Peak Recording, Bozeman, MT (2026)

05/05/2026

This is Jubilee McEntee right after she finished recording her part for an episode of “Smash Boom Best”, a kid’s podcast program that takes two things and sets up a debate with experts on each side. Listeners learn critical thinking and how to defend their arguments and opinions.

Jubilee served as the judge, determining who had the better argument, in this case, for onions or for corn.

During the recording we were linked-up online with four other people, including the two experts debating the topic and the host of Smash Boom Best, Molly Bloom.

The recording went well and we were done in just less than an hour, plus Jubilee had fun! Yay!

04/06/2026

We recently had another group of vocal recording sessions for “Robin Hood-The Golden Arrow”, a musical (opera?) production being done by Trysting Tree Productions, with Tyson Vick producing and directing.

Unlike the first two sessions, in June and September of last year, this one involved just one singer, Francesco DiFlora, who sings the part of Robin Hood. Francesco flew in from New York City to record with us here. We recorded for four days and got a lot done, although he’ll probably need to come back to finish up all his parts, of which there are many. It is the title role, after all.

Assisting Francesco was musical director Logan Henke, who lives here in Bozeman. As usual, I set Logan up with a keyboard in the iso room facing Francesco in the studio.

The job of musical director is an important one, as they generally are the “music cop” on the session, helping the singers and making sure the parts are sung accurately according to the score. Logan is the third musical director we’ve had for this project, and like the others, he knows his stuff and is easy to work with.

It was fun having both Logan and Francesco in the studio, and I hope New Yorker Francesco enjoyed his time here in our little town before he had to journey back to the big city.

Pictured are Logan (L) and Francesco (R).

03/08/2026

Recently I bought some really cool and useful items for the studio. Check out the first photo, that’s our Peluso 2247LE, a modern-day tube U47 clone. It sounds great and is pretty cool, but it’s not what I’m talking about.

Look at the second photo, which is basically the first photo zoomed out. The 2247 is not a light-weight mic. In fact, it’s not light at all, and what you’re seeing is that heavy mic on a cast-base mic stand, with the boom extended all the way out. Luckily, the clutch on that particular mic stand is in great shape, so it’s not drooping. But why hasn’t the whole mic-and-stand unit crashed to the floor? That’s a big lever with a good-sized weight on the end of it and a (relatively) tiny base.

The last photo shows a close-up of the sandbag on the base of the mic stand. Yes, the sandbags are the cool items I recently acquired. Pretty inexpensive and once you fill them with 20 pounds of sand, it’s amazing how handy they are in the studio. Like those times when you don’t have the room to use a tripod-type stand but still want to use a heavy mic. A small cast-base mic stand, with a sandbag on top of the base, is quite stable. And since most heavy mics are usually pricy as well, a sandbag that’s strategically placed also does wonders for your peace of mind.

Recently, I had four singers in the studio and with the set-up I’d created for them, space was at a premium, and there just wasn’t room on the floor for tripod mic stands. The smaller footprint of cast-base stands, with sandbags added for stability, was perfect.

Sometimes the really useful items in the studio have no k***s, meters, or blinking lights. They just sit there, quietly holding down the fort (or the mic stand, as the case may be).

02/09/2026

The Prairie Schooners were in recently recording a demo. They play traditional folk and Western music, and are a lot of fun!

They are Jim Jacobs (banjo, vocals), Sharon Iltis (guitar, vocals), and Chris Dobbs (mandolin, vocals).

Recording sessions can be done in a lot of different ways depending on the results desired, time available, budget, ease of recording and the abilities of the musicians, among other factors. After discussion with the band’s “point person” Sharon, the only one with any real recording experience, we decided the live-in-the-studio approach would give us the best results in the shortest time.

To prepare for the session, I used the studio’s sound absorbing panels to create isolated areas for each singer/player, the goal being to minimize the amount of leakage or bleed from one instrument and voice to the others. The selection of mics and the positioning of them was also designed to have as much separation as possible from each player’s instrument mic to their vocal mic, and vice versa.

Acoustic leakage is not necessarily a bad thing, but the separation that I was going for allows for more control doing the mixes and the possibility of limited editing to correct minor mistakes.

The isolated “booths” I created along with the mic selection and placements worked very well; for example, I could turn up the mandolin track and not also appreciably turn up any other instruments or vocals. This came in very handy as I was also able to pull off a few little edits.

On one song, the best take had one wrong word from one of the singers, but the prior take had the proper word. It took maybe 30 seconds to grab the right word from the earlier take and replace the wrong one on the good take with it. And I’d be very surprised if anyone ever notices the edit. Without the separation we had that wouldn’t have been possible.

The band tracked four songs, but only three made the cut: “Paddy Works on the Railway”, “Red River Valley”, and one of my favorites, the old Patsy Montana tune, “I Want To Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart”.

It’s fun to record this way in the studio as you don’t have to imagine what things will sound like when other parts are added later, as it’s all right there, complete.

One afternoon recording, one afternoon mixing/mastering, and we were done. While I do enjoy working on more “produced” stuff, there’s just something about the live approach...

02/02/2026

Another band project of Greg Lucker’s, “Vagus Nerve”, has got a few songs in the works in the studio. Vagus Nerve shares some members with Wolfbones, but is a distinct entity all it’s own.

The photo shows Zach Snyder of Vagus Nerve when he was in recently laying down a tasty lead for “Shooting Star”.

I recorded his guitar with three inputs: a direct feed right out of his guitar, using a Radial J48 d.i. box going into a Grace M101 preamp, a Royer R-121 ribbon mic and a Peluso 2247 large-diaphragm condenser (a U47 clone) on the amp, with the mics lined up as closely as possible. Both mics are going through Vintech X73i preamps.

This seems like overkill to record a guitar amp, but there are benefits. The direct feed is seldom used in the end, but it’s great to have as “insurance” in case there’s a problem with the amp sound. If that happens, the direct feed can be “re-amped” with a more suitable amp or amp sound, and then mic’d as you would normally. Or, these days, a software plug-in can be used to simulate an actual guitar amp. This came in very handy for me a few years ago when I found during mixing that the guitar sound we’d chosen while recording just wasn’t working for a particular song; it was too distorted. I used the direct feed through an amp simulator and got a sound that was somewhat less distorted and worked much better for the song, and it took a fraction of the time that re-amping and re-micing would have.

In the case of the mics, using two different types allows the mixer to blend them together to get the desired sound. The classic application is an R-121 ribbon with an SM57 dynamic, but I tried a big condenser one time and liked it better than an SM57, so there we are.

Zach did a few takes until he and Greg were happy, and that ended another guitar overdub session here at Peak Recording, and the last of the recording for “Shooting Star”.

12/16/2025

This is a shot of the control room here at Peak recently during the mixing of Bob Nell and Mike Bisio’s new album, “We Are Here”. You can tell it’s a real photo because the room is a little messy, not “prettied-up” and posed or staged.

I have no idea when it will be available for purchase or to stream, but keep your eye (better yet, your ear) out for it, as it sounds great and is filled with great tunes (all Bob originals) and great performances. Bob is a seriously good jazz pianist and composer!

It was really fun to record as it was all done live with no overdubs. When you listen to it you’ll hear exactly what I heard during the recording, only better, as a formal mix done after the fact is almost always better than the live mix. Makes sense as when you can work on a mix for a few hours rather than just a few minutes, it’d be hard not to get something better.

I think we were working on “Interweave” when I snapped this. Notice the Neve summing mixer pulled out from it’s rack for ease in reaching the controls. If I want to listen to the little Avantone monitors, I’ll push the Neve back so it’s not in the way of the speakers.

Using the Neve is part of my “record digitally and mix analog” thing. Don’t get me wrong, I do my share of mixing “in the box”, but for great music projects like this, analog is the way to go.

From the Neve the mix is recorded to a Tascam solid state recorder at 44.1/24 bit. Then it’s time to master the album. Mastering music these days is basically just making sure that tonally the music has a similar sound and is on a par, volume-wise, with contemporary recordings in the same genre out there.

I don’t claim to be a mastering engineer, but I do wind up mastering many of the projects I record. As all the tunes were recorded at the same place, with the same gear, with the same recording engineer (me), the mastering process was fairly simple. The main tools I use are compression, limiting, and equalizing plug-ins. Bob brought in a relatively recent CD he liked and I used that as a guide. I wound up doing just a little eq and then compressing and limiting to get the volume up, and if you were wondering, the “volume wars” are still a thing. That CD Bob brought in was LOUD!

I’m biased, of course, but I think “We Are Here” is a seriously good-sounding record, which I attribute to a great piano, a great recording (pats self on back!), and mostly, great performances by the musicians: Bob Nell, Mike Bisio, Adam Greenberg, and Austin Belluscio.

The other image features photos of all the players taken by Ginny Barry here at the studio, and she did the graphic design as well.

11/09/2025

I’ve been working on a six-song project for Greg Lucker and his band Wolfbones, and on a session last month Greg was in to do electric guitar tracks for the song “Shooting Star”.

Greg had a new guitar rig, starting with a PRS guitar (used, I think), a Friedman amp he bought from a friend, and a used Friedman cabinet he got from Music Villa. It was all in like brand-new condition and sounded great.

Greg did two rhythm tracks for the song. Two tracks, played as close as you possibly can to the same way, sound much bigger than a single track, especially when you pan them left and right in the mix.

In recent years it’s become a “thing” to mic a guitar cab with both a Royer R-121 ribbon mic and a Shure SM57, so much so that they make a mic clip that will hold both of these mics in the correct (coincident) position.

I’ve used that setup before and gotten good results, but this time I wanted to try something a little different. So I swapped out the $89 SM57 for a $2500 Peluso 22 47 LE large-diaphram tube condensor, a modern-day “clone” of the Neumann U47 tube mic. I ran both mics through Vintech X-73i preamps, which are modern-day “clones” of the Neve 1073 preamp. These “clones”, while not always exactly identical to the original units, have the advantage of new components and parts and work pretty much everytime you use them, something you can’t always say about the authentic vintage ones.

I also took the guitar signal direct, going into a Radial J48 d.i. and then through a Grace M101, keeping the signal as pure and unaffected as possible, so each guitar take had three separate tracks; two mics and one direct p/u.

Sounds like a lot of effort for a rhythm guitar, but we were rewarded with a great sound, due in large part to the guitar rig, but also to the mics and pres that were picking it all up.

Greg mentioned that he’s since added another cabinet to his guitar sound, so if we do the same style of micing, next time we’ll be doing five tracks for each part. Electric guitar fun!

10/22/2025

Tyson Vick was in last month doing the second block of vocal sessions for his movie musical, “Robin Hood: The Golden Arrow” You can see my FB post on July 22nd about the first sessions, which took place in June.

This one was seven days as opposed to the first being three days. We got a lot done but still have plenty left to record.

Cheryl Sheedy, Maddisen Sheedy, Coco Douma, Dalton Weaver, Clayton Oberquell, and Kieran Beebe all returned to sing, and we did have some new singers, too. Victoria Perl, who is singing the role of Maid Marion, flew in from Ohio to record her parts, and Andre Roy came from LA, I think.

We also had a new musical director as Lizzie Webb couldn’t make it due to scheduling conflicts. Halle Martin came from LA and filled that position, and just like Lizzie, she did a great job, as well as being super to work with.

Pictured are Victoria Perl (what a voice!), Halle Martin, Tyson Vick, and Andre Roy.

Like the first sessions, there were no prima donnas, just hard-working singers who didn’t complain and were fun to be around.

I set up the studio the same way as I did for the June sessions; Halle, the musical director, in the isolation room with a keyboard, and four vocal “booths” constructed of movable acoustic panels in the studio facing the iso room, so the singers and Halle all had eye contact.

It was a lot of work over a whole week, but the camaraderie and lack of drama made it a great experience.

10/14/2025

I’ll be finishing up my work on Sarah Kirk’s new release, “This Blest Assurance” soon. This is the follow-up to her 2021 album, “Still Our Refuge”, and consists of eleven tracks of familiar and not-so-familiar solo piano pieces.

Sarah recorded these tunes on Peak’s Yamaha C-6 grand piano over the last two months, recording two or three at a time, but on her last session she was motivated to finish up the recording and wound up doing the remaining four tracks, completing that phase of the project.

Sarah plans on doing a limited run of CDs, but most people will probably find her music on the various streaming platforms, notably Spotify and Pandora.

If you’re interested in a limited edition CD copy of Sarah’s first album, “Still Our Refuge”, or her soon-to-be-released new disc, “This Blest Assurance”, you can reach her at: [email protected].

09/17/2025

I had a really fun project in the studio several weeks ago; the Bob Nell / Mike Bisio Trios. It’s “Trios” and not “Trio” because it was actually two different combos, one with Bob on piano, Mike on bass, and Adam Greenberg on drums, and the other with Austin Belluscio on drums.

We recorded for two days, the first day with Austin on drums, and the second day with Adam manning the kit. We recorded the same 14 songs each day, with the idea being that the best takes of each song, whoever was playing drums, would make the final cut.

Fourteen songs in one day seems like a lot, and it is for most genres of music, but for jazz, with players of this calibre, it’s par for the course.

The songs were all Bob’s compositions, I think, and it was pretty special having a private concert in the studio that I “just happened” to record.

Bob’s a local (Bozeman) guy and a monster pianist and composer, Mike is an acclaimed bassist from NYC, and Adam is familiar to many around the area for his drumming. Austin was “the kid” on the sessions, being the youngest, but I’m sure Bozeman audiences will be hearing more from him in the future.

The drums were located in the isolation room, and the piano and bass were both recorded in the main room. I used five of my movable acoustic panels (used in this fashion, they’re often called “gobos”) to create a wall between the piano and the bass. The idea was to increase the amount of isolation between the two instruments. This generally helps if any editing is required, and also aids in getting better sounds. Oftentimes (but not always) the “spill” or “bleed” from one instrument into another instrument’s mic(s) can degrade the sound quality. In this case, the isolation exceeded my expectations: we had virtually no bass showing up in the piano mics, and very little piano in the bass mic. It didn’t hurt that the piano, on full stick, was covered with blankets, either.

The panels used for the wall were all 6' high and 2' wide, with the exception of one panel, which was 4' high. This one was placed to allow Bob and Mike to have eye contact, and the wall was oriented to allow both both of them to see Adam or Austin in the iso room.

Everything was done live in the studio, no overdubs. And while some editing is a possibility, it’ll be minimal at most.

Mic’ing was pretty standard; the drums were a small jazz kit (2 toms) and each drum and the hi-hat was mic’d, with a stereo overhead rig to capture the cymbals. The piano had three mics arranged in a line recording the low, mid, and high strings, and the bass had my U47 clone, a Peluso 2247LE, providing the majority of it’s signal, with a just little bass pick-up added in for flavor.

I have no doubt mixing will be pretty straight-forward too, as this type of music isn’t “created” in the studio as much as it’s “captured”.

Ginny Barry took most of the photos (the good ones) shown here; I took the two shots through the window; one is my point of view in the control room, and the other is the one that shows the full length of the wall in the studio (Mike and Bob are in there, too).

I have no idea when this project will be done and available to listeners, but I do know that there’s a lot of great music here!

Peak Recording

05/05/2026

04/06/2026

03/08/2026

02/09/2026

02/02/2026

12/16/2025

11/09/2025

10/22/2025

10/14/2025

09/17/2025

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