Great North Album Launch

All photos by Saskia Cederman

Last Saturday Great North released their album Halves (which you can listen to and buy here) They had a release show at Grey Lynn Library Hall (coincidentally on Great North rd) where I did sound. 

What a show! Both Great North and Tono and the Finance Company played amazingly, but Great Norths set seemed to captivate the entire room. Theres something exciting about being in a room with a few hundred people all silent, knowing you're all focused on listening to a band play. Great North finished their set with Halves and Tono, Jono and Stu marched in from the back of the room playing my marching drums. Obviously I knew it was going to happen but feeling the low rumble of their drums slowly creep up from behind me gave me shivers. I've tried recording them countless times now but you can't capture the sound of them being hit in real life in a big room.

Being in that room again was somewhat of a trip down memory lane, it was where I first started doing live sound properly. Some of my first paid live sound jobs were at Grey Lynn Library Hall doing sound for Ska and Pop Punk bands in 2006/2007.

Thanks to Saskia Cederman for letting me use some of her photos.

Tono and the Finance Company

Great North

Great North

Great North featuring Tono, Jono and Stu on my marching drums (they're dark infront of the band but you can just about see them)

Secrets

Not sure if I'm allowed to say exactly what this was for but some live recording with various people yesterday in a lounge. Recording seems to have turned out really well, they didn't have budget for a desk with direct outs or a splitter so we used protools as a desk. Instead of sending a mix to everyones headphones it went to the PA. It meant I had no EQ (except a little EQ on 2 of the Vocal mics which I ran through the Toft) but it seemed to work great. Hopefully more details on this all soon.

More Mimsy Guitars

Today Mimsy finished off a few more vocals for some songs but a couple of weeks back Hayden came back to finish up some guitar parts. I forgot to post this photo, but progress is (slowly) being made!

Great North - Organ

Oh I missed a day! I was caught up in Pedal Steel excitement! The Saturday before we tracked Pedal Steel Hayden added the piano part to the new version of Spring Tide and then we recorded the Organ for the whole album.

I realised that the Leslie cable I have on the back of the organ is crazy long so I managed to put the Leslie speaker in the hallway as an isolation room so lounge noises didn't interrupt recording too much. I also set up a mic next to Hayden and a mic next to me so we could easily talk to each other seeing as we had lots of organ to record and it would be easier than coming back and forth to discuss parts (just like in a real studio with 2 rooms and a talkback)

Great North - Pedal Steel

Yesterday Matt Hutching came over and added some Pedal Steel to a few tracks to make the Great North album extra country. Its such a beautiful and complicated instrument. I want one. Matt played through a Fender Blues Jr, which I recorded with both my Nady Ribbon and an MD421. I'll probably use the MD421 as the main mic in the mix. I chose it over the over an SM57 because it tends to sound slightly scooped in the mids and has a smoother high end that the pedal steel requires.

Also I borrowed this lovely 12 string from Hollie (aka Tiny Ruins) to add as another layer on the song we recorded banjo for the other day. Theres only a few more parts to do before we finish this album, which is good news because its being released soon!

Great North

One of the many recording faces of Hayden Donnell. He had just re-recorded guitar and then vocals for a song for the album that had a little timing issue, but we decided it would be better to start again with it. Then we doubled some guitars on a couple of other songs.

Hayden is obviously really excited about the prospect of more recording this weekend.

Great North - Banjo Recording

This is Steph, wife of Strahan from Great North and recent owner of a banjo. I thought banjo might sound nice in one of the songs so got her to have a play around and she came in and recorded her part yesterday.

Its funny how one part can completely change a song. Lead me to the light had been dragging a bit, but now the Banjo gives it momentum and makes the chords more ambiguous.

Mimsy - Guitar Recording

Hayden came over with Mimsy to record some guitar for her album. He borrowed a cool old Firebird that we plugged in to my Princeton Reverb, it sounded so good!

Mimsy Cable - More Bass

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

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