Playing by heart: George Walker Petit's love for creating music began as a child - Audio Today & Tomorrow

Post, Feb, 2003 by Christine Bunish

NEW YORK -- With hand-hewn oak accents and walls painted deep barn red, mustard yellow and azure blue, the snug, New England feel of Walkerecordings, Ltd. (www.walkerecordings.com) surprises first-time visitors to the music recording and custom music/audio post house in Manhattan's Flatiron District.

This warm and welcoming rusticity is combined with top-of-the-line equipment and president/CEO George Walker Petit's music industry and in-house ad agency experience. On the commercials side, Petit has written music and/or mixed spots for Alitalia Airlines, Access Internet magazine, Today's Man, Sony Loew's Theaters, Western Union, Lands' End and Time Warner.

Petit's diverse talents and smartly constructed, multipurpose studio have enabled him to weather the economic and emotional roller coaster that accompanied Walkerecordings' launch on September 7, 2001.

AN EARLY START

Walkerecordings is the culmination of Petit's lifelong love of music. Petit's parents "hurled" him into weekend music school at the age of three, "and it stuck," he quips. After his family moved to London when he was 10, he played electric bass in an Allman Brothers cover band on the London pub circuit of the early '70s. He performed throughout his teen years in Europe.

Back in the US, Petit became a music major at Vassar College and played in six groups at the same time. He transferred to GIT (now Musicians Institute) in LA in 1979 and began interning at area studios. After completing his studies, Petit became director of audio at NYC's Kampo Cultural Center (now KCC Audio), which was trying to attract advertising and music clients to its facilities.

After five years at Kampo, he decided it was time to get out of New York and "was headed for Santa Barbara." But when he hit the road he took a detour to Vermont. "It was November, I had always wanted to see Stowe." Petit landed a job as a ski instructor and, eventually opened his own audio studio, Foundation Productions, in a barn on a 1,000-acre farm.

Petit had vowed not to return to New York but romance intervened: his wife-to-be, whom he met in one of his ski classes, was studying for her Masters degree in the city. Petit went to a mid-size Manhattan ad agency with his composer credentials and discovered they wanted to build its own audio post studio to bring those revenues in-house. He joined as director of broadcast and called studio designer Francis Manzella, who constructed a studio and control room, which "made its money back in a heartbeat," Petit recalls. "Before the economy headed south it was a real profit center for the agency."

With the economic downturn, however; Petit felt the agency either had to close the studio or open it up to outside clients. It was reluctant to do either; so he left in 2001.

OUT ON HIS OWN

Petit wanted to establish his own place in town, so he set up a new business with longtime friends: college buddy and attorney Steve Marshall, who acts as general counsel; high school friend Gerald Taylor; who is the primary financier; and brother Mike, who does strategic marketing design for international banking. Petit found space at Fifth Avenue and 22nd Street and, with Manzella, began building out his new studio in June. By the time they finished in the first week of September, Petit's former agency and its promised business had evaporated, and 9/11 was literally and figuratively around the corner.

Despite the inauspicious beginnings, Petit was determined that Walkerecordings would keep its doors open. "With 9/11, the vibe of the city changed and all of business changed. I survived because of the vision of the studio and the team we put together. We looked at the situation and felt "this too shall pass. The studio was intentionally built to be multipurpose so I could keep busy with music recording when advertising wasn't beating down the door."

THE STUDIOS

Petit works in Walkerecordings' large control room, which is 28 feet wide and 19 feet deep, with an 18-foot ceiling and six skylights.

The room boasts a 64-channel Amek Media 51 console with Super True automation and a 21-inch screen. "I needed a great and fast console for post and something that sounded tremendous for mixes for TV, radio and CDs," Petit notes. The Amek is hooked up to a custom Digidesign Pro Tools Mix 3 system with 40 I/Os "so we never have to compromise anything in a TV mix or a band mix." Pro Tools is hooked up to FireWire and SCSI drives and has two 17-inch flat-screen monitors. Petit uses Pro Tools for digital recording and editing and sync to video.

"I'm going into Pro Tools through Neve pre amps and EQs, which warm up the sound of Pro Tools. I mix out of Pro Tools, digitally or analog, to the Amek. We have digital video capture, but we come out of the Amek analog source so it sounds pretty phat," he says. The control room offers Summit, Amek, Neve and Lexicon outboard gear; Dynaudio, Tannoy and Auratone monitors; and Neumann, AKG, Royer and Sennheiser mics customized to voices and projects. The room is MIDI capable with an assortment of samplers and synthesizers. It is also 5.1 capable but Petit has yet to see a demand for surround.