2013

2013 has started with a bang!  Some new gear and plenty of new acts that we’re excited about.  The studio has added a few more great pieces of hardware to the arsenal and have acquired a bunch more gear from SSL.

This year, we plan to continue to provide the finest music production and recording services available.

Artists

Late last year we knocked over some classic rock with the guys from Crashing Tomorrow, prog-rock with Liquid Gravity, finger-picking folk with Daniel Poloni and hip-hop with talented NZ MC Deadstar.  I wrote the music to his tune “It’s Deadstar” which is featured below.

In February we began work with the very talented Sarah Rae on her 13 track album.  Sarah’s style ranges from jazz to punk and we have had a ball working with her.  Some usual suspects were involved – Steve Pope drummed like the talented man that he is and I played some bass, guitar and piano.  For this project we also hooked up with one of the industry’s finest horn arrangers from the USA Danny T. Levin.  Danny has provided horns for Snoop Dogg, Regina Spektor, Vampire Weekend and a bunch of other great acts.  We’ve worked with him a few times and are stoked to have the opportunity to do it again.  He’s come with some really fantastic lines.  There will be samples of Sarah’s album on the website in the coming months.

Great friend of JNP TJ Quinton has had plenty of radioplay and glowing reviews of his album Sorry Business.  He will also be touring Australia in the coming months after spending the summer (winter) in the UK.

Get In Touch!

As usual we’ve got plenty happening over the next 6 months at the studio, so if you are interested in working together please get in touch very soon!

We’re very excited here at JNP to be using the revolutionary Kemper Profiling Amplifier.   It’s an extremely powerful piece of equipment that can learn the nuances of any amp and bottle them.  Its accuracy is mind blowing and its flexibility is unheralded in the guitar amp world.

It’s not an amp modeler (which are very different with much less accurate tech) and it sounds incredible.  It doesn’t sound digital, it sounds real.

You can use it in the studio and in live situations to carry your custom rigs anywhere.

We’re using it on pretty much all projects that require electric guitar in some capacity, and it does everything from clean Fender tones, to JCM800′s all the way to huge Fortin metal tones.  Pretty much any amp!

It’s one of the most exciting pieces of gear we’ve ever had the pleasure of owning!

It’s also featured in our current video which covers its use across several genres:

Late in 2011 and early in 2012, I had the pleasure of working with T.J Quinton for his new album Sorry Business.  We spent quite a bit of time discussing concepts and continuity on the record, as it tells the story of a man and his journey after losing a loved one.  It is definitely the sort of record that you put on, and leave on.  The album showcases T.J’s guitar playing and lyric writing abilities.

I played some piano, drums and bass on this one  We used a lot of odd sounding stuff on the album – beater-hit floor toms, distorted pianos, hip hop beats, congas and rivet cymbals.  As a result, the soundscape and supporting story are heard as one.

It is a truly artful album.

Gearwise we used our great BLA inductor EQ to carve out some lo-fi piano, and on T.J’s voice for the whole record we used the always surprsing Shure SM7 mic.

T.J also made the great decision to use Wealth and Hellbeing Creative to create a stellar album cover design, and used our CD pressing service to get great rates on a high end product.

T.J played a few dates in NZ with Laydhawke and is back in town to launch his album.

I’ll be playing keyboards with T.J on Sunday 16th September at Black Bear Lodge (it takes a bit for me to play live these days) for his album launch.

The Queensland Music Awards (previously Q Song Awards) are nearing and JNP artist Andrew Redford is in the final round of voting for the People’s Choice award.  It’s for most popular male artist and he’s up against Pete Murray.  Vote for him here:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/extras/digital/qma/week3.html

Listen to his International Songwriting Finalist tune “The Duet Song” that we produced (Steve Pope on drums, myself on bass and string arrangements) here:

What a huge year 2012 has turned out to be at JNP!

We’ve produced EPs and albums with The Updraft Imperative, T.J. Quinton, Biff Rockmore and Dean Ganter; and tracks for Damien Olsen, Blaq Carrie, Jo-Anne Jackson and Michael McCarthy. That covers funk/rock, acoustic pop, rock/metal, roots, r&b, hip hop and pop/rock.  Whether it’s beat writing; guitars, keys, bass and drum sessions work or high-end mixes, it’s been a really fun year so far, with plenty of variety to come in the next few months!

It’s been great working with a bunch of people who appreciate the very high standard that JNP operates at, and who strive for the best possible result for their music.  The reward is the finest sound going around.

Steve Pope has been in the studio quite a bit doing a bunch of session drumming and it’s been a pleasure having him in as always.  This is despite the fact that I have a considerably better haircut.  Wealth and Hellbeing Creative has been at it yet again, creating some of this industry’s finest artwork and creative services.

If you’re interested in working with us, please get in contact or send through a quote request form.

Spaces are being booked for the rest of 2012 at the moment, and we’d love to hear what your musical goals are.

Biff Rockmore is a sleaze/rock artist from Brisbane.  Biff worked with another studio to record his previous tracks but wasn’t totally happy with the result, so he came to see me in the latter half of 2011.

We had a listen to Faith No More and a bunch of other great sounding rock bands to inspire the music writing and arrangement.

I played bass, guitar and synths on this one, and enjoyed knocking over some cool rock solos.  The vibe we were going for was something that wasn’t too polished, but that sounded nice and modern.  We wanted the band to have a vibe and anenergy, and I think that comes across nicely with Biff’s dolcet tones.

Steve Pope and I worked on the music for Biff’s release and rocked out with some big Gibson guitars and great drum tones to deliver this release.  Lix at  Wealth and Hellbeing Creative co-ordinated his image and it’s coming together fantastically.  She’s knocked over the physicalalbum artwork and a website.  Biff was “pleasurable” to work with, and his songs are horribly wrong for the right reasons.

Check out Biff’s website here: www.biffrockmore.com and pick up a copy of his EP on iTunes or in physical form in stores.

It’s always so great to work with a client I enjoy spending time with, and as usual it was awesome to be able to spend time with Steve and Lix working as a team to help deliver this project into fruitiion.

Look out for this one soon!

I will be appearing at QMusic’s The Hook Up on March 7 for a bit of a chat and meet and greet with members of the music industry.

If you’d like to come and say hello, please do so!

Wed 7 March @ 6:00pm
Judith Wright Centre
Details: http://www.qmusic.com.au/dsp_broadcastarticle.cfm?articleID=9772 

2011 was a big year at JNP.  We worked with some regular clients and enjoyed recording and producing more new artists from all over.

In early 2012 we’re looking forward to helping Biff Rockmore, Daisie May, Johnny Breen, Skye Germein, Michael McCarthy, Andrew Redford, Medollic, Tim Loydell and AKA release their music that was recorded with us recently.

We acquired a lot of new equipment to enhance our standing in the Australian music production scene.  We’ve taken on a few custom mics and James has hand built a lot of new gear including some API and Neve preamps and revered 1176 compressors.

Our philosophy continues to be the same – good playing and good parts with great recording techniques is the best way to make great sounding records.  It’s all about the driver of the car!

Get in touch with JNP for 2012 and make sure your single/EP/album sounds fantastic!

Ireland’s Brian Sexton was in the studio with me earlier in the year.

He traveled home for a few months to catch up with friends and family, and has returned to Australia.  We recently sent his song “You’ve Got What You Need” over to Nashville for mastering.

Brian came to me wanting to do a single initially and brought his acoustic guitar in to start work on the tune.  I ended up playing drums, bass, Rhodes organ and electric guitar on this one.

We tried to go for a nice warm sound and didn’t want to lose the raw and natural tones of his acoustic playing.

This one has been dynamically mastered – so crank it up to get the full effect!

This year I’ve had the pleasure of working with QLD based hip-hop act AKA for his debut album “Product of Australia”.

AKA (Dave) writes some beats at home and has worked with producers in LA and in other parts of QLD prior to coming to JNP.  He came to me wanting to improve the music he’d brought in, to have me write some music, as well as adding session playing (bass, guitar, keys, drums) to the equation to come up with a unique sound.  I played bass, guitar and keys and we employed Steve Pope to play live drums on several tracks.

We’re all really happy with the result and feel that his record represents something that is not being done in Australian hip-hop.  True to the genre’s roots, we’ve mixed in some funk and rock elements to create a hybrid of real and synthetic sounds.

AKA’s “Product of Australia” will be out soon.