Let’s jump right in. What have we been working on? Let’s see… new additions to the Cauliflower Wall of Fame include the blisteringly hot MEGACHURCH vinyl (mastered by yours truly and cut by Clint at Wellmade Music), and the superb new CD from LO-WATT RADIO (recorded at Akron’s Tangerine Sound by Ben Vehorn). I have yet to procure product from the 5 ONE EXPERIMENTAL ORCHESTRA (first classical recording to cross our threshold– and cool, to-boot!), and the new EPs from RESTLESS HABS (fantastic/bruise-y punk pals), and TINKO (damn it sounds good– do I detect a bit of FM Gold in the mix?).Records that I’ve finished recently that haven’t come out yet… a few long-lost, previously unreleased records from THE A-10′s and TIME NO REASON. Not to mention debut offerings by oDD aLIBI, ELINOR VAN HEECKEREN (crazy talented beatbox-ing folk lady), and BLACK SUN. All great stuff.I’ve picked up some interesting new pieces of gear over the last few months, and have been pleasantly surprised by a few things. The first is the Avenson Mid-Side box. It’s built like a tank, and it knows what it’s supposed to be. It splits up and allows you to process the mono content of a stereo recording separately from the “side” portion. For example, I can boost the mid channel around 60 Hz to bring out the beefiness of a kick drum without bringing up the mud/rumble in hard-panned guitars… that sort of thing. I’ve been using it a lot, it quite fits my workflow. And, Cauliflower Audio has been quoted on the Avenson Audio  website, singing the praises of the box. Very cool.

The other things are little “fixer-upper” projects… the Aphex Dominator II 720, which is an analog multi-band limiter. These can be heavily modified and were allegedly secret weapons for mastering dudes in the late ’90s. The one I picked up had the op-amps replaced before it came to me, but still doesn’t quite sound great… “plasticky” is how I’ve seen it described, and I’d say that’s accurate. Maybe it’s day in the sun is done, but I’m still not done tinkering with it yet.

Another cool rack piece is the Waves MaxxBass 107, which up until a month ago, I had never even heard of. I was familiar with the plugin version and the MaxxBCL hardware unit which has the MaxxBass processor, but not this particular, stand-alone unit. Waves blew them out for next to nothing last month and I had to bite. I’ve toyed around with it a bit, and I admit I like how it fattens up the low-end on thinner mixes, and would love to have it in the rack for that one special project, but there’s something squirrelly about the input stage that makes me not trust it yet. I’m more excited about this one, but I predict it will need some serious modd-ing before I unleash it on any real projects.

And… in the crazy bargain basement bin, I found three Clover QA-101 CD analyzer units. These were industry-standard error testers back in the day. They were in beautiful shape physically, but could use a little tweaking up in the innards. I ordered some parts and will report back soon, but if I can get at least one to work, I may be saying goodbye to PlexTools. Which makes me happy.

Finally, my band SWARM OF BATS has gotten a teeny tiny bit of positive online support, which is really great. You should check out the video for our tune, Just Say It. That’s me covered in all the gore.

New website just around the corner. New rates, more new pix, amazing design.

Until then,
Adam Boose
CAULIFLOWER AUDIO