Tacoy Ryde

Preston Williams
Anna Beaumont

Dale Ladouceur is recording a new disc with her band The Broke Ensemble this year. Thanks to grants from The Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Rawlco radio. The new disc will feature more guest artists along with the usual suspects: Barrie Nightswander, Brett Miles and Bill Hobson. Production has begun on Pro Tools 10 with our newly upgraded A/D converters by Prism and the Endless Analog CLASP.

Pro Tools/ CLASP / Prism has arrived!!  We have recently upgraded the studio to include Pro Tools 10, Endless analog CLASP and Prism  dream ADA8XR converters. With this upgrade we can boast the most comprehensive, highest quality A/D/A chain in the city if not the entire province!  The Endless Analog CLASP technology allows us to record live tracks onto our wide track Cadillac Studer 16 track master tape recorder while immediately dubbing to pro Tools. The Prism converters are some of the best available so we’re guaranteed to capture the high resolution analog sound  on digital hard disk with ultimate clarity and precision. We can also use our analog processing without any fear of generation loss from A/D/A conversion. If you love the sound of analog (who doesn’t?) then you’ll want to take a serious look at what we have to offer.

September - 2011  Brian McLeod has finished his first full length project, Door Of My Heart. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Crowtown by Bill Hobson.  Aside from Brian’s fantastic guitar skills, the disc features special guest Rusty Reed the great Edmonton blues harp player, Lyra Brown and Robyn Walters on background vocals and Bill Hobson on drums. CD release party is on October 8 at Giovanni Music recital hall on Mayfield Road.

Painting With Ella has finished their CD project, One Lost Kite. The final master was delivered by Bob Katz of Digital Domain in late July....just in time for their live appearance at the Calgary Folk Fest. They were very well received and sold many copies of their new disc. Look for a release party in the coming months.

Painting With Ella is hard at work this spring recording their debut cd with producers Dale ladouceur and bill hobson. It’s a real treat to work with these talented young artists. Each of the three members contribute to the songwriting and the result is a very likable sound, sometimes moving, sometimes quirky but always interesting.

Brian McLeod has released an early sample of his upcoming full length CD "Dig Deep". This five song offering was just in time for Brian’s appearance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in August 2010.  It’s been getting airplay on CBC and CKUA radio and got Brian a lot of attention as a part of this years U22 showcase.

Big Hank Lionhart and A Fistfull of Blues has wrapped up mixing on their new cd Bluesville. The disk has 15 songs which run the gamut from slow jazzy blues through traditional, funky and blues rock with a little swing if that’s your thing. All tracks were recorded and mixed at Crowtown in our new Track House facility. The mastering job was handed to Bill Wolf at Wolf Productions in Arlington VA. The official release date is May 29, 2010.

Jan Randall was in the studio early this year to mix some tracks recorded by Jay McShann and Johnnie Johnson for Holger Petersen of Stony Plain Records. The tracks were recovered from adat tapes last year. Holger got these two boogie woogie piano giants together for the first time near the end of their lives  to jam on a pair of nine foot grand pianos. Some of the tracks have already been released on a previous Grammy nominated Stony Plain disc.

Tacoy Ryde is working on some tracks for a possible instrumental CD these days. The band actually has over a dozen songs that have been brought forward over the years by guitarist Barrie Nighswander.  They all have that latin rock sound that Tacoy Ryde is famous for. Some, like Where’s Doug and Ojo Grises have already been released on a previous cd, (Here’s the Picture 2003). Others, Like Desert Preacher, Carmalita, Traces were used through the 90s to open sets in the bar band days.

Fistfull of Blues is busy writing material for a new CD which is due out by the end of the year. Hot on the heels of 2009s’ Lightning Strike My Boogie. Singer Big Hank Lionhart has been relentlessly finding work for the band and money to record so the disks keep coming.

Crowtown Productions has moved to a larger space at the same location. We are now operating in a 1000 sq. ft. room designed from the ground up by Bill Hobson. The new design is a single room, workshop style facility. That is to say there are no walls dividing the control room and studio. This allows everyone involved to be in the same space. It also has the advantage of providing the most space possible for superior acoustic performance.  The noise from the audio equipment is contained in a machine room. Baffles are used to provide isolation when required but we are fond of old school live recording with it’s attendant leakage and ambient advantages. Music has been produced in these type of studios by the likes of Daniel Lanois, Peter Gabriel, Sarah McLaughlin and a host of others.

The acoustic design is by Bill Hobson and features a multiplicity of hand made porous and panel type absorbers as well as diffusers by RPG Acoustics and Auralex Acoustics. An array of six-double glass block windows in the south east corner of the building fills the room with natural light without compromising the excellent sound transmission loss. Radiant floor heating keeps the room at a constant comfortable temperature and fresh air is circulated and filtered by a virtually silent ventilation system.