Minusland -

Day 6

Sam — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:40:04 -0400

Yesterday was very productive. I laid down drums, bass, guitar and vocals on 'Let Down'. Would be back in the studio today but am feeling pretty crook. Coming down with cold methinks. Anyway It's been really neat hanging out with Wayne, Jude and my bros. I got some stuff done and really enjoyed myself. I'm very pleased with the result.

Day 5

Sam — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:55:00 -0400

Day 4 was a bit of a write-off in the end as some guy was using a weed-eater next door all day that stopped me making any vocal recordings from 1.30 onward. However I was happy with what I did manage to record. It's a painstaking process, doing the vocals for this song as the harmonies are quite intricate and, because I'm not known for singing in tune at the best of times, need to be picked over with care to make sure it's all pretty much pitch perfect. When you have harmonies in thirds, it doesn't take much of a pitch deviation for the whole thing to sound like a horrible drone.

Day 4

Sam — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:18:01 -0400

With two tracks ready for mixing, I'm turning my attention to 'Let Down' today. It's a tricky vocal piece this song with complex 3 part harmonies. I've had a stab at recording this but feel I can do better in the singing department so will try to do some vox on this today.

Day 3

Sam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:13:06 -0400

Have finished gat parts for 'Not This Shell' and am very pleased with the track overall. I think its ready for editing and mixing now. So with that done, I am heading on to 'All Good' which is almost recorded but needs a good tidy up after everything broke when I shifted the session file from Pro Tools to Logic.

Day 2

Sam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:10:04 -0400

Have been working on 'Not This Shell' today. Have completed the vocals which sound nice and hot on the new mic and preamp. It's a very spooky, atmospheric sounding track especially now I have added ghostly Gregorian chant style BVs in the background with a suitably huge church-style reverb. Will spend tomorrow layering on some sparse electric gat parts.

Recording: day 1

Sam — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:19:02 -0400

Well, finally here. Spent the first day setting up my mobile studio. It was a totally frustrating process, as I had some nasty buzz in my vocal mic. Managed to track it down to some dirty power issues. looking forward to doing some real work tomorrow.

Minusland recording next week

Sam — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:35:06 -0400

Spending a week at my father's place, utilising his quiet basement to record some more stuff on the album. They are building a house next door to my home studio so there is banging going on all day. That's what necessitated the move. Looking forward to it muchly. Now back to exam prep...

The ego and Creativity

Sam — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:26:09 -0400

I've been thinking a lot about the ego recently and more specifically its effects on my goals, aspirations and art.

I've come to the conclusion that my ego, and by ego I am referring to a desire for self importance and the adulation and respect of external entities is the single biggest obstacle between me, my creative aspirations and general happiness.

This conclusion has been a big driver for me in the last year or so and has had a profound impact on the direction I have steered my life in.

Not dead

Sam — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:09:00 -0400

No this blog is not dead, just on hiatus until the mid trimester break when I will have some time to do some recording. Am hard at work and Uni at the moment and music is taking a back seat for now. I'll be cranking again in about 6 weeks.

I can work with this

Sam — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:13:03 -0400

Been tinkering around for the past 3 hours or so getting the best preamp / interface gain settings for my mic. It sure is tiring singing meaningless crap into a mic to find a nice hot volume level that doesn't distort. I'm starting to see why a good compressor would be handy so i wouldn't need to make these crazy micro adjustments to gain. Oh well, I don't really feel like buying any more kit at this stage, especially considering I've got no tracks anywhere near finished.