With the month of April, comes another year in the books for The Hideaway’s existence. April 2012 marks 8 years since Joe Mabbott started up the studio in northeast Minneapolis. It’s been an amazing run to date with hundreds of records recorded, mixed, and produced out of the studio. We’d like to extend a grateful thank you to everyone who has been part of The Hideaway’s success for nearly a decade!

The Hideaway just upgraded it’s rooms with new Pro Tools systems. Studio A now boasts a Pro Tools 10.1 HDX rig run on an Intel 2 X 2.8 Quad Core Mac Pro with 3 Aurora Lynx Converters run with an Apogee Big Ben.
Studio B in turn inherited Studio A’s previous HD 3 Accel rig running on a Quad core 3.0 Xeon Processor Mac Pro upgrading from it’s previous HD 2 Accel.

Sessions in the studio this month:

Joe Mabbott has had another busy month. He finished up 2 singles for Milwaukee’s All These Runners
Saltee mixed a 4 song EP. They’re having their release show at The Cedar on May 12th. Get down there and check out this urban, organic, neo classical hip hop groove trio, steam driven by afro-cuban beatboxing, raw cello, and dj-phonic guitar.
The Sundance Kid came through to mix a remix for Polica.
Atmosphere came in to work out some show mixes for their upcoming Australia tour with Evidence
Brother Ali finished up tracking vocals for his upcoming record Mourning In America And Dreaming In Color, due out on Rhymesayers
2011 two time Grammy nominated group Mint Condition came in to track horns on their new record due out this fall.

The Cloak Ox were in to track some of that Hideaway Marimba. Joey Van Phillips, drummer/percussionist extraordinaire lent his skills for the part.

The Hideaway’s engineer Brady Moen had some tracking sessions as well:
He’s in the final stages of tracking Irish group Erin Rogue’s record. Keenan has been in with Brady tracking vocals for his project as well.

Dan Jensen, another of The Hideaway’s engineers has been busy this month as well tracking and mixing with High Hopes, Riesage, and Victor Shores

Independent engineer Paul Flynn brought in The Dropsteppers to record a single for a split 7 inch.

Finally Izaac Burkhart brought in singer / songwriter Nicole Serrano to track drums and bass for some of her new material.

Nicole Serrano stopped by The Hideaway Studio today to record drums and bass with producer Izaac Burkhart for her upcoming album. Check out some pictures below!

Featuring Ian Martin Allison on bass and Zach Miller on drums.

Nicole Serrano Online: http://www.nicoleserranomusic.com/

One of Joe Mabbott’s clients ROJAZ was featured on WCCO’s Life To The Max on April 14th. The episode was shot during one of ROJAZ’s tracking sessions at The Hideaway Studio for his upcoming album “Good Things To Come”
Here is a link to the segment.

So this Blog update is long over due, but here are some updates of what’s been happening at the studio this year so far.

The studio has been booked full for the first 3 months and shows no signs of slowing down. There have been several engineers keeping things productive and lots of records being produced.
Joe Mabbott has been busy primarily mixing and mastering with a bit of tracking thrown in as well. Here are a handful of selected projects Mabbott has been working on;
Mixing:
The Thank You Notes self released their first full length album that was Recorded and Mixed at The Hideaway Studio by Joe Mabbott and Brady Moen. This album takes you from down right gritty to polished ripping leads and back again. You can go get their record here.

Circle of Heat brought the funk when they tracked their debut record Big Wheelin’ Hot Stuff at The Hideaway with Joe Mabbott’s trusty right hand man Brady Moen in November and December of 2011. Here was a nice write up by City Pages about their CD Release show.

The free download of The Bite Marked Heart by Brother Ali, produced by Jake One, and ANT of Atmosphere was mixed at a feverish pace by Joe Mabbott so that people could enjoy it in time for Valentine’s Day.

The Legend god himself Lazerbeak brought in 20 heaters, better known as LAVABANGERS to be mixed by Joe Mabbott. Lazerbeak and DJ extraordinaire Plain Ole Bill put together a seamless flow of these tracks to keep your ears pleased and your head bobbing for nearly 50 minutes straight. You can order the record here

Also mixed at The Hideaway by Mabbott are records by All These Runners, Sadistik, Get Cryphy, Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band, Los Nativos, The Sundance Kid, Vega Knami, and Ne’re Dowells.
Mastering Sessions:
I Self Devine has been busy ramping up for his May 8th release of The Sound of Low Class Amerika out on Rymesayers Entertainment Leading up to this release, I Self Devine has put out a series of 4 Mix tapes titled The Culture Series. Joe Mabbott mastered all 4 of the mix tapes along with Recording, Mixing and Co Producing The Sound of Lower Class Amerika.

The South Side’s Franz Diego released another banger with “Sense of Self”. Mastered at The Hideaway, this album has enough low end to loosen your fillings. You can see his video from the first single off the record “Waggin On The Scene” here.

A fine group of engineers have worked out of the studio this year so far.
Shouts out to
Brady Moen working with: Brother Ali, Circle of Heat, Vega Knami, Keenan, Brehtn, Lia Renee Dior, Skinny, Zack Dyer, and 1991.
Dan Jensen working with: The Eidith Massey, Pretty Boy Thorson, Off With Their Heads, Riesage, High Hopes, Mall’d to Death and Victor Shores.
Jason McGlone working with: PB and the Jam, Absolute Gruv,and Crooks & Shanks.
Josiah Kosier working with: Mad Way Out, Jack McNally, Chris Bartels.
Adam Greenwald working with: MaLLy & The Sundance Kid, Christian Ndekwe, A-Z Tek, K-NINE, Adam Ogard, and Mike Smoove.
John Peters working with: Fire in the Northern Firs.
Izaac Burckhart working with: Jesse Matthews and Justin Lansdowne.
Bob Lindberg working with: Mally and The Sundance Kid
Joe Johnson also swung through for some quick sessions.

Don’t forget to go to your local record store and support Record Store Day April 21st. Joe Mabbott Recorded and Mixed a track for Atmosphere called “Someday Soon” which is an exclusive release from Rhymesayers. The picture disc is split with an Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson collaboration. Check it out here.

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.