quiet hands, quiet kiss on the mouth

Wowser, I still don't know if electronica is a wise route to take, musically or financially, but my eyes are certainly opening up to what's out there. In my ignorance I always figured there was a "right" way to go about making glitchy music - as a big fan of going about things the "wrong" way i was quite relieved to find that everyone has a different approach.

Found another useful device:



(i implore you to click and gaze upon its colourful apparel)

Won't go too deep into what it does except to say it's every quirky noise you've ever heard on a glitchy record, neatly packaged so that even a Kooks-loving monkey could pass themselves off as the new Squarepusher, simply by hitting the 'Random' buttons.

I very quickly got the result i was after but therein lies my conflict - it was all too easy. What next? A modelling amp? Autotune?

So, making things hard on myself - I think I need to investigate circuit bending. I'm pretty inspired by this crazy mutha - 6955 - a Tokyo-based Canadian with a penchant for modding audio equipment and vintage computer consoles (go to the site and check out the Famicon/Nintendo control pad pedalboard!!).

However, I don't want to make 8-bit soundscapes - it's just nice to think outside of 2 guitars, 1 bass and some drums for a change. And it's good to suddenly have avenues outside of "embellishing everything with chiming guitars".

In a neat, internet coincidence-a-thon, I ended up on the 'i am robot and proud' last.fm page through one of my online neighbours, he is a Toronto-based indie-electronic artist, and hosts the 6955 site on his website - they probably msn each other about schematics.

Could just be yet another case of perceptual set for me though.

i am an architect

Spent some time Sunday afternoon trying to improve my writing of drum parts in Cubase; it actually requires intense concentration otherwise you get lost in a sea of little red diamonds. Above the drum score just reads 4/4 6/4 4/4 6/4 ad infinitum and is no help whatsoever.

On top of that I found an infuriating little device called The Dr Liebezeit drum machine and through trial and error i managed to integrate it into Cubase with relatively few problems. It can only run two sounds at a time (i left it on the default of two clicking sounds) and you program a sequence of up to 32 beats by simply turning each beat on or off.



(click to enlarge and add colour)

This, however, is where the sanity ends. First i noticed that there is no way of setting a tempo on the drum machine, instead, it takes its cue from the tempo of the cubase click track. This is not such a big deal but there seems to be no way of lining it up with the cubase beat. In short, it plays at the correct speed, but starts at random and 9 out of 10 times is out of sync.

So, you have two choices; either keep restarting it until it lines up by chance, or make a lengthy recording of the Dr Liebezeit sound, which can then be inserted as audio and lined up relatively easily. Despite the romance of the former, I settled on the latter.

Then I listened to Efterklang and realised it was all futile.

Downtown! Pony! Work your pitch!

I think the building of a studio is a manifestation of my quarter-life crisis. Focus has shifted slightly to the Tascam DA-88 (or DA-38, or DA-78, same diff) - an 8 track digital tape recorder.



We used them at uni a lot and they have an elegant simplicity to them. They're even slightly cheaper than their tape-based equivalents and I am staunchly against any FX-laden multitracker, so this may be the best option.

Provided I can finish baking a cake in time, I should be off to watch Simon at open mic later, and then we're going to play through some new, darker songs tomorrow evening. May have a drummer at our disposal too; a face from our distant murky past, no less. Early days yet though.

so save your prayers

Almost forgot, an integral part of the recording process will be bottle after bottle of chilled ginger beer.

In other news, Simon got a lush new acoustic guitar this week and I am having trouble translating the Adore sound I have in my head into actual songs.

Still flushing the spazzy-ness out of my system.

in this big world I'm lonely

Fallen head over heels with this...



At £500 it's a little out of the price range I have of ZERO POUNDS, but still, you've got to have dreams - imagine that thing whirring away while I bash out some licks on my 1978 guitar and 1979 amp. Luddite? Moi?

My housemate pointed out the paradox in my argument that going back to older equipment can be considered 'breaking the mould'. Basically, I think anything that adds character to a band or a sound or a recording can only be a good thing - although I admit you're sometimes flirting with pretentiousness.

Listening to Kate Rusby again; I went off her a lot when she released 'The Girl who couldn't fly', partly because I didn't think the songs were up to scratch and partly because it included Roddy Woomble on backing vocals and artwork by Graham Coxon. My musical worlds were colliding and my diversity was at stake. And don't even get me started on the duet with Ronan Keating!

All this aside, her early work is brilliant and 2001's 'Little Lights' is a masterpiece.

every hill looks the same

Spent a very enjoyable evening going through a printed copy of the html code for this page, with a biro, in order to better understand it and to try and look impressive in front of my housemate. I then battled against our increasingly ropey internet connection to tidy up a few things.

Itching to get recording underway; i think we'll be able to tell quite quickly whether it's working or not. I've always been in love with bands who capture a feeling, Peeps into Fairyland for example - their second album would probably attract scorn from most producers but you can really hear that it was inspired by highland walks and mountains and cottages.

It's as if the surroundings and even the recording environment seep into the music; I want to record in as many different places as possible and hopefully capture something.

Be Bold! Be Strong!

Welcome to the 'band 4' blog.

This is a new project that me and Simon are working on, so called because I wanted a working title so bad that there is absolutely no chance of it sticking. This will be the fourth band we have been involved with - the name, and subsequently the name of this blog, will be changed when a suitable idea springs to mind.

I aim to document our progress *here* for the time being and I may make the updates more edgy as time goes on. I really need a ribbon for my typewriter.

So, the aim for this band is a return to the poppy sensibilities of some of our past work, but darker, subtler and... more Scandinavian-sounding. I think it's the way forward :D

We've had a couple of promising sessions (i don't really know what to call them, it's not really a practice and i can't stand the phrase 'jam session') and Simon has a bagful of ideas; although after last night we may scrap all the half-finished songs we were developing, for a more brooding collection.

Meanwhile I will try and determine the best course of action for home recording - when, where and using what equipment?