Well it’s hard to imagine sleigh rides and a cold night in Bethlehem right now, but DeJa Blu is doing their best to remind us. The duo of Diane Thomas and Pam Kragt came in to record vocals for their latest release – a Christmas compilation. The eight song recording focuses on memories of Christmas past to encourage our Christmas present. Duets and solos are interspersed in the flavor variety DeJa Blu is known for. I found a small Christmas ornament to hang in the studio to get us all in the mood during a hot summer day and the vocal tracks were recorded in a morning session. We’ll keep you updated again on the progress of this release from DeJa Blu.

Richie Love found his way to Tesco Productions this month to perform sax overlays.

Before getting into the session I had Richie do something much more important than play at the moment – lay down his signature next to his late father’s signing. Preston Love played here a number of years back (1999) for another client and while here he signed our “wall of fame”. I thought Richie would be very honored to put his pen next that name, and indeed he was.

The first song Richie recorded overflowed with emotion and gratitude to his family’s roots and we could all hear Preston’s influence. Richie recorded the instrumental version of three songs for Tom Tomoser. Tom has written and performed music for many years and at times has also released instrumentals of his material. Mixing will begin next week in preparation for a five-song compilation. Thank you Richie for sharing your heritage and talents with us all. Richie was in Omaha as part of a Love’s Jazz & Art’s Center event. Find out about the center and the history it preserves at www.lovesjazzartcenter.org.

Well, when a recent corporate video voice-over script called for a section of bullhorn audio, not having such an item handy I proceeded to make one. Who says a high fiber cereal box reshaped to the design can’t do the job quite nicely. Add a little pinpointed EQ and you have a very convincing bullhorn. This wasn’t the first time and I know it won’t be the last that we did what was necessary to create a particular sound or effect. A past client (now a voice talent) was reflecting several days ago about some sounds we recorded a number of years ago for one of the projects she was working with. It was the sound of a spike being driven into wood for an Easter musical. Sure, there are dozens of sound effects libraries and we have a fairly good purchased collection which we’ve utilized any number of times. But sometimes the sound needs to be custom or just can’t be readily found if at all, so we’ve recorded sounds by using various “processing methods” or have gone on location to get what was needed. You can learn more about our sound effects recordings and hear several samples in our sound effects gallery. So, be sure you don’t discard all your cereal boxes. You never know when one will come in handy.