The Hideaway Studio

Well, what can we say. 2011 was an exceptional year for the studio. Lot’s of amazing records worked on and came out this year, a whole bunch of new clients, a remodeled control room and a hand full of new gear to expand the pallet for the gear heads, and a new internship program that has been fun to be a part of.

I’d like to thank everyone I’ve had the privilege of working with this year and over the last 7 years of The Hideaway Studio’s existence. It’s been an amazing ride and I’m looking forward to the future!

Here’s a little recap of the year and some of the records that came out of The Hideaway:

The end of the year also comes with the Star Tribune’s best of the Twin Cities Critics Picks! We’re happy to say that this year saw four of The Hideaway’s clients on the list all recorded and mixed by Joe Mabbott:
#1 Doomtree No Kings
#2 Sims Bad Time Zoo
#13 Dessa Castor, The Twin
#15 Big Quarters Party Like A Young Commie

With No Kings taking the #1 pick, this has brought the total of #1 picks of this Poll recorded and mixed by Joe Mabbott at The Hideaway over the last 10 years to 9.
TCCT TIMELINE: THE FIRST 10 WINNERS
2002: Atmosphere “God Loves Ugly”
2003: Atmosphere “Seven’s Travels”
2004: P.O.S. “Ipecac Neat”
2005: Atmosphere “You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having”
2006: P.O.S. “Audition”
2007: Brother Ali “The Undisputed Truth”
2008: Atmosphere “When Life Gives You Lemons … ”
2009: P.O.S. “Never Better”
2011: Doomtree “No Kings”

Here’s to hoping everyone has an amazing 2012 and to great creativity and good fortune!
Happy New Year!

Paddy O’Brien stopped by the Hideaway Studio today and recorded some traditional Irish folk music. Two violins, keyboard, and two flutes accompanied Paddy on his accordion. Check out some photos and video below!

Joe Mabbott assessing the scene.

Sam Flach labeling headphones.

Paddy O’Brien and friends rehearsing for a take [Live!] at the Hideaway Studio.

So it’s been a while since an update, but there hasn’t been much time with all of the happenings around the studio the last month. Let’s get into it:
Big Quarters finished up mixing their full length Record “Party Like A Young Commie” with Joe Mabbott and also an EP that is still untitled. 20 plus tracks of raw pure hip hop about to find their way to your IPod or whatever your medium of choice is.

Orikal Uno came in with his Producer Anonimust to master his upcoming debut record with Joe Mabbott. This record is packed full of uplifting positive all around good music. Keep an eye out for this dude!

Paddy O’Brien, world renown Traditional Irish accordion player stopped in with his newly formed trio to record another record of traditional jigs and reels. Always a pleasure to have Paddy in and fill the space with his sound.

Graham O’Brien brought in a 9 song EP for Joe Mabbott to mix that is a reworked, re-edited, and rapped over version of his solo record “Live Drums”. Rappers Kristoff Krane and Sadistik throw hot fire all over this blitzed out huge soundscape of drums and noises produced by Graham. Prey for Paralysis is the name of the project.

Doomtree finished up tracking and mixing their 2nd official crew record called “No Kings” with Joe Mabbott. 12 tracks of dense landscaped music underneath some intense verses from the whole crew. The most collaborative effort from Doomtree thus far, this record is nothing like anything they’ve done yet. Release date is scheduled for November 22nd. You will not be disappointed with this record! Here are a couple photos from the drum tracking session for the album Drums handled by the impressive Joey Van Phillips.

Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band were back in tracking again for their 50th anniversary album. 15 pipers and 5 drummers makes the neighbors in the building wonder if there is war about to go down in North East Minneapolis! So fun to watch this group play. We put up some footage on our Youtube page. Joe Mabbott had a little extra help tracking this time around too.

New clients to The Hideaway Studio:
Chris Caesar and Mercies May who have a group called Literati. They brought in a 5 song EP for Joe Mabbott to mix. From live instrumentation raw driven hip hop beats to a full on epic sound designed straight out of The Wire style track, this EP really runs the gamut in 5 songs.

The May North came in to have Joe Mabbott master their record to be released on vinyl through Noiseland this fall. They’re a progressive bluegrass and folk stringband from the Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota area.

Desdamona dropped off her single called The Come Back for Joe Mabbott to Master. Here is her video for it.

Also mastered by Joe Mabbott was Sims’ Wildlife EP which you can download for free because he is just that nice. Get it here

BK One released his 12 inch Tema Do Canibal EP mixed by Joe Mabbott featuring Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and a batch of remixes from Mike 2600, DJ Nuts, Tom Noble and Exile featuring a verse from MF Doom.

Outside Engineers working at The Hideaway this last month:
Peter Bregman was in tracking drums and basics for The Gillespie Killings
Jason McGlone was in mixing for Absolute Gruv
Joe Mabbott’s mentor and owner of Trail Mix Studio where he started out as a lowly inter Jim May was in with Kjos and world renown band method writer/teacher and conductor Bruce Pearson
Brady Moen has been busy in the B Room with Jeffrey Barbour, Larva Ink, Zack Dyer, and The Thank You Notes
Dan Jensen was back in mixing The Slow Death

Some new outboard gear has also been added to our already nice collection:
1 more API 550b EQ to fill out an entire rack of 550bs, another SSL SuperAnalogue compressor and E Series EQ to add to the SSL X Rack, an Elysia 500 Xpressor, and one more Lynx Aurora A/D Converter to add to our A Room I/O.

And lastly The Hideaway made the news in it’s going public push over the summer as well.
Here is what Mix Magazine had to say about it.
And the NPR story about Prince and Purple Rain that Joe Mabbott was interviewed for aired the last week in August. Here’s a link!
Thanks for checking in. Another busy month ahead of us!

July ended feverishly. The last week had some great sessions at the studio. Joe Mabbott finished mixing Dessa’s record Castor, The Twin, coming out later this fall on Doomtree Records. A great organic live version of her A Badly Broken Code record with a few bonus cuts on it. Sounds amazing. Be on the look out for it.

The Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band continued work on their 50th anniversary record. The group of pipers and drummers are about 20 plus members strong when they come in to record. Huge sounding, goose-bump invoking material.

Doomtree members started tracking vocals on their second crew record due out this fall as well. Sims, Mike Mictlan, Cecil Otter, and POS were all in to get 12 new tracks started.

On Saturday Allison Keyes from NPR stopped by the studio to interview Joe Mabbott about his studio and the music scene in the Twins Cities for a piece she’s working on. They talked about Prince, Husker Du, The Replacements, and Atmosphere to name a few acts, PLUS places to go see shows, who’s doing great things in the cities, and how the music scene has changed over the last couple decades. All while The Hideaway Studio’s intern Adam Greenwald was working on his piece for the Zombie Pub Crawl. Turns out Allision is a huge zombie fan and was excited to have been there for some of Adam’s work in progress. We’ll keep you all posted when the piece will air on NPR.

It was a busy week in the studio this last week. Joe Mabbott started mixing Doomtree artist Dessa’s upcoming record Castor, The Twin, due out this fall. It’s a live band redo of here critically acclaimed record A Badly Broken Code, with a whole new organic twist on some of her great tracks, plus some new songs as well. Her band consists of Sean McPherson, bass player for Heiruspecs and commonly used session player for lots of The Hideaway Studio’s sessions, Joey Van Phillips, drummer extraordinaire for Mystery Palace, and guitarist / keyboardist Dustin Kiel, session player for Rhymesayers artists like Brother Ali and Atmosphere.

Engineer Dan Jensen was also in the studio this week working with The Slow Death. Dan has been doing a lot of great work out of the studio in the last couple months. He’s brought in Battlefields, The Manix, The Turkeltons, and The Red Stripes. We’re happy to have Dan so busy and doing great records out of The Hideaway.

The Thank You Notes were back in for a week to track guitars on their freshman record, still untitled. Jon and Nick played through a couple different amps including The Hideaway’s Orange 2X12 AD30R combo, Naylor 2X12 combo, and the new addition the Vox AC30, plus Nick’s Fender Black face Bassman. We used a combo of Sennheiser 421s, Crowley and Trip, and an AEA R92 to mic up the cabs. Our good friend Golden let me borrow his Beez Nees T2 mic that he’s demoing, which we used on the 12 String and acoustic guitars. Super smooth full tone. Guitars are done and now the record is being handed over to our trusty assistant Brady to track vocals and percussion. Then it’s back in Joe Mabbott’s hands for mixing in the 2nd half of August.

So after some time off for my new baby and some health issues, (I was blind, but now I can see!), things are heating up at The Hideaway. The rest of the summer is booked up with lots of records coming at you.
Big Quarters are in the middle of working on their new record Party Like A Young Commie, and they brought on Joe Mabbott to handle the mixing. 12 tracks have been mixed for the record so far and this thing is shaping up nicely. Medium Zach swung through last week to put the final touches on the first batch of mixes and drop off another 8 tracks to mix.

The studio added a couple more things to it’s musical arsenal.
First up a Samick SU 105 Upright piano. It’s a fun little upright to play around on and work out some parts. Good bright sound. Thanks to my friend Teresa and her mom Lita for the hook up!

And A Vox AC30 Combo Guitar Amp.
One of the first amps I ever recorded for a record was a Vox AC30 that Jim May, the owner of Trail Mix Studios had. It was one of the best sounding amps I have ever heard and I quickly fell in love with the sound of them. From then on I’ve always known someone to borrow or rent one from for recordings, but now I have one of my own. Very excited to have this addition. Roxy the Dog approves as well. Thanks to Dan Jensen for the hook up.

Yesterday at The Hideaway Studio, the homies from Big Quarters Medium Zach and Brandon All Day brought by some of their guys from the Hope Community to take a tour of the studio and have a little sit down Q&A with owner/engineer Joe Mabbott. This great bunch of guys had an arsenal of questions about the recording industry and studio life, everything from recording to mixing to mastering to producing, dealing with clients and artists, and just general excitement for music. It was great seeing enthused youth with a passion for the arts. Keep up the drive fellas!

– Joe Mabbott, owner/engineer The Hideaway Studio

The Hideaway Studio has added the highly praised Retro Instruments 176 to its already impressive collection of outboard Compressors and Limiters. The 176 has been used a ton already on the Big Quarters mixes for their new record on everything from bass, drums, guitars, synths, vocals… you name it. It’s a very versatile piece with an amazing tone and we’re excited to have it in the arsenal.

One of my interns quickly said the one thing that would be better would be having 2 of them. I agreed and tried to hack into his bank account, but with no success. I probably wouldn’t have found enough money in there to buy an Alesis Nanocompressor. BURN!

Anyway, loving the sound of the 176. Looking forward to using it all over the new Brother Ali record and many records to come.
Shout out to Alex Oana at Vintage King for the hook up!

- Joe Mabbott, owner/engineer The Hideaway Studio