Welcome to minusland

Got the call from the Rockshop and gleefully ran down to grab it that lunchtime. Got it home only to find that the ac adapter was for US voltage so any pre-amp fun 'n games had to wait for me to leg it down to Dick Smith for a step down transformer.

With slight trepidation I plugged it in and everything seems to be in working order. I did some quick tests and got some great hot level out of my mic so am very pleased with my purchase.

Well, I've finally bit the bullet so o speak and have ordered a mic and instrument preamp. Settled on an M-Audio DMP3. It seemed to have garnered favorable reviews as a reliable entry level preamp that has low noise for its prce range.

Of course, New Zeland being the backwater/desert island that it is, there were none in stock in the whole country. As a result, one is coming for me on a slow boat and will take 6-8 weeks. Amazing that such a standard bit of kit was unable to be sourced in the entire country.

Well, it's been awhile since I last graced the pages of this website. Work on the record has slowed down somewhat due to computer meltdown and other dramas. But I'm back now with some new gear, Logic Express 8 and an m-audio fast-track pro audio interface.

Here are some of my reasons for leaving Pro Tools town for the greener pastures of Logicville.

1. Leopard support.

The holy war I've been losing
By taking on both sides
Only the drugs that fuel my mind
Aren't getting kind

Distant bells and holy hells
That thunder underground
Only a path across the heart
Shows up the marks

And it makes you think
Some things are meant to be
You bring the lightning down
Some truths are hard to see
You bring the lightning down.

Mirror balls and candy walls
Are boring out my mind
Only the taste of the divine
Lets pour the wine

Pain and truth and the silent death
Are living out their time
only the seeds of our decline
Ahead of time

Here's what's been done so far:

• Great Escape - 50% done
• Into the Sun - 50% done
• It's all good - 30% done
• Let down - 20% done
• Not this Shell - 50% done
• Shopping lists - 30% done

These tracks are yet to be recorded:

• Tooth and Nail
• Bring the Lightning Down
• Keyboard song

Then there are a few tracks that I'm not sure will make it:

• Praise the Night
• Eyes of a Dream
• Come Back to the Sea
• Take the Sky

Started Not this Shell. Vocals - rough but style promising. Drums lovely and understated. Gat parts - acoustic layers smothered in delay pedal electric for good measure. Fantastic vintage reed organ sound i found completely sets the tone for this piece. Of all the tracks I've done so far, this is the one I'm most happy with from a production point of view. The tone and atmosphere and the space are just how I imagined them in my head. looks like the break I've had from music in the last couple of days has paid off. I feel like this is a watershead moment for the album.

have started this today.... put down the guide track. Got surprisingly good vocals from the condenser mic by placing it below my mouth rather than directly in front. Might have to experiment with this when I do the actual vocal take.

Have been working on It's All Good in particular the instrumental breakdown at the end. Got some distorted booming drums in the background vaguely reminiscent of Paul Simon's The Boxer. Have added string, organ and french horn parts. It's coming on but will move onto another track to keep motivated..

Started recording this today. Put down guide track and played with various tempos. I have adopted a 50 + 30 + 10 + 10 approach to recording. My first pass at a track I finish it to about 50%. Then I go onto the next one. On my second pass I get it up to 70% finished and so on. I envision that the last 10% will be done in a pro studio for final mix and master. This method has come about because I initially tried to get the first track to 80% in the first pass and got completely insane and obsessed about it.

Had a listen to my vocal and guitar work on Shopping Lists today in the cold harsh light of morning. Was presently surprised how much I liked it. It was a confidence boost for sure. The coda/outro bit I jammed out sounded pretty cool. The one thing I realised about the track when I played it back was that the drum track I had written was way too busy for the thing. This song is screaming out for space. It seems to work if the vocals aren't too crowded but loses it's focus if I bring in too many instruments or parts.