Recording and Production Studio

The Albany area's Premier Recording and Production Studio...

The most important aspect of a great recording is the feel of the music, and achieving a great feel depends greatly on the comfort level of the musician(s).  Whether you play your best in your rehearsal room, your living room or on stage, our first goal is to make you feel as comfortable as you would in one of these places.  We'll strive to get you a great headphone mix, or if you prefer no headphones at all, that's fine too. Would you like us to simply capture you doing your thing, or would you rather have us help you along with the input of our experienced engineers and producers?  What ever makes you comfortable.  We at Blue Sky are musicians first, and we know what it's like to be on "the other side of the glass".

Whether you're creating in our recording studio, getting your album mixed, mastered or transferring a record to CD ...you'll love what you hear!  We proudly put our heart & soul into everything we do, and we stand behind our services.

Space & Comfort at Blue Sky Recording

Enjoy performing your music in a warm, comfortable, spacious room with a 16-foot cathedral ceiling.  We can accommodate everything from a solo guitarist to a 9 piece horn band with drum kit & piano, or even a 22 piece big band!  For monitoring we have independent, stereo headphone mixes for each musician... hear only what you want to hear to be able to play your best!  Does the drummer want to hear a lot of the bass player, while the guitarist wants to hear more guitar?  Do you want a little bit of piano only in your left ear - no problem!  Also, the control room is elevated so you can feel like you're in your own space... no more feeling like you're in a “fish bowl” with people distracting you while you play.

Baby Grand Piano, Vintage Keyboards, Vintage Amps and Plenty of Drums:

A good recording starts at the source.  Many recordings use 'fake' instruments because they don't have any choice.  At Blue Sky recording studio, you can choose from a variety of real vintage keyboards, vintage amps, and quality drums, cymbals & percussion to add to your musical landscape.  There's nothing like the real deal!

Vintage Keyboards:

We have a beautiful, restored Chickering Baby Grand Piano, a Fender Rhodes Electric Piano, a Wurlitzer 200A Electric Piano and what's known as the 'secret weapon' of recording studios, a Hohner Clavinet D6.  Check out the links to hear them in action!

There's nothing like the real deal.  While today's technology can emulate the vintage keys pretty well, and certainly well enough for live situations, it just doesn't cut it in the detailed soundscape of a studio recording.  True story - we were going to cut a Clavinet track, but the Clav had gone slightly out of tune since its last use.  The musician had his Nord with him so we tried using that.  While it sounded OK by itself, it just didn't jump out of the mix the way that the real Clav did, so we went into the studio and quickly tuned the Clav to the key of the song, and that's what was used for the track - it was worth it!

Vintage Amps:

Is your guitar amp lacking in meatiness, fullness and depth?  Look no further - our early 70's Ampeg V-4 w/4-12" Cabinet will blow you away (literally, if you put it past 4!).  For a super warm tube distortion, try our early 80's Acoustic G-60 T Combo Amp.  And of course, one of the standards in the studio, the Ampeg B-15 Bass Amp.

Drums & Percussion:

Owner Scott Apicelli is also an active live and studio session drummer, and has a variety of drums to choose from:

• Gretsch maple drum kit
• Eames custom birch drum kit
• '68 Rogers Drum Kit
• Leedy, Pearl, Ludwig, Yamaha, Rogers, Tama and Slingerland Snare Drums
• Zildjian, Sabian, Paiste & Wuhan Cymbals
• Musser Xylophone
• Remo Djembe
• LP Timbales
• Tabla
• Various Hand Percussion

How Do We Capture It?

In the analog stage, we start with our generous mic collection (Neuman, AKG, Electrovoice, Audio Technica, CAD, Sennheiser & Shure among others). Then, we send it through high-end pre-amps and compressors (Urei / Universal Audio, Manley, DBX, Summit, ATI, Rane, Drawmer & TL Audio, among others). We generally don't EQ during recording, as that's best taken care of at the source, or by moving or changing a microphone, for example.  Finally, we convert to digital using RME 24 bit converters, and the signal then gets recorded at 32 bit onto hard disc.

Fix it... Naturally!

Samplitude is powerful software. We can change the pitch of one note, fix a bent note, or rhythmically tighten up a whole band. We can combine the best sections of several takes, or change the tempo of one bar.  Make a mistake?  No worries - we can most likely fix it faster than you could punch it in.  It doesn't only require powerful software, but also requires the ear and the musicianship of the engineer to execute it, and to do it in a way that sounds natural and musical....anything's possible!

Recording Studio

• Voted “2021 Music Recording Studio of the Year" by Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards ("The Eddies")
• Voted “Best Recording Studio” in ‘The Alt’ Readers Poll 2017
• CelticRadio.net “2015 Song of the Year” for production of “Spanish Lady” by Get Up Jack
• CelticRadio.net “2015 Album of the Year” for production of “Alive and Well Vol. I” by Get Up Jack