Engineer and Guitarist records and mixes hit records on the road for Rock & Roll Icon with Dangerous Music D-Box and Bax EQ
Pete Evick wears many musical hats. He’s the guitarist in the Bret Michaels Band, as well as Michael’s songwriting partner, (plus he has his own band: Evick); but he’s also the Bret Michaels Band engineer, and records and mixes while he’s on tour with them. Evick uses the Dangerous Music D-Box and Dangerous Bax EQ as key ingredients for his hit-record success and a killer rock sound. “The last two records we made both debuted in the top 40 Billboard charts, one at number 14, so they are legitimate hit records,” says Evick, “and they were impossible to do without the D-Box. That’s the whole point.”
Bret Michaels is well known as the iconic rock singer in the multi platinum-selling rock band Poison, Michaels also fronts his own successful touring and recording band.
Describing his setup for recording on tour, Evick says, “The beauty of the Dangerous Music D-Box is that we travel and do everything on the road, so we’re never in a situation where we stop and go into a world-class studio. We record at my house or Bret’s house, or we record on Bret’s plane or on Bret’s tour bus. So the D-Box makes it completely possible to make world-class recordings without having to stop in LA, New York or Nashville. Dangerous Music allows us to make real records in strange environments.” He reveals: “The last three Bret Michaels records have been done on a MacBook Pro with Pro Tools LE, the D-Box, Bax EQ and some outboard gear.”
He uses the Dangerous Bax EQ on the road and in his home setup, on the quality of sound he gets from it, Evick says, “When mixing, I am boosting 3dB up top and bottom with the Bax EQ and it is always so smooth. Bret likes real crisp top end, but I don’t like tons of top end – I tend to like a darker mix. After all the gear I went through, it was the Bax EQ that allowed me to boost the high end as much as Bret wants it, and it’s still so smooth and silky to me, it doesn’t offend me at all. That Bax EQ has stopped fights between me and Bret!” He adds, “Sometimes I even track with the Bax EQ in mix mode so I can hear it. It’s a ‘color’ piece of gear – even if I have the Bax EQ set ‘flat’ it feels more musical to me with everything running through it! I feel more creative.”
Engineer Jeff Juliano (John Mayer, Train, Paramore) originally introduced Evick to the Dangerous Music gear. “We’d be out on the road mixing music in-the-box,” remembers Evick, “and I would send it to Jeff and say, ‘I need this mixed right now, can you just do something and help me?’ – Jeff was the one who turned me onto Dangerous Music and the D-Box and Bax EQ. I was a ‘flag-waving-in-the-box’ guy and swore that you could do it all in-the-box: I had a plug-in for every possible option in the world. But I got tired of hearing ‘That’s the best mix I ever heard in-the-box’ – Jeff said ‘The D-Box will change your life’ – now I can’t go on without it.”
“Every single part of the D-Box is essential to us,” Evick explains. “The D-Box turns any room, bus or plane into the real deal. The analog summing creates a ‘space’ that you can’t get ‘inside-the-box’ – making records with the D-Box and a laptop, you can make a real record. The analog summing and the talkback save my life over, and over – and it’s all in one box. It’s unbelievable,” Evick adds, commenting that it’s ‘like having a console in a single space rack.’
“Without a doubt the D-Box gives my mixes more depth and space,” he continues. “The D-Box is as much of a game changer as the ADAT was 20 years ago, as far as I’m concerned, for being able to make records in various types of unusual studio environments. The difference from mixing in-the-box, versus mixing with analog summing in the D-Box, is the difference not in 2D-to-3D, but 2D-to-4D! The stereo width is unbelievable, I feel like I’m surrounded by my music.”
Returning to aspects of the Bax EQ that help his mixes, Evick states, “I use low and high pass filters, especially when we are tracking on Bret’s tour bus or in other environments. I’m not always able to hear the ultra highs and lows that we’re getting. The Bax EQ’s high pass filter and low pass filter are very, very smooth and work great to help clean things up and keep it tight in those situations.”
In his studio at home Evick uses the Aurora Lynx converters with Pro Tools Native, while on the road with the Bret Michaels Band he takes the RME ‘Babyface’ audio interface/converter. He prefers the industry standard Yamaha NS-10s as his main speakers, but also listens on a set of JBL LSR series speakers, and on his KRKs in the studio and on tour.
Evick is also impressed with Dangerous Music as a company, “The other thing I would say that impresses me about Dangerous Music is the fact that Bob [Muller] takes personal time to call the people who use the Company’s products, he’s checked on me several times to make sure that the gear is doing well and that I’m happy with it. That’s the kind of product support you don’t usually get.”
For more on Pete Evick see: https://www.facebook.com/PeteEvickBMB
Visit Bret Michaels website at: http://www.bretmichaels.com/default.shtml
About Dangerous Music
Dangerous Music, Inc. designs and builds products that are indispensable to any DAW-based recording environment. Dangerous Music electronics designer Chris Muth has spent over 20 years working in and designing custom equipment for top recording and mastering studios. Muth and company founder Bob Muller pioneered the concept of the dedicated analog summing buss for digital audio workstations with the Dangerous 2-Bus in 2001. Today the company offers a wide range of products for recording, mastering, mixing and post-production facilities, all designed and built with mastering-quality standards and a practical aesthetic. Key products include the Dangerous 2-Bus and 2-Bus LT, Dangerous Monitor ST-SR and its Additional Switching System expansion units, Dangerous D-Box, Dangerous Master, Dangerous Liaison, Dangerous Monitor, Dangerous Source and Dangerous Bax EQ.
For more information on Dangerous Music visit http://www.dangerousmusic.com phone 607-965-8011 or email: info@dangerousmusic.com
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