02 Jun 2008
by madeleinein gigography, ramblings Tags: Ableton Live, array mbira, Berlin, Camille, gig, Schokoladen
Been busy trying to rearrange some of my new songs so I can play them live. I wasn’t expecting it to take soooo long, but it does. Ran into some problems today when I realised that on my Macbook VST instruments don’t appear in the plug-ins folder in Ableton Live even though everything’s set up correctly. I wish I could just throw a fit, but that doesn’t help since I’m running out of time. Found a workaround for now which isn’t perfect. Who cares! For now. I’m getting a bit anxious that I might not be so well prepared after all. So much fine-tuning left and rehearsing all the little bits… gotta be done, so it will be done. I guess it’ll all gonna come together tomorrow.
The heat in Berlin is shocking. I don’t wanna moan. I like summer, especially when I actually have some time that I can spend outside. Preferably by a lake. For now I’m stuck inside my flat at close to 30 degrees Celsius. I’m so looking forward to Thursday. Finally going to a lake and spend an afternoon writing lyrics, swimming and having a picknick. That’s going to be my treat to myself. It’s always good to have something nice to look forward to when you’re slaving away while everyone else seems to be out and about having fun. Oh, and going to the Camille concert tomorrow.
Something great though also happened. My friend in San Diego contacted me to confirm he’s definitely coming in early August and he’s gonna bring my spanking new Array Mbira with him. Yay! Funny, I’d had just dreamt of playing one even though I never have. Gotta make up my mind soon how exactly I want it to be, because they’re custom-made and it takes about 4-6 weeks.
And now a little advertising: all who read this and live in Berlin, please come to the gig on Wednesday at Schokoladen. I’m gonna start playing no later than 10 pm so please come early.
Dinner now (I’m starving), then a huge pile of dishes and then back to rehearsing until my eyes fall shut.
x
10 May 2008
by madeleinein In the Studio, ramblings Tags: Ableton Live, Berlin, field recording, music, recording studio
I must admit I’ve been slacking off with the blog writing recently. Then again writing a blog every night takes up quite some time and I’m trying to make up for the lost time from when I was sick – not that it would be possible…
Still working on ‘Euphoria’. It’s shaping up nicely. For a while I felt something was missing, turns out it was a ping pong delay on the glass harp chords. It beautifully enhances the clicking noises I left in on purpose, so it sorta creates a little beat on its own. This way I could create great melodies that sound very bouncy and cheery. The song structure is more or less done and all the main elements apart from the beats are there. I’ve added another bass line with pitch bend modulation and had fun with some sound design. The main beat is done, too, hopefully only the actual sounds have to be replaced.
Tomorrow I’m gonna take my MD recorder and a mic and walk around outside to record sounds of Berlin. ‘Euphoria’ is a lot about the way Berlin makes me feel, especially when I’ve been away. How I feel excited to live in this great city. So I thought it only appropriate to use field recordings from Berlin as beats. And I’m also hoping to make some headway with all the little filigree details that I put into my songs.
Over the last couple of days I’ve also been reading up on some sound engineering stuff. Tips and tricks, things that you forget when you haven’t used them for a while. I also tried to find a good solution for submix routing in Ableton Live, but I’m not too happy with any of the ways you can do it. Apparently this has been an issue for a lot of Live users for some time and Ableton hasn’t provided a satisfying answer as of yet. So I’m thinking of reinstalling Pro Tools again for certain uses. Unfortunately I already max out on my RAM quite often when running Live and VST plugins because of the way I layer my songs. Therefore running Pro Tools and Live in Slave mode might make my computer throw serious fits. Pretty unsure about this… argh, the joys of technology. Guess I’m gonna have to try it out.
Gotta get some food into my system now and then off to bed.
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
07 Mar 2008
by madeleinein gigography, In the Studio Tags: Berlin, gig, music, recording studio, song
It’s done. ‘Webs’ is finished apart from the vocals and the final mix – as usual. It took longer than I had hoped, but I think it’d be stupid to start doing things half-heartedly now. I worked out all the little details, made refinements for the beats, checked if anything was missing or too much. Did the rough mix so everything’s sitting well in the mix just as intended. I really love it. The refrain is so uplifting and the clocks, coffee brewing and all the other sounds are just perfect. It took quite a while but it was so worth it. And tomorrow I will move on to the next song. Not sure which one. I’ve got about five rough ideas that are only waiting to be fleshed out. I’ll listen to all of them and then my mood will decide which one is next.
Last night I met with Mr. Bobby Starrr after rescheduling because of the ridiculous strike of the BVG (most of Berlin’s public transport), because there was just no way to get to his place under one and a half hours since there were – and still are - no U-Bahn or trams or buses running. Luckily he had a DJ gig in walking distance from my place. We talked about our gig at Die Villa on the 4th of April. What equipment we’d both use and how to go about all of it. He gave me a CD with the basic tracks he wants to play. We’re gonna do an hour. I do think it’s really gonna be fun and I’m curious what kind of music it’ll be in the end – with both our musical ideas mashed together. We’ll prepare a skeleton for the tracks, but there will be lots of improvising on stage. There will be drum machines, laptop, groovebox, keyboard, effects, fourtrack looper and mics. Between the two of us. And if things go well we’ll hopefully get a gig at the Tape Club and do this thing on a regular basis.
x
mads
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