Grass Shack Records: Home
ABOUT GRASS SHACK RECORDS:
As musicians are inspired to do their best recordings by both their own motivation and by their surroundings, we understood the need for a beautiful and comfortable recording environment. Thanks to several artist's suggestions, we made the studio as comfortable as a living room, with Hawaiian print curtains, soft quiet carpeting and art deco trim throughout. To top it off, the pristine waters of Kealakekua Bay are a scant five minute walk away, providing an inspiring early morning swim with the dolphins or a serene mid-day break. Come and check us out. Sorry, but the photos don't come close to representing the warmth and sonic qualities of Grass Shack Records. You have to feel the studio and play in it. Sonically, we are superb. Cost-wise, we charge far less than any comparable studios. We like to keep the hourly cost down so that those extra takes that will make the perfect songs and albums are affordable. Email me and let's talk about your project.
Aloha,
Richard Harrison
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THE ROOMS and STUFF:
Grass Shack Records is an 860 square-foot recording facility consisting of a control room (12'x14'), a drum/vocal room (10'x14'), and the main studio room (20'x24'). We are located next to beautiful Kealakekua Bay on the Island of Hawaii. Grass Shack Records recording studio was state-of-the-art sonically designed to be first, flat acoustically, and secondly, to provide superb isolation between rooms with sonically isolated double walls with double layers of 5/8" drywall on each wall, and double connecting doors between rooms. Advanced room treatments in each room allow the rooms to be tuned to enhance the sound of the specific instruments being recorded. The 20'x24' main studio room has a 'live' end and a 'quiet' end, and a center hardwood 'stage' with removable carpet, allowing the custom creation of a natural subtle reverb on vocals and acoustic instruments like acoustic slack key guitar, cello, violin and wind instruments, to attain their most beautiful signatures without the need for artificial reverbs. Technically, our format is hard disk recording using the latest version of Cakewalk SONAR with many quality plug-ins. The main computer is a Pentium 4, 3 GHz. We archive on 1.5 Tb external drives, and on 4.7GB DVDs, so you can take your recording files with you if you need. Sound card is a Mark of the Unicorn 2408 MkIII 24 track unit, fed by two Mackie 800R 8-mic preamplifiers which are as quiet as death, and one Presonus Digimax 8-channel mic preamplifier, used primarily for drum mics. Mics include Audix D2, D4 and D6's for drums, Rode Tube K2 adjustable pattern, Rode NT2000 adjustable pattern, two Rode NT1s, and four Rode NT1A's, Shure KSM32, Shure 87A beta, six AKG C1000S's, several Shure SM7B and Peavey 520i large diameter dynamics, five ribbon mics (great alternatives for some vocals and lovely on violins and seranges) some standard SM57s and 58s, a Studio Projects C4 Stereo Omni and Cardioids Pair, some Audix instrument mics and numerous others. Note: The Rode mics are the lowest noise studio mics in the world, lowest by many orders of magnitude. Coupled with the Mackie 800r preamps there effectively is no perceptable noise in our recordings, just the clean perfect sound of your voice and your instrument.
I am a digital electrical engineer, and am passionate about quality very very low noise recording. We have made numerous acoustic albums including Jazz, Hawaiian Slack Key, New Age, Classical, Folk, Cajun and more at this great-sounding facility.
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CURRENTLY RECORDING AT THE SHACK:
LifeinPursuit "New Horizons" Album Release Date June 2010
Irma DiCenzo Hawaiian Traditional Albums
Clara & Irma Hawaiian Songs Album
Robert Drake Jazz Album & Solo Classical Guitar Album
Joy Banks "Cherry Coke" - Demo Song
Penei Aller Hawaiian Songs Album and C/W demo
Sam Cook & Rene Demo Songs
Kau Punalu'u (Almost ready for release!)
Jozuf Hadley 'Da Kapinta'
Andy Rising 'Song of Solomon'
Kumu Keala Ching "Hawaiian Chant CD"
Manuel and Bernice Roberto "TBA"
Vernon Lincoln and the Soul Shakers
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GRASS SHACK RECORDS ALBUMS & ARTISTS:
Don Kaulia 'Slack Key in the Key of Aloha'
Chris Yeaton 'The Stand'
Barry Blum (Traveling Jewish Wedding Band) 'Shaloha Oy'
Stefan George "Live at the Aloha"
Sam Kama 'Kapakahe Brothers'
Jozuf Hadley 'Two Poems'
Stuheart Johnson 'You Are'
Sonny Lim
Jim Major 'Live at Lava Java'
Ono Gumbo "Ono Gumbo Live"
Laura Warmheart, Hindustani Slide Guitar "Mystery"
Andy Fitts
Rolinda Bean "Songs for Hula"
Olga Salvatore, Greg Shirley, Allison Weiner "O"
Peter Weinstock, Ed Michell, Robin "Too Cool"
Steve Cline, Andy Rising, Jessica Marcus Tiger Rising
Tiger Paw (Jessica Marcus), Kibir Heart of the Matter
Jamie Mulligam-Smith 'Shecrets'
John Estes 'Dancing Around the Banana Tree' and "Boogie Down Slow"