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- something important is going to happen
built with processing [source code: elffervescence]
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- all six stringed out
guitars are finally done, might need to do a couple of pickups for certain parts (which will only take 2 minutes to set up and track) but otherwise they are finished i've re-set everything back up, upstairs, looking alot better and its all spaced out for ease looking forward to cracking on a bit more i'll try put up some snippets of stuff in the the player when i get a chance to making some mp3s
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- short break
i've finished doing all the close mic'd clean guitars i need for now going to have a break and do some glock tomorrow/fri then set up my guitar rig next door in the bigger room with the high ceiling for some ambient/stereo guitars... then its onto bass really happy with the way its all coming together and some of the rough mixes so far are sounding pretty good on different hi-fi's
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- guitars guitars
been recording close mic guitars nearly done with them moving on to ambient/delay guitars soon done a few rough mixes so far, sounding pretty good
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- where we're going we dont need rhodes...
no wait... yeah i do, and i dont have one i just dont have the space for one, nor the strength to lift it, nor would my mother be pleased of yet another musical instrument lying around the house collecting dust (let alone questioning where i got the money for said contraption) instead i use my brain and run Native Instruments Elektrik Piano through 2 mic'd amps and a DI to get a semi decent fake authentic rhodes sound... and it seems to have worked alright although, it seems the space thing comes back into the equation 
i'll leave this rig set up for another day or so but, currently as of this moment, i'm pretty sure i've captured the main live rhodes parts i need - and all in under 12 hours... must be some kind of record. they've started digging the road up at the end of my street to fit new streetlamps so i can only assume that tomorrow they'll be heading down my end of the street and digging there. so plans are on hold to do guitars till sometime next week. then thats the majority of the live instruments recorded that i'll need. anything else that needs to be done can just be quickly set up and tracked. once the main guitars are done im back up in the studio in the attic to make beats and edit the soundscapes roughly mix the drums and what not speaking of which heres a drum kit 
and a load of cables 
arty but yeah, very happy with the progress thats been made so far, at this rate i'll be mixing mid February and mastering the last half of February and sent off to Skean Dhu early March for hopefully what could be a summer release although saying that means i've jinxed it later
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- aaaaaaaand we're off
last week i spent 2 days with blair and colin over in stewarton recording drum tracks. recording the new album has officially started! i had planned to track them at bell loft before christmas but it wasnt able to happen then, so we finally managed to get round to doing them last wednesday and thursday (just in time too, blair leaves this week for a month or so drumming in cypress). i'm always nervous when it comes to recording drums properly, i've done it millions of times but this time the drums really need to stand out and be crisp in these tracks and so far i think i've surpassed all expectations of sound quality i had. currently still fine tuning things here and there, but hopefully at the end of the week i can start tracking other things, i had planned to maybe do guitar or something live but it seems the council are changing our street lamps this week so its a bit busy/noisy outside at the moment so i'll probably have to rethink my schedule and do something that i can DI instead.
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- new downloads
if you head over to last.fm you can now download a couple of more bsides. i've added "I Believe In Richard Attenborough", my Reckoner remix that i never finished and i've also put up an untitled demo i recorded back in the same session for "I Spell Weird, Wierd" and was almost going to be send instead of but i never finished it. We played it last year at bloc when we supported Glissando but that was the only time that song has been performed, i'm not sure if it will ever get re-recorded... i'm always toying with the idea but yeah there you go more news later in the week new website should be up next week
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- so this is the new year...
happy new year everyone i'm starting to bring things together and gearing up to build up some kind of schedule for recording the album. i got a nanoKONTROL for christmas so i'm just messing about with it at the moment, getting it syncing up with what i want inside nuendo so far so good, everything seems to be moving and lighting up as it should be... can't seem to get a pan option in the automation menu but i've came up with a better idea for how i can use the pots that will save me a heap of time. finishing touches are being done to the new website and i hope to relaunch that at about the same time i really start recording... hopefully another week or so. the new site is really updateable (i know thats not a word) from anywhere with photos and music so i can really keep you guys up to date as the recording is going and what its looking like... it looks pretty sweet too
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- bah humbug? (part 3)
the demos that i've been working on for the past few months have somehow been leaked on the internet, even picked up a couple of plays on last.fm by people i dont know im not really mad about it i think its kind of funny and a bit strange that people are listening to demo versions of songs i've done, when the final versions of them are going to be so much better. it kind of ruins the surprise for how some of the songs go i suppose, but some of them are getting changed anyway because they're mainly looped till i come up with something better. its more annoying that some people know the majority of the song titles now. oh well
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- bah humbug! (part II)
put up a new track to tie you over till the new year its just a coincidence that its uploaded at christmas time and has a christmas related title... it aint no christmas song " I Believe In Richard Attenborough " its a bit rushed i know, i hate putting things out before they're ready but i dont really have the time to finish it properly... and plus it wasnt going on the record anyway
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- bah humbug!
seasons greetings everyone... i've taken the main site down so i can revamp it loads and then have a relaunch early in the new year - probably in conjunction with the start of the album recording i'm working on something new at the moment that i hope to release for free just before christmas (don't call it a christmas release though) - its not really a song at the moment, more an experiment in sound manipulation that im slowly building up into a proper track... lots of experimental things... i might try and do some other quick stuff and package it with a bunch of other tracks. looking forward to christmas, its going to be exciting this year... also, i love my girlfriend very much as she just bought me something i wanted off ebay - i googled myself (as you do) and found the ACTUAL promotional copy of my album that was played instore at HMV Shibuya (Tokyo, Japan)... still with the promotional stamps and HMV Shibuya details on the jewel case. AWESOME! i might make some kind of framed display or something along with my interview to hang on the wall if i can get a decent frame woot woot aye, well yeah there you go... alas i should go but come back for more soon as i have new stuff on the way and such - go to the myspace or the main page and send me your email address and i can keep you posted on the happenings; when new blogs and new songs are posted online night night
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- phase 1 complete
after 3 months i've finished writing the new record. I'm really happy with all the tracks - i've only had to drop one i was working on simply because i just couldnt figure out what to do with it. tracking should start in the next couple of weeks i'm just working out some details and then i can start to get the drum tracks down for the ones that need them. glad to have gotten the hard part out the way, so its all good from here on out... i'll obviously be taking a break over the christmas/new year period and i've also got a week away at the end of november that might bring me some extra inspiration - i'll be sure to take my mac away with me just incase i get a genius moment. i'll be sure to post blogs, pictures, videos, audio clips and other stuff as the whole recording process finally gets going - i have no idea how long its going to take, all i know is i'll be taking my time getting everything just right later
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- back on form
spent all day yesterday writing a new song and programming the basics, today i gave it a bit of a clean up and put more intricate programming in and a guide bass track. i had originally planned to just rip off jimmy lavelle and pretty much make a carbon copy of "In A Safe Place", but i seem to have taken a side road and started something just as good/even better i think. im really looking forward to the proper recording phase. the demos version are pretty strong at the moment so its going to be very easy and quick to get everything finished and polished the tally now stands at 9 songs out of a desirable 12 - i had planned to write more, but unless i come up with a zillion new ideas over the next few weeks i just dont think its going to happen... plus 12 tracks is pretty standard for album these days, and "...way of things" was only 10 tracks (original release) - the japanese release was 12 but only because of the bonus tracks. couple of working titles for songs are beginning to stick. thats about it really, i have no other news just now just looking forward to finishing off the writing and getting a few peoples opinions of the demo versions so far.
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- dying of the cold
cant work at the moment... too busy coughing my guts up this is first time i've been properly ill in years and its hit me hard but aye 4 songs to finish and then its all go for tracking the new record
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- birthdays, castles, animals and ipods
just back from an awesome weekend away with my other half to celebrate our bdays (we're 4 years and 3 days apart) went to stirling for the weekend to make up for the fact she had a shit holiday - and that i havent had a holiday in years... quite interesting - went to the castle and wondered about for hours walked into town and found the most amazing shop - imagine Forbidden Planet but just figures, no comics/graphic novels/books/posters... it was awesome half the shop was filled with Star Wars stuff - with a small glass display in the middle full of un-opened originals... i was tempted but the £150+ price range was a little out of my league then the next day we went to blair drummond safari park and drove amongst some animals and made fun of the 'boy' (he looked like he was 12) sitting outside the lion enclosure listening to the radio and reading a paper. it was around this time that i remembered that i am now 26, and dont really have an awful lot to show for my 26 years of existence... something i apathetically promise myself i'll change just as soon as i figure out what it is i want to do with my life then made it home for dinner and a movie - lorna bought me the kevin smith blogs book which i started to read at 10:30pm and couldnt put down till about 2am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - today, i went and got the photos developed (L took some disposables on her holiday and didnt use them so we took them with us)... whilst i was waiting for them to get done i managed to pick up the boxed set of the planet of the apes movies on dvd - ***was £50 reduced to £7*** awesome, then i went to try and find a new ipod which i eventually managed to do after most of the places i looked had sold out of the one i wanted im now in the process of adding my music collecion to it, which is taking forever (currently up to about 'F' and its already at 4000 odd songs) anyways yes recording will begin again in a couple of days till i finish off the writting part of the process and soon i'll be ready to begin proper tracking starting with the drums once i have another 1 or 2 songs finished 8 songs done so far, sounding really good - will be a hell of alot better once they are properly recorded and beefed up a bit later
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- soon be home
i think i've just written my best song very simple, laid back, gentle, awesome sounds very promising considering the amount of writers block i've been having recently i'll put up a clip somewhere sometime soon
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- driven to distraction
turns out that there was a flaw in my plan for cracking on whilst no one was here - loneliness i couldn't get any work done this past week because i've felt so distracted by the fact there is no one here. i managed to half finish off something i had started a short while ago and thats about it... things should start to pick up again hopefully this week since my parents are now back and making a racket around the house already. lorna isnt back for another week but i think i can cope for now, last week was horrible - but i've got lots on this week to keep me occupied at night time so its just a case of filling in the gaps during the day (when im not watching dvds - hahaha)
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- lonely
my girlfriend is away on holiday for 2 weeks and my folks are away for a few days - so im cracking on with some recording whilst i can make use of an empty house and lots of free time i should be ready in the next couple of weeks to start the next phase before proper tracking can begin... a few months ago i discussed the possibility of having someone on board this time to help with production... someone i trust who will give me an unbiased opinion who listens to a large variation of music and who doesnt actually play a musical instrument* *this one is kind of wierd - i know so i've made contact again to see where it stands and i'll take it from there. i've also made contact with blair (my live drummer) about passing along some rough mixes of tracks that will need drums recorded - i usually do everything myself but he's a far superior drummer than me... and he can really get a great groove going which sadly i cant. im feeling good about this record, im happy with the direction its taking i honestly think it could really be something awesome as long as i keep my head focused on the job in hand and not rush things like i tend to do i should probably go to bed
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- focused
i was playing about with a couple of tracks last week and i wasnt really sure if they were working until everything clicked today sounding pretty good, im happy with the tempos, the beats instrumentation etc etc... strangely alot of the half finished songs im working on have song titles already - which is something i usually sort out once the songs are completed so far: Glasgow Smiles Better (old demo on the myspace) The Ability To Multitask (finished track on myspace) Menlo In The Atmosphere (messing about with some binaural recording on this one) Will You Shut Up And Get Off The Damn Ground* i'm also toying with the idea of calling a song "If You Strike Me Down I Will Become More Punk Rock Than You Can Possibly Imagine"... probably wont though infact no, i wont so if you want it - it's yours * - was the tune i did whilst i was setting up my equipment on the first day... kind of dark electro, but i like how it sounds so i just kept it
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- errr
yeah so i cant use my neighbours wi-fi anymore i dont think... looks like updates wont be as up-to-date as i'd expected on the plus side, still working away as it stands i have 2 complete tracks done and dusted and another 3 at the moment that require alot of attention (and drums)... i want to have at least 4 or 5 with drums that i can either whitle down or strip away and use better programming ideas ideas ideas anyways yes... also, i just looked at the pearl and the puppets pictures from the sugababes and mcfly support - if you look closely above the mapex logo on blairs kick drum you will spot an ansion sticker... yip
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- back again
i took the weekend off from recording to spend time with my girlfriend and also to recouperate (sp?)... it seems being hunched over in the attic isnt really working out too well for my back. but i'm not moving now i've got everything set up just the way i want it. things are still going strong, i got a few good ideas in my head over the weekend that i've started work on today. we'll see how things progress, but i'm pretty happy at the moment working away at my own pace. anyways, i should go and stop wasting time on the internet and write some more awesome tunes instead
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- the ability to multitask
this is what you can do if you have enough time on your hands if you can't see it go here shot entirely on built in isight camera on my macbook and edited in imovie audio now streaming on the myspace
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- day 3
this is officially day 3 of recording the new record the ideas are beginning to come together, i'm doing it like i did with the self released stuff.... song at a time concentrating on wee bits at a time i've just finished the main structure of another new one that will need to get live drums put down i'm going to have to do a block recording of drums one week, as i've got maybe 5 or so songs that require them so its best to do it in a oner for the sake of sound continuity the majority of things i'm coming up with seem to be quite dark and gritty sounding, a bit glitchy and generally awesome... i'm really happy with the way they are turning out and the speed that they are getting done at - there's nothing worse than spending hours over something trying to get it to work when in the end it just doesn't work at this rate i could have the main structures for all the songs done by the end of the week, i hope not though cause my ideas are always changing... when i got blair to put down the drums for 'You Can Never Hide, I Will Always Find You' the basic track that he played along to was completely different from how it eventually turned out, i don't even think it was in the same key - the only thing that was kept the same was the tempo and some glitchy rhythmic stuff i think i've out done myself with the production on this record... dont get me wrong '... The Way Of Things' sounded great, but this one i think will surpass it. production is about 20 times better. I've surprised myself with the programming so far, in places its very sparse and at times its extremely technical and complex but it sounds good which is the main thing, and if i'm happy with it i guess thats all that counts really but yeah, its going really well... better than i had hoped for - i just hope i dont rush things too much to try and get it ready. Skean Dhu aren't giving me a deadline to work towards (which is nice!) but ideally i'd maybe like to have everything finished for autumn for a possible winter release... we'll see how it goes also, album title is done too... more on that later
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- sorted
yeah so i sorted the whole link fiasco... thats about it start work on some new ideas tomorrow woot woot! i've also found out that the sound from the attic seems to be carrying through out the house and into next door a bit... oh well
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- 2 songs in as many days
the work has begun and so far it is satisfactory... i seem to be churning out some decent material at a good rate already, i suppose i havent really recording anything new since 'i spell weird, wierd' in february-ish anyway i've put up a clip (1.4mb) of a song i did yesterday that i think has a nice feel to it, its in 4/4 but the beat plays like 2 bars of 4/4 and then a 3/4 so the accents of the rhythm is constantly changing. but yeah, check out the mp3.... here if you know your shortcuts then you can download it and what not (i have to put some links on a different line for some reason or it wont let me use the html code properly... i dunno - i'm still figuring out the kinks with this php script)
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- where the magic happens
it doesnt look like much at the moment, but this is pretty much the set up im working with for recording the next album... crammed away in the corner of the attic. and since a few folk have been asking - here's a list of what im using here: main laptop is a crappy Medion one that i bought from woolworths about 4 years ago running Nuendo as my sequencer and a bunch of awesome plugins. im also running a macbook running Cubase LE, Live 7.0.3 and Reason 3.0.5 for location tracking since i prefer to use this one for live performance rather than for recording. i can simply just record stuff where ever and then just transfer the wav files from the mac to the other and job done... I've got an m-audio audiophile connected to this so i can record some audio off my mac since i have some cool instruments on it and i like some of the effects in Live that i can control with my padkontrol. i'm recording through an Alesis Multimix 16 USB 2.0 - i used to use the old 8 channel USB 1.0 version, which only allowed me to record the master channel... this one however every channel can be multitracked theres a KORG padkontrol there, a kaoss pad 3, an m-audio keystation 49e, i have a bunch of casio type keyboards kicking about, a stylophone, a couple of microkorgs, a bunch of guitar pedals, guitars, mics and some other cool stuff that i'll probably use and write about whilst i am using them... but yeah, it's all go from here on out - i've already started working on some kind of dark electro thing, started out just as a test to make sure everything was working nice and i sorta kept it going for a while, we'll see how it pans out plus... i get a good reception of my neighbours wi-fi, so i can update this thing whilst im actually doing things laters
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- this is a recording blog
okay so i've found this php script thing that i can use for doing quick news updates on the fly so i can keep you all up to date of how the recording process is going its a bit crappy, but it'll do... i mean, this website isn't exactly top of the range anyway i guess so it fits in perfectly... i think i can add photos in here aswell, im not sure we'll see how it goes php is new to me and i dont quite understand it, i only understand it enough to do bits and bobs - like changing all the text in buttons on the admin page from german to english and put in a couple of different links anyway, to start the ball rolling i've added a full length, fully downloadable version of one of the demos i was working on in february titled "Glasgow Smiles Better" (a play on the phrase - Glasgow's Miles Better) - you can download it from the myspace also... my remix of Radiohead's "Nude" was featured on the latest Glasgow Beat Podcast - check it out, you can also download it off the myspace while you're at it over the next couple of days i'm going to start rebuilding my studio - my gear basically just lies about the house getting in the way most of the time so i'm going to start setting it all up so i can get on with things, the beauty of working off laptops means i can have my main one set up with all the gear and use my other laptop to track on location with then just transfer over what i have recorded, which will be a fun experience. first up are the songs with live drums, i have about 4 or 5 ideas at the moment that im going to track once i've found a decent venue to record them in, i'm being drawn to do them in a different place that i normally would record live drums... so, i'm going to have to try and go along, set up and do some sound tests before i really decide if i'm going to track there in the end or not. once i'm up and running i might start some kind of video thing as well, i think it
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