Cynthia Mislivets - The Metal Cyndicate

A few of weeks ago Agrippa93 entered the Norwich Comcast public access TV studio as guests of the show, Metal Cyndicate, hosted by Connecticut metal enthusiast, Cynthia Mislivets and produced by Rapid Freeman. Both are fellow Pagans and welcomed us warmly to their show. Each week Cyn features a Connecticut band playing a set in studio, interviewing them, and plugs away any shows or events they may have on the calendar.

As always for everything, we showed up early. I’m a stickler for punctuality, so to me early is on time and on time is late. Cyn and Rapid kindly let us in the studio ahead of schedule to set up all of our gear and settle in with a sound check. We had plenty of time to do so, which made the whole experience very relaxing, giving us time to talk with both Cyn and Rapid to get to know them better.

Cyn was impressed with my keyboard set up, which includes my M-Audio Axiom Pro 61 running through Mainstage on my MacBook. I’m always happy to show off my rig and  was thrilled to show her around the layout, which she seemed to fall in love with. More info on my set up here.

The TV studio itself does not have an in house PA system, so it was up to me to bring my own from my studio. My PA wasn’t really designed to be portable, so this was the 1st time I’d ever had to break it down and put it back together again. During setup in the TV studio I had some difficulty getting things up and running, however the rest of the band had their shit together and were running through some songs already. When I finally was able to produce some sound the signal was weak and just not cutting through the rest of the instruments. Scott discovered some self-powered speakers hiding behind some curtains, so we quickly switched to connecting both my mic and my keyboard to both of those. The result was much better.

The studio room itself was mic’ed by just 2 room mics. I was a bit skeptical that this would deliver good balanced sound for us, but I slipped into the control room while the rest of the band was playing and found that it was very effective. In the end, trust the producer. He knows the room and equipment and what it’s capable of.

The calm before the storm

Both Cyn and Rapid were very hospitable and let us play out our full set of songs including Forever Wasting Time, Evocation, City of Pyramids, Among the Ruins, Pale Horse, and The Edge of Sanity, which ran for almost 40 minutes. All of us felt confident that we played a solid set for this performance. The show ended and we packed up all of our gear again.

Under normal circumstances a band would have to wait to have a DVD copy of the show mailed to them, however Rapid processed and copied one for us while we were there. We were able to watched the show as it was being copied and I think we were all pretty pleased on how it came out. Later I at home I made copies for the rest of the band and chopped up the show to upload on to YouTube.

The experience was nothing but positive for us giving us a chance for more exposure in Connecticut, the opportunity to step things up a bit by being on TV, and getting to know a couple of new friends and important contacts in the area. Both Cyn and Rapid were an absolute trip to hang out with for this session and we would jump at the chance to work with them again.

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