audiot

wow, those were some ridiculously busy days, but before i talk about it, i’m gonna give you a description of the fifth tune from the album corner…just because i can :-)

this song is called “taking the blame” and it sounds like that as well. the interesting thing about this tune is, it was almost completely improvised. the whole thing took about 30 minutes. i tracked a bassline (again played live with a midi-controller using a nice sample-based sound from the reason factory soundbank), then laid down some drums (same method as above, sounds from the reason drumkits 2.0 refill) and some vibraphone (same again). this took about 15 minutes, all first takes – no cutting, copying, pasting or anything like that. then i exported this mixture as an audiofile, imported it in cubase le4 and recorded the vocals to it. for the vocals i wrote down three lines of lyrics, then pressed record and again improvised something. again, this was only one unedited take, which i imported in reason again to apply some dynamics processing, a bit of reverb and do a mixdown. that’s it.

now, my voice sounds quite damaged and…well….weird on this one. the reason for that is quite simple and shows off the perfectly well-coordinated strategy i applied to the whole album: trial and error! long may it live! i did the vocals for song no. 6 right before this one, so there was just no more voice left to do anything even related to singing. but hey, it’s about embracing the flaws, right? so i left it that way. and i’m really glad i did – now. it took a while to get used to it, though :-)

another funny thing about this song is, i tried to do a song similar to one i heard before and it really went wrong. the song i’m talking about is called “18 with a bullet” (at least i think so) and can be found on the soundtrack to “lock, stock & 2 smoking barrels”. i haven’t heard that song in years, so mine turned out completely different – but anyway, that’s were the inspiration came from…

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• new album category: corner (audiot.eu)
• corner – an overview… (audiot.eu)
• corner – an overview (part II) (audiot.eu)

well, i wanted to spare you the boring technical stuff, but some of you asked about it – so there you go. it won’t be a long list :-)

what i used to create the album “corner”:

• one of those rather new aluminium Macbooks
• an E-MU Tracker Pre usb 2.0 audio interface
• Cubase LE 4
• Reason 4
• Reason Drumkits 2.0 Refill
• Peff‘s Vintage RDK Combis v1.1 Refill
• a T-Bone SCT800 large diaphragm tube mic
• a CME M-Key usb keyboard
• some cables
• some old headphones & the pa in our rehearsal room for monitoring (yeah, i know…)
• lots and lots of buttercookies, fruitjuice, gummibears
• a really cool looking baseball cap

that’s it.

although the last two points were the top priorities in this – their direct influence on the project can hardly be measured or described. i’ll go with the word: vibes!

the audio interface, the microphone, Cubase and the cables were used to record the vocals only. and the rest did the rest. so apart from tracking the vocals, everything was done with Reason 4 exclusively. in my opinion one hell of a programm and without any doubt one of the best inventions since frozen pizza! here’s to the folks at Propellerhead.

i will upgrade some of my gear in the near future – there will be some nearfield monitors and better midi controllers to streamline the workflow. but for this head-over-heels-project the above mentioned gearlist was absolutely sufficient. and even if there will be some changes, the list won’t get much longer. it’s a lot more fun to make do with what you have (and especially learn to really use the things already there) – MacGyver rocks!!!

yay, here are a few links to where you can find the new album online. just for the heck of it:

• corner on bandcamp
• corner on reverbnation
• corner on soundcloud

i just uploaded the album to the rpm jukebox as well, but they haven’t lanched it yet – the link will follow.

you can listen to the full album in 128 bit mp3 quality at bandcamp and reverbnation. you can listen to five of the eight songs in original cd quality at soundcloud. you can download the full album in 128 bit mp3 quality at bandcamp for free or you can download it in a variety of better qualities for whatever YOU want to pay (min. 90 cents per song or $5 for the whole album – hey, even i need to pay for hookers and booze!) also at bandcamp.

i disabled the cd-quality-download at soundcloud after it was available for over a week, because i think the people who read this blog and are interested in what i do should have the advantage of getting those files for free. if you haven’t downloaded them yet but would like to, drop me a line. you’ll get the chance to download the 3 other songs and complete the album in cd quality for free as soon as soundcloud lets me upload them, might take a few weeks though…

tomorrow i’ll continue unveiling the mysteries surrounding this creation, so stay tuned…