Month: August 2010 (Page 1 of 2)

The plastic feet are temporary, but the rest is complete:

Now to get it installed into the studio and all the equipment transferred.

I was driving home from Santa Rosa yesterday, admiring the scenery, and in particular, a certain hill with a group of trees clustered at the top. I noticed that the large tree in the center looked a little odd, sort of symmetrical but not entirely, and then I realized that it was probably a very well-disguised cell phone tower.

A short time later, I came up with the perfect title for our first album:

Fruit of the Steel Tree.

I’ve googled it and it doesn’t seem to have been mentioned anywhere else, so I’m pretty sure we’ll go with this. Awesome. 

Two 4’x8′ 3/4″ ACX plywood sheets later:

The star of the show was definitely the Pony 9.5″ pull saw from Woodcraft. This enabled me to make tight, clean cuts, and most importantly, I could cut the large sheets by placing them on the ground on a series of 2’x4’s layered two deep, and then climbing on top of them.

Even though I used two folded towels for pads, my knees are quite sore today.

With the brass section nicely recorded, I am currently fighting the Telecaster which is being very bossy and insisting on replacing all the guitar parts. 

A new studio desk:

The cavity underneath will hold my Fantom FA76 controller keyboard. When I’m not playing keys, I’ll cover it up with the removable section of the desktop. I’ll use dowels or pins of some kind along the back edge to support the back edge.

Each rack bay should have enough room for 5 units. I’ll put audio rack gear in the left side (Echo Layla, patchbay, and the GSP21), and MIDI on the right (D-550, TR-Rack, MIDI Patchbay, and master power strip.

The PC monitor and keyboard will fit between the two equipment bays, and I’ll mount the studio monitors on top (sitting on Auralex isolation pads, of course).

I will probably need a separate stand the Roland SPD-20 Octopad. Right now it is sitting on my second office desk, and although moving the Fantom into the desk will free up a tier on my keyboard stand, I’m not sure the SPD-20 will fit securely. Some more thought is required there.

The panels will fall out nicely from a couple of 4×8 ACX Plywood sheets, giving me plenty of scrap for, oh, a drawer on the right, perhaps.

Working on the Big Boys: The drums and bass are locked in, sounding great. 

Now I’ve started re-recording the brass section. Given that I don’t have access to a brass section, the trick to getting this sounding realistic is to record 3 separate tracks, independently, using different instruments. The Fantom has a nice brass trumpet patch – I’ll use that for Trumpet #1. The Korg TR-Rack has another, slightly different sounding trumpet patch, mellower but nice vibrato: I’ll use that for Trumpet #2. Then the bottom line of the chord will be held down with an Alto Sax, not sure which synth module will provide that. I’ll have to do some comparisons and see which one sounds best. Probably the Korg TR.