Avalanche City Tour

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...

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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?

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.