Group Effort News and Happenings!
February 2010: New location multitrack recording capabilities 
We've just purchased a new PreSonus StudioLive digital mixer/audio interface making it easier (and less expensive) than ever to get a master quality multitrack recording of your live show. Use it for a live CD, for the video soundtrack for your DVD release or promotional videos on your website or YouTube, or have us come to your practice space with great microphones and get a demo done in one night!
January 2010: 'Get Your Idol On' Package
We've created a package that allows anybody to come into our professional studio and leave sounding like a pro! The 'Get Your Idol On' package consists of an hour of professional vocal coaching on the song of your choice, followed by two hours in the studio with veteran engineer Bill Gwynne. We'll go through your takes and select the best performance on a line by line basis, address issues of pitch and rhythm, and mix you into the music with the right ambience and effects to make a fully professional sounding recording. See how great you sound singing into a $3000 vocal microphone and using the best recording software available. Click here to go the the page for this great package!
November 2009: Group Effort Announces Private Lessons in Recording
With the computer-based digital audio workstation era in it's 5th generation or so, lots of our clients have been working on projects at home on their machines and bringing them to us for editing, mixing, and polishing. There have been many times where clients have said "I wish I knew how to approach recording (fill in name of instrument here) better". So to serve you better we have started offering private lessons/tutoring in recording. For the cost of an hour of studio time ($45) you can learn the art of recording, editing and mixing at your own pace, when you feel like you need some help or a second opinion on something that you're working on… Contact Us if you'd like to talk about what we can do for you. For a more complete explanation of this idea Click Here
October 2009: Two Releases by Group Effort Artists Hit the Shelves
Congratulations to longtime friend and client Kyle Meadows and first-time client Greg Harper on getting releases out in October. Kyle's project is titled Hammered Dulcimer Solos which is a wonderful sampling of traditional melodies and, waaiit for it… Beatles tunes! Kyle has a link to his website on our links page if you're interested further.
Greg Harper is a solo acoustic performer but does modern, effects laden treatments of traditional Scottish melodies in brand new ways. You've never heard a more rockin' version of Auld Lang Syne by a guy with a guitar ever! Greg's effort is an EP and you can find him on MySpace.
September 2009: St. Henry's Chamber Choir finishes their 2009 CD
Congratulations to Eileen Bird and the St. Henry District High School Chamber Choir for completing another project that redefines what a "High School Choir" CD can be with the release of "Touched by Grace". It has national talent in the form of David Haas singing and contributing insight into his songs that are on the project, Paul Tate playing piano (check out his treatment of I Wonder As I Wander in the style of Debussy from the St. Henry's 2008 release), original material by guest singer/composer Alex Reidinger with a tribute song for his mother who died last year. The CD has an Irish theme and has international guests Ian Callanan and Tricia Nolan contributing. And let's not forget great performances by the kids! Amazing...
August 2009: Guitarist Steve Langemo is a finalist
Guitarist Steve Langemo has been accepted as one of 10 finalists in Guitar Player magazine's Guitar Masters Vol. II contest based on the strength of his CD which was recorded at Group Effort. Steve gets an all expenses paid showcase with A-List backup musicians along with the other nine finalists in San Francisco in mid September. Take a listen to Chaos Theory, East Grease, Goo's Blues, Junkie Club, Pseudoscience, Waltz for Toby, and While They Slept in our Jazz area
Late July 2009: Video Demos have been added to the website
For the past couple of years we have been honing our video shooting and editing skills and have finally gotten to the point where we can provide some great, multi-camera videos with master quality audio suitable for DVD, your website, online press kit, and YouTube. Check them out!
July 2009: We added a new listening area to the website
People are always asking us, "Let me hear some stuff that you've done". So finally we've put together a huge amount of music for you to listen to, in all styles, so you can check us out!
June 2009: Website completely redesigned and organized
We are very happy to announce our brand-new completely redesigned website using a new service: Squarespace.com. It's all the best content from the old site, reorganized to be a little less fragmented but we added a ton of new features as well. There's an engineer's blog, a comment area, and the long-time fantasy of Bill's: a live studio WebCam with audio! There are also subscription features using RSS so you can get alerted if we make an update.
January 2009: New "Pay As You Go" rates
Our $45/hr special was so popular we are now offering the same low rate without prepayment; it's a "Pay As You Go" special. As long as you pay your bill in full at the end of each session your rate is $45/hr, almost 20% off!
August 2008: Group Effort teaches the "Advanced Audio" Class under the auspices of NKU
Group Effort was selected to provide audio engineering training to the students at NKU, as part of their Advanced Audio program. We had about 15 interested students from the program there and we all had a blast, and learned a lot! We're looking forward to when the class is offered again!
May 2008: Group Effort starts its own informational free podcast series
As some of you already know, Bill has been teaching some classes up at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and one of the classes is a Music Business unit. In conjunction with that, and as a service to our clients, we have started a podcast series that will be a combination of interviews with people with a particular viewpoint on the business, as well as some instructional/informational video programs. You can subscribe to these podcasts by visiting this link on Bill's personal site:
http://web.mac.com/bgwynne/Bill_Gwynne/Podcasts/Podcasts.html
or by searching for "Bill Gwynne" in the iTunes store. Don't forget to subscribe!
July 2006: Group Effort Celebrates Our 30th Anniversary by offering $45/hr block rates for a limited time
To commemorate our 30 years serving musicians in the Cincinnati area, we would like to say thank you to all of the people who have done projects with us over the years, and especially our repeat customers who keep coming back year after year!
June 2006
We added 10 additional channels of high quality microphone preamps. A Focusrite TwinTrak Pro unit provides 2 channels of preamplification (strappable for stereo use if you like), with mid scoop EQ with an "air" function. There is also an onboard optical compressor circuit for classic compression characteristics. We also got a Mackie Onyx 800R 8-channel unit also with fibre optic connectivity.
Free High Speed Internet Access was added via a new Netgear "N" spec wireless router. You can use it on your laptop back in the studio or via ethernet cable in the office. Very handy for when you have to upload that vocal to--Italy!!!
Major update to our popular "Session Tutorial" area to reflect our switch to recording and mixing entirely in the computer using Digital Performer. It has screen shots and explanations of procedures as well some additional "Tech Notes" pages for the more technically inclined.
May 2006
We installed a multi-channel headphone system. Each headphone station receives 8 channels of audio that you the musician can control. You dial up your own personal headphone mix just the way you like it. Typically there would be a stereo mix for drums, a bass channel, a channel for each guitar, keyboards and vocals, all delivered to the headphone station in 24-bit digital clarity! Click here for a photo
January 2004
Major redesign of the web site with many new areas to explore coming on-line as time permits.
December 2003
We bought 2 new Macintosh Dual G5 1.8mHz computers and new audio hardware for Digital Performer. Making the switch to the Ultra Stable Mac OS X operating system. These new computers will make about 6-8 times more processing power available to audio plug-ins and disk operations.