On the eve of Chinese New Year, Year of the Dragon, the legendary spring festival, fireworks are already going off all day.
To celebrate this rich and highly complex culture, I am sharing everything you need to know but probably don’t about China in 10 minutes:

Since childhood, the fireworks were always a big deal to me, I remember paying $10 for a pack of 100…
Yesterday I went to the seasonal fireworks shop in the land of origin, and they come in cakes of 5000 for $40!
But that’s not the biggest, see below:

10,000 Firecracker cake, China

The fireworks here are some of the loudest you will ever hear. It’s like a war zone here for 2 weeks!
The Chinese believe that if you make enough noise, any bad things will be frightened off and your new year will start out with only greatness.

Fireworks shop, Beijing

祝願你們也有個好年！吃得好，睡得好，身體好，過年好！
– Wish you have a good year! Eat well, sleep well, good health, Happy New Year!

Last Sunday, June 12th, I had a took on a job to do a live recording of a unique and diverse performance in the Beijing Forbidden City Concert Hall for conductor Nick Smith of the Peking Sinfonietta and International Festival Choir, with guests on Percussion Claviers de Lyon from France.

Not only was the line up of performers unique, but the material itself, with Creation by Gérard Lecointe Rapsodie Espagnole by Maurice Ravel, and the world-premiere of a new specially-commissioned work – DAO – from renowned Chinese composer He Shaoying. Described by the composer as a musical manifestation of Chinese philosophical thought, the work included many special effects to realize his vision

The gamut of instruments was impressive and a bit of a challenge to record live accurately given the dynamics of the performance which ranged from a literal whisper of the choir to thunder of massive bass drum and gongs. There was quite a range of tuned percussion, xylophone, marimba, bells, vocals, grand piano, and other instruments I didn’t recognize. Not only were the instruments diverse, but how they were played in extended manner, striking piano strings with hand, and bowing the marimba rather than playing with the mallet.
I guess when musically representing the ‘creation of the universe according to DAO’ then these techniques are necessary.
I used a simple stereo mic setup in the front row, recording through a firewire interface into my Macbook Pro laptop:

Forbidden City Music Hall Mic setup for first movement, only 4 performers

It was Presented by China International Culture Exchange Center and China International Cultural and Arts Company.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take a photo with the full orchestra, but from my seat I couldn’t see it all.

I don’t imagine the recording will be released to the public, but if you come by the studio sometime you can have a listen, it’s quite something.

I blogged recently about the construction of a new studio in Beijing after an electrical fire destroyed the building my first studio here was in.
I didn’t think it would take so long to get it done properly as I hired the best I could find to do it. But the standards I aspire to for things just aren’t commonly understood in China, so not only have I had to supervise and hand hold at every step of the way, I had to get the contractors to redo the entrance door to the studio to get the soundproofing required (the nice door in the construction photos in the blog link above had to go…).
Now I am quite pleased with the result, and although I am still working out a few minor details and wiring up some of the non essential analog outboard gear, the studio is finally ready and I’ve been doing a lot of work in it to catch up, and get used to it, including recording with Miss Melody, and Elika Mahony who blogged about the experience in the new studio.

Here’s a photo of the control room:

Here’s the recording booth. It’s professionally built to completely isolated from outside sound, and is large enough to fit a full live band:

recording booth with new Neumann mic

Since the studio is in a renovated traditional Chinese courtyard building, I was determined to keep the feeling that was originally there, which was quite a challenge acoustically as there is a lot of glass including a glass roof! But whatever wasn’t perfected in design, I was able to compensate for with sophisticated software that corrects anomalies and imperfections in the room for my monitors.
This has allowed me to create what I feel is one of the most unique studios in China if not the world!
I felt my previous studio in Beijing was quite impressive, but everyone who has visited both say this new one is a vast improvement, so I am very pleased. Take a look:

new Beijing courtyard sound studio entrance

studio building courtyard before construction

new studio rear after construction

I’m not one to boast about equipment I use, but I will at least say that all the equipment has been imported into China for the best possible quality, no fakes or imitations! Just the real thing, Apple, Neve, JoeMeek, Neumann, AKG, Sennheiser, RME, Mackie, Alesis, Tannoy with Mogami cabling and Neutrik connectors all the way! This is driven by Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic with Waves, Audio Ease, Spectrasonics, Native Instruments, East West software to name a few.
Many of these are recent additions to my existing range of classic analog and cutting edge digital equipment, making this new studio in Beijing the most powerful, highest quality studio I’ve had in my 20 years as a music producer and audio engineer.

I’ve put a huge amount of time, trouble and great expense to make this one of the best, top quality music and sound design studios in Beijing.
It wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of many wonderful friends and clients in China, you know who you are, Thank you so much!

I am getting very booked in advance, so please contact me now if you want to work on a project.
I’ll be posting a blog about an open house this month very soon.

I hope you get to visit the studio in the near future! Please contact me for more info.

Last December, I completed arranging, programming, production and engineering for a song by Chinese artist Cheng Lin.

The song is about preservation of the environment, as we have ‘Only One Earth’. It was reworked from an old version in partnership with Green China, an organization recognizing philanthropy relating to preservation of the environment in China as they want to use it as a theme song for their TV shows.
We wanted it to have a more progressive feel so it has an urban style groove, and I’m proud of Lin for moving away from typical Chinese pop production with this song. Elika Mahony assisted on background vocals, and Bruce Gremo performed Shakalute and Xun, Chinese clay flute which many feel sounds like an Owl or some natural sound in the second verse amongst the modern production which is nice.
Lin even shot an interview and recording footage in the studio for the song…

A lot happened since then and the song had to be mastered (by Chris Athens, Sterling Sound, New York), but it’s been released as of the end of April, and Lin received an award from Green China during a TV awards ceremony for people who have brought awareness to protection of the environment in China for Earth Day. I really appreciate Lin recognizing our contribution on the song during the show, in English no less so we could understand!

You can listen to the song ‘Only One Earth’ here:
Cheng Lin – Only One Earth
[audio:Only_One_Earth-Cheng_Lin.mp3]

Check out the awards ceremony here (Warning, it’s long, unedited, but at 2 hours 13 minutes, Lin performs the song, and you can see Elika & I in the audience):

(note: the original clip is unavailable at the moment, so this is a shorter one)

Some of the wealthiest in China are investing in Green China, so no doubt big things are bound to happen quickly. Apparently they will have Al Gore at a ceremony later this year to receive an award for his work.
I’m proud to be a part of such an effort, and it’s great to see within days of releasing a song that it is featured on TV and getting attention already.

Since I had to abandon my first studio in Beijing due to the building being damaged from electrical fire, I’ve had to build a new studio.
I’ve chosen the location where I originally planned to set up the studio when I first decided to open one in Beijing, Real Life at Hegezhuang village.
It’s an amazing idea that China would do well to support more. They are taking traditional Chinese courtyard homes and modernizing them by renovating the inside. I’ve chosen to add a soundproofed booth and control room to the courtyard area of mine and luckily have found a great acoustic design company in Beijing to help me do it. Thanks Wayne from Snipersounds for the referral.

This studio will be unlike any I’ve ever heard of. It will have a traditional yet modern feel, with lots of light, and glass skylight which would usually be impossible acoustically, but I’m determined to break new ground and do away with the studio in a box idea. This is possible due to the latest in acoustic materials,  software and hardware to tune the control room (no more cheezy egg carton foam!). Maybe I’ll elaborate more in future once it’s all done.
The recording room is a double walled room within a room of course to ensure quiet but comfortable recording of even a full live band.
You can get more of a sense of the space and cool vibe this place has going on from these photos:

Studio entrance with courtyard skylight visible

Recording room entrance (second sound proof door is missing)

View of the control room from the adjacent room

first wall goes up inside the recording room

Front door looking into open control room door

The place will also have a kitchen and lounge, and a few bedrooms so we can live there and I won’t have to commute. There’s even a little guest room if you want to come visit.

I’ve never built a studio to this level before, but thanks to affordability of Chinese labor and materials, here, it’s possible.
Thanks to the many people assisting me to make it all happen, without them and a few miracles, it would never have been possible.
A few more weeks to go and I think we’ll have one of the coolest sound studios in Beijing!

Despite my lack of updates, I’ve actually been quite busy here since living in Beijing China.
I’ve been working on some cool projects, one of the most interesting being Mikey Dee and Miss Melody’s fusion of western downtempo electronic with poetic traditional Chinese folk music.
The two shouldn’t work well together, yet under the moniker ‘Mobidextrous’ they’ve somehow create something very cool and unique and are breaking new ground here in Beijing and worldwide.
The first track I produced, mixed, and did a lot of the sound design for is called ‘Huan’ which is a poetic account of being lost in the big city, where ‘even the wine glasses are drunk with excess’
They’ve also done a video for it below which has some great footage of Beijing:

You can find more about Huan and their other tracks on the Mobidextrous Soundcloud page, including 2 other songs I’ve produced, Wang Ming Yue, which features the latest and most groundbreaking effects I have used yet, and Woo Yan.

More tracks and videos coming soon, so keep an eye out.

I haven’t written a blog for some time as our lives were thrown into chaos early December when an electrical fire forced us out of our home. Then numerous hacker attacks crippled my website making it hard to post much.

Things have been rough for us in China since we decided to come here. But dealing with an electrical fire like this because of the lousy quality of workmanship here would normally be too much to bear.
Luckily I didn’t lose any of my work, and a lot of the studio equipment was ok, and so was little Evan & all of us, so that made it possible to rebuild our lives.

My Macbook Pro computer didn't survive...

But what really gave us the will to go on and feel any interest in being in China was the kindness and assistance of the Chinese people. They are quite different than the more individualistic people in the west. And the Baha’is here really went out of their way to assist us try and rebuild our lives. It was one of the most touching things we’ve experienced.
Thanks so much to all of you, to my mom, who sent Evan a sleeper that arrived the day of the fire so he had something to sleep in, and most of all to the Mahony family, without whom we would be truly destitute.

We are now in the process of getting a new place to live and setting up and building a new studio.

I could  share a lot more, but this experience and everything else that has gone on here has made me weary, and for legal reasons,  I will say no more except that things could have been worse.

I’ve haven’t been able to blog much lately, even though I’ve never actually had so much to blog about…
That’s because even the simplest things seem to take so long in China and eat up a lot of your time.

Every day here in Beijing I see something that would blow your mind and often I take photos.
Wish I could share it all with you…

All I can leave you with for now is this – Lay’s certainly know how to market their products to a different culture!
One of many very bizarre potato chip flavors in Beijing, China:

I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in China, but this is the best one so far:

Would you eat at this restaurant?

I’ve been living in Beijing for over a month now, trying to figure out how to blog about all that has happened here and what a dramatic shift it’s been living in China. There is simply too much to write about and not enough time!

So I’ll simply share that we’ve moved into our new home, and the new studio is now ready, looking great and sounding fantastic! It’s the best quality studio I’ve had in my 20 years as a music producer and sound engineer.

I’ll blog more about the studio soon. If your in Beijing, come by the open house:
Sunday, September 26th, 2pm to 5pm

Please contact me to rsvp to let me know your coming.

Happy Mid Autumn / Moon festival!