31 Mar 2008
by madeleinein In the Studio Tags: cello, music, recording studio, refrain, rhodes, vocals
I’ve got this song called ‘In Unison’ that I’d already written two different refrains for neither of which I was happy with. So I wrote another one that I really like so far. I hope it sticks this time. I recorded the Rhodes and a delayed toypiano and added nice backing vocals that sound a bit like out of an old Tim Burton movie. At least to me. I also realised that a cello would rather suit the song than a bass and I wrote the initial cello arrangement. The new refrain gave me an additional idea how to begin the song. I’m gonna have to flesh out everything more tomorrow then.
I must say it was quite a good start today after being absent from writing and recording for almost two weeks straight. Hopefully it’ll continue flowing…
x
30 Mar 2008
by madeleinein accords, ramblings Tags: Berlin, gig, Patrick Watson
Time’s really been flying in the last couple of days. After being sick my flat looked extremely messy. Dishes piling up, no more food in the fridge. So I started undoing the mess and once I was at it I decided to do a serious spring cleaning. Took care of a lot of things that I previously chose to ignore, but that had begun bugging me. It took me all of wednesday and thursday. At least they’re done with now. Phew!
On friday friends of mine got married and my best friend came to Berlin especially for this event. The ceremony was nice and the party was loads of fun. Yesterday I used the little time I had to hang out with my best friend before he left again. We don’t see each other very often since we don’t live in the same city anymore. What a shame! In the evening I went to see Patrick Watson live at Admiralspalast. The band was absolutely brilliant and played for two hours. When they played ‘Man under the Sea’ they even came up the ranks and did an unplugged version. Patrick was standing and singing almost right where we sat. Funny guy, too. Last night I dreamt the whole concert again. Very inspiring! Now I feel ready to plunge into the music making again with new energy.
On wednesday Bobby Starrr was supposed to come over to rehearse for the upcoming gig. Unfortunately he’s got a cold now and the gig is canceled for now. We might play the Villa at a later date or maybe just other venues. The organisers at the Villa were unwilling or unable to confirm the date of the gig. Apparently the guy in charge of booking has gone bonkers and doesn’t answer any calls or messages. We were advised to call the whole thing off. Otherwise we might have turned up without a PA system and party people to be found. We’re definitely gonna do this live thing together at some point, it’s only put on hold. To be honest, I’m not complaining. I’m going to be busy enough finishing my album.
And now… it’s back to the music.
x
27 Mar 2008
by madeleinein gigography Tags: gig, live, looper, music, photos, piano
Two photos of me from the gig at Grüner Salon in Berlin on March 13.
26 Mar 2008
by madeleinein accords, gigography, In the Studio Tags: Ableton Live, gig, music
More preparations for the gig with Bobby Starrr. Built some more ‘instruments’ so I can play stuff live on my Mac/keyboard and won’t only trigger everything. That’d be a bit boring. Made nice broken beats as an interlude and found some great VST plugins with which I can manipulate the sound live. Real live tweaking and geeking, yay! I also listened closely to the tracks since I have to know what is supposed to happen when. They’re quite free form, but you still have climaxes and breaks that need be considered.
Did some reading up on how to best do certain things with Ableton Live in a gig situation. This programme has so many features hidden away that if you don’t use them for a while you just don’t remember properly. There’s still quite a bit to figure out tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to do bits and bobs over the next couple of days. Bobby is coming over tomorrow afternoon with most of his gear and we’re gonna rehearse the whole set. I hope going through everything with him will clarify a few things that I’m still a bit clueless about.
x
25 Mar 2008
by madeleinein accords, In the Studio, ramblings Tags: Ableton Live, gig, music, VST
No news in the last couple of days because the cold had me lying on the couch. Much better now though. My nose still looks a bit like Rudolph the Reindeer’s and I’ve got a croaky voice, but that’ll subside in the next days. On the upside… I watched some great movies I’ve had on my list for a while now. I’ve begun reading Salman Rushdie‘s ‘Shalimar the Clown’ and his language is so beautiful it’s always inspiring. Reading one of his books triggered the way I wrote the lyrics for ‘Unspoken’.
Today was the first day I felt like working again. Still taking it slow since I’m not that fit yet. Nevertheless I finally hooked up the borrowed audio-interface and after downloading the appropriate driver for my system it seems to work smoothly. I went through all the presets that come with Ableton Live and made notes about which ones could be good for our live set. Had a lot of fun actually playing around and it made me want to start preparing my new songs for gigs. First things first though. I’m writing and recording my songs on a Windows XP setup, but recently bought a Macbook Pro for playing live. I’ve collected some great VST plugins and instruments over the years, but unfortunately most of them don’t work for Mac OS X. So I started recording the sounds that I then edit and chuck into the Live Sampler. That works really well, but preparing each instrument takes about half an hour. I guess if it didn’t come in handy for my own solo gigs I wouldn’t make such a big fuss for the project with Bobby Starrr. Especially since it’s much more about broad strokes than with my own songs. Of course I completely underestimated the amount of time it takes, but when if not now? It’s pretty dull work, but exactly right when you’re still feeling a bit under the weather. I also searched the internet today for great plugins for OS X and am happy to report I found some really interesting ones.
Tomorrow will probably be all about preparations for the gig and hopefully some rehearsing, too. I’d like to wrap the whole thing up till wednesday night. It might be too optimistic a schedule I’m afraid. I’m anxious to get back to writing and recording again. While playing around with sounds I came up with a nice little melody already. Not sure what it’s gonna end up as. Maybe just a little instrumental piece. Who knows though? Anyway it sounds a bit like a nursery rhyme.
Really gotta go to bed now. It’s far too late already.
x
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