Category: Studio Diary (Page 7 of 23)

Steel Tree 2.0

Okay, the biggest news is that I have created a 2.0 version of the Fruit of the Steel Tree album, as a digital release on BandCamp. The songs are also available to stream on this site – I’ve updated the Production Notes and you can read about the changes there.

Album #2

Album #2 is taking longer than expected, due to reasons that aren’t worth discussing. I have one track 100% completed, and I’m working on a couple of others that have been around for years but have never been finished. I have another long piece in demo form, 70% of it anyway. And finally, another large piece that is in the process of being written and I’m feeling very challenged by it both compositionally and thematically and it’s been hard to make progress on it.

Bottom line: I’m not giving up. There’s too much here that I value to throw in the bin. In order to get Steel Tree finished, I had to get serious and “reset” my activity and treated it like a project, requiring management and discipline.

I need another reset, to not despair of how long things are taking and instead satisfy myself with continual, gradual progress. And also, I’ll blog about it.

I got one of these to try out, but I’m not sending it back:

http://www.ehx.com/products/lester-k

More tonal options are good, and they keep me amused between writing lyrics for the new song.

Uh-oh… a counterpunch from Novation (the PEAK) puts plans in jeopardy. I think I will switch my standing pre-order for the DeepMind 12 and order a PEAK instead. Spec-wise, it seems more up my alley.

The Shamblemaths CD showed up in January. I’m looking forward to spinning this one.

I’m always nervous about listening to new music because I have this horrible feeling I’ll hear something I really like and then be creatively stuck in the sense of “writing music in the style of..” if I’m lucky, and “totally ripping off…” if I’m not.

But usually, the opposite happens. Feed your head with lots of different new stuff, and this can free up your creative juices and break through writer’s block.

I had a good moment in the car the other day, after listening to some Marillion. The iPhone’s handy Voice Recorder app is invaluable for capturing these inspiration moments… hopefully the final result won’t be “rip off”. By the time I actually record it, it will sound different anyway. It always does.

It looks like a whole lot of nothing has been going on here recently, and that is largely true. However, I have been writing a lengthy piece of music in my head which I’m thinking is going to fill out album #2, if I ever get around to, you know, actually recording it. At least it isn’t writer’s block keeping me from the studio. It’s partly work (the day job); and partly waiting for some bits of equipment to arrive (I’m looking at you, VaxMidi).

In other news, as an exercise, I remastered the tracks on the GTR album from 1986 this evening, to boost the bass and cut down on the shrill hi-frequencies.

And, ooh, a revamped Piano-Roll View in the latest SONAR update. Timely.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2016000060

In August I gave in and pre-ordered the Behringer Deepmind 12. I’m really feeling the need for a knobby analog poly again (I still miss the Jupiter-6).

Also, someone ordered our CD. Thanks, whoever you were.

Strymon are really rocking it in the effect pedal department. If I had infinite money… as it is, I’ll have to have a disclaimer to the effect of “no Strymon pedals were used in the making of this album. Unfortunately.”

Here’s an article about mastering audio from September that makes a ton of sense:

Editors Note, August 2020: Alas, the web page is no longer available. I have found an archived copy on the Internet Way-Back Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161225072614/http://jonvilleproduction.com/2016/09/08/actual-mastering/

I’ve saved this in PDF format, just in case.

Things to do when recovering from food poisoning #1: fine tune a Moog Taurus patch on the Mopho SE and re-record that bass track.

I’ll probably use it once, but at $13 it is a no-brainer. Klevgränd produktion PADS VST. If I can just free up some time this weekend, I’ll give it a spin.

https://klevgrand.se/products/pads/

Looks like the DeepMind 12 is shipping to some lucky early adopters. I have one on pre-order but I’m not expecting it to arrive until early next year.

Here I was, getting all inspired n’ stuff, and Radiohead goes and releases another four minute slab of genius. Well done, boys.

SONAR 2016.05 is out, and has a new user interface theme which is pretty nice.

While waiting for the VaxMIDI to show up, I’ve been playing around with FingerFiddle:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fingerfiddle/id1057024351

It is pretty damn’ impressive. In fact, I replaced the sampled cello track on “Painting Abstracts” from our first album, to see how it worked.

It shows up at around 2’30” in the remixed version, released digitally as part of Fruit of the Steel Tree 2.0, available on BandCamp:

I will totally be making room for this in future projects. Recommended. Actually, no, I’d rather keep it as a secret weapon.

In other news, at the last meeting of Analog Anonymous, no-one was paying any attention to the speaker… we were all watching this on our phones, over and over: