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...

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).

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.

Citron

So in spite of the sentiments in the last post about being well-fed we ended up at a loose end in Wellington last night, thought about the Matterhorn but it was a two hour wait, and so on the spur of the moment rang Citron.

So yes they do do walk-ups for the 9 course Degustation menu which I'm not supposed to list here as it might spoil the surprise. And it was great. Hard to describe. French/Kiwi/ with a touch of micro-gastronomie. We arrived around 7.30 and left at 11: but it really didn't seem that long at all. I didn't think we'd eaten that much, nor drunk that much, but, well, we were both a bit under the weather this morning.

And why so many posts? Umm, because I was thinking - "I need a studio log book to log what I'm recording" and then I realised that this is it? Or because I then started reading through the back-issues and it was more interesting that I'd thought (to me at least). At least it's a record of some kind of something.

Damned if you're rich.

And yesterday, I recorded yet another song. Basic blues, crap guitar playing, kind of depressing really. Spot the lyrics?

You're damned if you're rich: you've had your comfort now.
You're damned if you're well-fed: you've gonna starve.
You're damned if you're happy: you've gonna sing the blues.
You're damned if everybody loves you: think of the idiots everybody loves.

So the catch is, this means I've now got 11 songs down, one of which doesn't really fit with all the rest (see Family Last). So another two then I have twelve, which will do for this project, and I can then get on to something else. I just have to conjure two more songs up from nowhere.

Or perhaps ten songs is enough and I can move on already?

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.

Will he come?

He calls for Elias
Will he come to save Him?

So, yeah, a whole new song written but not recorded this morning. Working title: Elias.

Inspired by the McCahon "Elias series".

I didn't do a proper recording, just worked the lyrics out last night, then had a hack this morning on the acoustic guitar (drop-D tuning) and recorded a very rough guide track just using the built-in microphone of the laptop. Sounds horrible & distorted, and the demo has lots of pure crap on it (forgetting words, chords etc) but hopefully this will mean that I don't forget the sound.

Perhaps next week, perhaps tomorrow, I'll try a recording. Can't decide with or without drums. If this is aimed at the *end* of track listing, then, well, without perhaps makes the most sense (and is easier). Also need to transition from acoustic rapid strumming to a more restrained electric style, relying on sustain.

Preaching IV

So, gee, the thing about blogging is that you really have to keep posting, isn't it...

Anyway: the "Preaching" song is more or less finished. It took a while: 20th May for a rough mix which I lost when ProTools crashed (yay!); and then 27th when I managed to redo all that - luckily, I'd made some notes. Less finished because. well, it still sounds like something put together in a bedroom, which is of course precisely what it is. But there are lots of things that are more or less put together in bedrooms or lofts (Black Balloons by Jeremy Taylor; anything by Pine; Moth by Matthew Bannister) that still sound great. In fact, the simpler songs that I've done that are just voice & guitar sound much better than the more complex ones. I don't know why, but I think "mixing" and "mastering" must have something to do with it.

Preaching III

So, feeling kind of grotty this evening, large hangover-style headache due to not drinking anything at all today, it seems.

Spent a couple of hours working on mixing Preaching Jesus --- compressor squashing up the bass so you can actaully hear it, and working out which of the four vocal takes to keep (or rather which bits of which take). Still haven't programmed in the automation though (a job for tomorrow), and hopefully I'll manage to finish the drum programming too.

And that will be enough for just a rough mix: how long would doing a really serious job take?

The Well of the Saints

Well I've made good to my public (and by other public) --- all two blog readers, by finishing up another song. Yeah it's late, but I'm on leave tomorrow (so that I can be here to take delivery of Small Person's new bunkbeds) so hopefully it's not to bad. Oh yeah, I've somehow got to read seven papers too (while on leave, yep) but hopefully that won't be too grim.

Anyway, yes, another new - or rather old - song dating from years and years ago: at least before 2000, perhaps before 1995? About 3:30 long, which would be perfect for a pop song, except that it's not really a pop song - another mournful piece about, well, the usual mix of faithlessness, ennui, and desperation.

I think The Well of the Saints is a beautiful title for a song. Uncle Google and Mad Aunt Wikipedia tell me that it's the title of a early 20th century Irish play: but this song has nothing whatsoever to do with the play except the title, as far as I'm aware. Although reading the synopsis, well both seem more or less depressing, or at least melancholy.

So, that makes something like 8 songs now, of which at least 6 are in the slow, guitar driven style, relatively consistent, with a couple of outliers (children with rather more bass than is good for it, and the colonel, which turned into a rattling dunedin thing, somehow).

Enough for an EP (gulp!)

No Music This Week Either

So, another week without music. I was completely exhausted on Tuesday, so watched videos instead. Also I couldn't find the words for the song I was hoping to record - I'm mostly trawling through a back-catalogue of songs I've written 10 years ago (with Section 59: Beat your Children and It's not Hard being exceptions that prove the rule).

But while Annie was here, we did go to Slob Out (OK: Small Person actually read the name of the shop on the sign from across the street and said "it's really called Slow Boat Records"). So we spent some time browsing, including the new Chris Knox & the Nothing CD, and Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (yep: Nick Bollinger on The Sampler chooses my CDs for me)

And then, dropping Annie off at the airport, I ended up at the DVD shop there, and came away with Liam Finn's I'll be Lightning, Trillion's Audio Agriculture, and LCD Soundsystem's The Sound of Silver.

And so this evening, after at least going through my office to find the words & chords to a couple of things, went for dinner with another friend, had work admin to do, and then too far gone to spend hours recording.

Head Above Water

So, 12.30 AM, that equals the previous record.

Todays effort is quite short at 2.50, not really poppy, rather odd (and again old) little song, Head Above Water Not sure about it really, the vocals are quite weak & flutter in places - on the other hand, I quite like how the guitar sounds.

What's this one about - rather cliched I'm afraid:

keep my head above water
turn my face from the sun
keep my head above the water
now I'm all undone

I'm not sure I remember that far back - but it probably relates to the long and generally depressing time when I was finishing up a PhD. It's nowhere near as - well - Biblical as many of the rest, especially as I think I accidently replaced "flood" with "sun" in one of the verses. Oh well. But then perhaps it's better this way:

I used to laugh about rainbows
I used to smile at the sun
I used to laugh about rainbows
Now I'm all washed up

Hell

Yet another song done: current working title: hell --- although perhaps "Rock'N'Roll" would be better. Nasty digital clipping on the vocals, but well, I quite like it so I'm keeping it.

This is another old song which I've finally got around to recording. That's a good thing

Rock'n'Roll is the devil's music
And it comes straight up from Hell
And if you listen to the sinful rhythms
You'll go straight down there as well

Good news: it's only 12:30. That's a record.

It's not hard

Got another sinner song down: It's not hard.

Yeah, Right, as the billboards say. Not hard at all.

So now it's 2am. I should relax and get to sleep. Work tomorrow.

Two weeks without a post

Oh well, slackness ensues. And an Easter break.

The good news: I did record another song, the "Colonel" aka "Lost". It's nothing to do with the TV show.

The bad news. I didn't blog about it. Then I didn't do anything the next week (aka last week), I came down but had worked til 3 or 4 the night before, did again the night afterwards (a work deadline) and just wasn't up to much. Then, tonight, when I wanted to update the blog, I couldn't manage to log in. Took a while before I worked out how to get things sorted but I seem to be up and running again: it turns out you can have a "Google Account" with a name with an "@" sign it in that is an email address from another website completely. Which I do, for this blog, its my main email address. So it goes.

Now, perhaps, to music?

Forever Tuesday Evening

Today I started the new regime of heading downstairs on tuesday evenings starting at 7pm. I don't have to worry about Small Person, I'm not supposed to go to work, just play with music stuff.

Or in today's case, I spent most of the time fighting protools - loading new versions of Multimedia demo plugins: the US based site seemed to have rate-limiting so I couldn't access the site when downloading something, couldn't download in parallel, so that plus OS upgrades plus trying to get Reason Adapted to run all took hours. Turns out I still have a bunch of Protools plug-ins to upgrade by calling customer support, and Reason 2.5 simply won't work with Protools 7, I either have to upgrade Reason - or settle for using Live, which was my original plan. Or - record tracks in Reason standalone, then bring them into Protools, which would be another option.

Finally, after going for about three hours, decided to cut to the chase with the second song on the four-track, The Fire. Again, crap guitars recorded years ago, bleak lyrics. Couldn't be arsed trying to redo it from scratch, as I like the generally noisy feel of the track, so ran a stereo mix of the tape deck, then added in noise with the extra famous Mastererizer, sprinkling of reverb and compression and that's another take.

The big problem is what comes next: I though I had five or six things on the four-track, but really there was only Lazarus and The Fire. So its either back to the notebooks for more songs for Sinner; mixing or re-recording existing Hey Babies tracks (not sure I can face that yet) or something new. Most likely something for Sinner from a notebook, I think.

New Blog

So I now have a new blog. Great.

more time on the computer. less time in the rest of my life.

In other news, I successfully (re)recorded a song from a few years ago, currently called Lazarus. Wavestation drone, two guitars, one voice track. Kind of like a minor blues in C, but I can't really play the guitar in C so the guitar part is crappy (or endearingly lo-fi). Also I started from an old 4-track demo so the timing is a bit random. Perhaps I should do it all over again, but, then again, perhpas not. More fun to do something else I think.