How it all started

Sure, I had the Tascam 244 when I was 17, and I graduated to the Tascam 38 but they’ve been packed away for years. Wombat Studio began with a nudge by Fosterchild‘s drummer Robert Pirylis, Jr.

I had been accumulating equipment here and there in the direction of doing studio based recording. Firstly, the MOTU 24io interface to do live recordings when I was working with Octane. I have many recordings tracked from live performances. As this time went by, I acquired a keyboard, 12″ Tannoy concentric studio monitors, guitar amp, etc., but since my departure from Octane I really wasn’t using any of it and was waiting until I had everything I needed.

Guess what? If you wait until you have everything you need, you will never get started. Fosterchild needed to lay down some tracks, and I was asked to do it. I said I wasn’t ready but Bob knew better. We threw together a studio in a day (sort of). I already had all the pieces, just not the motivation.

I set up the Soundcraft Series Two and mic’d everything up, went through the MOTU 24io into a PC running Cubase SX3. All drums mic’d, guitar/bass went direct and we threw Danny in a closet to sing scratch vocal tracks. Four songs were tracked. All throughout the process, I thought we were doomed. It was loud and noisy. We had all different headphones and headphone mixes. Things were distorted in the headphones for some and fine for others. I thought it was a failure, but I kept going.

After everyone left, I did a quick mix and was amazed! It sounded incredible! I threw the mixes up quickly onto the Internet to share with the other guys and that’s how it started. The recording bug. Once that first recording was made, I couldn’t get enough.

Since then, the entire recording process has changed. Now using a different board, headphone distribution, computers and software. Everything is Mac based now. I swapped out my huge 12″ Tannoys for Yamahas. Recordings sound even more incredible. Fosterchild‘s “Under the Influence Vol. 1” EP was done start to finish here (except 1 song “After the Fire” tracked at Dragonfly Studios mixed by Jim Ebert).

I wish I wouldn’t have waited at all.

2018 UPDATE:
I bought a LOT more gear and moved it all to Gibbsboro, NJ.