3.27.08

"We put up all this wicker up for you."

As a token of thanks AND an exercise in Web 2.0-iness (yuck), I've put together 5 sets of all original, royalty-free loops for y'all to download and enjoy. Teeny tiny drum beats, crazy ear-piercing screeches, sexy bassuality... all the synthy Boosiness one could ask for. I've supplied them in both ACID (wav) and APPLE LOOP (aiff) formats for optimum compatibility. Download whichever format you prefer, unzip the archive, and get loopin'! The original tempo is notated in the name, btw, but each loop has transient markers which make them complete stretchable, etc. I plan on making this somewhat of a regular event. And please, let me know if you prefer REX files... I can do those too. Enjoy!

ample_120 for acid
ample_120 for apple
bowser_90 for acid
bowser_90 for apple
gringles_133 for acid
gringles_133 for apple
rodeo_90 for acid
rodeo_90 for apple
skrang_95 for acid
skrang_95 for apple

"What is this, ice?"

So, this month I finally finished the Our Love is Special project, and I am incredibly pleased with the way it turned out. It was a three-month long process. Steve and I completely re-imagined about half of his original demos, while simply glossing up the rest. I sort've became more of a co-producer than simply a mixer, and in the end we made a really unique, cohesive record. I put the finishing touches on a couple weeks back and handed the goods over. There are about 5 of the songs floating around at the Our Love is Special page. Check 'em out... they feature guest artists like Britta Phillips (Luna/Dean and Britta), Sonic Boom (Spectrum), Sara Eugene (20goto10/enc0der), and yours truly. I think it's supposed to be out in a month or so.

The other big project I've been working on is the new full-length by Spy-Fi, an all-instrumental surf/lounge/spy-rock band. The title track features guitar work by the original James Bond-theme guitarist Vic Flick, which is pretty damn cool. It's been nice engrossing myself in something other than crazy punk and electro... but I wouldn't have it any other way. Also notably, within the last few weeks I received pressed CD versions of 3 of my recent mastering projects: Spitfire Saloon's "Hard Times in Cleveland," Margin of Error's "Destroy.Create.Repeat," and the Jon Sonnenberg/Israel Slick collaboration "The Prometheus Project." Pretty snazzy.

"That's a Hell of a hot tub you've got there."

This month I also invested in some new toys. I replaced my old crappy subwoofer with the matching subwoofer for my Dynaudio satellites (the BM9S), and have been tweaking and toying with it in between projects. It's amazing how much time I spend jerking around with my monitoring chain to get it just so. The crossover control is a nice feature my previous sub didn't have; and I'm torn as to whether or not I should high-pass the satellites, or let the 3 play together... decisions decisions.

I also bought a new editing application: Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor. It's pretty, it's unique, and it's really functional. I had been using TC Works Spark XL for like, a million years, and have been searching for a new application that isn't Peak (boo!) for quite some time. I think I've found it. It's sort've like Photoshop for sound, using "layers" instead of destructive editing/processing. Once they work out some of the bugs, I think (hope?) this app will bring me years of happiness, provided that they (please?!?) continue supporting it.

AND... I picked up PSP's VIntage Warmer plugin, an excellent analog compression/saturation emulator. The EQ section sort've reminds me a little bit of the UAD-1 Pultec EQ that I used to use. Also, Steve Massey's Tapehead (previously only available in TDM and RTAS) plugin was recently ported to AU for FREE!!! It's stripped down, but MAN do I love it. It's easy and makes mixes that try to rock really rock. Love it.

Finally, you'll notice I've updated the player with a few new samples. Enjoy!

26 Mar 2008 | by: adam |

3.04.08

Man oh man has this been a cool month. First of all, those of you that have known me for a long time know how much of a insanely huge Jawbox fan I am. Well, a few months ago I had a little fun mashing up their classic "Savory" with 50 Cent's "In the Club." I came across it recently on the old hard drive and sent it to the band just for kicks. Well, I'll be damned... they've posted it on their official MySpace page! Jawbox. Thank you Kim and all the Jawbox peeps- the greatest live band that ever existed. It is seriously a humongous honor.

Also this month I mastered another record for analog synth icon Jon Sonnenberg. This one is called "Acoustic Selections" and is a 100% acoustic collection of classic Travelogue and House of Wires tracks. This one was a lot of fun to work on. It was really cool to hear some of these tracks reworked for Jon's crazy handbuilt gadgets. It looks like it will be released next month on California's Old Man Records. And, I just found out today that the Jon Sonnenberg/Israel Slick collaboration "The Prometheus Project" I mastered last month is to be released on the legendary Plastiq Musiq label. Both should be available at the upcoming Autobahn festival.

Finally, I am THIS close to finishing the Our Love is Special record. We had to do some last minute vocal tracking for the song "Run to Grace" with another guest musician, the amazing Sara Eugene of 20goto10 and Encoder fame. Her contributions have really given the track a new breath of life. Now all that's left are some minor tweaks to a couple songs and then off to mastering!

A crazy awesome month for Cauliflower. There's some other neato stuff in the pipeline too... but we'll just have to wait until next month.

04 Mar 2008 | by: adam |

GREETINGS!

Hello friends. Thanks for checking out the new virtual home of Cauliflower Audio! I'm pretty excited for the opportunity to do what I love and share it with folks. I've always been incredibly passionate about recorded sound and learning how to make it sound better. Many thanks to Matthew Traxler for designing a very clean and elegant site. Please check out his design services if you are in need. He is one gifted S.O.B. and a dynamite person.

This site exists to serve two purposes: One, to supply information about myself and the services I offer. Hopefully the information here will answer any questions you have about what I've done, what I can do, and how to go about getting a project started with me. That's fairly evident, Mr. Boose.

The second purpose is to share exclusive little goodies with my people. Over the course of the next few months, I will make available cool stuff like all-original, royalty-free loop sets, exclusive remixes and productions, product reviews, dumb little rants... anything to give back a little something to the fine folks that are making this possible.

The AUDIO SAMPLES page is currently a dead link. For the time being, please enjoy the snippets of mastering and remix samples in the media player to the left. Soon there will be a plethora of new goodies awaiting you. I promise!

There it is. Feel free to peruse the site... and come back often! Drop me a line if you have any questions or suggestions.

Adam Boose
Chief Engineer, Cauliflower Audio

26 Jan 2008 | by: adam |

1.26.08

January was another fine month... one both creatively and administratively productive. I designed and printed up some promotional literature and have been marking my territory around town. I've also put together a few web banners that you may have seen cluttering your favorite sites. It's been fun getting back into using design applications but I'd much rather be using my ears. Such is the curse of starting up.

Still working on mixing the Our Love is Special project... 6 songs down, 2 more to go. This is the solo project of Mabou's Steve Copley, and one of the tracks features Britta Phillips (of Luna) and Sonic Boom (Spectrum), which is mindblowing. As the album takes shape I can't help but get more and more excited for people to hear it. It's been a ton of fun manipulation and re-envisioning some of these songs. It's murky and sparse and dark and tuneful all at the same time. I understand it should be out some time in Spring. I'm looking forward to sharing some tidbits with you in the next month or so.

On the mastering front, I completed 2 full-lengths this month: The first being the final tweaks for "The Prometheus Project," a collaboration between Jon Sonnenberg (Travelogue- Akron) and Israel Slick (Red Orchestra- Philadelphia). I've been a fan of Jon's analog synthiness for a while now, so it was an absolute pleasure to work on this. I had never heard Israel's stuff before, but his combination of hip-hop vocals and minimal analog stuff makes for a unique, very interesting listen.

The other was the debut full-length from Portland, Maine's Cougars Kill Cobras. Abrasive, loud, punky minute-and-a-half aural garage assaults. Great lyrics, great energy, crazy guitar tones. Amazing stuff.

I also ran sound a few times for Cleveland electro-stalwarts Missile Command. We're doing something totally crazy that shouldn't work but actually does quite well. I am mixing their onstage synth/vocal/laptop set-up in real-time from the soundbooth using a second laptop running Remote Desktop via wireless connection. What's great is the ability to use softsynths, eq's, dynamics, etc. in a totally re-callable situation... basically using Logic as a console. We're still debugging the system a bit, but so far it's working really well. Andrew is a tech-genius.

So far, '08 is great.

26 Jan 2008 | by: adam |