Moved the Studio

It took 6 hours to move the Studio and set up again in Mute Studio 2, so it was a big chunk out of Sunday - I blew a fuse on my Benchmark DAC-1 (it was still set to 110 Volts - oops!) but Oli managed to find a replacemnt and I was so pleased to hear Erasure coming out of the speakers at Mute - sounded great!! And it was a great feeling to be prepared for next week.

I look forward very much to the next phase - hooking up with Daniel tomorrow, finishing vocals and Vince's updates this week, and mixing everything next week.

The sky was very striking - this shot looking out over the canal.

Saturday Night Summary

So the "Vocal Recording Session" is finished now, although the Vocals are not quite finished :-) We have one Lead Vocal to redo, and one Lead Vocal to do, and quite a few backing vocals - I guess we have done about half the bvs. Andy and I work very fast at backing vocals - we have a long history of working together and we trust each other. Vince has worked his way through most of the songs and I have incorporated all his updates into the Master versions.

Tomorrow Oli (one of the assistants at the Mute Studios) is coming over to the Hampstead "studio" and he is going to help me clear everything down and set it up again in the Mute Studio 2 for the "Mix" phase. On Monday and Tuesday I have our A&R guy (Daniel) going through the tracks with me. Andy is rehearsing for his Food Chain gig early in December; he will be back later in the week to finish off the vocals. Hopefully all the recording will be pretty much finished by the end of next week. This is pretty much all still on schedule. (I tell myself and the record company!)

Then I shall be exporting all the synth tracks (which at the moment are running "live") as audio files, freeing up the DSP of the computers for all the lovely mix plug-ins that I want to use, to bring the tracks to the next level. Can't wait!

I use Logic Audio by the way, in case anyone is interested.

Thanksgiving Dinner

After an amazing backing vocal session (we did 41 tracks of BVs on one of my favorite songs) on 2 songs we went to have Thanksgiving Dinner at Andy and Paul's house. Andy's husband, Paul, had made the whole dinner (Organic Turkey of course) and my wife and I went over with Andy at the end of the session. I bought Pink Champagne and we enjoyed a glass each.

Warming Up

Andy always does a warm up before he starts singing - usually 20 minutes to half an hour. He uses an exercise CD by Sam West that I bought for him a long time ago they use this on tour as well - Andy and the backing singers warm up together). Andy has the CD in his iTunes. Today he came without his iPod or Laptop so he had to warm up all alone - when he came back from his warm up he said "It's just not the same without Sam". Happy Thanksgiving.

3 More Excellent Lead Vocals

We started with a listening session:




First we did the final lead vocal! (Andy had been worrying about the lyrics - unduly in my opinion - but had sorted them out to his satisfaction). Warm sound:



Then we started on re-doing lead vocals that we are not happy with. One song is still a bit of a problem - Andy is not feeling the clubbiness he is wanting to feel - and we are working with Vince on changing the bass. Otherwise everything went swimmingly :-). Another very productive day. After Andy left I edited one of the vocals, and then to early night. Pilates in the morning!

Daniel Noack still keeps up his Genius Artwork

Daniel sent this nearly a week ago, but I forgot to share it:

Friday - Good to see Daniel in Studio

Started the day with a meeting with our Financial Adviser in the West End, which was helpful and positive!

Then back to the studio for editing and starting to check through the Vince updates. Had a telephone meeting with Vince, but he was on his cellphone somewheer Upstate Maine and reception was awful. We just about understood each other though, after multiple re-dials. I was really happy to have been in Maine where we had some real face to face communication.

I spoke to a helpful guy at Synthax Audio UK about getting a replacement Fireface whilst mine is repaired. (Thanks for the suggestion Guy) . I also disconnected Kore from my setup (I was having communication problems with the Virus TI) - I figured that 2 USB Audio devices might be interfering with each other. The Virus communication seems much better now. Andy came back early from his radio rehearsal and we did a really nice vocal on one of the songs. I had already edited the version from Falmouth, which was good anyway, but Andy felt it was too much "Falmouth Foghorn" :-) So we re-did it in a less "shouted" altogether groovier style. We were both very pleased, and I did the edit on Saturday. Great.

Daniel arrived shortly after and we played him a few tunes and got some comments from him. He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about some of the songs, which was nice. Daniel and I agreed to start the mix session in Mute with a Studio meeting where we go through the Multitracks of some songs together, so he can advise and criticise further. So busy playing him tunes and chatting taht I forgot to take a photograph. :-( In the evening I went to see/hear Maps at the Luminaire. Good gig and nice to meet some of the Mute Team.

Saturday I was up early in the studio listening to vocals and editing. I downloaded UAD version 4.5 software (Thanks Guy!) and am now cautiously optimistic about everything running together (which I really would like to have for the mix - I enjoy the SSL sound of the Duende and the great sounds from the other DSP boxes: The RE201 in the UAD is fantastic , and I like the Plate and the Fairchild. I like the TubeTech and Fairchild and Urei compressors in the Liquid Mix, and the Sony Oxford compressor and Character in the TC Powercore. etc etc. Also downloaded the latest Nomad updates.

Had a great day, feeling very excited and positive about my work with Erasure, and even went for a walk on Hampstead Heath.






Saw a touching film on TV in the evening. Oscar Wilde "An Ideal Husband"