Wellspring Sound Recording Studio

Hey Friends, Louise Grasmere and I. have been pals for over 25 years, and her talents and power continue to amaze me. Lots of you may know her as the featured soloist in decades of Mystic Chorale concerts, where her big-as-a-mountain voice fills any room she's in, but I'm here to tell you about one of her hidden super powers: she's a wonderful songwriter! We're doing a concert in Acton at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 23 for Asheville flood relief ( all proceeds go to Hearts With Hands in Asheville), and you'll get a chance to hear some of her amazing songs, along with some of mine, for a great cause. Accompanying us on percussion will be the unstoppable Linda Shoemaker. The concert is being held at the New View Common House, 25 Half Moon Hill, in West Acton. There's a suggested donation of $20, more or less as you're able. Hope you can make it !!

Hey Folks- Just about 2 years ago my old buddy Dean Stevens of the Community Church of Boston hosted my first live-streamed concert, right from my living room. I was just me, a camera, my laptop and couple nice mics- who knew you could do shows this way ? Something like 80 people attended, there were no technical snafus, and I had a great time. We're doing it again in two weeks, and I've got a bunch of new songs I'm excited to share, as well as songs from the new CD "Reckonings". Hope you can make it!

We recently did a listening test/shootout between our 1961 Neumann U-47, which we’ve had since 1989, and the Heiserman H-47, which we’ve had since last week. The results weren’t surprising: the old guy had more low-end richness, and the H-47 had more sizzle/clarity up top. Which one won? I’d say it depends on the singer,and it depends on the application, but the two of them together sounded amazing!

Two old Martin guitars having s*x on the piano at Wellspring. The one on the left is an amazing 1937 Herringbone D-28, brought in for a session by Zack Smith. The one on the right is a 1933 OM-18 recently acquired by the studio. Soon we'll have little ukuleles running around the place...

I first recorded Seamus Egan in 1987 in my third floor Newton apartment studio for a Robbie O'Connell record. Although he was only 18 at the time, he'd already won All-Ireland awards on four instruments! He's gone on to all sorts of musical adventures ( look him up on wiki), and his latest one is the Seamus Egan Project , who dropped in to Wellspring yesterday to record a couple of songs. It was great to see old friend Moira Smiley, who sings and plays banjo and accordion in the band, along with Evan Marshall on bouzouki and harmonium and Kyle Sanna on guitar. This band has amazing chemistry and virtuosity and it was a real honor to watch them develop the tunes in the studio. I almost felt like I shouldn't charge them!

The little engine that could! This sweet 1959 Fender Champ just moved into the Wellspring stable. Such a simple circuit- 3 tubes, all made in the USA, just a volume pot, nothing else....It came with a semi-blown speaker, which I thought would be no big deal to replace.... wrong! Three different speakers all were either too deep or too wide or both, Finally fed up, I found an 8"Eminence with a cannabis cone ( really!) and spent about 3 hours with a dremel tool, belt sander and bench grinder , and the speaker now fits without hitting the power tubes or the transformers. For lovers of Stones- style guitar sounds, this little cutie is the bee's knees. It's also amazing on slide guitar. Thanks to Eric Wells for selling it to me...

I'd say six microphones on a piano are enough, wouldn't you ? The newest pair are a couple of Danish-made DPA 4006's which add a little sparkle that I really like-

We love the new remixed-for-stereo version of Sgt Pepper, and we've decided to host a listening party on some really nice speakers at the studio in about 2 weeks. We're still working out the date, so please message us if you're interested and we'll let you know! You can also leave a message on the studio's phone at 978-263-9246. Light refreshments will be served....

Phantom -powered ribbon microphones have been around a little over 10 years, and we've got a few of them, but until recently, we've never had a stereo ribbon mic. This new Royer SF24 sounds amazing on pianos , violins, anything with strings, and we can't wait to try it on horns! The other cool thing about phantom-powered ribbons is that they have as much output as a normal condenser microphone, so there's there's no more having to crank the preamp on quiet instruments to get enough level from them

The amazing pianist Santon, with his teacher Andrew Goodridge, playing a live version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" for two pianos at Wellspring last week. Santon played the piano parts, and Andrew played a piano arrangement of the band parts. Santon memorized the whole thing- 20 minutes of incredibly complex material- whew!