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DEAL
Studios closed our doors in 2005. Thanks to each and every
one of you who have honored me by giving me a place in your creative
endeavors. Many times the music we shared carried my spirit to
beautiful new places. Our recordings have touched many lives.
While the facility is gone, the people and gear are still available for
select projects. In particular, I've written a sub-page as a
professional reference for Paul Brandon Taft, my gifted associate who
was an indispensible part of the DEAL magic. It contains samples of our
work, and some stories about the people and projects. See paultaft.html.
--charles
strouss
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in 1986, i built my dream
home in the woods east of redmond, washington. a key
element of the design was a recording studio, which addressed the
limitations i found in other available facilities. in particular, as a
rock & blues piano player, i
wanted plenty of isolation, and a special room designed for my
grotrian steinweg model 220 grand piano. this design perfectly
suited the revolution from the old linear tape / large console
paradigm to the now ubiquitous digital audio workstation.
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three isolation rooms
cluster around a central main room, allowing excellent line-of-sight
for ensemble recording. the low ceilings and angled walls give a tight,
controlled ambient sound.
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in 1994, i retired
from full time work in the computer software industry to put my full
energies into making the studio available to the public. i was able to
equip his studio with high-end gear, including the first daw capable of
doing high-track-count audio production, pro tools iii.
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tor dietrichson's cd project cosmic view put us on
the map as a premier facility for world-fusion music.
we have been graced with a parade of musical
luminaries, such as steven kindler, jovino santos-neto, karl perazzo,
zakir hussain, joaquin lievano & flora purim.
during a recent womad event, the nationally syndicated radio program echoes
with john diliberto recorded sheila chandra, djyvan gasparyan &
joji hirota for their "living room
concerts" series. it was a joy working with john's engineer, jeff
towne, who managed to keep this incredible session on schedule,
complete with several hours of "live" radio in the can in only 8 hours
of studio time.
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the latest digital
technology is no substitute for a great analog front-end. microphones
made by sony, neumann, akg, lawson, manley, etc., feed preamps by
avalon, api, demeter, night-pro & true audio, and then into the
fabulous a/d in the digi 192/io.
outboard gear by eventide, lexicon, and tc electronic are on
digital efx loops. analog processing includes a pair of el-8
distressors and tube compression by tl audio
and drawmer.
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our outstanding
grotrian-steinweg model 220 (7'3") was hand-built in west germany in
the early 1970s. if you are a pianist, or if acoustic piano is a
significant part of your music, we hope you'll come check it out.
folks who are familiar with the more common yamaha and steinway pianos
found in most studios are usually blown away by its rich tone and
splendid action.
a midi key rail allows piano tracks to be captured simultaneously as
midi performances, which opens up a range of new creative possibilities.
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our most common media interchange with other studios has become the
inexpensive firewire hard drives. we still accomodate a wide variety of
other interchange media, including mdm tape such as adat and da-88.
some of our projects have included collaboration with more than a
half-dozen other studios around the world.
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with our hd3 system running
on dual 1ghz g4s, we have a tremendous amount
of audio processing power. our collection of plug-ins is
extensive, and includes altiverb, the waves gold tdm bundle, ultra
tools,
reverb one, autotune, amp farm, and more. and, we are adding more
all of the time!
now, with a 16 input digi 002-r system running off a 17" 1.4ghz
powerbook, we can capture on-location performances which easily drop
into the larger system in the studio for subsequent production.
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