Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Rework - can be just the ticket

Wow! Vince has just left and Andy is upstairs in the Bathroom doing his vocal warmup exercises in preparation for this evening's vocal session. We just had a flurry of creative activity - after our A&R meeting there was one song that we all decided would warrant a major rework, and we tackled that one for the second session of the day. I fet I should tell you about it whilst I am still breathlessly excited. We massively simplified the beat, changed the bass sound, stripped back some of the sequencers, Vince wrote a whole new "string" arrangement on the middle part ( and under the end chorouses) and we put some cool electronic noises here and there on the track (I particularly like the way that the Novation SL Remote supports the MiniMonsta, the impOscar and the Oddity "out of the box" - it makes for a lot of fun). It's still the same song, but it sounds very different to my ears. In a good way! Sometimes it really is best to stop fiddling around and just retrack the song (be that with a guitar band or a electronic project) - after all there is nothing really to lose apart from a few hours time (because we don't throw the old version away) and potentially so much to gain. No fear! Long live creativity.

Happy Halloween from us all

Pumpkins carved by Joe Brien.

Halloween



Vince's wife, Tracy, has been looking after us. She sent sweets in case kids come around on Halloween and a Zucchini bread. Yum Yum.

Early Start


Up at 7 today - and straight in the studio with a cup of green tea. I wanted to get three rough mixes done that reflect the state of play so far. I find that it is very important to have stuff ready to listen to at anytime. Obviously I keep all the roughs in iTunes, so they are immediately available, and we can make a CD for Andy or Vince should they require it, and I keep updated mixes in a heavily fortified location on the web for the band, our A&R guy Daniel, and band's manager, Michael, to access whenever they want to. It's all about listening isn't it.

Regarding LP Title Suggestions

Just so everyone knows - Andy is not reading this Blog AFAIK, so Album Title suggestions here are wasted.

Another "Thank You" to yet more Sponsors

And a Final "Thank You" to all my Sponsors

Here

Andy makes a small speech :-)