James Willetts

East Left Productions is located in Charlestown, just a ten-to-fifteen-minute bus ride from Downtown Crossing, and has ample parking available for guests.

Clients are welcome to bring their own euipment, but everything in these photos is available for use & included in a low, daily or hourly rate.

...including Fender, Gibson, PRS models and more. 

Rhodes, Hammond M3 w/ Leslie 147 rotating speaker, and a Clavinet D6, all at your disposal.

Digital, self-calibrating Genelec 8240As provide the best listening environment in Boston, and the Avid Artist Series control surface interfaces with your favorite DAW. 

The first ten channels of outboard, mic pre's are available from the mix position, but 18 more channels of outboard pre's are available in the credenza directly behind, as well as other effects: compressors, eq, reverbs, & synths.

Directly beneath the right side of the desk is an API 500-series rack that currently houses a 527 compressor, VOG, Portico 543, Harrison EQ, Radial EXTC Reamp, Portico 511, & Grace M501.

Amps include a Vox AC-30, Orange AD30HTC, Fender Princeton Reverb, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Fender Blues Deluxe, Epiphone Valve Junior, Alamo Fury, Traynor YBA-1, HiWatt Custom 20, Kustom 12, and a Mark II bass head.

Guitars include: Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster, Fender American Standard Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul Standard, Fender Telecaster Thinline Hybrid, PRS SE Soapbar, Schecter C-1 “XXX” Electric, Heavily Modified Epiphone Les Paul Custom, Abe Wechter Elite Jumbo 5714 Acoustic, & a Sigma-Martin TB-1 Acoustic.

Plenty of Mics in the locker! D112, D6, RE-10, 4x SM57's, 3x SM58's, 737a, SM7, a pair of Telefunken 421's, SubKick, Beyer M160, Peluso R14, a DPA 4091, Langevin CR-3A (Yum!), a pair of SM81's, a pair of C-1 large diaphragms, a Peluso P12, MXL V69, a pair of Rode K2's, and plenty of DI's.

The first set of mic pre's (in the desk) include an API A2D (2ch), an API 7600 strip, an Avalon 737sp, Vintech Dual 72, and a UAD 4x 710. 

My favorite congarista this side of the Mississippi, with incredible feel and a great work ethic! 

...which is also a lovely shot of the Rhodes. 

If the color alone doesn't sell you, I don't know what will. 

This one was just great, so I had to leave it in.  Very trendy. 

Dubbed the "Funk Box" by Greg Errico of Sly & the Family Stone, I acquired this little guy working on a project in San Francisco, and it's been with me ever since.  Hearing is believing. 

Looking very cool in his "How to be Black" t-shirt, Baratunde also taught me that black people don't smile in photos, but he is clearly a happy camper in the control room. 

Quite the shootout for a Berklee project here at the studio! 

Ameya Kalamdani showed me a nice trick with working out feedback on this guitar session.  Man, this guy can shred!

I was routing some guitar through these kids for something nasty, pairing two unlikely amps with an old standby.  I guess you can see who won.

Yep, picked this one up from some guy up in Marin County while I was going to check out a Vibrochamp.  It came in handy re-amping Symmetry's rhodes into it for that nummy, stereo effect. 

Bent Knee's talented and boisterous Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth on drums, using as many toms as he can.

Ben doing something other than tweeting next to the iso booth window.  It's little, so best used for guitar amps & things like that. 

Bent Knee is such a large band that poor Jess had to go DI at first, but she was very pleased to hear her bass re-amped through the strong amps at the studio.  "All of them!!" she said. 

...and a rippin' keyboard player, to boot.  The "piano booth" was the perfect place for her, since she could see everyone, play and sing, and keep her vocal take. 

I don't know if you can tell, but this guitar performance from St. Helena's Mike Ward (also of Private Shapes) involved some kind of weird capo, metal mallets, a slide, and a nail file.

Shachar Ziv:  Great tone, great improvisor, knows when enough is enough and when to add that one miracle track.  So good it shines! (Shout out to Melissa Fielding, 'cause it's her record, after all.)

How do you know when you're kissing a French Horn player?  There's a hand up your butt. 

...and if you're nice to him, he'll go over his video game theme music repertoire for you.  (OD's for The Grownup Noise)