! Pressed on high quality vinyl at RTI, this should be the definitive version of this album.

Randomly inserted into this limited edition run (1,000 for the US, 1,000 for Europe) will be five copies of the original test pressing from ’75 courtesy of Big Star’s Jody Stephens—signed by Jody, Larry Nix and John Fry of Ardent Records. You KNOW how hard these are to come by! All we ask, is that if you’re one of the lucky five to find an original in your package, please send us a picture of it, or of you and it, or of it and your favorite stuffed animal. We’ll post the photo on our Big Star page so you have bragging rights and we know they’ve all landed in a happy, loving home.

(In the photo: Jody Stephens during Big Star’s Third, live in New York City. Photo by Conni Freestone.)

Big Star Album is Recreated at Baruch College – Review – NYTimes.com

Michael Stipe, Matthew Sweet, and Others Pay Tribute to Big Star in New York – Spinner

Jay Lustig’s article on the performance from nj.com

Omnivore Recording’s Record Store Day announcement

Ticketing information for this performance

       

Japan’s Chikuzen/Sing Like Talking with John Hampton and Adam Hill

Our long-time client and friend Chikuzen returned to Ardent recently to mix a new project with John Hampton at the helm and Adam Hill assisting. Our previous projects with Chikuzen were solo ventures, but for this project Chikuzen was reuinted with his band, called Sing Like Talking.

Band members include Sato Chikuzen (vocals, guitar, keyboard), Fujita Chiaki (synths, keyboards, BGVs), and Nishimura Tomohiko (guitar).

The band, who took a hiatus between 2003 and 2009, have been playing together in Japan for more than 20 years. Their debut came in 1988, and they have seen the top of the charts many times, producing a body of work spanning twelve full-length albums. This includes the most recent one, mixed here at Ardent by John Hampton. The album is entitled Empowerment, and it will be released on April 6th, 2011.

The band also has a reputation for putting on sensational live shows. They’ve toured many times throughout Japan and have even performed with Hall & Oates in Nippon Budokan. Their much awaited national tour is scheduled to start soon after the release of the album.

Jody Stephens Accepts GRAMMY Award for Keep an Eye on the Sky

We’re proud to announce that Keep an Eye on the Sky, the Big Star Box Set, won the GRAMMY this year in the category of Best Album Liner Notes. Robert Gordon, the author of said liner notes, was not in attendance at the GRAMMYs this year. Ardent Studios manager/Big Star drummer/Memphis GRAMMY chapter trustee Jody Stephens stepped up to accept the award in Gordon’s place.

The boxed set, a labor of love for all those involved, was released in late 2009 to great critical and fan response.

A video of Jody’s acceptance speech can be viewed here: http://www.grammy.com/videos/53rd-annual-grammy-awards-pre-telecast-album-note

Read more GRAMMY nominations and winners at the official site - http://www.grammy.com/nominees

In the picture: Jody Stephens with George Flanigan, Chair of the Board of Trustees.

  

DeGarmo & Key Announced as GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame Inductees

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – October 26, 2010 – The GMA Foundation (GMAF) will induct Johnny Cash, DeGarmo & Key, Golden Gate Quartet, and Bill “Hoss” Alleninto the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame on January 24, 2011.

From the GMA’s official press release:

From coffee houses to MTV, the legendary Christian rock duo of DeGarmo & Key did more than just leave their mark on the world of gospel music – they changed the very face of it.

Friends since the first grade, Eddie DeGarmo and Dana Key grew up together in Memphis, Tenn., listening to “old blues guys” performing street-side on egg crates and apple boxes. At the age of 16, Eddie and Dana landed their first record deal. It was shortly after this record deal that the friends were brought to Christ, and the direction of their lives and careers took a sharp turn.

Over the next 17 years, DeGarmo & Key created 15 albums of faith-filled, blues-influenced rock music, earning seven GRAMMY and 17 Dove Award nominations. The duo created some of the first in-roads into the world of Christian music videos and was the first contemporary Christian artist to be aired on MTV. Inspired by the work of Larry Norman, the group consistently made it their goal to get their music and the message of the Gospel to those who did not know Christ, expanding the world of Christian music beyond the boundaries of their day. Billboard Magazine once raved that DeGarmo & Key’s albums contained “one of the most consistently inventive bodies of music in Christian music.”

Always looking for ways to use their music as a ministry, they also created a 13- week Sunday school curriculum based on songs from their album Go To the Top, worked with Zondervan to promote the NIV Student Bible, contributed efforts to the ”True Love Waits” campaign and the Biblical Literacy Foundation, and gave away over 150,000 copies of their D & K album to unsaved youth.

DeGarmo and Key disbanded in 1995, but both Eddie and Dana continued to influence gospel music through their roles as executives – together the two co founded Forefront Records with Dan Brock. Today, Eddie continues as an executive in his role as President of EMI CMG Publishing, while Dana served as pastor of TheLove of Christ Church, which he founded in Memphis. Dana Key passed away on Sunday, June 6, 2010.

Big Star Receives Brass Note on Beale Street

Big Star will soon take their place in front of BB King’s on historic Beale Street in the form of a brass note, which was presented to the original members – Jody Stephens, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton and Andy Hummel – on Saturday, November 13th. Ardent Studios’ owner and founder John Fry, along with Dean Deyo of the Memphis Music Foundation, Susan Murrmann, and author Bob Mehr all had kind words to say about Big Star and its history with Ardent. Jody Stephens accepted the note on behalf of the band and all its members, and lots of friends and family were in attendance to help celebrate.

To view more pictures of the event, check out the Memphis Music Foundation’s  facebook page. Thanks to all who made it out!

In the picture, L to R: Engineer Mike Wilson, booking manager Daniel Russo, new media specialist Rachel Hurley, controller Elizabeth Montgomery, Jody Stephens, John Fry, engineer Jeff Powell, Susan Marshall, and Dena Wheeler.

    

Big Star Bassist Andy Hummel Dies at 59

Big Star drummer and Ardent Studios’ manager Jody Stephens was interviewed by Rolling Stone Senior Editor David Fricke recently about Big Star and the passing of bassist Andy Hummel. From the interview:

Four months after Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and I talked about his late bandmate, singer-guitarist Alex Chilton, who died in March, we talked again – about bassist Andy Hummel, whopassed away on July 19th of cancer at his home in Weatherford, Texas. Hummel was 59. His death leaves Stephens as the only surviving member of the original lineup of the legendary Memphis-born power-pop group; singer-guitarist Chris Bell died in 1978 in a car crash.

Born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and raised in Memphis, Hummel was an undercelebrated factor in the Big Star legend: instrumental in the formation of the group, as Stephens explains, and a gifted contributor as a singer, keyboard player and songwriter on the band’s back-to-back classics for Ardent Records, 1972′s #1 Record and 1974′s Radio City. Frustrated by Big Star’s inability to commercially capitalize on the critical love for their music – an ultimately influential combination of electric-R&B twang, modern romantic anguish and classic Beatlemania – Hummel quit the group just before the release of Radio City, getting a master’s degree in engineering and a job in Texas at Lockheed Martin Aeronautical while continuing to play bass as a sideline. His appearance at the SXSW tribute to Alex Chilton and Big Star in March, playing on his “Way Out West” from Radio City, was the first time he played with Stephens since 1973. It was also, sadly, the last.

Two days after we spoke, Stephens was in New York for a July 28th tribute show to Chilton at City Winery – an event that also became a celebration of Hummel. “Andy’s impact on my life was huge,” Stephens says fondly. “I wouldn’t be sitting where I am now and had all these experiences without him. I wouldn’t have been in Big Star.”

Becoming Big Star

How did you meet Andy?

I met Andy when I was 13, through a guitar player named Mike Fleming. Mike and Andy were a year older. They both lived in Midtown; I lived on Eastman [Road]. I used to catch bus into Midtown, or hitchhike, and hang out with Andy and Mike.

Then I lost track of Andy. We hooked up again in early 1970. I was performing in a college production ofHair, along with my brother Jimmy. Andy came to see one of the performances and said hello after the show. We talked, and he invited me over to jam with him and Chris and some other folks. That’s how that got started. Andy introduced me to Chris, then to John Fry at Ardent Studios.

For more of the interview, visit Rollingstone.com.

I Never Travel Far Without A Little Big Star: SXSW 2010

Mere days after the death of Alex Chilton, a panel scheduled at Austin’s South By Southwest festival on the legacy of Big Star was repurposed as a tribute to the life and times of Chilton. Entitled “I Never Travel Far Without A Little Big Star,” it included panelists from founding members of Big Star Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel, power pop legends Chris Stamey and Tommy Keene, additional current Big Star members Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, to Ardent Studios owner and founder John Fry. Bob Mehr moderated the panel.

For the first time since then, video of the panel is available on youtube. Check it out in its entirety below!

     

     

L Nix & Co Featured in Memphis Daily News

Larry Nix, mastering engineer and proprietor (with his son Kevin Nix) of L. Nix Mastering, Inc, was recently featured for an article in Memphis Daily News highlighting his newly refurbished record lathe. From the article:

Producing vinyl records – those albums that most people 40 and older grew up with – has rapidly become a lost art as technology has sent that format the way of the 8-track tape.

But a few local music engineers are turning back the clock by refurbishing a Neumann VMS 70 lathe – a machine that is used to cut vinyl discs – that Stax founder Jim Stewart began using in 1970.

Mastering engineer Larry Nix, owner of L. Nix Mastering Inc., and Jeff Powell and John Fry of Ardent Studios are using the lathe that was used to master vinyl recordings of many classic Stax recordings.

“We literally spent days in here replacing parts and electronics,” Nix said of refurbishing the antique equipment, which sells for about $49,000. “But now it’s in like-new condition.”

The lathe had fallen out of use because of economic pressures in the changing music industry. With the industry having long ago turned to compact discs as the preferred recording, and with people now downloading music, the market for music played on a turntable has diminished.

But vinyl has been making a comeback recently. Sales of compact discs have been slumping as MP3, Windows Media files and Apple have been claiming market share.

So while CD sales have been declining over the past decade, LP sales have been up. Many current artists are releasing their discs on vinyl and a lot of older albums are being re-pressed and re-released on vinyl – or pressed for the first time.

Soundscan, a music sales tracking service, reported a 33 percent increase in sales of vinyl LPs from 2008 to 2009, with sales soaring from 1.8 million to 2.5 million.

“I would love to see everything be more purist,” Ardent engineer Powell said.

Mastering audio for vinyl is a mechanical process, and it’s exactly the kind of process that digital media was supposed to price out of the market.

And the competitive pressure posed by digital recording and mastering were only part of the problem; distribution costs also effectively disappeared in a networked world. The lathe seemed doomed.

“I pretty much shut it down,” said Nix, who was the mastering engineer at Stax from 1970 to 1975 and has worked with prominent musicians like ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Al Green and Parliament.

Nix, who with his son, Kevin, has helped define the Memphis rap aesthetic, now maintains a separate studio within Ardent. He specializes in preparing mixed audio for its final format, be that radio, CD, television or vinyl disc.

With the lathe virtually obsolete, he made arrangements for the historic piece to go to a museum.

Powell asked him to demonstrate how it worked before it got away. When arrangements with the museum fell through, one client – Super 400 from Troy, N.Y. – lobbied hard to start using the lathe again.

“They were really, really persistent,” Nix said.

It is a daunting mechanical challenge to cut tiny grooves into hard plastic, and the margin for error is minimal given the high cost relative to digital mastering.

“If one thing goes wrong, you start over,” Powell said. “Making two or three cuts can ruin your profit margin.”

The process is also done in real time, which means the engineer must seamlessly cut not only all of the songs to disc, but the lead-in, the spaces between the songs and the loop at the end.

The groove is microscopic and must be precise, so there was a refurbishing challenge. Nix is mastering about one project per week, usually in combination with a separate digital master.

While most of the work once came from labels, Nix gets most of his business from independent producers.

The City Champs are a Memphis soul powerhouse and are gaining critical praise. Their album “Safecracker” was recorded without digital technology.

Engineer Scott Bomar, owner of Electraphonic Recording, tracked the album on a Stax-era tape machine and mastered the discs straight to vinyl.

“Watching Larry Nix master vinyl is something really special to behold,” Bomar said.

Powell sees the market for better audio and is glad to have had the opportunity to work with Nix.

“It’s a blast,” he said. “He’s (Nix) the master.”

Original article by Joe Boon in The Memphis Daily News.

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