Well, it’s been an exciting first year for Blade Studios and we are excited to get 2012 started. We have had some amazing sessions in the studio for just opening under a year ago. Everybody from Darryl Jones to Chuck Rainey along with ADR sessions for films like “Contraband” and TV series like “Walking Dead”. So far the room is working great and sounding great. Our Studio B is rented out to CBS Sports for the Tim Brando show live every morning on the CBS Sports Network. Currently they have the room locked out for 2 years and we are excited to have them. We did a show with Tim featuring The Kenny Wayne Sheppherd Band live on his show from our Studio A room. It really tested the acoustics in Studio A. We had the band setup live with amps blazing and wedges on 10.

That show led us to our new series at Blade called “After Hours”. We will be featuring artists we either have in the studio recording or are passing through town on tour. The first band we had on the show is Galactic. A great band from New Orleans featuring lead singer Cory Glover from the band Living Colour. It’s been really great setting up the band all live in the same room together and running a mix. It takes no time at all and the sounds are turning out great. Galactic came in and knocked out four songs in 30 minutes and headed straight to their gig. This video is live with no overdubs. Check out the songs here: Galactic

We are all very excited to be nominated for a TEC Award this year for “Outstanding Creative Achievement” in “Studio Design Project”. Russ Berger did a fantastic job with the design and it shows from the sounds we’re getting in the room. Our team will be out at NAMM for the TEC Awards as well as the week at NAMM. Hope to see you walking the floor!

It’s been an exciting couple of months at Blade Studios. We opened our doors in February of this year and are going strong. Tonight we are in the middle of a record with the band “The Hardships” all the way from Sweden in Studio A, as well as a celebration party for our new tenant in Studio B. CBS Sports and Tim Brando have rented our Studio B room for the next couple of years. Check Tim Brando out on the CBS Sports Network in the mornings form 9 a.m.-12 p.m. We might have to build a Studio C in the near future to keep up with the demand.
If you haven’t checked out the August issue of Mix Magazine yet it’s worth a look. We were very honored to have the cover for the month of August. Be sure to check out our Facebook page as well as www.bladestudios.com for all our current news.
The tax incentives offered in the State of Louisiana for recording have been a great benefit to our clients. If you’re thinking about to an upcoming record or you are a producer with a smaller budget and could use the tax benefits please check out the Louisiana Entertainment web site for details.

Well it’s been 6 months since we opened our doors this year and so far we are having a blast in our new space. The room sounds amazing and so does the gear. One of our favorite pieces we put on our equipment list is our CLASP. By now most everybody I’m sure has heard of CLASP, but for those of you that haven’t it is worth checking out. Endless Analog is the company that makes CLASP and we have been using the hell out of it. Basically what CLASP does is it let’s you record to analog tape before digitizing the signal. We use a Studer 827 2″ machine and it works perfectly. Here’s a quick video of a session we did last week with Phoenix Hart with an all start cast of players including Brady Blade (Drums), Braylon Lacy (Bass), Sereca Henderson (keys), Andy Timmons (Guitar). This is a video of the live recording of the basic tracks.

This is a video of the live recording of the basic tracks.

It’s been a busy week at Blade Studios this week. We’ve been hard at work with Happy Muffin Top producing music for their video game “Fallen Shadows 2″. Brady Blade has been producing all the music bringing in all stars like his brother Brian Blade to help out on the drums. When Rob Atkins and Adrian Carmack were searching for a producer and studio to work on their sequel to “Fallen Shadows” it was an obvious choice to make the trip back to their home town of Shreveport, La to work with the talented Brady Blade in the newly constructed Blade Studios. The game takes place in the setting of New Orleans so what better way to capture the essence of the game using players from Louisiana. All the scenes are constructed using all live players watching the video game live and coming up with music that fits the scene in real time. Be on the lookout for “Fallen Shadows 2″ and while you play the game you might even find a recording studio to hang out in while you’re on your journey.

Blade Studios had a very successful grand opening party on Saturday April 2, 2011. With close to 600 in attendance, the crowd enjoyed food and drinks while exploring the newly constructed studios. The highlight of the night was the jam session where musicians could sit in and jam with other fellow musicians. Brian Blade led the jam session starting out with his father Brady Blade Sr singing. The jam session was recorded on Blade Studios new CLASP system running to a Studer 827 then recorded to Pro-Tools at 96 Khz. Some of the mixes will be posted soon on the Blade Studios Facebook page.

Here is one of the songs from the jam session:

Blade Studios Grand Opening Party Jam 3 by bladestudios

Here is a new tour video of Blade Studios:

Visit us on Facebook

It’s finally time. We have opened our doors and had our first 2 sessions this week. We’ve already mixed 3 songs on the the new SSL Duality SE and are currently working with Darryl Jones (The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis) this week on his upcoming release. Brady Blade is tracking drums on Darryls project. The room is really sounding nice. The big test was tracking Brady’s drums in the large space. When we pulled up the room mics we were pleasantly surprised. Russ Berger did a fantastic job with the design of the room. The CLASP system is being used on several of the tracks for Darryl as well. The CLASP is connected to our Studer 827 then running into the Pro-Tools rig which is 32 in and 64 outs. We are still getting a few more pieces of gear daily to add to the already stocked racks in Studio A. Last week Allen Sides stopped by to tweak our new Ocean Way HR-2 Monitors and they sound fantastic. You can also keep up to date with all our progress on facebook as well.

While everyone is enjoying NAMM we are working hard to get Blade Studios open. Everything is coming along nicely. The construction is finished and we are onto the wiring. We hired Paul Cox to do our wiring install and him and his team are doing a wonderful job. Next week will be exciting because the SSL Duality will be commissioned and will be up and running. The following week we hope to have the Ocean Way monitors installed and ready to start making some noise. Here’s a short video of the progress this week. Just follow the link: http://youtu.be/2ZDSD7JN2js

Things are moving along quickly at Blade Studios. Brady Blade is back in Shreveport, La and ready to get the studio open. Here is a quick video with Brady Blade showing our current progress. We will keep you posted with more updates soon.

Welcome to the BLADE Studios Mix blog. BLADE Studios is less than two months away from completing construction on its world-class sound recording studio complex.
The brainchild of world-renowned Grammy winning drummer and producer Brady Blade Jr., and business partner Scott Crompton, BLADE Studios was founded in December 2009. BLADE Studios began construction in late spring of this year, and will open January 1.
We built BLADE Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana to service the growing demand for sound recording studios in Louisiana due to the Louisiana Sound Recording Incentives that provide a 25% cash rebate to artists and producers that complete their sound recording projects in Louisiana. BLADE Studios has an in-house production company to facilitate every detail of the project in order to maximize these rebates to the artist.
Yesterday our architect Russ Berger and Paul Cox our technical wiring specialist visited the site. Russ and Paul are extremely pleased with the quality of construction and we are on schedule to open by year’s end.
Next time, I will talk more about the technical aspects of the studios and the equipment we are installing. If you would like more information on BLADE Studios and the Louisiana Incentives, please visit www.bladestudios.com
Thanks. Scott Crompton, Co-Founder