Doubtful Sounds at Depot

Late last month, Matt & I went in to Depot Sound in Devonport to try recording in a real studio (rather than our front rooms or basements). There are some pictures up on the Doubtful Sounds Blog. So far, it seems to have gone well, but of course we've yet to hear the mixes.

Certainly having to nail eight or ten songs in a couple of days with a clock ticking is a very different experience to recording a single song over however many evenings it takes. I guess one advantage is simply that booking a studio forces us to try and record stuff.

How much better the recordings are compared with what we can do at home - what's a good balance between working at home vs in the studio - are things we still have to figure out.

PLOPGIFT 2011

As I was in 2008 I'm again at the PLoP conference, and my gift is another mix CD. As is now traditional, I didn't have time to make the covers, but Small Person did write the name on all the CDs. If you got one, here's the tracklisting: if not, here's what you're missing out on. Rise, The Bad Shepherds
Boogey Man, The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra
The Village Green Preservation Society, Kate Rusby
On The Lake, Robert Scott
Good Light, The Lucksmiths
Diamond Mine, David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights
North By North, The Bats
Love Love Love, Avalanche City
Free All The Monsters, The Bats
Good Keen Kiwi, The Doubtful Sounds
Marvellous Year, Don McGlashan & The Seven Sisters
Residue (New Year's Carol), Waterson:Carthy.

Matt woz hair

So Matt (who still has hair, unlike, well me) came down on 11-12 August. We recorded something: I'm not sure what, yet, let's just say it Needs Work. In other news, well the Pop Album has been mastered; it needs to trimming, and cover art. Then we should feed it into the maw that is powertoolrecords.co.nz. Oh yeah: to get all this to go, the long-suffering mac was upgraded to 10.6.8, protools 9, and ELEVEN. Orange goodness.

Painting by Numbers

Matt came down again afore Christmas (19 Dec I think) - we talked about mixing, we have a first run mastering from Depot Sound but that mostly shows we need to mix more or better. And we recorded basic tracks for "Painting By Numbers" for a potential Powertools compilation. If we can get it finished in time. We have problems with the guitar parts...

Pre-Mastering

So there has been some activity again over the past few weeks. Weekend of 26 Nov, Matt was down in Welli. Not sure what (if anything) we achieved. But there must have been something. Weekend of 10 Dec, J back to Auckland again. Main thing was doing some mixing, making stems and dumps for mastering. The plan is that Matt'll take a few tracks down to Mark Howden at Depot Sound and see what they can do with 'em. And then Matt's back this weekend, we'll see how we go...

Doubtful Sounds Session

Matt was down in Wellington this weekend - well we made it a long weekend and took today off as well. Probably the main stuff we did was go over the track we have so far, working out whether they were done for mixing or we needed to record more stuff. I attempted a first lead line on Where the Wind Blows - re-recorded the bass to make more space for a guitar break, so now have to record a lead line. I figure it will probably take a few weeks to write and then learn the part, then I'll be able to record it properly. Matt is going to finish up Here Right Now, which only has backing vocals but no lead. We played a bit on two new Matt songs: Small Boy and She's the Bomb; started recording an older one of mine (Preaching Jesus - off the lost & stolen demo takes) and a 12/8 chord progression that Matt called Apocalypto - "No matter what the chords are, we can always turn it in to a ballad". Matt's put some demos up on myspace.

New Music

So one of the early flying nun Mk II albums to come out will be a solo album by Robert Scott. Details here including a free download... What else I have been listening too recently:

• New album by Math and Physics club (even though their name is missing another "s").
• Several discs by The Lucksmiths
• Arch hill stuff Including the 10th anniversay sampler & Haints of Dean Hall
• The King Meets the President in Africa

In other news, umm there isn't any other news. But there might be one day relatively soon.

Theme from the Doubtful Sounds

Video is now here: http://www.myspace.com/thedoubtfulsounds

Theme from the Doubtful Sounds

Matt & Richard were both around today, so we got to play with recording in the front room of Darkest Karori. We all got a bit acoustick - Matt & Richard on guitars, me on my trusty mando (that really does need new strings - if not an upgrade). Matt overdubbed bass (see if you notice, should sound out of place if you listen hard). Then, there is the first ever real video coming soon to you-tube near you: low-res goodness in an imitable style. After that things degenerated. Matt does look cool with the Rick (but then everybody does). And Richard got to unleash his inner guitar god. (Hmm, but we didn't record any of that. Duh).

On the Move

So around 10 December we moved a kilometer down the hill. Still Dark, still Karori - if anything moreso than ever because we're right in low-lying fog by the park, now, instead of 100m above it. Frosts in Winter, yum.

And when we moved, the "studio" had to move too - but we've only just now recommissioned - starring a couple of brand new monitor speakers that really are quite lovely. Matt's down for a few days, so we're re-recording bits that need it.

The really hard decisions lie ahead: how do we go from 14 tracks at 60 minutes to about 10 tracks at somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes? And them - what do we need to re-record until we're happy with it all; how do we mix; how do we master; how do we put it out for people to get? Will anyone want it?

November in Auckland

November, we went to Auckland. Another iteration. That's (almost) all I remember.

Onwards Slowly

More of a record than anything else: Matt was down a couple of weeks ago, 12-14 October, and we filled in more gaps. Left with apparently 14 tracks in varying versions of completeness. I think we have to start worrying more about mixing than recording - the current versions sound great on headphones, but not very good at all on the stereo.

Made a bunch of two-track bounces of what Matt & I recorded. mostly surprising how bad the singing and mixing is. Have to do something about that. And I uploaded them to myspace, but I'm not telling where.

Recording with Matt

Matt came down for a couple of nights this week, and we used the time to start re-recording a batch of songs from the old Heybabies - stuff we'd recorded before but lots the masters for, or if we had them, well let's say they were demos but not really good enough.
Matt turned up with a list of two album's worth of songs (OK, three if you're happy with only 12-14 songs instead of 20 on each disc) and basically we started at the top and worked down. Got about five or so done - at least the bare bones - before Matt had to head back to Auckland.
Anyway, I have a big list of things to do, but at least some of them now relate to music!
And: given that there are something like 20 variants of "Hey Babies" and 4 or 5 "Doubtful Sounds" already on MySpace and Amplifier, we'll probably need a new name sooner or later.

Walsingham

So, sometime last week or the week before (7 July?) I managed to get another evening on protools. Yes, the first time since the burglary. I recorded a version of an old folksong, the Arundel Ballad, about Henry VIII trashing Walsingham Abbey. I found a tune on the interweb, but I didn't like it much so a made up a new one. Not exactly cheerful, let's just say the

Sin is where our Lady sat
Heaven is turned to hell;
Satan sits where our Lord held sway
Walsingam, oh, farewell!

St Cuthbert's Recordings

So - again as a recording diary - on Wednesday 1 July, Nuncle Richard came around to do more St Cuthberts' recordings. I even convinced him to do one overdub on the beautiful Psalm 84 (to "The Faughan Side" or "The Homes of Donegal"). It's not as good as it should be but better than any other versions I found on the web.

and of course it breaks my heart every time I hear it.

Block of Wood II

A reminder that - on or around ANZAC (25 April this year) Nuncle Richard had his concert at St Cuthberts.

He has some friends helping him out, and I was privileged to be one of them. No pix of that though, no recording either.

PLOPGIFT08 (antidote to Nashville)

I'm in Nashville attending the PLOP 08 conference. As part of the tikanga of the conference, attendees are supposed to give gifts "that represent themselves, their work, or their companies" to other participants. My gift (once again) is a CD, this year a mix CD. I didn't have time to make covers, so here's the tracklisting, if you got one of these and would like to know what you're listing to, or if you want to make one yourself.

Up to the Sky, 4:21, The Bats remixed by Trillion, Audio Agriculture In The 21st Century
Overground, 3:22, Pine, Akira Sunrise
Bright Grey, 5:03, The Phoenix Foundation, Happy Ending
Tough Culture, 5:55, Strawpeople, World Service
She's Leaving Him, 3:14, Nothing, A Warm Gun
Passenger 26, 6:38, Don McGlashan, Warm Hand
Stars Without Makeup, 3:03, David Yetton, Blow Out Your Candles
No Ordinary Day, 3:51, Let's Planet, La Gloria
Together now, 6:06, Jeremy Taylor, Black Balloons
Hotline, 3:10, Disasteradio, Visions
It's More Fun To Compute, 3:52, Bubblyfish, 8-bit Operators: A Tribute to the Music of Kraftwerk
Nuclear Weapons Are Morally Indefensible, 6:30, Tomorrowpeople
Love Will Tear Us Apart, 4:22, bis, We Are Bis From Glasgow, Scotland [Greatest Hits]
Turquoise House, 3:20, Jim White, Transnormal Skiperoo<

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

So this post really should have been made last week.

On Monday 1 sept, my Brother "Nuncle" and a friend of his "Chris" came over to record a song for Chris's school production (she's a schoolteacher in Newtown). Basically I think it's a sing-along track for the "going on a bear hunt" kids story.

She recorded piano and then we put in some drums and doubled the bass notes with a garish synth --- and all of this was done in GarageBand. No Live, no ProTools, just, well, GarageBand.

I was mostly relieved that everything worked :-) Especially the MIDI from my old CS1X blue keyboard (that I only ever got to use as a controller anyway, even though it doesn't have aftertouch) through the ReMOTE-25 and then into the MAC

Elias II & III

So, after sorting out Elias didn't do that much with it for a week or so.

Then this week I though I should make a proper go of this: I even practiced a couple of times (not that it will show).

Last night, recorded a couple of guitar parts, its all just free time, no drumtracks, basically picked the second one. There is one obvious slip-up but it was the better of the two. Then I was exhausted, so went upstairs to watch the original Star Wars.

Early this afternoon, came down and recorded four or five vocal takes - probably the last one is best. Slapped on a reverb, it's nearly done but needs listening to a bit more, sorting the levels, bouncing down etc. All that fun fun stuff.

Anyway, so that's nearly done. It's good to be making some progress again. The only problem is, the next one on the list is a) not finished yet either, and b) will be really complicated - and I don't think the "band" arrangements work nearly as well as keeping things smaller. So perhaps I'll see if I can find another way around trying to fake a 10 piece band and a gospel choir in my computer.