Rich Mouser – First Take PR

January 4, 2017September 28, 2023

SIRIUS XM: SIX ALBUMS FROM 2016 YOU MUST HEAR

SiriusXM Radio | Jan 4, 2017

Everyone has shared their best of lists, and before it’s too late, we thought we’d contribute with six albums from 2016 that are worth taking a listen to. Some you may be familiar with, a few are just a little under the radar.

1. GOOD TIMES – THE MONKEES

Who would have thought that the Monkees, that so-called ‘fake band’, would have released one of the best albums of 2016, more than 50 years after they arrived on television. But that’s exactly what they did with Good Times, featuring a plethora of great songs from indie and alternative songwriters who grew up loving the pre-fab four. The first single, ‘You Bring The Summer’ comes from the pen of XTC’s Andy Partridge, and set the tone for what became the biggest comeback of the year.

2. BLUE AND LONESOME – THE ROLLING STONES

Fans have been waiting for the Stones to get back to their blues for decades, and with this, their first covers album, the band deliver. Sounding younger than ever, the band is at ease playing music that influenced their earliest years. Mick Jagger is the star of this show, as he infuses each song with power and passion and grit (along with his distinctive harmonica playing). I saw the band at Desert Trip and they were on fire – live and in the studio, the Rolling Stones just might be at their best right now.

3. HARDWIRED…TO SELF-DESTRUCT

Metallica was back with a vengeance with their first studio album in 8 years. Hardwired…is a ballad-free, relentless piece of aggression that pleased many a die-hard metal fans. The title track also served as the first single and was a shortened taste of what the band would deliver throughout the course of two discs. Prog rock length tracks, time changes and some of the greatest riffage the band has ever laid down.

4. BLACKSTAR – DAVID BOWIE

While we may never get over the loss of David Bowie, in 2016 we were given the gift of the man writing his own demise. Blackstar is one of the greatest albums in the man’s impressive catalogue, thanks to the nearly 10-minute title track and the hauntingly beautiful ‘Lazarus’. Blackstar is an album that’s beauty will continue to unravel over the years to come.

5. YOU WANT IT DARKER – LEONARD COHEN

Along with Bowie, Leonard Cohen crafted an album that stared mortality in the face and didn’t blink an eye. Skillfully produced by the bard’s son Adam, You Want It Darker is a more organic album that more recent Cohen offerings and is all the better for it. The highlight is definitely the title track, which utilized a Jewish men’s choir to stirring effect.

6. THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM – THE NEAL MORSE BAND

Definitely not a household name, Neal Morse is the current shining light of progressive rock, and his recent double-album is a tour de force that had band mate and iconic drummer Mike Portnoy saying, “I’ve always had a soft spot for double concept albums such as Pink Floyd’s THE WALL and The Who’s TOMMY, and I can bravely say that I think we’ve created an album here that can sit side by side with those masterpieces”. For fans of hard rock and prog rock, it’s a must hear. (Rich Mouser was the Mixing Engineer for this project).

CITY OF DESTRUCTION – THE NEAL MORSE BAND

Read Original Source: SiriusXM Radio

Six albums from 2016 you must hear

March 23, 2016September 28, 2023

Music Connection – PRODUCER CROSSTALK: RICH MOUSER

MUSIC CONNECTION – CROSSTALK, FEATURE ARTICLES, LATEST, MAGAZINE | MAY 23, 2016 | BY ROB PUTNAM

Producer and engineer Rich Mouser began his career much as Les Paul did: by taking things apart to see how they worked. At 12 years old, his first piece of audio gear was a Sony reel-to-reel tape machine. He discovered that by removing the erase head, he could achieve something much like a multi-track recording. When he later found that friends would pay to be recorded, he realized he’d struck a rich vein. He now works primarily from The Mouse House, his Los Angeles home studio. Past clients include Chris Cornell, Dream Theater and Weezer.

His first taste of success came when he recorded Black Market Flowers’ demo after moving to L.A. from Colorado in 1993. It landed the band a deal with Relativity Records. “They went to do an album with [famed producer and musician] Butch Vig in Wisconsin,” Mouser recalls. “I thought that was the last I’d hear of them. But I got a call. They’d finished recording with Butch and realized they liked the demo we’d done better. They asked me to mix their album. That helped me advance from just doing demos. After that, I started meeting people and budgets got bigger.”

“The hardest thing to record is someone that’s not putting out much on their instrument,” the producer observes. “You’re only recording what somebody is throwing out to the microphone. You get the sound from the source first and then when you put a mic on it, you make sure you capture that. People retrigger and resample drums and they don’t put the time and care into making them sound good off the bat. I try to get character in the sound from the beginning. Getting drums to sound good is something that I’ve always worked hard at.”

Mouser regularly records to tape but doesn’t use it exclusively. Certainly, though, he nurtures a fondness for it. “When you erase something, it’s lost,” he explains. “If somebody says, ‘I can sing that line better,’ you know that when you hit the erase button, it’s gone forever. In Pro Tools, a guy can keep asking for more tracks and soon he’s got 15 takes. There’s not that worry of having to repeat what you’ve erased. That’s what I like about tape: the urgency. I have so much analog gear in my studio that I try to use that [rather than Pro Tools].”

Much of his work comes by word-of-mouth. He’s never advertised and he finds that coaxing a band into using him is a strategy that’s never borne fruit. “Feeler calls sometimes work,” he says. “But you can’t talk anybody into recording with you. When people find you and want you, they’ll do it. But I have found clients by overhearing people talking about music. I’d strike up a conversation and mention that I have a studio.”

Bands don’t always adapt well to the studio. Mouser shares one story. “I did a four-track demo with a band in two days,” he recalls. “They got a deal with MCA, and when it was time to cut the record, they wanted me to produce. The working title was The World’s Greatest Album. Suddenly a band that cut four songs in two days was scared of every little thing. They psyched themselves out. We had to recut vocals and at that point they’d been in the studio long enough they’d given up. Suddenly the singer was back to his old self. He wasn’t worried anymore and it worked out great.”

Mouser’s current and upcoming projects include albums with Farmikos (featuring former Ozzy and David Lee Roth guitarist Joe Holmes), supergroup Flying Colors and prog-rock outfit Spock’s Beard.

Contact The Mouse House Studio, themousehousestudio.com

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June 12, 2013September 28, 2023

The Mouse House: Lofty ‘Home Studio’ With A Big Sound

By: Eleanor Goldfield / Sonic Scoop Jun2 12, 2016

ALTADENA, CA: Monday morning at 11am is a great time to maneuver around L.A. The freeways leading in and out of the city are abnormally empty, rocketing me from downtown to Pasadena in under 20 minutes. From there it’s about another ten minutes straight up into the hills of Altadena.

The lights turn to stop signs and the hum of freeways and a bustling work week fade into a quiet street where no one would expect to find a world class recording studio. Cell phones struggle to get one bar, neighbors garden with straw sun hats and from the outside, The Mouse House looks like any other residential home. Once inside, your footsteps gently reverberate as your eyes adjust to a two-story-high live room filled with vintage music and audio gear. As you move around the house, it’s clear that this studio is a strategically planned culmination of years of hard work, patience, audio science and creativity.

On one of the few days of LA rainfall, back in 2000, engineer/producer Rich Mouser(Corrosion of Conformity, Spock’s Beard, Chris Cornell) headed up into the hills to take a look at a house for sale. He had recently moved his entire studio into his house, an awkward and highly temporary setup. His former studio was a rental and after ten happy years there, he received notice that he had one month to find a new place. After endless searches for commercial studio space, Rich was finding only overpriced and underwhelming spots.

So, he decided to look into buying a house and converting it into the ideal studio.

The main requirement was a really high ceiling.

DIY recording was already on the rise but Rich knew that people would always want a space to track drums, or for that matter anything that required a great open live room.

After asking his realtor for anything with high ceilings – quite literally, regardless of condition – the realtor remembered hearing of a really “weird, totally funky place” in bad condition.

As Rich walked in for the first time, a sea of buckets greeted him, doing their best to capture the falling rain in a near-condemned house. The walls were unfinished drywall, the floor cement. Weeds clung to scratch stucco on the outside. The previous owner passed away before he could finish, leaving the house abandoned and in an ever-increasing state of disrepair.

Standing under the cathedral style, 35-foot ceilings, Rich clapped his hands.

“I thought, oh my god, it’s like ‘When The Levee Breaks.’ If you want ‘When the Levee Breaks’ drums, this is the room for it. This is incredible. So I did the calculations on the spot…and thought, I really think I can make this place happen.”

With three days left in the auction, Rich put in his bid, and won.

DIY BUILD-OUT & UP

With a new mortgage and the task of not just converting but totally renovating, Rich didn’t have much left over for high price studio construction. A few companies bid on just building and treating the control room. With estimates between $80-$100K, he put his faith in his own abilities and set to work learning all he could about studio construction.

“I read a lot about sound proofing. And really luckily, I was at Rumbo Recorders doing a tape transfer and they happened to have a core sample of their wall. So I grabbed that and studied it – I pretty much totally copied the design of their wall.

“I did a lot of it myself, and with a crew from Home Depot. I found a couple of guys I could rely on. I would get up at 6 in the morning, go to Home Depot, get all these supplies, bring it up to the guys, get them going on the day’s task. Then I would go back to my house and record and then take a lunch break, drive back up here to check on them and then drive back to my house and keep working. That was the process for about 8 months to a year.”

And after two years, the studio was finished. The final product is a phenomenal sounding space complete with unique touches, like a cat walk encompassing the perimeter of the live room, at first only crossable via a 2×12 plank of wood. It’s now home to various pieces of gear, from amps to plate reverbs, Moogs and of course room mics. Even such small details as the paint used in the live room show tremendous attention to detail, a creative flare and a determined work ethic that is visible as well as audible.

“The walls are drywall but I used this textured paint that has sand in it. It gives it a rough texture so it’s not just totally flat. The floor is still concrete. The ceiling is tongue and groove wood at an angle – starts at 35 feet and drops down to about 25 feet.

“And there are so many weird angles in this room. Trying to sound proof it was a nightmare. There were all these windows that I had to cover up – with drywall and air spacing. I’d put drywall over the windows – three layers: drywall, soundboard, drywall. Then I’d put a 2×4 so there’d be air space of a couple of inches and then put another three layers of stuff on top of that. And some of those windows were up at the very top – 35ft high. So I’m in this scissor lift that only goes up to 25ft, on a ladder. I’m holding this piece of drywall up there, trying to screw it in thinking ‘Please don’t let there be an earthquake right now.’ Caulk, mud, stagger – and if you’re off by just a little, you have to go all the way down, move it over an inch then all the way back up.”

The only thing that Rich didn’t treat was the ceiling. When confronted with the idea of trying to soundproof the crown jewel of his studio, Rich decided to wait and see if the sonically open ceiling was a problem. After ten years, it isn’t.

ROOM, GEAR, VIBE, ROOM

Far from being a problem, in fact, the lofty ceilings of The Mouse House have lent their tone to many instruments, and artists, not just drums: Chris Cornell, Joe Holmes of Ozzy Osbourne, Josh Freese, Chris Vrenna, Robert Trujillo, Tears for Fears, Oleander, Spock’s Beard, Weezer and more.

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The Mouse House: Lofty ‘Home Studio’ With A Big Sound