Teacups - Choir

We really need to work out a system of having a choir that does all the choir parts on everyones songs. I love group vocals! We recorded some choir-y parts on the Teacups EP and some foot stomps and handclaps and now I think its 99% recorded... (we just forgot 1 vocal line that Chelsea needs to sing and maybe I'll end up adding more percussion or something when it comes to mix)

Talitas presence was with us today in the form of Liz's t-shirt. (that is Talitas face on her shirt)


To capture the little choir I had KM184s in a spaced pair and then the Kiwi set to omni, we double tracked most of them and I might use the stereo mics from one take and then the Kiwi from the other and then on top of that there's other layers of the group singing different harmonies.

Teacups

Last week Liz from Teacups came over and recorded her remaining backing vocals, some glockenspiel and trumpet. We opted for the cheaper blue Glockenspiel because its bizarrely pitched lower than the black and white one. Although it did seem a bit frivolous recording a $40 glockenspiel with a stereo pair of Neumann KM184's it sounded great!

Teacups EP Drums

Spent the day recording some drums for Teacups EP with Jackson (Sharpie Crows), Chelsea and Liz. Talita is in France making beautiful food. Some of the photos on her blog make me want to cry with how delicious they look.

last couple of months...

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.

Teacups EP

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.

Foothills.

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

 

Teacups Album Review

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.

Teacups Album Release

Wow. Teacups released their album "Forest Fiction" on thursday and it was great.

They booked out hopetoun alpha for the event and made it beautiful with Fairy Lights, a Tent and Forest! I was doing sound for the evening and amplifying very quiet things in a large space like that without feedback is always a struggle with the large amount of reverb etc caused by the room but I managed ok. Fortunately the room packed out with people and killed a bit of the room.

It was so great. One of the highlights of my year.

Also CD's look (and sound dare I say it) great and are in stores around the country, I highly recommend them!

Here are some photos of the Hopetoun, I didn't get any durin the show because I was working sorry about the quality, my camera doesn't like the dark much.

Magical!

A recording I made of Teacups song Magic was picked up by Massey University for their advert after having heard it on the Teacups myspace

Expect to see it on a TV near you soon!

One Week EP

My dear friend Chelsea (http://willowships.blogspot.com/) is currently helping me with some design work for Little Monster, in return I agreed to help mix/master her delightful "One Week EP" projects where a whole EP is written and recorded in a week.

The first EP she did alone and gave away in return for something you made yourself (her blog explains all) For the second projects she collaborated with the multi talented Alex Freer, Reuben Stephens and Jono Pearce from Artisan Guns and they crafted something rather special, heartfelt ballads, autotune masterpeices, 50's guitar tones... Everything you could ask for!

So this Saturday Jono popped round with all the files on his laptop and we gave them a quick tweak here and there and I gave the whole thing a quick master before sending Jono back with a CD. Its turned out really great! If you're interested in the process you can view it online at willowships.tumblr.com

heres some videos from their tracking taken by Chelsea






sometimes I wish I had a cheap video camera running and could use that mic to record drums with they always sound fantastic!

Teacups

Well the Teacups Album is finito. Should be released sometime soon. I am quite sad about having finished it because it means I don't have an excuse to have them round for cups of tea, plates of cake, to feed the chickens and have tractor rides in the field

http://www.myspace.com/teawithfriends