Little Monster Studio

Mimsy Cable - More Bass

2012-02-07T19:33:00.002+13:00

Cass and Mimsy came back and recorded more bass for a couple of songs on Mimsys Album, same inputs as last time, a track through the 1073DMP and a track through the Sansamp.

Parachute & Timaru

2012-02-04T17:00:00.000+13:00

Paper Kites - Parachute Mainstage on Friday

This weekend just been I was working at; Parachute, Timaru and then back to Parachute again. My weekend started with Paper Kites on the Mainstage at Parachute, I went on tour with them and Avalanche City last year so it was nice to see them again, they played great! Later Avalanche City took the stage, they had a huge audience and I was really happy with how it sounded, we'd had a soundcheck earlier and I felt fairly comfortable. I love shows like that. They had a signing booked in later and had to turn half away and book in another signing because so many showed up!

My view of Avalanche City playing Parachute Mainstage on Friday

View of Fridays Mainstage performance from the Parachute Website

On Saturday we flew from Hamilton to Wellington in a fairly small plane, then we flew from Wellington to Timaru in a 19 seater plane! We got off the plane and went straight to the South Canterbury Wine and Food Festival where they were playing. No soundcheck but apart from a few monitor issues (which I wasn't mixing!) it went fairly smoothly.

the 19 seater plane from Wellington To Timaru

A friendly iLive at the South Cantebury Wine and Food Festival (right behind me hundreds of people were sat down with picnics etc)

post show beverage in the sun

On Sunday we caught the 2 planes back to Hamilton, landed in Hamilton at 2ish, got our bags and instruments and were dropped off to the stage about 2.30. Then we had 15mins to setup on stage, patch in mics and then 10mins for me to line check each channel and make sure everything was working before doors were opened and screaming fans ran in (it was kinda crazy) while they were running in I was checking with the FOH tech which vocal mic was which and then they started! Surprisingly it went great and everything worked.

Later I did sound again for Paper Kites on the Deluxe Stage and then headed home! What a fun few days.

Avalanche City in the Palladium at Parachute

Mimsy Bass Tracking

2012-01-23T22:35:00.001+13:00

4 x Basses
2 x DI's/Preamps
1 x Bass Babe (Cass Basil)
2 x Babes listening and advising (Mimsy and Jessie)
4 x Songs
4 x Bagels consumed
4 x Slices of Carrot Cake consumed
3 x Cups of Tea

These are the recording stats from today.

Post Game analysis; "it was good"

Mimsy Cable; More Keys!

2012-01-13T16:12:00.000+13:00

Recorded some more Keys with Mimsy the other day, we had a few more songs to finish off, used the Pianet a bit more and then added some Organ to a song. The Organ bass was quite important so as well as micing the rotating horn (in stereo) I put a mic on the bass rotor which you can see in the bottom photo. We also tracked some of the bass part seperately so I could treat it differently to the rest of the organ and I ended up just using that 1 mono mic.

Merry Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T14:53:00.000+13:00

Hayden and Rachel from Great North recorded this lovely Christmas Carol the other day and I added a bit of bass and organ it's available as a free download.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://greatnorth.bandcamp.com/track/angels-we-have-heard-on-high"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Angels we have heard on high by Great North&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Hope you're having a great Christmas!

Little Monster Studio Office Christmas Party

2011-12-12T19:49:00.001+13:00

If you didn't already know earlier in the year I brewed my own Cider. (the picture above is some of it in bottles.) It had just been in bottles long enough for me to open it for a Little Monster Studios Office Christmas party. Instead of me just sat at home on my own I decided to invite a whole bunch of people I had been recording/doing live sound for etc and a whole bunch of supportive friends to taste the cider and eat some snacks. Great North and Mimsy Cable played a few songs (and were excellent!) and everyone had a great time.

I am so appreciative of everyone thats helped me over the past few years in getting to where I am its nice to say thanks once every now and then. I had Apple and Pear ciders open (the Apple tasted good but I was not so keen on the Pear) and various nibbles. I made a gingerbread house and 2 types of macarons (wish I'd taken a photo of them!)

Heres a few photos from the evening so you can pretend you were there.

Mimsy Soundchecking (later photos are all blurry!)

I baked a gingerbread house.

I was so proud of this pizza, probably the most delicious pizza I have ever made.

Georgie (who takes excellent photos for me sometimes) and Jonathan (who plays excellent keyboards and guitar)

Cass (Lisa Crawley/Mimsy Cable/Bannerman/various other bands!) Chelsea (Watercolours/Teacups)

Great North about to play

Mimsy Cable Keyboard recording

2011-12-06T16:06:00.001+13:00

We started recording some keys for the Mimsy Cable album. All the songs are written on piano so they're quite keys heavy and we're going to be working on making them more guitar focused, but I think they'll still end up keyboard driven. We recorded some Nord sounds and Mimsys Pianet T (although its quite hissy and slightly out of tune it sounds pretty good)

I ran the Nord sounds through an amp while we were recording to get it to sound a bit warmer and earthy and get some nice valve distortion happening. I actually think the Nord sounds pretty good, you'd never really know it wasn't a real Wurlitzer/Rhodes etc in the mix even if you probably could tell on its own... but who's to say you didn't record a Wurlitzer that actually sounded like that anyway... Plus the Nord is in tune (which the Wurli/Rhodes we had available to us weren't)

Great North Pianos

2011-12-03T14:50:00.001+13:00

Dale came over and we recorded most of the piano parts on the Great North album, Hayden also plays a couple of songs on piano, but they're more suited to the sound of the piano he bought recently so we plan to head over to his house to record them at some point. I think we're making good progress but theres lots to do yet!

Mimsy Cable - Drum recording

2011-11-28T00:48:00.001+13:00

We started recording drums for Mimsy Cable's album yesterday. Trusty Alex Freer stepped up to fill drum duties on the record. Alex is a really great drummer and I have worked with him on so many different recordings now: Artisan Guns, Cool Rainbows, Mali Mali, Watercolours, Bearcat and now this record.

He brought in an old Hayman drum kit and we went through songs that suited that kits toms yesterday (photo above) but switched things around today and used his warmer with shorter sustain Yamaha toms (photo below) for a couple of songs that had more of a tom focus.

I tried the MD421 on kick and it seems to be sounding really nice, it was too clicky for my liking inside the drum but as an outside kick mic it works well, lots of punch. I've got the D112 sat inside the kick on some dampening to capture a bit more click and a bit more low end.

More Great North Guitars

2011-11-25T15:47:00.001+13:00

Strahan came over for more guitar recording yesterday toward the Great North Album.

We have about 3 or 4 songs left to add guitar too, but most of them need piano before we can get on with more guitar.

I've been recording both Ribbon and SM57 on Strahans Bassman (or sometimes my Princeton depending on the song)

Great North Album 2 guitars

2011-11-10T21:57:00.001+13:00

Today was the first of what will be a fair few days of guitar recording with Strahan for the Great North album while we search for tone heaven and add new guitar parts and various layers etc/try to use all of our pedals at once in an attempt to open a black hole...

Also the piano is still hanging out in my room from having redone Longtime Love with Mimsy this week, I didn't post about it but we re did the song with separate piano and vocals. So ignore any previous lengthy spiel about how it sounded magical live, it kinda did but it sounded better done seperately. So we decided to redo it. This is life/recording.

Longtime Love

2011-10-12T13:47:00.000+13:00

Mimsy came over to record a quiet song "Longtime Love". We're currently waiting for her band/chosen musicians to be in the country and available so we can get on with the rest of the record. But this one we're going to leave really sparse Vocals, Piano and maybe a guitar. Because of that I thought it'd be nice to make it a point of difference on the album and record Vocals and Piano live in one take, not to a click, not even with headphones on. The idea being that it'd sound like Mimsy just at home singing her song. I put up a couple of room mics to try and to capture that sensation of being in the same room as her.

I left the front on the piano to isolate the Vocal mics from the piano and the piano mics from the vocal as both were going to be quite quiet and then mic'd the piano from the back for a really warm rich piano tone. Mimsy also played with the damper pedal on to keep the tone really warm.

Great North

2011-09-29T00:36:00.002+13:00

Spent the weekend just been recording the Acoustic Guitar, Lead Vocals, Bass and Drums for 4 more songs for the Great North Album. This could potentially be the last Drum tracking we need to do...

I think this is the start of something really good.

Great North Album #2

2011-09-19T23:58:00.000+12:00

This weekend we started the initial tracking for Great Norths second Album, they like to try and get a live feel for recording. When I recorded their EP we tracked Drums, Bass, Keys and Acoustic live and then recorded Vocals and Electric Guitar on top. Then for their first album we recorded Drums, Bass and Acoustic guitar live with a guide keyboard track for most of the songs (which we redid on a real piano later) and one or 2 we did with a live lead vocal.

Before we started this album we had a think about what really worked last time and for me all the tracks that stood out as being my favourite performances were the ones we did with a live vocal. (Newfoundland, I Feel Alive and Hands) Something about them seemed to stand out as being more sincere or more real. I think we all relished in the slight vocal imperfections so this album we're mostly recording live vocals with Drums, Bass and Acoustic guitar.

The vocals are being tracked through my new Brent Averill 1073 DMP. Its essentially like having a 1073 microphone pre-amplifier section from a vintage Neve console on my desk making all my recordings sound just that little bit more delicious! Hooray! It finally arrived in the morning of the first day of tracking and is sounding lovely so far.

We got basic tracks for 7 songs done over the weekend. More recording fun next weekend (and the weekend after and the weekend after that and the one after that...)

I stuck a Studio Electronics C4 through the shockmount of the Baby Bottle to give me options for the Acoustic Sound. I'll probably end up using the Baby Bottle, its a less precise warmer sound which I think works well for Great North, but options are good.

Day #2 of Tracking Rachels using my Bass for the recording, hers is much nicer to play for smaller hands but the active pickups sound too pretty and bright. I'm getting a clean DI'd signal and one through my sansamp. We also redid the bass on a song through my new DMP, it sounded amazing, old and warm but detailed and punchy. Instant bass tone.

Tied On Teeth

2011-09-14T15:57:00.001+12:00

Last Friday I tracked a single with Thames band Tied on Teeth. Got it all done in a day, drums and bass live and then Guitars and Vocals on top.

I've been playing around with XY overheads for so long but never really been satisfied with the sound I was getting from them. I thought I was getting too roomy a sound with AB in the past and having listened to them carefully I really didn't like the recorderman technique I tried recently on the Mimsy Cable recording and the Great North album demos. Having recently read an article on stereo mic configurations and listened to a lot of different examples and also mixed a Watercolours song that we tracked with AB overheads I think I might be leaning back towards them, I tried it out on these guys and they sound great. Much more defined stereo image than XY and yes slightly more roomy but I think in a good way.

We used an array of guitars for the guitar tracking, it was so easy to just keep adding stuff and now I have to work out what is necessary and whats not. In the picture below Hugh's got a cloth covering the strings to mute them so he can strum all the strings and just play the one fretted note to get a really percussive sound.

10,000 Views?!

2011-09-07T11:13:00.000+12:00

I've never really noticed the little stats section of blogger until I recently upgraded to the new look dashboard... when I did I noticed to my surprise that I was near 10,000 views. THATS A LOT OF VIEWS. I guess somebody out there maybe looks at this thing. Crazy. Well just now I hit 10,000 views

(at least 2 of those view counts are mine from being frustrated at it being sat at 9,998)

I haven't been posting an awful lot recently, mainly because I don't like to post without pictures much because I figure thats all people are interested in and recently I haven't been taking photos (partially due to absent mindedness, partially due to awkwardness of taking photos of people all the time)

But nevertheless work is being done, slowly but surely it is happening.

THANKS FOR READING THE BLOG IF YOU READ IT.

(there I said it, in big letters too)

The other week I was working at Fashion Week, I did sound for Watercolours (Fashion Week Edition featuring; Tiny Ruins, She's So Rad and Boy Crush) at the Liam/Ruby show.

It was a somewhat difficult setup (guitar keys drums cello and vocals)(I always find cello without a pickup a bit difficult live) in a really large reverby old printing factory. But we got it to work in the end. I bought a $2.50 piezo pickup from surplustronics for the cello. It didn't sound amazing but I could get it louder than a mic without feeding back and it sounded kinda like a cello. I also mixed a live recording of the band that morning which should find its way on to a video somewhere at some point maybe... if it does I'll let you know. I'm interested to hear how it sounds.

Look heres some pictures from Thread.co.nz

Avalanche City Tour

2011-08-16T16:09:00.000+12:00

The past few weeks I've been on tour doing sound for Avalanche City & Luke Thompson. I think we all had a really good time and pretty much all of the shows went really well. I've stolen various Photos from Ben the drummer, Snapstar and some of my own to post up here;

Avalanche City playing at the Ascension Belfry in Matakana

Alaska playing at the Masonic Tavern


Avalanche City at the Studio in Auckland

Avalanche City at the Studio in Auckland

Luke Thompson and Friends playing in Hamilton

Setting up at the Pheasant Plucker in Rotorua

Avalanche City sounchecking in Tauranga (note the large speaker on the left hand side isn't plugged in, its just being used to lift the tiny D&B tops off the subs. They're crazy small, powerful and sound amazing!)

Setting up at Black Barn Vineyard Cellar Door in Napier

Avalanche City playing at Hope Bros in Wellington

Avalanche City at Hope Bros in Wellington

Avalanche City playing in Feilding

End of tour group shot!

last couple of months...

2011-07-25T12:53:00.000+12:00

Well I've been lazy about posting here for the past few months. In that time I've been working on a couple of things. I started the new Great North album and we demo'd all the songs live (some photos from Strahans blog) Now we're just waiting for Olly to be back from Hawaii (where he is helping build an airport or something?)

I've also been recording some more things on Teacups EP and a few things have been chipped away at on the Watercolours album. Plus I recorded on some demos for Dan&Dave Gibsons new project (I might post some photos from them later if they surface, they took heaps so I didn't bother).

This last weekend I recorded the start of some quieter songs with Hayden from Great North.

Also Glass Owls recently made a video for their song "Griffin Boy" that I recorded a year and a bit ago

Anyway I'm off on tour doing sound for Avalanche City tomorrow for a couple of weeks so thought I should post before I leave. When I get back I've got plenty to do and some new projects starting up soon that I am very excited about.

Watercolours - Under video.

2011-04-27T15:57:00.000+12:00

Those of you who occasionally read this blog may have noticed I have been toiling towards Watercolours album/EPs or whatever the songs turn out to be.

Recently Chelsea enlisted the help of Reuben from Artisan Guns to make her a music video for the first song from the album and oh wow its amazing. I linked to it on Facebook, but I feel like it deserves more of a mention than that. Look at it below;

Under from Watercolours

Teacups EP

2011-04-25T15:44:00.000+12:00

I started recording Teacups new EP last Friday. Its always quite exciting for me to have another chance at recording a band I've recorded before and both Teacups and myself have come so far since we recorded their album. The songs are already sounding so much more mature, as are the band as musicians. Talitas gone through a few double bass's before this beautiful vintage Russian bass (a vast improvement on the student basses we recorded the album with) and I have an immensely larger and better microphone collection than before!

The Double Bass I used a KM184 to capture string plucking detail and any high frequencies that might be lacking in the mix from the Ribbon, which I will most probably use as the main mic (if I can help it it'll be my only mic) it sounds great for a vintage bass tone that they're after. Plus just incase I needed the extra low end I put up the D112.

Acoustic I opted for KM184, again for upper end detail and the Blue Kiwi for more body.

We'll be recording more soon.

Avalanche City Album release with Lisa Crawley

2011-04-18T19:20:00.000+12:00

Did sound at the Avalanche City Album release last Tuesday evening at the Montecristo Room, Lisa Crawley played too. Not the easiest of rooms, but fortunately Riyan brought in a really nice rig and once people were in the room everything sounded pretty good. Heres some photos of the evening from SnapStar

Mimsy Cable and the Nocturne Bell

2011-04-11T22:10:00.000+12:00

We recorded all the vocals, the horns and some Hammond Organ today. The horns sounded beautiful through the ribbon.

I wanted to track vocals through the ribbon too but it was a bit too dark for the song, so we tracked them all through the Blue Kiwi. Lovely.

Watercolours (ex Chelsea Jade)

2011-04-02T22:49:00.000+13:00

Chelsea "feeling it"

We added and changed some more parts on Watercolours (which is Chelsea Jades new band name) today. Some of the songs are just about done, but we still have 2 that aren't even started yet...

Really happy with how that E609 sounded on Glockenspiel, just tried it because I had it out for the keyboards speaker but it sounded pretty nice. Also I mic'd the piano from the back with my KM184s which was a nice change, warmer and less noise from the mechanics, but maybe not punchy enough for some applications.

Mimsy Cable and the Nocturne Bell

2011-03-27T15:22:00.001+13:00

A couple of days ago I was recording the live tracks for a single with Mimsy Cable and the Nocturne Bell. I took this as an opportunity to try some different to my normal mic placements on the drums. I've been wanting to try out the "recorderman" technique again as I haven't really bothered trying it for ages, so far I think the Overheads sound really great, I may be using it more often. Also got the telephone mic out for a distorted room mic. I set the Kiwi to bi-directional with the null aimed toward the kit which got a really great open room sound. Alex assured me he'd be hitting fairly gently so I put my Blue Baby Bottle up as a second kick mic, it sounded really beautiful, really punchy and heaps of delicious low-mid.

Cass used my Jazz Bass with the neck pickup volume rolled slightly back to give the bass a bit of a boxy tone and we DI'd the Wurlitzer ready to be re-amped later. Hayden played guitar along live in the other room with his amp. After getting the live band down Alex added some tambourine and jingle bells and Hayden played a few cool ambient extra guitar parts.

We'll be tracking some horns and vocals sometime in the near future!

What happened to February?

2011-03-17T22:42:00.001+13:00

Well I've been neglecting this blog lots... sorry.

I've been working on a few projects here and there but have been very slack with taking photos etc. Today and tomorrow Ruby Frost is heading out to work on some demos. A song I recorded with her a while back, "Moonlight" spent about 2 months in the Bfm top ten which was nice to see. Yesterday James Duncan was over, I'm helping him master his band "Punches" album, I guess its taking a lot longer than people would usually spend on mastering but we're trying out a whole bunch of different sonic options which is fun in a really geeky way.

Also I've been doing a bit of live sound which is nice, I don't really bother to pursue doing it much but had a few nice shows recently. Amongst them a few shows doing sound for Avalanche City who currently have the #1 single in New Zealand, amazing!

Last week I did sound for them at the opening of Laidlaw Colleges new atrium cafe. and I thought I'd post these photos by Alex from Imagining the City I stole them from his blog, you can see the rest here. If you get the chance go see Avalanche city live, they sure are a treat.

Foothills.

2011-02-21T13:29:00.000+13:00

Photos from The Foothills. All photos taken by Esther Parker.

Tealight Tour etc

2011-02-21T12:45:00.000+13:00

What have I been doing all summer? The other week I went on a mini tour doing sound for Avalanche City and Melbourne band Paper Kites. They sold out shows in Auckland and Wellington and packed out Hamilton too. Pretty relaxed few days, made some good road trip stops for bungy jumping, the incredible Huka Falls and various other touristy stops for the (lovely) Australians.

Apart from that its been nice taking a bit of a break, been working on some more Chelsea Jade stuff, although she's changed her name to Watercolours now (not her actual name, her bands name). Plus some mastering work and a few other shows including doing sound at the Zoo for Artisan Guns.

Some photos from the little tour (stolen from Sam and Sarah who I am sure won't mind)

so much to tell you.

2011-01-12T12:21:00.000+13:00

Well I hope you've been enjoying your Christmas I know I have.

A Very Little Christmas was received very well. Thanks to everyone who spread the word, all the blogs that posted about it and everyone that said kind things. At the time of writing this we have had 3800 downloads from my website plus I don't know how many from amplifier and an average of about 300 downloads per song from dailybeat.co.nz. I am very happy.

New Zealand Musician Magazine wrote quite a large article on me that you can probably still pick up (for free) in stores if you like or read online here

I've got all these ideas in my head for crazy other projects but I figure I should focus on some paid work for a while before I start working on something else... oh wait too late, I'm planning a concert next month outside at my place in the beautiful Oratia. A whole bunch of really great bands are playing and its only $15

(the photo was taken by Ivy from Luckless)

Sheesh what a great lineup. If its anything like last year its going to be a special evening.

One of my favourite bands from last year;

Best get back to calling people about hiring lights and seats and all sorts of other fun things.

A Very Little Christmas

2010-12-12T19:25:00.001+13:00

Well the Christmas album is out now, if you haven't got it yet you can download it for free from www.littlemonsterstudio.co.nz/avlc.html or you can purchase it from good record stores in NZ. So far we've had 2200 downloads from all over the world. Thanks to those who've been sharing the link around so far. If you haven't yet we'd really appreciate it if you wanted to. I just want to give a Christmas present to as many people as possible.

Today I was reading the text from Phil Spector on the back of his Christmas record (and even though I am sure he would probably hate my christmas album/me) I thought I'd post an excerpt it here because it sums up some of my feelings towards and behind "A Very Little Christmas"

"...This album was produced solely for you and only with you in mind. It is an endeavor to epitomize the great young stars in the recording field, singing some of the greatest music ever written. It comes from me to you with the sincere wish that you understand and appreciate this endeavor into something new and different for Christmas. I am very proud of my artists at this moment and very grateful for having the opportunity to express myself as I have been able to do in this album. I, along with The Crystals, The Ronettes, Darlene Love, and Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans, hope that you enjoy and love this album as much as we enjoyed making it for you and wish you the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years and we thank you so much for letting us spend Christmas with you.

Phil Spector, Producer "

- liner notes from "A Christmas Gift For You" (you can read the rest here if you want)

This is also happening next wednesday, if you're in Auckland it'd be great to see you there. There will be free mince pies. FREE MINCE PIES! Plus good bands playing hooray.

Ruby Frost - Lennon Cover

2010-12-06T21:01:00.000+13:00

Ruby Frost and band were over yesterday recording a John Lennon cover. It was quite a different process from all the recording I've done with her so far. In the past we've done almost everything in the computer with software synths, plus maybe some percussion here and there and a bit of electric guitar or bass (and some hammond of course) but this time round we recorded real drums, real synths, even guitars played by real people...

Cam, Haddon and Jimmy (and even Ruby herself) are all really good musicians so the parts are played really well and its got a really nice groove which I think is important for this song. However it doesn't give me as much flexibility with the sounds as I would with programming the parts, so we spent a lot longer thinking about synth sounds etc instead of programming all the parts in and then considering sounds.

We recorded what was probably one of the most obscenely rock and roll guitar parts I have ever recorded. Haddon played power-chords through my big muff and stood leaning back and forth to get just the right amount of feedback to keep the chord sustaining... We tracked it for the whole song but I think I might just use it here and there and maybe quietly in the mix.

Drum sound is pretty huge, I've got a ribbon set up quite far back in the room which I've got limited really hard to almost sound like distortion. But it really helps to have a consistent and central hitter like Jimmy with a really nice sounding drum kit.

A Very Little Christmas - Behind the Scenes Video

2010-11-30T16:06:00.000+13:00

A Very Little Christmas gets released in stores and as a free download from my website next monday the 6th of December. Till then enjoy the little behind the scenes video I made.

Christmas Album - Artisan Guns

2010-11-22T01:43:00.001+13:00

Apparently 17 songs just wasn't enough for a Christmas compilation and I agreed to record Artisan Guns Christmas song this Saturday (despite it all needing to be done before Tuesday) we'd planned to record it the other week but Jonathans hand ended up being put in a cast and a couple of members just couldn't make the recording.

Anyway its recorded now and is really great. We ended up using all of my guitars, Matt used my acoustic for the main part (and then doubled the end with his jumbo) then added a rhythm track on the Musicmaster, a dirty rhythm track on the Gretsch then played a part on the Tele, which Jonathan also used again later to double the Organ part.

Theres some really cool backing vocals in the end part where the "bay" and "bee" of "baby" are split in to two parts sung by reuben and matt. One sings the "bay" and holds that note while the other comes in with the bee over the top and they end together. So we recorded this part with them both infront of the mic together.

Alex added a few layers of toms, rims, tambourines and samples from his drum pad that don't make much sense on their own but together work really nicely off each other. We recorded the electronic drums with a delay plugin in time to the click so that they delay would be part of the drum performance, but also so I could adjust the delays various settings and sound later. The final section has a pretty big sounding drum kit in it, I've got 2 room mics up in the recording (and they're both fairly high in the mix) the ribbon which you can see in the photo and my Blue Kiwi set to omni in the corner behind where the photo was taken, just next to the door.

Finally Jonathan (who came straight from cricket) added some Organ which helped to tie the song together, for a couple of the parts we turned the leslie up to 8 so it was just starting to break up. Its probably one of the most satisfying sounds ever.

The album is coming out on the 6th of December as a very limited CD release in stores and online as a free download from www.littlemonsterstudio.co.nz

Christmas Album - Cool Rainbows

2010-11-19T22:35:00.001+13:00

So I said all the tracking was over for the Christmas album, well it was nearly done...

Today Alex added some drums for Cool Rainbows song we recorded on Tuesday. We were going for a kinda wierd roomy sound so I got Alex to set the drums up in the corridor, something I've not tried before.

In the past I've put mics out there for wierd room mics etc but never moved the drum kit out there. Fortunately with Alex's stripped down kit we had just enough space to fit him in (although I'm sure we could've squeezed a floor tom in there too) Drum sound was really nice, probably wouldn't suit most things but fits in really well in this song.

Christmas Album - The Crawley Christmas Singers

2010-11-17T20:56:00.000+13:00

The picture above is for a very special joint effort going on to the Christmas Album. The Crawley Christmas singers, featuring Lisa Crawley, Matthew Crawley and (the lesser known for music but still very important) Emma Crawley.

Real life family band.

Also in the photo is Simon, cameraman for Nightline. They did a little feature on the Christmas album that you can see here

http://www.3news.co.nz/Bands-big-and-small-get-into-Xmas-spirit/tabid/728/articleID/186599/Default.aspx

Back to the recording, we recorded all 3 vocals, Acoustic guitar and Piano live and then overdubbed a toy piano solo.

Not long after the photo was taken I put an SM58 in front of Emma (on the left) as a placeholder to stop her getting too close to the KM184 which was popping a bit. The KM184 sounds great on a female vocal and as Emma was taking the high harmony I gave it to her, while Lisa took the Kiwi (set to supercardioid to cut down on piano bleed) and Matthew sang in to the warmer Baby Bottle.

Thats all the songs tracked! (although I think we might be adding some drums to Cool Rainbows track on Friday)

Christmas Album - Cool Rainbows

2010-11-17T11:46:00.002+13:00

I recorded a Cool Rainbows Christmas song on Monday for the Album. For a while we tried recording it live outside and all the birds and occasional cars sounded really cool in the background but then we opted against recording it live and moved inside so Djeisan could focus on playing+singing it better individually (he mostly wrote the song that morning) Emily came out later and added some vocals too but I was really slack with photo taking.

Christmas Album - The Bayonets

2010-11-16T14:15:00.001+13:00

Another song for the Christmas Album, this time was the Bayonets turn. We started with a guide guitar to a click, then Joel put his drums over that. While Joel was playing drums Phil and Martin sat outside and re-wrote the majority of the melody and a few lyrics!! Then we added acoustic, electric and bass guitar before some vocals and then glockenspiel and Joel programmed in some of a plugin organ sound on my computer.

Christmas Album - Dear Times Waste

2010-11-11T19:13:00.002+13:00

Recorded Dear Times Waste's christmas song today, ended up keeping it quite stripped back. We started recording with vocals and guitar live (no click) I had the guitar amp set up in the bathroom to avoid bleed. After that Claire added some drums.

Halfway through the first take of the Bass drum I was thinking how cool it would be if we tuned it to be a note that would work with the song. By complete fluke it turned out that I'd accidentally tuned it to an F# that works quite nicely with the D pedal note that most of the song is based around.

Theres a bit of organ and some BV's but not much else. Really beautiful song though.

I'm really pleased that so many of the artists/bands have taken care to write/arrange something to the usual standard of their output for this album rather than throwing together a weak/novelty christmas song.

Chelsea Jade - Choir Day

2010-11-10T19:01:00.000+13:00

We recorded various choir parts for Chelseas album today, Anthony also featured in the Choir but there are no flattering/in focus photos of him.

With most of the group vocals I end up recording I like to just double or triple track them and pan stuff rather recording in stereo. Wide Cardioid on the Kiwi suits this nicely.

Malcolm Jack - Roundhead Single

2010-11-07T20:32:00.002+13:00

Spent the day at Roundhead yesterday in the Brick Room producing a single for Rockquest 3rd placers Malcolm Jack.

I knew that I'd be mixing the vocals to be quite wet so I got Jordan to print reverbs from each vocal track individually to protools for me (which is what he's doing in the photo above) You can't beat the real thing.

I've been having a bit of a listen back today and I think it sounds pretty good so far. I'll be mixing it from here this week.

Christmas Album - Bannerman

2010-11-04T20:47:00.004+13:00

Bannerman recorded their Christmas song on Wednesday evening.

We tracked Drums, Bass, Organ, Keys, Vocals and electric guitar live. Ritchie sung and played guitar in the bathroom and the guitar amp out in the corridor and everyone had headphones.

I even had my Leslie set up in the laundry for Finns Hammond to plug in to, but different years of hammond connectors meant no real Leslie fun (although we ended up running it through a plug in Leslie emulator in protools)

After that Cole played some tambourine and then Finn and Oliver recorded their Trumpet and Trombone parts respectively. Ribbon on the Trumpet and MD421 on the Trombone.

Christmas Album - The Gladeyes

2010-11-04T20:22:00.002+13:00

I had the Gladeyes here on Sunday for another Christmas Song for the album, its not far off now, soon you'll be able to download it for free (or purchase one of the limited run of CD's)

The Gladeyes album was one of my favourites of last year, if you haven't heard it yet you really need to.

Recording was fun, we tracked individually to a click, guide guitar and vocal, everything went really smoothly! Great! Here are some photos!

Christmas Album - Alaska

2010-10-31T20:34:00.002+13:00

Another Christmas song, this time from Alaska. They made a really nice arrangement of an old Christmas song "Oh Holy Night"

The Alaska arrangement features Harp, Acoustic guitar, Mandolin, Cello, Vocals and some stripped back drums.

Recording was good. Nice sounding instruments, played well, captured with good microphones. Really its difficult to mess it up.

Here are some photos!

Christmas Album - Hold Dear

2010-10-24T23:22:00.000+13:00

Hold Dear recorded their christmas song today. If you've not heard of them they're quite a new, but very fun band. I recommend getting along to one of their shows asap.

We opted to keep quite their song quite stripped back, its really enjoyable as it is, we considered bass and maybe drums but really it probably would've detracted from the song. I got Jonny to double the acoustic guitar part with a roomy electric, I wanted to get some of the acoustic sound of his pick hitting the strings in there too so just set him up sat infront of his amp with the volume down and put a mic a wee bit away from that. (see the last photo)

We tracked the two vocals together with Chloe and Jonny facing each other to help with their phrasing and just general feel of the vocals.

Chloe recorded some Melodica and then I got her to quickly double it on the piano.

It was a REALLY nice day again here in Oratia. Wow. Hello summer!

Christmas Album - Luckless

2010-10-24T16:44:00.000+13:00

Ivy (aka Luckless) came in to record her christmas song on Saturday. She had a drum beat from a little drum machine that I re-made in an evening this week using samples from my marching drums and various percussion, I also used a snare hit from a drum beat on my new casio keyboard (the little white one in the photo above)

Yesterday we recorded various guitar parts and lots of vocals. I played some bass. Ivy played some shaker. Got some reaaalllyyyy cool guitar tones, Ivy's Hagstrom sounds amazing, I love playing around with loud guitar amps+pedals.

Christmas Album - Chelsea & James

2010-10-24T10:28:00.001+13:00

Recorded Chelsea and James's christmas song the other day. James played some drums, then chelsea some bass, then we layered the rest on top. We recorded some woodblock and cowbell through my princeton, sounds SO Phil Spector.

James also played some toy piano through the princeton, sounded less Phil Spector but still really cool...

Christmas Album - Canadia

2010-10-18T19:04:00.002+13:00

Canadia came over to record their song for the Christmas Album, we tracked Drums and Bass live to a guide electric guitar and vocals from Ashley in my bathroom. Then we recorded an array of guitar and vocal parts over the top.

The guide guitar sound was really cool with the vocal mic capturing the room sound so I left the vocal mic in there for when we tracked the main electric guitar part. (Ashley posted a picture on his blog here it kinda just cuts out the kiwi set up recording the room sound) Later we recorded the other electric parts through my princeton for its lush reverb.

Christmas Album - Josie Tuck

2010-10-16T13:32:00.001+13:00

Just recorded a christmas song with Josie Tuck (and band) live with no overdubs and its great. I really like to record like this sometimes (dependant on band and song etc) I like a bit of bleed between mics.

I switched the ribbon in the picture above to be another pencil condenser (as seen below behind the beta 57a) on Bruce's banjo after hearing the first few takes and that the ribbon wasn't really sounding very good and that the banjo was lacking something. I think once I'm going to end up using the condenser on the banjo, although it didn't have as much body it sounded more open and natural which is what we're going for.

Ellens bells were more than loud enough to cut through everything and didn't need miking up. I also played jingle bells from my desk, again they didn't need miking because they were meant to be quiet in the mix and the roomy bleed in to the other mic's was more than enough!

Also because there was no click everyone opted for no headphones which was how some of my favourite teacups recordings got done, theres something nice about just capturing people playing naturally.

I also got them to record a very special refrain at the end (which you'll hear in due time)

Chelsea Jade Recording

2010-10-13T22:00:00.000+13:00

More Chelsea Jade recording, arranging, editing today. Tracked some vocals and some acoustic and James and I played some bass.

Chelsea Jade

2010-10-11T21:13:00.001+13:00

I love this piano wholeheartedly. We've had it since I can remember. The pedals squeak and clunk and the hammers make little noises, I find myself sometimes sticking bits of felt all over it and spaying it with WD40 and one of my brothers stuck note names all over the keys years ago but it sounds so rich and full of character.

Jonathan came and recorded some more piano for a new song in the morning and then the afternoon was spent tracking drums on "Mountain Song" from Chelseas one week ep. The drum+piano recording on the original were done live in one take apparently. But both have been so difficult to recreate for this recording. I've grown quite fond of the original and getting all the great spontaneous moments and then improving on the parts in the new takes has been a bit of a challenge but definitely worthwhile.

We tracked the drums on Mountain Song in two halves, using Alex's kick on the second louder half and then my marching band kick drum on the more ambient first half. Ever since I've had the marching drums I've wanted to try the bass drum as a kick in a drum kit, it worked so well!

Alex ended up moving the snare and bringing the rack tom in closer as seen below but this photo shows his kick pedal on the marching drum. Yum.

Christmas Album - Glass Owls

2010-10-09T21:10:00.001+13:00

Just finished recording Glass Owls christmas song. I think they showed up with it in mind of being quite folky and had ideas to record cello and violin etc... By the time they left it was sounding more Smiths/Cure/Joy Division-y.

I played drums and listening back to them now I'm actually really surprised at how well that worked out. I used a cymbal and hi hat sample from another song I'd recorded recently. Then the drums are just a floor tom and snare with the Beatles trick on the snare drum (top skin almost fully loose with a teatowl half covering it). We also made a sample of a snare hit with tambourine on top of it which I doubled the end snares with. No photos or video of me playing drums fortunately (I probably looked ridiculous)

Michael came to and played some casiotone organ DI'd through my sansamp to get it a bit dirtier sounding. He also features in the gang vocal...

Christmas Album - Bearcat

2010-10-03T18:42:00.005+13:00

Recording the "choir" we tracked each part a few times for a big group vocal. Lovely.

Just recorded the Bearcat song for the Christmas Album which will probably be stuck in my head all week, thanks Dan and Josie. I just need to record my bass on it and it'll be done. What a nice weekend spent with friends.

Oh look some photos!

Theo is not usually this angry.

room mic for the drums

Christmas Album - Tono

2010-09-16T19:10:00.001+12:00

Another Christmas song in the bag, this time with Tono who usually comes with his band the Finance Company. Ribbons and large diaphragm condensers are probably 2 of the worst mic choices for an acoustic guitar, yet I go back to them over and over when songs don't want a pristine sounding acoustic guitar (like I could get if I used my KM184s, oh boy they make an acoustic sparkle). Its a bit annoying because I know I am going to get a really resonant low end frequency with the LDC or too much low end with the ribbon and depending on the song maybe not bright enough. I think I'll probably end up using the LDC, I'm actually really happy with the acoustic sound.

We didn't have much of a plan of what needed to be recorded so we started out recording Acoustic to a click and then doubling some Acoustic on Tonos Guitar before adding Vocals, Electric Guitars, Bass (my Hello Kitty Bass with the rag stuffed under the bridge, see Artisan Guns post) Piano, Tambourines, Shaker, Marching band bass drum, Organ (done on the Hammond) and then added some hand claps and a few electronic drums. What a productive day.

Georgie Craw Photos

2010-09-16T01:10:00.000+12:00

These Maracas are some of my favourites, they came in a box that says "Mexican Maracas" in big font and then smaller underneath it says "made in Taiwan"

This is my good friend Georgie, she had heard about my marching drums and wanted to take photos of them (see below) they looked so great that she ended up taking some photos of me for my bio.

LOOK AT HOW GOOD SOME OF THE PHOTOS ARE! Seriously, there were too many great shots to choose from. You should hire her to take photos of things you want to have on photographs or the internet or something like that.

once more incase you missed the links above http://georgiebird.blogspot.com/

Artisan Guns - Crowded House Cover

2010-09-14T00:52:00.011+12:00

This room mic on the Piano sounded great, its a shame its very quiet in the mix.

Had quite a long day recording Artisan Guns covering Crowded House song "Private Universe" for a Crowded House covers compilation album.

Reuben played a really cool muted pick bass part, for a slightly more even controlled mute over all the strings I stuffed a cloth under the strings at the bridge

lots of Drums were recorded, we started with a base of kick snare and floor tom and then Alex added Shaker, Tambourine, Woodblock, Cymbals, Hi Hat and a Tom pattern on top.

Later we doubled the Snare for a thick Phil Spector-esq multiple drummer sound.

I mixed the song late last night and today to get it sent away on time to be mastered. Phewph.

Christmas Album - Great North

2010-09-05T16:02:00.008+12:00

Great North came over to record their Christmas song for the Album, we tracked Drums, Bass, Acoustic Guitar and Vocals live with a guide Keyboard track and then overdubbed Piano, Glockenspiels, Backing and Group Vocals, Percussion, Organ and Toy Piano.

I'm really pleased with how this song is sounding. Haydens coming back to record some trumpet in and Strahan (who was up north while we were recording) should be over soon to record his guitar.

Christmas Album - Timothy Blackman

2010-08-14T15:05:00.004+12:00

I am currently working towards a Compilation Christmas album with my new (but already good) friend Marty. A whole bunch of bands are working on writing their songs and will hopefully be ready to come out and record them in the coming weeks.

I had my first tracking for the album on Friday with Wellington based singer/songwriter Timothy Blackman. We tracked the Vocals and acoustic guitar live with my Kiwi for the vocals and KM184 for the acoustic guitar. I ran them both through a Great River MP-2NV pre amp that drummer Stu kindly brought along for me to play with. He also brought some beautiful Royer Ribbons that I used on his floor tom and bells and then also on the piano. Wow that Great River is a nice pre, have added it to the list of "things to buy"

So pleased with how the song turned out, a very simple arrangement let Tims vocals shine through and very tasteful use of jingle bells. Stu's vintage Rogers kit sounded great too!

I can't wait to get stuck in to everyone elses tracks!

More Recording with Chelsea!!

2010-07-07T20:33:00.006+12:00

Chelsea and I playing my marching drums today for her song Phoenix. We tracked the drums the whole way through the song about 6 times and it took quite a while because the tom pattern changes very slightly the whole way through and was tricky to remember. But it was kinda fun and worth it once we were done, I stood up with a drum on me for a long time though.

We also tracked a whole heap of vocals. The albums going to be really textural vocally with lots of layers of Chelseas voice and hopefully a few special guests soon.

Chelsea Recording.

2010-07-02T14:42:00.006+12:00

Jonathan played some piano (Chelsea singing a guide track) (this photo may be staged)

he also brought his newly acquired Univox organ which is VERY COOL and doubles up as a guitar amp that James used. All the photos of it were really blury so here is one from the auction Jonathan won it from

great keyboard sounds and as a bonus its an amazing guitar amp! We recorded some cool flutey sounding keys on Phoenix with it.

James played some guitars!

Chelsea made him wear a shark cape.

It made for many lols whilst serious work was being done.

Chelsea recorded some Glockenspiel.

The next day Liz came and round and played some flugel (which was recorded with an MD421 if you're interested and sounded lovely) Chelsea also sang a bit and I think we have one song fully tracked (except maybe an explosion of harps and birdsong... but we'll see about that)

Progress is being made! Tracks are sounding really cool! Hooray!!

Jams Duncan.

2010-06-25T01:32:00.005+12:00

New Rule: All blog posts must have a pun in their title.

I really want to write about some drum recording I did with James Duncan recently. Halfway through the session I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera for photographic evidence of some of the stuff that went on.

If you have been reading my blog you may remember that James has been helping out with Chelseas solo album, well he got in touch recently about helping with a bit of tracking for some of his solo stuff "we might play around with drums through amps and stuff" how could I refuse?

On Wednesday we headed down to drummer Chris O'Connors practise space armed with my laptop, digi003, mic pres and a joint effort from our Mic collections and a few drums. Chris is a really great drummer and his practise space is amazing. There must've been at least 6 marching bass drums littered around with various drum kits and walls of shelves packed full of percussive things including a very large spring, hundreds of cymbals and gongs and stupidly huge china's. I could've played all day. But no. We had serious work to do in a short amount of time.

We quickly plugged everything in and got levels before tracking various drum options to be cut in to loops/samples for 3 songs. This is not usually how I work, so was pretty interesting for me to see James producing a session like this, listening for all the various loops he wants to use.

Then we got to the fun/serious recording; running a Hi Hat mic in to a Wah pedal and in to a little guitar amp in an isolation room. We put the Wah next to Chris's HiHat pedal so Chris could slacken off his HiHat clutch and play the Wah. Probably the best use of a Wah pedal I have ever heard. We also ran a kick mic in to an amp, the snare bottom mic through a reverb and in to another amp and then a tom mic in to a hotcake and then a delay pedal that James played for a while, should be some really cool samples from that recording!

Then Chris had to leave and James and I recorded various samples of cool things like timpani, the aforementioned giant spring, snare drums out in the hallway, foot stomps, various cymbals stacked together... etc.

What a fun day recording with some very talented people (Chris and James)

Getting Frosty.

2010-06-19T20:08:00.005+12:00

Last Thursday and Friday I had a visit from the lovely Ruby Frost who came by to track a couple of songs to maybe be released as singles.

One of the songs "Moonlight" revolved around an organ and by some sort of coincidence keyboard player Haddon was just around the corner in Glen Eden which seemed the perfect opportunity to record some Hammond. It was a joy to hear as good a musician as Haddon put it through its paces.

By the time we discovered that Haddon was just around the corner I'd started to program in the organ and even with my plug in emulation it sounded great, but it turns out you can't beat the real thing. I love the whir of a nice Leslie.

I used 2 x Beta57a's to pick up the horns in stereo and then a blue baby bottle a bit back from the lower portion of the cabinet to pick up the body of the organ, I ended up not using the condenser as I got enough low end from the Beta57's.

Another thing I could probably program in but just isn't the same is Bells. Very important. It turns out Ruby is an incredible bell player. She takes this very seriously.

We recorded some acoustic guitar and I played some electric and bass but the rest was all programmed in with my various synths in protools (except for vocals obviously). All in all a very productive 2 days. I'm just giving the tracks a mix now. FUN!

Glass Owls EP Release

2010-06-15T11:14:00.002+12:00

Weow! Glass Owls release their EP "Dead Love" Next Friday.

I recorded it a few months ago here at Little Monster, you can find some posts about recording it HERE

HAMMOND. LESLIE. GOOD TIMES.

2010-06-08T12:43:00.003+12:00

This is probably my most exciting/excited blog post ever.

I am now in possession of a beautiful old Hammond E262 (one of the wood options on the E100) Tone Wheel organ, pretty much a B3/C3 but with lot less features and a bigger heavier cabinet. This was designed to be the home model with its built in speakers and they were made between 1964 and 1969.

Also it has a lovely Leslie (model 145) with it. I turned it on yesterday and it was the most joyous thing I have ever heard. This is something I have dreamed of owning for years. I never thought it would happen and am incredibly grateful to Mark, Roxie and the Haines family.

Drums with Alex. (Cool Rainbows and Mali Mali)

2010-06-06T19:40:00.005+12:00

Yesterday afternoon Alex and I ventured out to Waiuku to the wonderful Revolver studios to meet Cass and Djeisan who had been there all day working hard on finishing the Cool Rainbows album.

When we arrived Djeisan was just finishing off a mix before we moved on to tracking drums and bass for 3 songs. One of which we originally recorded about a year ago! I Can't wait to hear it all done now, its sounding amazing.

By the time we finished for the evening it was about 1.30am. We decided to sleep over at Revolver and head back early the next day. So we woke at 7 and after picking up some drums from Alex's house and dropping Cass home we made our way out to my house for breakfast before starting recording drums for Mali Mali's EP.

The drummer that was booked in for the recording fell through and I recommended Alex for the Job, he did incredibly well (as I knew he would).

With the Mali Mali EP we're not really going for a full drum kit sort of sound (bar one song when we set up a full kit with the usual mics) its more based around percussive ideas I guess. I knew its the sort of area where Alex shines and he came with some great ideas but also had some really nice tonal contributions using different drums and tunings etc

We tracked drums for all the songs today and I was happy that my Highland Marching Pipe Band Drums got a look in and sounded GREAT. I think the Mali Mali EP is coming together in a way that I really hadn't anticipated (its sounding better than I thought) and its not even finished yet, Bass and Vocals next!

Overall a very productive 2 days!

what is going on?

2010-05-13T01:04:00.005+12:00

As some of you may know I have a bit of reputation when it comes to baking/cooking. I thought this soup was a disaster. Then I added pesto. Turns out that adding a spoon of pesto in to a soup might just be my discovery of the year. Its so good. Oh and if you're wondering yes I baked that bread.

I haven't blogged in a while, I think I am going to post less and when I do post I'll try to make it a goodie. Much like my blog things are changing a tiny bit for Little Monster. I am quite excited about some upcoming projects + prospects. But I am also excited about seeing some projects that I have been working on for a while come to a close so that you can hear them.

oh look, heres a photo of some of my pedals and amps and stuff.

Currently I am as busy as per usual. This evening I re-tracked the harmonicas on the Great North album with Hayden and I have Dale coming for some more BV's next week (ok so I lied when I said it was all tracked) and all the other projects I am currently working on are keeping me pretty busy at the moment.

In other news I am waiting for some new Focal monitors that should be in the post soon. I am very excited!

I will leave you with Artisan Guns video for "In To The Cold" Matt did a great job at directing the video, I love it so much.

I recorded "In To The Cold" earlier in the year, its available in good CD stores on Artisan Guns EP "Hearts" or on Itunes also.

Artisan Guns Ep Release Party

2010-04-26T19:49:00.004+12:00

I was doing sound at the Rising Sun on Saturday for Artisan Guns EP Release. The show went really well. I enjoy Rising Sun when I get a decent amount of time to setup and tune everything right, it usually sounds good and either the GL2400 or Midas they usually have there keep me happy. Subterranes were amazing as per usual and Artisan Guns played an incredible set.

I took the photo above at soundcheck when I had enough time to do that, Artisan Guns draped the whole venue in flags and put ducks everywhere it looked great!

What a lovely evening!

New Toys.

2010-04-19T15:43:00.001+12:00

Yeah pretty cool huh.

Pink Pound Experiences

2010-04-19T15:12:00.003+12:00

Had another session with the Pink Pound Experience yesterday, got another track in the bag. I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out so far, I think they were too. Before we stopped for lunch I think everyone was a bit concerned it wasn't sounding that good but once we got both guitars down and started tracking vocals everything tied together really nicely, its funny how these things happen.

Vocals and Drums were a bit of a challenge to get nailed right on this song but when we got them it was definitely worth it. We tracked a few of the Backing Vocals live in to one mic for a change, almost like a gang vocal but not really at all. Turned out quite nice actually, I was worried that it was going to be difficult to get everyone's voice sitting right etc but the sound of 2 or 3 people singing at once stood next to each other is great, so why not record it like that rather than recording them separately and then mixing them in Protoools.

More Chelsea!

2010-04-16T23:57:00.004+12:00

We recorded lots of Tom today, with so many layers I didn't want the satisfyingly warm and full sound that the MD421 was giving so I opted for a good old beta58a instead to give me more attack and punch and then the Kiwi as a room mic.

Chelsea also "dropped some phat casio tone beats" and played some drone-y keys on Under. Plus various other vocal experiments, I played some jingle bells too.

We're recording in an almost modular way, everything is very flexible. We're tracking parts and then cutting them up, making loops, moving the songs around to be what they need. Its a really interesting process to see a song evolve and fun too.

I want to finish this asap so you can hear it all. (so I can listen to it on the train)

Chelsea.

2010-04-15T20:46:00.006+12:00

Some time ago I helped mix and master a one week EP that Chelsea from Teacups recorded with Jono, Alex and Reuben from Artisan Guns. If you haven't heard her solo stuff before its very different from Teacups, lots more electronic and atmospheric but still very pretty.

We just started working towards her album and I am very excited. Very. Today we worked on a song called "Under" recording a whole heap of vocals and some piano and guitar and bass.

My converted Valve Radio guitar amp was made use of in to the Vox Cab.

I had exactly the same bizarre old guitar that James has just under my bed collecting dust. Now he has 2.

Mali Mali Recording

2010-04-12T12:38:00.004+12:00

Recorded some electric guitars for a Mali Mali song yesterday, Andrew ran his Ibanez AS200 through his fender twin and Peter used my Gretsch through my Vox AC15. Both such great combinations, barely any playing around with sounds, just stick a mic up and go!

Then we added another track of acoustic to a different song before they had to rush off, all in all a fairly productive few hours! We're slowly getting the peices of this puzzle in to place.

The Bayonets EP Release

2010-04-01T12:33:00.005+13:00

Excitement, The Bayonets are finally releasing their EP they recorded with me off and on over the past yearish, I think the EP turned out really good and this show is one not to miss with the wonderful Jocee Tuck and heart-warming Alaska.

Mali Mali - Recording "The Ramp"

2010-03-30T00:13:00.003+13:00

Today we recorded another song for the Mali Mali EP called "The Ramp" Ben and I thought it would suit this song to have the guitar and vocals recorded live. Because I had the luxury of having all my channels free I setup a few more mics than I've used in the past recording Guitar and Vocals live. I think when we were playing it back the Nady Ribbon and two KM184's in combination sounded the best.

The Beta57 was there incase we opt for a dirtier guitar sound and then Kiwi incase we want a cleaner vocal sound but for now I love how that Ribbon sounds with Bens voice, I will definitely have it up for later vocal recordings. I don't think we'll be using the room mic much.

Ruby Frost

2010-03-25T20:33:00.003+13:00

The lovely Ruby Frost came round to record some demos today, it was pretty fun. I haven't really delved in to programming much in the past year or so so last night gave myself a quick refresher on logic and worked out how protools works these days. Oh man I <3 Protools 8 so much. The MIDI edit window is sooo great I didn't end up straying in to logic at all.

We recorded some vocals to a backing track that had been programmed by someone else and then programmed from scratch all the parts for 1 song, some of the parts for another and got Vocals done for both. Pretty productive day.

And it Rained.

2010-03-24T14:28:00.003+13:00

Following from yesterdays post I recorded a very convenient shower we just had. I quickly stuck up the Studio Projects C4's with omni capsules again and let them record away!

Rain - Check.

Now back to mixing.

Great North - Finishing Touches

2010-03-23T22:56:00.004+13:00

Hayden came round to re-track an acoustic guitar on one song where he'd knocked the guitar with his pick a few times, its funny the things you hear when you start mixing something.

I wrote a few weeks back about how I'd recorded my amp making noise to put on one of the songs, well it wasn't quite perfect. This evening I tried adding the sound of Oratia at night.

I stuck my Studio Projects C4's out the window, dropped them down a bit so they didn't pick up my various hard drives whiring round and sat tightly for about 6 or 7 minutes. I decided that maybe making a tea would be too much noise, even from the other room. Cars sounded incredible when they passed! Fortunately after the first couple passed I had a good 7 minutes worth uninterrupted.

I was planning on replacing the amp noise but the pair of them together are sounding quite nice, I might try recording some rain if it rains later. A few months ago I had recorded some rain but I can't remember where I put it now, annoying because this is exactly the circumstance I had thought about when I recorded it.

Mali Mali

2010-03-22T19:49:00.003+13:00

Ben came round and we tracked some more bits and pieces for Mali Malis EP. We re-did guitar on one song where Ben decided he wanted a tempo change and fortunately I was able to refer back to the blog I made from the original recording to see where I had mics sat. (Woo, my blog has been useful!)

We recorded the whole song at 140bpm and then I got Ben to play the slowed down part after the recording at 127bpm and moved it in to place. I put tempo changes either side of the moved in part so that the outro would be in time with the click for when we come to record drums.

We also recorded some guide vocals on the songs so when we get people in to play guitar and drums etc it will help them for reference as to the song structure. We had planned on recording the actual vocal takes today but found it really difficult to be inspired about anything without hearing the rest of the song sounding more like the final product.

We also recorded the loops that Ben has been playing his songs with live. We just recorded right from his boss loop pedal (except one song where we're going to re-make the loop in protools in time with the song, the other loops are more noises that don't have any impact on timing) They might get a bit of treatment in the mix to make them a bit more interesting but we wanted to keep the loops sounding quite lo-fi still.

Pink Pound Experience - Mr Happy Chappy

2010-03-21T20:49:00.005+13:00

I had the Pink Pound Experience here again recording another Demo "Mr Happy Chappy" they recently got an NZ On Air Grant to make a video for one of the songs I recorded "Easy Come Easy Go" in November last year, so expect to see them on your television in the not so distant future!

This time they came with new drummer Dan. Those more observant may notice I used a hi-hat mic in this instance, which I hardly ever do, this was due to the drum beat revolving mainly around kick and Hi-Hat and occasionaly a cross hit on the snare. I opted for an SM57 on the Hi-Hat, I could've used one of my other pencil condensers but I wanted less of the tops and more body from it and I've been seeing quite a few SM57s on Hi Hats recently, worked ok but as I say I am not a big Hi-Hat mic fan and I am still not sure if I'll use it, but its there if I need it!

I am pretty envious of Simon's new SIB Mr Echo, its very nice peice of gear. (I do enjoy a good peice of gear) The other week I put some heavier guage strings on my Musicmaster and adjusted the action of it etc, it sounded so great today that we used it for all of Simon's parts while Stu went tele for his guitar parts.

I (somewhat begrudgingly) ended up showing them how my new telephone mic sounds and it inspired a vocal part over the bridge. I don't like using tricks or gimmicks just because I have them and at first I was really not very keen to use the phone. However, when I thought about how I would effect the vocal in the part it was used if we didn't use the phone I knew I'd be striving to get back that sound. So I let it past.

(I am just wary of the fact that I often get very excited about new peices of equipment and try and use them on everything!)

New Toy - Phone Microphone

2010-03-16T13:51:00.006+13:00

I just made myself a new toy for the studio. I had seen an easy way to turn an old carbon button phone in to a microphone and stumbled across this phone in a junk store for $7.50 and found the parts (an AA batery clip, XLR panel mount socket and some cable) in an electrical store for $10.00.

Total Cost - $17.50 (I don't mean to belittle your maths abilities, I just wanted to make sure you realised that this was a bargain!)

I put it together today in about 20 minutes. I couldn't fit the battery in the reciever so put it in the base unit. I had planned to wire in the switch to turn off the battery when you put the handset down, but after scratching my head as to why it was making so much noise I realised the circuit would only close when you plug a cable in anyway and cut the switch idea out of the equation.

Anyway here it is, great for when you need that authentic vintage phone sound. It sounds really horrible and looks really cool. Perfect.

Where I fitted the XLR socket

Mali Mali - Piano Recording

2010-03-15T23:06:00.005+13:00

Ben from Mali Mali and I headed out on a field trip today to Northcote Baptist Church who just so happen to have a rather nice Yamaha C3 Grand piano. I took with me my laptop, Digi003, Neumann KM184 Stereo Pair, Blue Kiwi and headphones, cables etc. We spent a few hours working on getting the right feel for his beautiful instrumental track Neice, which is going on the EP we're working towards.

The recordings are quite raw sounding, you can hear cars passing and children playing at the school over the road in the background and various creaks from the piano snuck their way in, but I like them.

While I had all my stuff with me we headed back to Bens house and recorded the synth outro and a kinda ambient loop he created for the song with his loop pedal. What a fun Day.

Mali Mali

2010-03-11T01:38:00.002+13:00

Ben and I started work on Mali Mali's second EP this evening with recording acoustic guitar for 3 songs, we have plans to possibly record another all live and another with piano. I am looking forward to seeing how these songs evolve over the coming weeks.

recordingrecordingrecording

2010-03-10T00:56:00.003+13:00

More vocal tracking today. Dan and I were both a bit (very) tired, which made for interesting recording times. But we got lots done and are happy about their album being SO CLOSE to being all tracked.

Tomorrow I have some time to catch up on some mixing and then in the evening I start on some new stuff with Mali Mali.

Cutlery Drawer

2010-03-08T21:08:00.007+13:00

I just put a very quiet layer of bells on a Great North track to give it a bit more drive. But then I wanted it to step up a notch halfway and have a thick percussive sound (but still very quiet) almost like people marching. I put down a couple of layers of bells and tambourines and had almost given up when I thought of sound of a cutlery drawer closing...

perfect.

FYI; Cutlery drawers are REALLY HEAVY.

another item on the list of odd things I've recorded;

My amp turned up full making noise. Had to record 10 minutes worth (5 min track, I could hear the fades when I tried to loop it) of this while sitting silently, not moving

I sat for about 2 mins and then went to make a cup of tea. Now we have a nice sounding bed of noise for the track, in stereo too. Yes I have plugins for this but they weren't the right noise.

Great North Tracking - Finishing Touches.

2010-03-08T00:09:00.000+13:00

Today we had planned to just track some tom overdubs on one of Great Norths tracks and that was all. Last night we got almost all the piano done, so left it in my room to finish the last song. While we were at it we got the others to come round to record some group vocals on a couple of songs and then some harmonica and guitar parts. A very productive day and I think we're done with tracking.

I am so glad to have real piano on the songs now instead of the guide keyboard I've been listening to for weeks. The songs have started to feel alot more organic than they were before and everything is gelling together better.

I guess its time to start mixing them now.

Great North Piano Tracking

2010-03-07T00:54:00.000+13:00

We moved the piano to my room successfully. Woo!

It actually sounds pretty good, its not perfectly in tune which actually really suits the almost honky tonk piano sound we want with Great North, we were looking at hiring spaces with grand pianos etc to record at but this turned out better than we expected.

In keeping with the semi lo-fi I opted for beta57's on the piano instead of condensers or anything more delicate (although I stuck the Kiwi up for detail/if it ends up being in mono) they ended up sounding really great (if they didn't I would've changed them!)

We have more things to do tomorrow; drums, piano, harmonica, guitar, group ooo's. Its almost all tracked though, which is exciting.

Percussion Obsession.

2010-03-06T13:54:00.001+13:00

Percussion is something I can never have enough of.

I recently hired out all my tambourines and shakers etc to Ben from Kingston when he was tracking their albums percussion which has inspired me to expand my collection. I bought a few bits and peices yesterday (more than is in the picture) I got the bells and the seed pods at tradeaid. The seed pods sound incredible, we used them in the mess at the end of Autumn by Artisan Guns. I am on the look out for more bells though.

Kingston came back Wednesday and Thursday and we got heaps done, but still more to do. Once everythings tracked we'll send all the files over to the US for mixing and mastering. Its kinda nice to be involved in a project where I know I won't need to obsess over how the mix sounds for months afterwards.

Tonight Hayden Dale and I are going to try and move the piano. This should be fun.

Kingston Album

2010-03-02T20:59:00.001+13:00

Woo. More Kingston Vocals today, this morning we did some gang vocals, my Kiwi set to wide Cardiod works really well for this. Then Shohan dominated her parts on "Miss You" before Dan Scott and I spent the rest of the day working on "I'm Gonna Be With The King" which we finished.

Now I am working on comping up the doubles and harmonies and doubles of harmonies and everything else we did today!

Everyone's voice seemed to be on form today, some really great singing, especially Shohan and Dan. The song is sounding HUGE, Brandons doing a great job on it.

Titirangi Tatler Article

2010-03-01T20:40:00.000+13:00

So I got interviewed for the Titirangi Tatler, a local newspaper. There are a few confusions (these probably happened when Tony and I went off at tangents discussing all sorts) nothing major but just for anyone that reads this blog I thought I'd make clear that its not me thats confused about all this err so some slight corrections (again not really a big issue and the article is great thanks Tony if you read this)

1 - I have Sisters too. (please don't be offended Esther and Rachel!)
2 - I started on guitar, taught myself bass a couple of years ago
3 - The Debutantes didn't release these (rough) early recordings as an EP, their EP was only released recently and features excellent recordings from the talented Djeisan Suskov and maybe Shane I think? I helped master it though.
4 - $20k
5 - We recorded Artisan Guns first EP mostly live at my house, for their as yet unreleased second EP we went to Dobworld.
6 - I stopped working on Bearcats Album ages ago but have recently been playing bass live for them.

Again all little things and corrections are for my sanity only.

Still, I am pretty excited about having my own full page article in the Tatler. Woo.

Kingston Album Tracking

2010-03-01T20:04:00.000+13:00

Kingston are so close to finishing their Album. They've been over in Canada and New York tracking Drums, Bass and Guitars. They came back to New Zealand a couple of months ago and their producer Brandon Friesen has been over for the past 3 or so weeks finishing off Vocals and adding more guitars and synths etc out at a batch they've been hiring at Piha.

Brandons headed of to Australia and New York before returning to Canada and I've been left to track 3 songs worth of vocals, plus some doubling of vocals and harmonies and some more guitars.

Today we finished the Vocals on "Miss You" and Scott put down a fair bit of guitar pieces here and there.

What I've heard of the album sounds HUGE. Can't wait for Brandon to give it his final touches so I can see how its all going to sit in the mix.

Clap Clap Riot Guitar Teching.

2010-02-28T10:34:00.001+13:00

The Aftermath. Nice work Steve.

Yesterday I was guitar teching for Clap Clap Riot who were playing 3 shows in 24 hours. They had played the Friday night in Christchurch, flew back to Auckland at a ridiculous time in the morning ready to play Music In The Parks with the Datsuns where I met them to then go on and play Ellen Melville hall with the Checks and the Naked and Famous in the Evening.

Much less eventful shows and much less stress than at Splore, guitars all behaved themselves except for a string break at soundcheck and a tuner dying.

Lisa Crawley came out and Sang at the park with them too for new song "Yoko Ono" which she features on the recording of.

Really fun day, both shows ran really well, the kids at Ellen Melville were going nuts! Steve stage dived at one point. Crazy.

Lisa On Stage

Ellen Melville Show

Great North Album - Guitar

2010-02-27T23:33:00.000+13:00

Strahan came round and we finished the guitar parts for the Great North Album (I think we finished... maybe there will be more, who knows.) in the picture above he is modelling one of many solutions to many problems.

Often when you start to record there'll be squeaks, buzzes and rattles that you won't usually hear. In this case what appears to be an ordinary yellow cloth is in fact a special string mute; muting all of the strings behind the slide to prevent them making noises. Very high tech. The string mute is a custom peice of equipment that I designed and made myself out of a yellow cloth. Haha.

Anyway recording went well, we made some very loud sounds (and some not so loud sounds) ate some cheese toasties and then Steph came round and we watched one of my favourite films of all time that they recently found second hand in a video hire store on VHS.

Mannequin. Incredible.

Splore

2010-02-20T21:07:00.001+13:00

This weekend I took a visit down to Splore with Clap Clap Riot as their guitar tech. It was my first real guitar teching job and it was somewhat eventful; basses getting knocked out of tune, straplocks exploding, stage hands hiding guitar amps from me, guitars just not going along with the scheduled guitar changes etc.

Despite this everyone held it together and the boys played a great set to a very appreciative audience.

Feeling slightly worse for wear and in need of some clean toilets we headed home today. Splore is an incredible festival set in an amazing location, however with the majority of the lineup being DJs or Dance acts its just not really my scene music wise. Had a pretty good time despite this though, bumped in to my good friend Tom, had a few drinks, watched Lupe Fiasco, ate some Jamaican food. Good.

(filming a song on the beach)

Great North Album - Guitar tracking.

2010-02-18T19:40:00.000+13:00

More Great North guitar today. More geeking out with pedals and amps and guitars and cello bows...

Album is getting to a point where I think its close to being all tracked and ready for mixing. Just piano left to track on some songs, exciting.

Juice Bar - Artisan Guns, Glass Owls, Welfare Mothers

2010-02-13T11:25:00.000+13:00

Friday night I was doing sound at the Juice Bar for Artisan Guns, Glass Owls and Welfare mothers. It was a pretty fun show. I am not the biggest fan of Juice Bars PA system, they have a limiter on the FOH that kicks in really early and all the mids are sucked like crazy. But this is all as protection from people who have no idea what they're up to. Really I don't blame them for being overprotective, its just a wee bit frustrating.

Despite this I love a good "family show" as Anthony from Glass Owls put it. Great turn out, Great performances and fun was had by all (especially when members from all 3 bands were on stage to cover Time of the Season by the Zombies and then Light and Day by The Polyphonic Spree) Also I really enjoyed Welfare Mothers set! Good.

Next weekend; Splore.

Glass Owls

Artisan Guns

past couple of weeks

2010-02-13T11:08:00.000+13:00

This past couple of weeks I have been mainly mixing and mastering some of the stuff I have been tracking recently and thus have spent my days looking at something like this;

However I think that was taken a few days ago and now there are multiple other envelopes and scrap papers with notes on them...

On Wednesday I had the Pink Pound Experience here but didn't take any photos, we tracked another song, much less dancey this time, with lots of falsetto vocals, should be fun to mix!

I have a fairly decent backlog of songs to work on now, so time to get stuck back in to mixing.

Teacups Album Review

2010-01-27T17:52:00.000+13:00

Teacups album got a nice review in the NZ Herald a few weeks back, I just realised I should probably link to it here.

Teacups-Forest Fiction NZ Herald Album Review

"Forest Fiction is rustic, but it is by no means rough." Good, I think thats what I was going for.

Kingston and Best Before Hamilton and Tauranga

2010-01-26T17:51:00.000+13:00

(Hamilton-Elevate Youth Hall)

Just got back from the other dates with Kingston and Best Before, all the bands were great to hang out with. I had a great time in Tauranga with Grace and Best Before on Sunday before their show on the Monday.

As it was the last night of the tour Kingstons manager (and current session guitarist!) Tim decided that each band could do whatever they wanted to the other band...

Kingston introduced Best Before as "The Fags" and played Gay Bar through the PA while Best Befores new band name was put on the front of the kick drum. Later while they were playing Kingston got up on stage and put hats, bras, make-up and feather boas on Best Before and in their last song sprayed silly string all over them.

Best Before retaliated with a special show in Kingstons last song. The following video should explain all...

(Making the most of Kingstons special gifts.)

Kingston + Best Before tour

2010-01-23T01:34:00.000+13:00

Started the first date of the Kingston + Best Before shows tonight (I don't think 3 dates really constitutes a tour) tonight was at Zeal, which is always a nice venue. I am a big fan of the QSC HPR series, they never fail to impress. Zeal has four of the 3 way powered cabs loaded with a 15"s, four 18" powered subs and 4 of the 12"monitors. I am so glad that my friends at Jands sorted them out with such a great PA. (and enough DI's for ridiculous synth bands who need 6 DI's, plus a DI on the bass = 7! Crazy.)

Kingston are fresh back from recording their album in Canada+America, so fresh that Scotts guitar etc is still in customs and he's borrowing my Tele, tuner and Hotcake for these shows. I love hanging out with the Kingston guys and am looking forward to the drive to Hamilton with Ben Barter tomorrow.

Best Before and Kingston (despite not really being the sort of music I would choose to listen to at home or on the bus etc) both really stand out as well rehearsed bands who have sussed out their live performances. Really great performers, confident, engaging, interesting and exciting.

Looking forward to the next 2 Dates, looks like it could be fun! (I forgot my Camera so photos are courtesy of Sha's IPhone, she runs a cool website here)

Glass Owls Day 4

2010-01-22T11:22:00.000+13:00

Finished tracking for all 6 songs yesterday, got some more guitar, handclaps, tambourine, shaker, vocals, backing vocals and clarinet all done!

It was my first time tracking a Clarinet (well up close anyway, I have recorded them in orchestras before) and I think it was a success. I opted for a mic that I knew was very sensitive and not too coloured; the Blue Kiwi (it also happened to be already set up!) Sounded great, captured all the air and detail!

EP is sounding really good, now I have to get cracking on mixing it all!

Glass Owls Day 3

2010-01-20T20:53:00.000+13:00

Day three of Glass Owls EP tracking, Tomas showed up first thing this morning with some rather impressive bandages (due to a small incident whilst longboarding at considerable speeds)(apparently) Fortunately he only had one song left on guitar! We almost finished all the guitar parts today, (we had an idea for one more just as they were leaving) and we finished vocals on a couple of tracks.

Tomorrows plan: finish vocals for 4 remaining songs, record some clarinet, handclaps tambourine and shaker.

I love spending days geeking out on guitars.

Glass Owls day 2

2010-01-19T22:45:00.000+13:00

Glass Owls again today, we got drums bass and acoustic tracked on the remaining 3 songs and then started some electric guitar tracking. It gets pretty hot in studios generally when they don't have air conditioning, it was SO HOT today in my room with the doors and windows closed and up to 5 of us in one room with doors and windows closed playing drums etc... So we made sure to take lots of breaks and managed not to die. Chris Tom and I went to feed the Chickens, they are lots of fun.

Pretty pleased with how everything is going, I'm looking forward to hopefully finishing electric guitar tomorrow and starting on some vocals.