Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen Demo Two New Musicals

Renowned songwriting duo, Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen, celebrated for their exceptional work on the critically acclaimed "Tuck Everlasting," recently recorded demos for two new projects: "Blown Sideways Through Life" and "Revival." With their remarkable talent and prowess as writers, it was truly a delight to witness their musical creations come to fruition under our watch.

The recording process involved two full bands and a suite of incredible vocalists all recorded at our brand new state of the art facility in Chelsea. Engineer Marc Frongillo thoroughly enjoyed the experience, showering the new music with nothing but praise.

As we eagerly anticipate the unveiling of these projects, we encourage you to keep a watchful eye and an attentive ear. Stay tuned for more updates on these exciting developments.

EDC Las Vegas 2023 - ATMOS dj mixes on Apple Music

Music distributor & promotor Insomniac entrusted Dubway with creating the spatial audio mixes for the 2023 Electric Daisy Carnival in May. As the largest electronic dance music festival in North America, the energy and array of artists was stunning. Engineer Nathaniel Reichman mixed audience & ambient mics with the DJ feeds to create an immersive, live feeling sonic experience. Artists included David Guetta, Loud Luxury, Armin Van Buuren, Sidepiece, and Tiesto. Currently streaming on Apple Music.

Tom Nazziola Records Classical Saxophone Sextet

Dubway was thrilled to welcome Tom Nazziola, a Grammy nominated composer and orchestrator into the studio. He was recording “Lost Hymn,” his classical composition for a saxophone sextet. At the helm of the engineering team was Barry Hartglass, an acclaimed engineer, composer, and current professor at Hofstra University on Long Island.

The Dubway team assisted Tom and Barry by executing a seamless mic setup using a variety of spot and ribbon mics arranged in a way to suit both the players and the room. (Check out that base sax in the photo!) The music sounded fantastic and we are thrilled to hear the final result.

Dubway on the Team for "Live from the Artists Den"

Dubway is returning to work with Artists Den for their series of TV performances and interviews featuring a ride range of artists such as Alanis Morrissette, John Legend, and Elvis Costello.

For this up and coming season, the Dubway Team has been recording and mastering interviews and performances for the indie rock band, Soccer Mommy, as well as folk pop up and comer, Noah Kahan. On past seasons, Dubway mixed and mastered performances from artists such as Aloe Blacc, Tank and the Bangas, and mxmtoon.

Below is a clip from Soccer Mommy’s performance for Artist’s Den. The full season is streaming exclusively on Variety.

Dubway Records Martinez Brothers' DJ at Governor's Ball

This past summer, Dubway engineers Marc Frongillo and Mark Tully recorded a live broadcasted DJ set by the Bronx-bred DJ duo The Martinez Brothers for event production and marketing platform First Tube Media. Streamed live from the rooftop of The Orchard Street Hotel in the Lower East Side, the Martinez Brothers delivered a soulful, grooving 50 minute long set for the pre-party for the annual Gov Ball Festival, sponsored by Bacardí.

See the video here:

Dubway mixes David Guetta in Spatial Audio for The Night League

EDM sensation David Guetta was tracked live at Ibiza, specially for an ATMOS immersive audio presentation - immersive to feel like you’re surrounded by the live concert.

Internationally renowned producers The Night League tapped Dubway to handle the mix in 7.1.4, and render the stereo versions of the same. Nathaniel Reichman, Dubway’s chief mixing engineer, worked intimately with the producers to realize the Spatial Audio vision.

Celebrated Performer and Artist Penny Arcade Returns to Dubway

Image sourced from the New York Times

Penny Arcade, celebrated playwright and performer, inaugurated Dubway’s new live tracking room to record instrumentation for her new biographical musical, “The Art of Becoming,” which is about to tour Australia. The piece was created by Penny & her longtime collaborator Steve Zehentner, and touches on her early life, and the beginnings of her career in the notoriously colorful downtown avant-garde art and performance scene of the 70’s & 80’s. Perennial Lower East Side producer Chris Rael ran the session.

Not their first visit to the studio, Penny, Chris, & Dubway founder Al Houghton go way back.

Dubway’s engineer Violette Furton tracked several numbers from the performance, including a peppy rocker, “Christopher Street,” about the epicenter of the LGBT community and counterculture in New York City.

Martin Rev Digitizes Suicide Masters at Dubway Studios

Martin Rev, of the legendary NYC band “Suicide,” entrusted Dubway to digitize the original masters from Suicide’s self titled 1977 debut album. The audio was on a 2 inch 24 track reel, which our staff carefully restored by baking, and then digitized via playback off Dubway’s trusty Studer tape deck, with Martin in attendance.

Their quintessential sound holds up even in its rawest forms, with these masters containing Alan Vega’s vocals, and Martin’s bass, synth, and drum tracks for some of their biggest hits.

Gladys Night and the Pips - Original Multitrack restored at Dubway

Gladys Night’s original 2” 24 track master recordings were exhumed from a soggy basement in NJ and brought to Dubway for tape restoration and digitization. Among the tracks - her original mega hit, “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Holy Cow!

With the audio files now safely ensconced in the cyber vaults of Sony, one wonders about the countless other classics that are hidden away, biding their time on some moldy shelf, awaiting discovery.

Hearing the Pips backing vocals, soloed, was one of those special, inspiring moments afforded by our access to multitracks from the past. (We also digitized the Fugees’ The Score.)

Dubway’s 2 inch Studer tape deck earned its stripes on this one!

"Love Is Love Is Love - The Musical!" Rehearsal in Dubway's Mezzanine

Love is Love is Love singers rehearse in the Mezz.

Cast members of “Love Is Love Is Love — The Musical!” by Michelle Lee rehearsed for a performance at 54 Below in Dubway Studios’ Mezzanine recently.

This is not Michelle Lee’s first show: she has composed another musical, ‘Helen of Troy’, with producer Ed Sayles.

We matched the dimensions of our Mezz space to that of the stage at 54 Below. This made the rehearsal feel as true to the final performance as possible. Engineer Violette Furton played audio from the Mezz’s speakers to mimic the acoustics of the stage as well.

Cellist and Violinist for the production.

The rehearsing cast featured 9 singers. 1 pianist, 1 violinist and 1 cellist.

Check out a duet from the rehearsal below!

Yacouba Sissoko Records For Nick Jr.’s “Bubble Guppies”

Yacouba Sissoko and his kora.

Malinke (“from Mali”) kora player, Yacouba Sissoko recently recorded a song for Nick Jr.’s “Bubble Guppies,” in Dubway’s Mezzanine.

The song was produced and directed by Emmy award-winning composer, Michael Rubin, and will make an appearance on Bubble Guppies’ newest season.

A kora.

The kora is a traditional Malinke instrument with 21-strings and a gourd resonator. In Mali, the kora is used to pass on oral history through song. Sissoko belongs to a long line of kora players from a well-known Djeli family.

Senegalese Singing Phenom, Wally Seck, Records at Dubway Studios

(From left to right): Iqram Ismail, engineer Violette Furton, “Bassy” Bob Brockmann, and Marlon Saunders in the Dubway Mezz control room.

Venmo co-founder, Iqram Ismail, recently directed a “world music” project at Dubway Studios, featuring popular Senegalese singer, Wally Seck.

The session also featured Grammy award winning engineer, “Bassy” Bob Brockmann, who mixed the song.

Dubway’s extensive list of outboard gear — such has our UAD 2-610 pre-amp and 1176LN Limiter — allowed “Bassy” Bob to achieve a top-tier mix.

Record producer, Marlon Saunders, was also recruited to do the background vocals on this track.

You can check out the music video for this session below.

French-Haitian Musician Erick Paul Records Guitar At Dubway

Erick Paul tunes his rare Ramirez acoustic guitar, while engineer Charley Shealey adjusts an AKG C12 mic.

Dubway hosted French-Haitian musician, Erick Paul, to re-record guitar for an unreleased 1997 record. Paul recorded an album in 1997 at Power Station (recording studio) in New York City, but never published it.

He took advantage of Dubway’s 2” 24 track Studer tape deck to convert the tape to a digital format.

Engineer Charley Shealey oversaw Erick Paul’s re-recording of guitars, and the mixing of Paul’s songs.

At one point during the session, Paul was filmed by a PBS camera crew, for a special on Haiti.

Paul has written many songs about the tragedies in Haiti over the last couple decades, such as his song “Renaissance.”

Paul’s work with Dubway spanned multiple days as he had to re-recorded a total of twelve songs!

Dubway’s Nathaniel Reichman Brings John Luther Adams’ “Ten Thousand Birds” To Life

Dubway’s senior engineer, Nathaniel Reichman, was the producer for John Luther Adams’ most recent work, “Ten Thousand Birds.” The 70-minute orchestration emulates the sonic ambience of the outdoors — with a focus on birds — as morning transitions to afternoon and then night. The piece was played at the 55,000 square foot Park Ave Armory in Manhattan. 

Producer Nathaniel Reichman stands among his 7.0.4 microphone/speaker array, used to record John Luther Adams’ “Ten Thousand Birds” at the Park Ave Armory.

This installment of “Ten Thousand Birds” was performed by orchestra ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. Throughout the performance, Nathaniel and his colleagues (recording engineers Silas Brown and Doron Schächter) captured the piece in surround sound.

Usually functioning as a community fitness/event center, the 55,000 square foot Park Ave Armory was host to a different kind of function: an “immersive concert hall” for the work of John Luther Adams.

The performance was attended by many: some meditated, others lay on the floor, and most walked around (including Talking Heads’ David Byrne).

Audience member at John Luther Adams’ “Ten Thousand Birds,” surrounded by the orchestral performance by Alarm Will Sound.

This performance was a fantastic opportunity to capture audio in a 7.0.4 microphone/speaker array, for Dolby Atmos and Apple Spatial Audio playback purposes.

Check out the New York Times’ review of the event.

Church Street School For Music and Art honors our late friend and collaborator Tom Goodkind

We at Dubway were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our friend Tom Goodkind, a true multihyphenate who brought his wonderful musical sensibilities to our studios many, many times over the years, for session that always ran on the wild, fun, and productive side. In addition to his work directing and conducting The TriBattery Pops–which he also founded–he lived a colorful and deeply engaged life. In the words of the Church Street School For Music, who are honoring Tom with a tribute at their annual gala next month:

“Tom was a longtime resident of Battery Park City. But it was much more than his years of living in Downtown NYC that made him such an important figure in Lower Manhattan. His drive to tackle issues facing the people in his community, and passion for bettering the lives of others made him an important neighborhood leader who strove to leave his community better than he found it.

Another of Tom’s key passions was music. He spearheaded various musical ensembles during his life, the most recent being the TriBattery Pops all-volunteer community band that he founded in 2004. The Pops practiced at Church Street School for many years, helping to expand our musical community with so much openness, fun and humor!

During the early 1980’s Tom also co-founded The Washington Squares, a neo-beatnik folk revival group, and played a part in the creation and management of legendary NYC music venues including Irving Plaza, the Peppermint Lounge, and Roseland.”

We will all miss Tom’s wit, musical sensitivities, and dedication to housing access and the arts in his beloved NYC Downtown community.

For those local to NYC who wish to attend the CSSMA gala, you can find tickets to the annual gala here..

Randi Zuckerberg's crypto covers record at Dubway

Randi Zuckerberg–tech entrepreneur, Web3/crypto evangelist, and sister to Mark Zuckerberg–joined staff engineer Sydney Fuqua in our NYC studios last month to record a few covers extolling the values of cryptocurrency. The session was a freewheeling one–our engineer guest featured on one of the songs, and jumped in to sing backup during the choruses–and it produced a number of covers, which you can find on Zuckerberg’s Twitter or all over the internet; you can also find her cover of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, originally by Twisted Sister, below.

In the Mezzanine with Carolyn Sloan

Carolyn sloan (front center) with her ensemble in the Mezzanine.

Award-winning author and composer Carolyn Sloan brought an excellent group of musicians to our NYC Mezzanine studio this past month for a recording with staff engineer Marc Frongillo. The ensemble included a string quartet with flute, oboe, french horn, and clarinet.

With our Mezzanine’s spaciously high ceilings and precise acoustics, ensembles can record naturalistic group performances and add any additional desired spatial effects (reverb, echo, etc) in post, for a controlled approach to classical-style recordings. As with all recordings made in the Mezzanine, the session was tracked through our SSL 4064 G+ console, with some of the outboard gear inserted for a particular tone.

You can listen to some of Sloan’s previous work here, and watch the same space in the future for these recordings!

Tape restoration: before and after

Desperately in need of a clean!

We do many types of audio project at Dubway Studios, including a large variety of work in the audio restoration and preservation fields. These types of jobs are constantly ongoing quietly in our studios–we have a room dedicated to tape transfers and audio restoration–but rarely get a shine publicly. What better time to show the process in action?

The above tape came to us with a few different molds on the outside, as you can see from the discoloration on the tape. Tapes in storage can get dry over time, becoming brittle and cracked, or moldy if the storage location is too damp.

If you’re curious (or have tapes of your own that need some TLC), check out the process below, and see before/after pictures at the bottom!