blablablablabla... blog!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011.
The Okkernoot-recordings went well and had a great time spending a few days in the basement with this band. Had no time yet to sort out the rough recordings or any mixing, but from what i've heared so far the recordings are quite clean and good enough to get a decent mix out of them. The whole recording setup worked well but monitoring stil can be improved and it's a hassle to listen back to takes right after recording them. Koen will pickup the rough recordings tomorrow and might start mixing them, i don't have enough time for it before the second half of october or so.. too much cinema work to do.

Thursday, August 25, 2011.
First day of the Okkernoot recording-session in the basement. No unwanted noise is reaching the cinema above the basement, so that's good. Recorded the foundation for 3 songs with drums, bass and samples. Recordings sound pretty clean and the room's reverb is actually quite ok. Bass and samples went through direct lines so that went fine. Bass player used my Asama bass for some parts, next to his own fretless Westone Spectrum. Initially had some trouble setting up the monitor headphones but now everyone seems comfortable with them. Not overly satisfied with the clean recordings but they're workable. Tomorrow is for vocal recordings and maybe lay the foundation of the 4th song out of 6 in total. Hope things keep going the way they did today, no major tech trouble, the basement feels cosy and it's fun to spend some time doing this.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011.
Nice challenge coming up: Okkernoot will record five (or maybe six) new songs here in the basement using my recording equipment. Have to do some "room fixing" on beforehand as the place has tons of reverb. Might order a set of new overhead mics and a snare mic (Shure SM57?) for the occasion. Travelled by train to the middle of nowhere today and picked up an '83 Washburn Hawk.. 5 hours of train travelling but well worth it. Pretty guitar and it's in quite a good condition. Almost done with fine-tuning the VP-700.

Saturday, August 6, 2011.
Busy with mixing recordings from an Okkernoot live performance in Bilbao, Spain. Dificult, but fun and a way to relax a little. Almost done with restoring an old Cardinal CSB-380 bass that will be outsourced so i can sell the Concord bass. Also started restoring an early '80's Vantage VP-700. The thing was half matte and half glossy due to wear but now it's glossy all the way, thanks to M's magic Toyota car-polish. Quite a hell of a job but it makes the guitar look realy fancy. Altough it's a great guitar I'm planning to sell it as i have to many of them.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011.
The Idol WI-66 is a keeper. It went through a test during a jam-session two fridays ago with two half bands, played the Idol all night and was quite impressed. The neck is slightly wider than i'm used to but it felt comfortable. Structurally it's a very rigid guitar and it stayed pretty much in tune despite the trem and a set of new strings. The bassplayers bass was toast so he took the Asama i brought along and played the hell out of it in a sort of brutalist style i never dare to.. loud and proud! Today i found a tiny Behringer guitar amp on the local flea-market, couldn't resist buying it and had some fun crancking it up with the Ricky 610 plugged in. Weird amp. Underpowered in the clean mode , but there's a wide array of distorted sounds available and it has more character than expected. It might end up being Frederik's backup-amp. Also bought tickets for a concert by Wilco on november 13.

Monday, July 4, 2011.
Quite a quiet first half of the year. Socrates has been down ever since March for several reasons but hopefully we will start rehearsing again later this month. The Burning Patience rehearsal took place in april, went quite well and gave pretty good quality recordings. Had a night of fun with the band Okkernoot recently as roadie/sound-guy and i might be involved in recording and mixing their new album in August. Feel honoured they asked me. Haven't been playing seriously for ages now, only picked up instruments to either clean and restore them or moving them out of the way. Outsourced a Westone Concord bass, restored a minty 1981 Washburn Raven and bought a 2003 Washburn Idol WI-66V at a local pawn-shop.. tons of dirt and dust but from underneath came a beautiful guitar in excellent condition. Always have been curious to this model and so far i like it, altough i'm already considering a pickup-change.

Monday, February 28, 2011.
Not a lot of news. Cleaned and rebuilt the studio as most of the equipment has been used downstairs during IFFR '11. Picked up a 2nd hand Istanbul Samatya ride and a wooden Pearl snare and both are quite an improvement of the drum sound. Curious to how they sound in recordings but had no chance to do so yet. Socrates has been out of it for quite a while but we will do a rehearsal next sunday. After an unexpected visit another rehearsal is planned for mid march, this time it will be with Burning Patience, for the first time in 5 years or so. Looking forward to that one!

Monday, December 27, 2010.
Not a lot of music going on lately, only some "in between" moments of doing random stuff with equipment. The Paduak becomes a monster with a 9V battery on board. The red Eagle is back in it's 5-string detuned config. The Thunder 1 bass is gone, sold to a friend. The Peavey TNT bass amp is up for a grab and, with a mysterious electronics defect, on it's way out. The Earth amp gets a second chance, restored it and might use it for bass as it sounds significantly better than the Ampeg. The latter one is probably more reliable, but time will tell. The AdrenaLinn-board is fun but very complicated but fooling around with it make me wat to do a recording session soon.

Friday, October 22, 2010.
Socrates is up and running again, rehearsing once in two weeks. Yanna developed a new song and we're having fun. My own stuff is still on hold.. too busy and no inspiration for lyrics. Life boring? Not at all! New guitar on the block: 1981 Westone Paduak 1.. it looks sweet!

Thursday, August 19, 2010.
Couldn't do much for a while due to a leg injury. The new song will be re-recorded later on as the chorus parts need a lot faster pace, up to 90 bpm or even more. The slow parts are ok-ish. Socrates is in a summer coma 'till september. The Wings-website will recieve an overhaul and update soon.

Friday, July 29, 2010.
Did a try-out recording of the new song. Had my doubts on the results during recording but it came out of the mixing process really well. Actually it got quite close to what i have in mind for this song. Recorded bass, drums, vocals and 3 layers of guitars. A lot of work and fine-tuning to do, but pretty happy and hope renewed that this whole thing will get to the quality level i would like to achieve.

Thursday, july 28, 2010.
Thank you Jay, YouTube and some loyal Cubase-tutorial uploaders. Finally figured out how to add tempo changes on a midi-drumtrack and made a crude click-track for the new song. Chorus-parts went up to 87 bpm but now i can change the tempo of the click-track any way i want during the planning process. Hope this little break-through will save me a lot of time in the future. New piece of equipment: M-audio Audiophile USB card, bought it from Jay as i had enough of dragging up and down either the apple or the firewire-stuff. The small M-audio device now sits permanently on my upstairs desk, with a keyboard (crappy Casio) hooked up through midi next to it. The song idea is quite strong so i hope to find an idea for strong lyrics aswell. Did a lot of rehearsing on spare moments last week.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010.
Spent a lot of time sorting out Socrates rehearsal-stuff. 11 july's rehearsal was kind of sloppy, lot's of mistakes from everyone. With most of the band on holiday we won't be able to rehearse as a five piece band until early september. The positive side is more time for my own stuff. Preparing a recording session for the earlier mentioned new song, by sorting out the right pace (80 bpm in verses, 86 in chorus part), tuning the drum-kit and fiddling around with guitars and amps. Also planning to dive into midi as it seems the best way to go with programming click-tracks.. i'm not steady enough to do without, unfortunately.

Sunday, July 4, 2010.
Socrates rehearsal cancelled as Frederik had an argument with a glass door yesterday. Did a small test-recording for a new song but none of the guitar-takes were good enough to proceed with recording the drums. Need to program a cick-track first. The song can have either a gentle or a more agressive approach, went for the second option and found the guitar-sound that fits the mood, Ricky 610 through old Yamaha JX-50 amp.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010.
Again it was Socrates capturing most of the music time, with 3 rehearsal sundays in a row. We're seriously busy getting a lot of songs on a higher level and with the viola on board we sound much more complete and vibrant. Even some old songs like "Sweet Spicy Spell", more or less written off with the departure of our saxophone-player, seem to work well again. Tried the Rick instead of the Quest on one of the rehearsals and it felt good as it is structurally a better guitar. On my own there is some guitar playing and vocal rehearsing but can't find any inpiration for writing new lyrics or a recording session.. paralyzing moodswings have a strong grip on me these days.

Monday, May 31, 2010.
Didn't have a chance to do a new recording session. Spent time on mixing Socrates recordings, re-mixing some stuff to make the demo sound a bit more balanced and to get the results of May 16 to the rest of the band. Also played a lot of guitar on spare moments. Went on a field trip to Culemborg yesterday to pick up an '81 Washburn Raven. First impression: comfy, easy going, pretty, in good shape. Way less sluggish than my first Raven, which why i was after finding another one in the first place.

Monday, May 17, 2010.
Last friday's recording session was a good experience leading to poor results. The vocals were quite ok in some parts, but it's the guitar playing and timing that isn't good enough yet. Next attempt will be playing the parts first and adding the vocals later on. If that also doesn't work it's back to good old click-track programming, a difficult and time consuming process as some songs have different parts with a different pace. Really want to avoid that. Socrates rehearsal yesterday wasn't the best ever but we made progress on "Carpe Diem" and recorded a pretty good version of "Easy Quest".

Friday, May 14, 2010.
The kitchen feels a lot more private, spent the entire night recording the singer-songwriter set. Didn't listen to the results yet but hope some takes are ok enough, maybe 2 or 3 out of 28. Vocals went again better than guitar playing so played some takes with guitar only to focus on that. Also recorded a quick try-out of a new idea. The Rick sounds decent, but the tuning is a nightmare. It needs new tuners, a pitch correction system or even a fret-job. If an open G sounds fine, the F minor or A minor are way off. So are my fingers now.

Thursday, May 13, 2010, night.
Cleaned the Rick and put new strings on it, something that apparently hasn't been done in a while. Recording session results were very poor indeed, only a few vocal parts were ok. Didn't feel comfortable downstairs, next attempt will take place in the kitchen. National Geographic is using a new tune that has pretty much the same chords and "attitude" as the first song i ever wrote.. was just thinking a while ago of re-recording that one.

Thursday, May 13, 2010, afternoon.
Busy with preparing for a recording session, trying out some guitars and amp settings. Slightly grumpy as the results aren't satisfying.. probably i'll end up using the Quest again, for some reason that's the only guitar that works well in the singer-songwriter mode. The Wings are overpowered and the Rick isn't ready yet.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010.
Shotgun Serenade-rehearsal on sunday evening showed we're a pretty lousy band, but the rehearsals themselves are great fun. In the mean time Frederik did a lot of great work to update the Socrates-site (www.myspace.com/socratestheband) with new pics and rehearsal-recordings. Made an inventory of my own songs and realized i really should start recording. First plan is to record 9 songs on only two tracks in a singer-songwriter style. Second plan is to use these recordings for adding more tracks/instruments and work them out as a kind of band-oriented demo's. Thinking of a deadline for that one.

Sunday, May 9, 2010.
Pretty happy with my 2 new guitars! Still need to clean up and re-string the Rick but it's a joy to play.. sweet and gentle sound, plenty sustain, quite a lot of mid and great for singer-songwriter solo stuff. Also the Olsen-Bender Hawk came to live after finishing the wiring last week and, altough totally different from the Rick, it's also a joy to play. The BluesBucker-pickup in the neck-position gives exactly the sound i was looking for, the Jazz in the neck-position is less convincing, quite harsh and tinny so i might replace that one with another BluesBucker or a Duncan '59 later on. Spent hours playing both guitars.. very relaxing, very inspiring and i hope to do some recording soon. Went to Amsterdam yesterday night with T to see Pavement in Paradiso and it was great to see them (a)live again. Their performance was good (and long!) but not stellar, they were a bit too much in the routine-mode and there was a lack of detail in the songs they played. Support act was Bettie Serveert featuring another new drummer.. they had better ones, this guy was like a hard-hitting lumberjack-type and his timing was off after pretty much every fill.

Sunday, May 2, 2010.
Haven't been writing in a while. This blog-thing came along with the plan to do something music-related every day, but the plan failed quite quickly and took along the blog with it. In the mean time Socrates became a five piece band again, with a viola player on board we went through two interesting rehearsals and a photo-shoot. Shotgun Serenade is still alive, thought about pulling the plug in favour of my own project, but last rehearsal was great fun and convinced all of us to continue playing together once in 2 or 3 weeks. Didn't record anything to myself but played quite a lot of guitar and drums. Bought a weird Roland drum-machine (TD-7) on queensday, no clue yet if it works. Started assembling the Olsen-Bender Hawk as the ordered parts finally arrived last week. Placed the tuners, bridge and pickups and it already became a great looker. Pickups are DiMarzio BluesBucker in the neck and Duncan Jazz in the bridge-position. Curious to how it sounds, hope i can work on the wiring soon. New kid on the block: '89 Rickenbacker 610, black. It came along on local eBay and responded right away after looking at the price-tag. First impression; comfy, will have to get used to the scale, light in weight, very specific sound, built like a tank. For some reason you immediately feel it's not Japanese. Not the most versatile guitar on the planet but it will probably sound gorgeous on a tube amp.. oh well.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010.
Drum test-recording on a sunny afternoon. Defenitely like the Istanbul crash, it's strong, clear and "in your face", but it's not annoying and blends in nicely with the other cymbals. The snare-drum sounded better with a T-bone 85 instead of the 75. Repeated the XYZ-trick followed by a test with closer micing, the small condensors (Behringer C2) right above the hi-hat and ride and two 85's hovering high above the crash cymbals as overheads. As expected the XYZ-setup picked up more of the room's reverb but close mics gave better recording results and a much more controllable mixing situation. It's easier to mix when there's more difference in between the individual tracks. Did a quick mixing session late at night and was pretty happy with the result, from now on this will be the way to go when the drums are recorded seperately. For Socrates rehearsals it's not a workable solution as it takes 10 tracks (out of 16 available) to record the drums this way

Tuesday, March 16, 2010.
Vocal recording though the Mackie Onyx showed that all signals going to Cubase through the FireWire connection, are coming sraight off the mixer's mic pre-amps. There's no way to go post-fader and have the hardware's equalizers in the input chain aswell. Also the Mackie control system, to create or change signal routing, simply doesn't seem to exist for Mac OS. Conclusion: the Mackie is a decent mixing device in terms of sound quality and operating comfort, but the additional FireWire signal routing options are fairly limited. No Midi-options, no daisy-chaining extention options through ADAT or SPDiF and, in case of the Onyx 1220, only 12 channels of input at hand. There are certainly more versatile ways to do live recordings, both my 8 channel FireWire (Focusrite Saffire Pro 40) and ADAT (Digimax D8) devices have direct outs for each channel and it just takes a bunch of patch cables to go from there to any mixer for the live sound. Wouldn't mind having the Mackie for that purpose.

Monday, March 15, 2010.
Did some experiments with a muti-band plugin (Isotope Ozone 3) on yesterday's mix and got the sound character of the (XYZ) room drum mics a lot better, more body and more lively. The drumming itself wasn't too bad either in that part. Thinking of turning the rough idea into a song as the chords are quite catchy, they kept buzzin' around in my head for most of the day after trying them out on 3 different guitars. Also planning to do add vocals to the try-out version, using the Mackie. installed some software for the Onyx but the stuff seems to be the usual kind of crappy freeware stuff you get when buying the hardware. Had dinner with T and went to Utrecht to pick up a crash cymbal, an 18" Istanbul Agop Xist. First impression: very sustainy and clear and it might work well as a ride if played a little gently. Second opnion: love the sound, but it's frikkin' loud compared to the other cymbals on my kit.. it really needs to be played gently.

Sunday, March 14, 2010.
Socrates rehearsal cancelled. Did some testing with MvB's Mackie Onyx 1220 with the firewire-card on board. Cubase recognized it right away and responded really quick, immediately had sound through the headphone outputs on the mixer. Had no routing options since the additional software was only windows-based. Listened to an old try-out mix and used that one for some drum recording downstairs, through my own equipment. Spent most of the evening figuring out how to get sound out of the headpones or speakers for monitoring and got there by accident, adding a second stereo mix in Cubase did the trick. Not very logical, not very satisfying. Recorded drums by direct micing and a set of additional room mics in a kind of x-y-z setup. X and Z being T-bone 85's, Y was the T-bone 78 condensor. The sound did add a warm and roomy feel but had a litle too much hi-hats. With the direct mics the snare sounded seriously weak and both overheads picked up a lot of snare. For next time: move the overheads closer to hi-hat and ride and place the X- and Z-mics more outward as room mics. Also use a different mic for the snare, the T-bone MB-75 is useless. The reason for this experiment is an idea for a song which needs a different drum sound in some parts and i'm thinking of switching from direct mics to the room mics in these parts. Results were so-so with the tryout mix i used today, but the new song has a slower pace and the breaks are more distinctive.