Off The Meter · Part 2

A rucksack packed with high-tech gear is all it takes to record tracks for musicians in 2018… and the future. Not always the case, but happening much more often.

- a rucksack

- a mains distribution

- a Glyph harddrive

- a Telekom high speed connection

- a set of network-and audio cables

- a DirectOut Technologies Dante-Madi interface

- a pair of Ultrasone headphones

- a MacBook Pro

- and a good paperback book to read while the others are still setting up.

Stow away your luggage during taxi, takeoff and landing…

Off The Meter · Part 1

In the 'good old days' (the last time was in 2012), when we recorded superstars - artist, artist, artist, artist - on our favourite medium of analogue tape, we needed a big truck, lots of diesel, a huge mixing console, large crew and big budgets. 

Off The Meter ·  March 17, 2018 -

Europe, where are you going?  …business as usual?

These are strange and worrying times.

As international travellers for many decades we have crossed numerous borders, visited a huge number of countries around the world, met many open-minded people of all colours and creeds, experienced a variety of cultures and enjoyed the privilege of living in a peaceful community - but now we are concerned.

We have seen borders open up, walls come down, introduction of a common currency, the disappearance of bureaucracy, carnets and other logistical travel hurdles and the growth of the global village.

Ignoring what is happening in the US for a moment, it is hard to believe that the shutters are coming down again and Europe is taking a major leap backwards.

Let us hope that this potential Dystopia does not turn into reality and that soon we do not have to start again from scratch.

I recently discovered an old interview titled “Europäische Perspektiven” written by Fritz Fey of www.studio-magazin.de way back in 1989.
 
It feels good to appreciate these perspectives in our little 'audio-universe' and I personally, am happy to have had an international team of talent on-board now for many years.

Peter Brandt

-taken from our February 2017 newsletter

Image courtesy of Fritz Fey- www.studiomagazin.de

Off The Meter · Back in May, RemoteTaxi returned to Berlin to record the audio and video for a live webstream Telekom StreetGig Special. This was a proper street gig! We were recording Mark Rosenberg, alias Passenger, on the pavement next to the famous Alexanderplatz TV tower – no stage, just a randomly assembled crowd for audience appreciation! Using 5 Sony cameras and our favourite BlackMagic video gear, Marc Schütrumpf directed the shoot whilst Sven Raff mixed the audio. It was a real pleasure to capture this event  - one man, one guitar, great songs, no computers and what a nice guy!

Photograph courtesy of Neoxfilm GmbH.

Off The Meter · Viennese production company 24/7 booked RemoteTaxi for an 8 camera video shoot and 112 track audio recording of German megastar Herbert Grönemeyer with special guest, Bono – 24/7′s end-client being an American TV station.

Recording was carried out in August 2012 at the new “Metropolis” hall at the legendary Filmpark- Babelsberg in Potsdam.

24/7 director Sven Offen commented, “RemoteTaxi is a very compact effective way to record shows with up to 8 cameras and almost unlimited tracks of audio in high quality…”

www.groenemeyer.de

Off The Meter · German musician Westernhagen was so impressed with RemoteTaxi when it recorded his 2011 tour that he featured it in his latest book ‘Auf der Staße mit Westernhagen’ (On the Road with Westernhagen).

“What do you need a London Taxi for at a concert? Well, the vehicle here in front of the ‘Berliner Postbahnhof’ is a mobile recording system developed by Peter Brandt. Packed with the equipment that recorded the shows of “Hottentottenmusik” the following weeks. Only the drivers seat is empty, “that is HiEnd, a brilliant idea” says Westernhagen.

Photographs courtesy of Romney Müller-Westernhagen.

www.westernhagen.de
Click here to buy the book!

Off The Meter · Peter Brandt brought his Remote recording Truck and his incredible Remote Recording “Taxi” (so Cool!) to Berlin for our recent Sting: Live In Berlin DVD and Audio recording.

He had just recorded a full show the night before and had to set up everything in about 6 hours. The time was running against him and he was working on little to no sleep. Not only was he ready but the gear worked perfectly, everything was in perfect shape and the music sounded incredible.

At the end of the show I needed a bunch of drives run for me for different purposes. After a day where he worked like a dog to make everything right for us, he went way beyond the call of duty and stayed up all night again and delivered to the hotel 2 drives perfectly ready to work on as we flew back to the States to get the music mixed for release.

Peter Brandt is a true pro and has worked on Sting projects as far back as the Bring On The Night project in 1986.

He is something of a legend in Remote Recording at this point, brilliant and just about the best on the planet. I hope I get to record a live project in Berlin or, for that matter, anywhere else in Europe. I would love to see that Taxi again and Peter’s smiling face!

www.sting.com

Off The Meter · The RemoteTaxi team put their combined talent to good use in Switzerland working on the live TV show ‘Energy Stars for Free 2011 and 2012 -live from Zurich”

“We worked alongside TV Skyline with our Taxi-Rocknet system taking all the music signals into the Taxi to record 96 channels. These were then sent via our RN Madi units straight into the TV scanner’s LAWO console. Sven  handled the recording duties in the Taxi whilst Peter mixed the music tracks on the LAWO console in the TV Skyline’s truck.”

Off The Meter · We’ve been using Peter Brandt`s live recording services over the last two decades and always appreciated his professionalism, reliability and great sound. With the new RemoteTaxi he offered an easy and budget friendly alternative to record our 2010`s tour still meeting highest quality demands. Listening back to the Westernhagen recordings at Hansa put smiles on our faces! Great job, Peter!

www.westernhagen.de

Off The Meter · When RemoteTaxi was recently booked by 2Bild TV in Cologne to pre-record the audio and video for Rock ‘n Talk show Ray’s Guesthouse, presenter Ray Cokes was so inspired by the ‘Taxi’ that he spontaneously decided to include the black cab in his show.

Video Director, Marc Schuetrumpf of Neoxfilm GmbH commented, “Ray was amazed that all that technical equipment and capability could be built into something as crazy as a Black London Cab! He loved it!”

“The video recording was handled by six cameras, all recorded on SSD drives as well as the switched program.”

Marc continued, “RemoteTaxi is the ultimate option to use on contained, pre-recorded projects. It’s not only a cost effective way to record audio and video, but is also a very intuitive production tool! For me, it’s the way ahead!”

The photographs courtesy of Stephan Faber show Ray and Marc editing inside the cab, audio recording by Sven Raff.

www.raysguesthouse.de