Bandcamp

I prepared a Bandcamp website this week, for my DJ Ridonkulous track, to test Bandcamp out. The website is amazing, so easy to use, and they help you embed a player almost anywhere! I love it. Check it out.

I'll definitely use Bandcamp to distribute the Ergo Alt EP when it's done. It's just brilliant, way better than iTunes. They also allow me to price the EP however I like. So I will be able to set the price to donation only. However, if it becomes popular, Bandcamp can automatically implement a different pricing scheme. I'll manage that when, and if, it happens.

In other news, I managed to get a job which will help fund me until I finish the EP. The down side is that progress will be a little slower from here on. I'm cool with that. I hope you guys are cool with that.   :)

Vocal Production

I'm just posting a link to tips on vocal production today. It's the most comprehensive article I've seen on the topic.

http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/record-u/index.cfm?fuseaction=get_article&article=part10

If you're serious about vocals, read it.

Enjoy.

EP Progress 10

Reverb Equalization. Not incredibly important, but very useful to clean up your mix. Thankfully, parallel processing makes it simple. Route the reverb to its own dedicated mix channel and EQ it.

This week I've been working on the final track to the EP. It's still early days for this track. In fact, I wrote this song as a sort of spin-off from The Fall, but then it evolved. I added new bits, and now it sounds absolutely nothing like the idea genesis. This track is total experimentation.

I started with a basic piano bass-line ghost track. Added a crazy experimental beat using samples. Then started tacking on bits of other songs I'd been working on. And it sounds ok. It's weird, but I like weird. I'll keep working on it.

I wonder if, by the time I'm finished this EP, a year will have passed. I think that's ok, isn't it? There are no rules after all. Actually, I think that's pretty normal. Lots of great bands can take 2-4 years to do a full album. A few months ago, I met a guy at a music producers conference who had been working on his album for 10 years. 10 years!! That's possibly a little too long.

I'm hopeful of getting a job this week. Fingers crossed.

Ergo out.

My little M-Audio Oxygen8 v2. A producers must have. Great portability.
M-Audio, please sponsor me...    :)

EP Progress 9

My poor long neglected blog, how have you been? Don't cry, I'm still here, and still working on my 4th track, slowly tho. I've been job hunting a lot this fortnight, which doesn't leave a lot to report on my music.

I've finished most of the core musical elements for this new track. Started singing recently, but still working on lyrics and vocal melody. I really like what I have so far though, which is great. I'm trying to use different tones in my voice for this song.

I had a mate come around recently, and I explained the song and played him a little. His reaction was 'oh cool, so it'll sound sort of like Nick Cave'. And although that's probably not 100% right, it's pretty close I reckon.

Also, I've started using a new mixing technique for this song. Parallel processing of reverbs. Basically, its the routing of any reverb unit output through a dedicated mix channel. Then I can apply pass filters to really shape the sound of the reverb. In this case, I'm applying low pass filters to about 700hz on hall reverbs which makes them sound really roomy (large).

I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I should just run everything through its own channel!!!!   :)

I wonder how many channels my software can actually run....  I should know that already. GAH! Ok well I just counted how many channels I'm using, and I'm up to 60 channels so far with this song. That's a lot, but I think I used at least 100 for The Fall.

I don't think this song will top that.

Lots of channels. And knobs. And stuff.

EP Progress 8

Songwriting can be so frustrating sometimes. I spent the better part of a week trying to put together 'Vassal', a new song I've been working on. It was sort of an experiment using a part of my software that I haven't used before. 'Blocks'. Using blocks to build songs. More info is here if you're interested.

Anyway, so after a while I decided that I absolutely HATE the song, and it will never see the light of day. Block music is perhaps better suited to repetitive styles. I dunno.

So I've moved onto one of the older songs that I began writing a little while ago. I think I had draft titled it '21st century love song'. It's in the style of underwater rock. Kind of melancholy but also rocks out, old school style. Hopefully it adds a nice contrast, and something new, to the song styles I've already used. Bowie-like.   :)

Oh, and I also started working on my Ergo Alt website. Sneak peak below. The little booklet will be visually interactive, sort of. There's still a lot of work to do on it. I also recently discovered bandcamp which I'll probably use to distribute my music too.

In other news, my friend Amy, who now has a cool blog, is going full speed ahead with her EP. She wants it completed by June. Indie pop is usually pretty simple music so she can probably do it. I think she still wants me to help produce it. Unless she wins lotto and can hire a pro audio engineer. She also picked up a bit of work making the music for an iPhone game which is really cool. She'll be a very busy bee for a few months.

EP Progress 7 and thoughts

I'm working on 3 new songs simultaneously now. Two will make it onto the free EP. Not sure which yet. They'll all very different from each other, just like my first 3 songs. I might end up finishing them all first, then deciding what 5 tracks work. We'll see. So many thoughts....

I was listening to some albums today, High Violet by The National, and King of Limbs by Radiohead. I was really struck by the 'maturity' of the music and lyrics. My music, in contrast, feels a little 'younger'. I was going to write 'juvenile' but that's the wrong word. I really admire maturity in music. It's hard. It requires patience. It requires restraint. Those qualities are particularly hard to induce as a new artist.

Restraint is a particular quality I'm interested in, particularly in the musical 'engineering' aspect. I don't have this ability yet. The ability to engineer a song to make it sound like it's holding back that little bit. Like it could explode at any moment. I've been mastering all my songs with an 8-band parallel compressor and tending to force frequencies through the speakers too much. I'm also having trouble allowing dominance of the vocal range frequencies (200-700 Hz). When I try re-mastering the EP before I release it, I'm gunna try restricting the music to this band, holding back on volume a bit, and allowing transients (~+1kHz) to define sonic space.

Enough jibber-jabber.

Mini tech demonstration

I whipped up this little video, just to demonstrate how my music software works. Hope you find it interesting.