So we were driving around today looking at potential studios and Logan (the bass player) tells me about this studio built into an old racquetball court called Sound Extractor. That immediately got my interest piqued so we braved the freezing cold weather and headed over there. The studio is in an industrial building that used to have a sauna next door complete with a pool and it made me think about this one song we had been working on that needed a different sonic treatment.

The studio by far exceeded my expectations, the sauna had been unused for years and had this cool natural reverb, but the room between it and the studio had this huge natural ambience unlike anything I had heard before. Of course the studio was booked, but they agreed to lets us come in late and track some acoustic guitar provided we were okay with coming in late.

We booked it for 10 p.m the next day as the session in that day was stopping early on that particular night. Then we called one of Logan's relatives who lives down the street to borrow this really great sounding acoustic of his. The guitar was tracked in the main studio using a Royer 121 ribbon mic, and the vocals were cut outside the studio in this the big ambient room through an old RCA 77 ribbon mic the studio owned.

Everything came out really great and it took about two takes as Travis' voice sounded really strong, the studio vibe played a big part as you could tell he loved the way his voice sounded in that huge room. Then we pulled out the studios vintage Magnatone m-15, which has a great tremolo built in and added some moody 'texture' guitar ambience. We were in and out of the studio in less than four hours and the track came out sounding great.

Stu the owner of Sound Extractor is a seriously cool guy and his studio is something else I can't wait to get back in there.