Tracking Under the Trees

The street where Catharine Wood lives and works, just south of stately Hill Drive, glows green under a luxuriant canopy of trees. Behind her front door is The Orange Grove Studio, a collection of instruments and digital recording gear that allows Wood to record, produce, mix and master broadcast quality music from an historic Eagle Rock home under the auspices of her company, Planetwood Productions.

Wood has converted a back bedroom into a 10-foot by 10-foot double-panel isolation room designed for tracking live performances, from drums to vocals. “Comfy is critical, especially with vocalists,” says Wood. “I’m on HD. Using Neumann mics, it really doesn’t matter where you are if you know what you’re doing and have seen it done at a certain level.”

The level to which Wood refers is the exacting methodology employed by top studios—those rarefied environments where she previously worked on commercial spots, including Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign, the Geico “Caveman” spots, and Priceline’s “Negotiator” commercials featuring William Shatner. “The deadlines are ridiculous,” says Wood. “Something could be airing that afternoon, literally. So the ears have to immediately know what’s right.”

Writing songs in the late ’90s, Wood became intrigued by the recording process. She subsequently moved from Northern California to Los Angeles and enrolled in the Los Angeles Recording School. “I was most interested in songwriting, but engineering seemed like a way to make a living in music,” she says. “I graduated first in my class, had an internship at a studio in Santa Monica, and was approached by Play Studios to work for them.”

The timeline from assistant engineer to main mixer is a long one. Wood wanted to return to making and recording her own music, and she needed a headquarters. “I think I’d only been to Eagle Rock once, to go bowling at All Star Lanes. But I came back, saw the trees, and the next week I was here looking for real estate.”

Wood is the Southern California regional director of West Coast Songwriters (WCS) and she manages the organization’s Hollywood chapter. On the second Wednesday of the month, beginning in September, WCS will host a monthly residency at Genghis Cohen, a restaurant, bar and music room on Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood. “This is a circumstance for people to get out of their holes and come together to meet, and hopefully to collaborate,” she says.

Returning to her first love of songwriting, Wood is completing work on her third full-length solo CD.  She is also collaborating on tracks with drummer Paloma Estevez for film/television usages. Meanwhile, selected clients book her project studio for mixing, mastering, file transfers, vocal recording and demos.

When her ears need a break, Wood can trek down to Colorado Boulevard, accompanied by her energetic rescue mutt Howie. “I can walk to any place I’d like to eat—, , or ,” says Wood. “It seems like there’s always something new popping up.”

And adventures await both Wood—and “Howie Wood,” as she sometimes refers to her mutt. “I feel like I’m constantly discovering things that have been here forever,” she says. “It’s so amazingly random and the people are so cool. There is the artistic bent that I appreciate. Eagle Rock is a beautiful place, but the snob factor is non-existent. I absolutely adore this neighborhood.” 

Find out more at www.pwproductions.com.