audiot

good news y’all! well, actually that depends, I guess  :-)

before i start babbling around, let me just say:

BEHOLD

taping trouble by audiot.eu

i had one of those when i was a child and loved it dearly until i smashed it into 1000 pieces… and then another one, a little larger, where one could fill water in – that made for a pretty cool instrument. i’m not sure if those water-ocarinas even are called like that. maybe i’ll try to find me one of those again because being so completely ocarinaless suddenly kind of disturbs me…
so check out this guy instead. and of course it’s one more addition to the mario-theme-played-by-weird-instruments-series. enjoy

hi there.

just a quick note that this site might not be available some time during the day. my provider does some database-updating-thingy, so i apologize for any inconveniences that might arise. of course, i should have posted this yesterday, because if you can’t open the site, you won’t be able to read this note. but at least the feedpeople should get it………and since they read the content without actually coming here, this is redundancy at its best, i now realize – ok, moving on…

there is also still the issue of the site being way too slow. i haven’t found out why – yet, but i found myself a cool and gifted netguy who’s willing to help me with this, so there’s a new light at the end of the tunnel. let’s hope it’s no upcoming train…

maybe i should post an update of what’s happening right now.

actually it’s lots of recording. in the last few days i have been working on “traitor” (the working title for my second album) and am now up to 11 songs – or should i say construction sites… well, a few of them are done so far, awaiting the vocals. the others are kind of idea-keepers. whenever i work on something and it’s not going too well – lack of ideas to continue on that song for instance – i start a new one. oddly enough, i can always come up with something new. the problems usually start when i’m about halfway through a song. maybe i should put out an album with just songparts on it, there’s hundreds…

so that’s where my time goes at the moment, all of it, and that’s what’s keeping my from writing more or even eating on a regular basis. i lost weight since i started this album, no kidding. hopefully there’ll be a few pounds left of me when it’s finished…

wooooooo, check out this guy

yeah, i stole this line from Billy Ward, an awesome drummer and producer – go check him out! his stuff’s unreal!

since i’ve just returned from an off-weekend and am already about to record some vocals, i have little time to write. when inspiration hits, you gotta run, so here’s just a quick tip for you guys.

microphones are NOT ears! sounds like a no-brainer, right? but it isn’t. we tend to believe that what gets in (and therefore out) of a microphone is the same as what our ears would hear. but that’s not the case. and i’m not even talking about the fact that lots of mics color the sound, so what goes in is not necessarily what comes out. mics work a lot different than our ears, so don’t be fooled by the fact that both pick up sound. there is a lot of trial-and-error involved before your mic spits out exactly what your ear would pick up – and to make matters worse, to your ear it might sound very unnatural at that moment. i hope i haven’t lost you – it’s a bit difficult to explain. imagine a gun that’s not perfectly “adjusted” and therefore shoots to the right. you could either set it right or aim to the left to hit your target. now, you can’t tweak a mic until it is an ear – but you can change your “aim” until you hit the right sound. and once you have, you might just think “hey, that’s exactly how it should not work at all” – but it does. like aiming to the left and still hit the middle.

so there is logic involved, but then again there isn’t. messing around might be as good as any other approach, but it surely helps to know a bit about mics and placement alternatives – as long as you keep in mind that mics are just stupid. good luck…

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please forgive me for posting a video – again, but this is an important message to all you musicians out there (especially the drummers). the video is a kind of a preview/making of clip from Benny Greb’s new dvd. although i don’t have it yet, i’m virtually certain that this is one awesome movie! so go ahead, just buy it – he’s a really nice guy who deserves to be supported! and the message is: you are not alone !!!

Image by _ES via Flickr

i’m serious. we have all sorts of things that are supposed to define us, show off or create some kind of aura for us. we have a certain look (wanted or not), made out of clothes, hairdo, fragrance – combined with accessories like business cards, stylish eyeglasses, design-cellphones, briefcases or handbags and so forth… there is even such a thing as image-designers, no kidding – i once knew one. some people actually practice their handshake, overall motions and/or the way they talk to materialize their desired style.

so it’s mostly about seeing.

where do people get the idea to have a certain look or image? my guess would be movies and tv-shows because that’s what usually influences us the most. an example: when the seatbelt was invented, nobody used it. even when every car had them, still no one strapped him/herself in. then politicians (first in the US, then other countries followed) achieved, that in movies and on tv everyone used the seatbelt and – drumroll, please – within a rather short period of time, almost everybody followed this example. we usually don’t notice things like that and make up other reasons to justify, but we are strongly influenced by our surroundings – like it or not. another one: almost every time there’s problems in movies, you see someone pour him/herself a drink. so what do people at home do when things get tough? exactly. and without any real reason by the way. but i’m drifting off once again :-)

so what puzzles me is, why don’t we have themes? it would be the perfect completion to our designed style and, to connect the dots, it’s a common thing for a movie or tv-role to have a theme. but even the most obsessed stylefreaks don’t have one, right?

but why? maybe a reason is that it’s kind of hard to realize. imagine people walking around you or sitting next to you in the bus constantly emitting their theme through their cellphone or mp3-player. one huge mire of sound, what a terrible thou…..wait a minute, that’s exactly where we are today. only it’s not everybody’s specific theme, but even more random stuff. when i was younger (sheesh…) i had a walkman and used it all the time WITH my headphones on. today i see teenagers listening (not really) to music WITHOUT headphones, but through their crappy few-millimeters-almost-exclusively-midrange-cellphone-take-that-neighborhood-speaker, how lame is that? anyway, today an own theme would be easy to realize. lots of people have the possibility to do a simple tune themselves, even my 10 year old cellphone (back then a true masterpiece in design ;-) ) has a function for that and there could be websites to do that. and for the well-heeled people, appropriate services could be offered. new cars should have their own theme that plays when you put the key in. i want the ‘streets of san francisco’-theme in my next car. and garage doors could play something like the 20th-century-fox-fanfare when you open them (imagine how your neighbor would get crazy jealous) and even better, the doors in appartments could be equipped with sensors that recognize the inhabitants and play the tune of each one when she/he enters the room – should be something short though…. sounds ridiculous? think about it, the possibilities are there already – and we are not that far away at all. cellphones allow us to assign specific ringtones to certain persons (imperial march for the boss, jaws-theme for the girlfriend…), ain’t that kind of a theme-thing already? but way too random for my taste.

i say go get your personal theme and include it in your look – it’s about time…