Rich Breen

Vince Mendoza 11/2011

richbreen — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:41:46 +0000

Vince Mendoza’s new CD “Nights On Earth” is out this week – there’s some pics and a bit more detail in one of my earlier posts here. It’s an *AMAZING* project, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. More here.

Seth MacFarlane 10/2011

richbreen — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:56:10 +0000

Seth’s new album “Music Is Better Than Words” released this week. Really great album/CD (yes, it’s available on vinyl), featuring Seth singing with 55+ pieces at Capitol Studios – we recorded the album to double 24s analog, 30ips, no noise reduction. Used lots of old mics, etc… but really, it comes down to cutting with all the musicians on the floor together with Seth, some fantastic musicians and arrangements, and *great* singing from Seth, with some nice guest appearances from Norah Jones and Sara Bareilles. I couldn’t be happier with how it came out. There’s also a companion video of an evening of this music filmed at Club Nokia and mixed by yours truly, airing on the EpixHD channel. Check ‘em out!

"Music Is Better Than Words"

6/2011 All American Rejects

richbreen — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:00:43 +0000

Pretty wild session today over at Warner Brothers on the Eastwood Stage; Orchestra recording for the All American Rejects – straightforward, right? Well, the Rejects wanted to record one song (“Affection”) live with the orchestra; this means full drums, 2 *loud* electric guitars, bass, piano, and vocal live. We were able to iso the drums and guitars, but vocals and piano would need to be on the floor with orchestra. I thought this was a recipe for disaster, but the band was adamant that they could do it, so… Lo and behold, it was a beautiful thing; those guys are pros, no ruined takes because of lousy band performances, everybody came through with flying colors. The band’s engineer (Ian MacGregor) did a great job getting basic rhythm sounds on the band, and we sort of split the board up between us to get it done quickly and efficiently. The crew at WB was fantastic, and made it all seem fairly easy!

I don’t know when this will release – maybe 2012? We did 5 songs; 3 straight orchestral/string overdubs, the live-with-band track, and 1 simple little horn chart.

Good Stuff!

4/2011 Lyle Mays at TEDx update

richbreen — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:26:53 +0000

The show of Lyle’s at the TEDx event in Pasadena has been posted. We recorded this on January 14th, 2011 at CalTech.

A few techie details; This was my first time trying out the Earthworks piano mic system, and I have to say it came through very well! Piano was on short stick with a fair amount of stage level, but no problem – you can get a good idea of the quality of it during the solo section midway through the video.

Check it out!



2/2011 Grammys
richbreen — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 05:44:45 +0000
Billy Childs won a Grammy today for his amazing “Autumn – In Moving Pictures”.  If you haven’t heard this incredible project, it’s worth checking out here.
You can see his acceptance speech here (with a shameless plug for engineering!).



1/14/2011 Lyle Mays
richbreen — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:39:55 +0000
Really cool day today; Lyle Mays put together an interesting quintet to perform at the CalTech TEDx Event honoring the work of Richard Feynman.  Based around a bunch of algorithmic compositional ideas using non-linear dynamics to generate some of the musical elements no less…  Cool band with Jimmy Branly on drums, Tom Warrington on bass, Andrew Pask on reeds, and Bob Rice on guitar.
Bottom line, put Lyle at a piano and beautiful music comes out.  Recorded the whole show for posterity – it should be made into a DVD and also posted on the web once it’s all mixed and edited – maybe in the early spring.



12/2010  Seth MacFarlane at Capitol
richbreen — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:34:53 +0000
AMAZING session at Capitol this month!  55 pieces live on the floor for 4 days, with live vocal on the floor too!  Studio ‘A’ and ‘B’ opened up to make one big room.  This project is a little love letter to those late 50′s/early 60′s Sinatra records.  I tried my best to set up and record this session with that aesthetic in mind; double 24-tracks, 30ips no noise, great musicians, great arrangements, what more could you ask for?
All for Seth MacFarlane’s upcoming CD – I think it’ll be released in the fall of 2011.  Seth is a wonderful singer, and knows this music inside out.  Also features a couple great duets with Norah Jones and Sara Bareilles.



	
	
		
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7/2010 Yellowjackets
richbreen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:06:29 +0000
A new Yellowjackets CD in the works!  Really nice to be back in the studio with the fellows!  Tracked for 3 days at Firehouse studios in Pasadena – 12 original songs



	
	
		
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7/2010 Patricia Talem
richbreen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:41:54 +0000
Just finishing up a CD for the wonderful Brazilian singer Patricia Talem – beautiful CD featuring Marco da Costa on drums, Christian Mcbride on bass, Sandro Albert on guitar, Russ Ferrante on piano, Bob Mintzer on sax, Flavio Venturini and Jane Monheit guesting on vocals, and probably some other folks I’m forgetting right now.  Patricia tracked at Bennett Studios in Jersey, and I mixed here.  A really nice CD!  Should be out in a couple months…



3/2010 Tinkerbell 3
richbreen — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:09:06 +0000
Another spring, another Tinkerbell movie, another great score from Joel McNeely!  Yes, the fairies have returned again, and once again, Joel’s written a beautiful orchestral score.  We had a few days at Sony Scoring with a great orchestra, and, through the good graces of a volcano in Iceland, which stranded the entire production team in London for a week, a third of the score was recorded with another great orchestra at Abbey Road.  Pretty interesting to hear the two rooms back to back…
I’ll try to post some pics later – gotta get back to mixing…