Studio 

At the heart of the studio are 24 fully automated tracks of digital recording capability, made possible by the Mackie Digital 8 Bus Mixer, seamlessly synced to the Tascam MX2424 Digital Hard Disk Recorder.

The 8 Bus is loaded with Mackie's own MFX cards for multi-effects, compression, limiting, etc., as well as the Ensoniq DP4 mutli-effects processor.

Two Tannoy Reveal Active near field monitors and/or two Mackie HR824 Active monitors drive the audio in the control room.   The microphone arsenal is replete with names like Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, and Audio-Technica.

Instrumentation can also be provided, if necessary.  We have several acoustic and electric guitars, and basses on hand by Ibanez, Epiphone, Yamaha, as well as a six piece Mapex Pro-M serires drum kit.  An ancient, but honorable Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer stands ready, along with a Yamaha RX-7 rhythm programmer and an E-Mu Virtuoso 2000 Virtual Orchestra module for orchestral and synth sounds.  Guitar direct?  No problem with the Line6 POD XT Pro.  For you die hard and purist organists, we also have an authentic Hammond M-3 on site with a Leslie 145.  For sequencing and additional tracks, we can always use Sonar 7 Producer Edition, Ubuntu Studio (Linux) or Studio-to-Go! (Linux)

The recording area is simple, but cost effective and audibly stable.  We began with the idea of being able to do live setups while still having the ability to control the amount of "spill" into adajcent mics.   The result is a single 120sq.ft. room that can be sectioned off into smaller areas using professional damping walls and gobos.  This provides considerable damping and isolation from adjacent live instruments where desired, allowing the engineers to control amount of leakage between mics, and allows the artists to remain in eye and ear shot of each other, with or without headphones.

The Control Room is 90 sq.ft. Arranged and furnished to provide comfortable seating for the engineers, artists, and even a few guests while allowing everyone to hear what is happening in the mix.

Click here to see actual photos of the studio interior.

Mastering 

For mixdowns and mastering, our primary tool is the Alesis ML9600 Master Disk Recorder.  From here we can arrange your songs in the right order to create the proper "flow".  We'll also listen closely to the material and apply various processing techniques such as compression, EQ, peak limiting, and normalization to give each song and your entire recording a professional finish that will make it competitive and comparable to other professional recordings.  We also use Sony SoundForge to edit, enhance and correct the sound of individual tracks or mixed tracks.

Replication/Duplication

3rd Ear is a Discmakers Studio Partner. We have all the templates and rate info necessary to assist in the layout and final steps before having your project sent to Discmakers for professional quality, replicated, printed and shrink-wrapped Compact Discs (highly recommended). Also at the 3rd Ear, short run, bulk duplication of Red Book audio, Orange Book, and Yellow Book CD-Rs is available. We can usually turn over jobs of 100 or less within 24 hours. And we will meet or BEAT anyone's price for short run bulk CD-R duplication.

From Jingles and Voice-Overs, to music CDs, to Video Post Production - even 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound mixing for DVD, 3rd Ear Productions can help you pull off whatever your imagination can dream up at several affordable price points.