Christmas Album - Timothy Blackman

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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?

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

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!