Some pics
27 Mar 2008 No Comments
in gigography Tags: gig, live, looper, music, photos, piano
Two photos of me from the gig at Grüner Salon in Berlin on March 13.
Blooms & Starrrs
26 Mar 2008 No Comments
in 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
Off the couch
25 Mar 2008 No Comments
in 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
Cold
20 Mar 2008 1 Comment
in accords, gigography, ramblings Tags: audio interface, gig, music
I’ve got a cold. On monday there was this woman sitting beside me and constantly coughing in my direction. And I thought to myself, it’s all good and well that she likes sharing, but does she have to be generous with her germs? It already started to show yesterday when I woke up with a sore throat. So I tried to fight it by taking medicine and drinking teas with honey and lemon right away. I didn’t manage to stop it, but it’s not as bad as it could have been. My nose isn’t constantly running and I had a good long sleep last night. That’s a big plus. I’m not fit, but neither am I so sick that I’m too weak to leave the bed. Actually I’m already bored with watching movies and series. Nevertheless I will be a good girl and plop myself onto the couch and do anything to get better. No use to keep working and drag the cold on and on. Hopefully I’ll be over it tomorrow. Might be my impatience talking though. One thing I’ll do today is backing up my music. It’s about time I did that anyway. Just imagining that I could lose all of it is inconceivable. And I can do it comfortably and conviently from my couch.
Yesterday I went to meet up with Bobby Starrr in his home studio equipped with lozenges. Step by step we went through the tracks we want to play live. It’s gonna be one solid set, no breaks for roughly an hour. Essentially it’s gonna be house music. But since I’m involved in this project there’s no way it’ll turn out as that in the end. There’s gonna be loads of vocal live looping, use of field recordings, my own odd beats etc. We have some nice surprises up our sleeves. When I agreed to do this gig I wasn’t sure how open Bobby would be to my suggestions and ideas. As it turns out wide open. He thinks that our mash up of musical styles is way better than just playing house live. That we might hopefully really blow people’s minds. Hear, hear! I can only nod like a bobblehead.
He also lent me his M-Audio Firewire 410 Audio-Interface. I’m genuinly itching to hook up all my gear to it. Tomorrow… Because of my cold I also have to postpone the recording of the piano part. Oh, well.
x
Gigs and changes of heart
13 Mar 2008 No Comments
in gigography, In the Studio Tags: gig, music, piano, recording studio
Had a bit of an undecisive day yesterday when I had no clue if the arrangement for ‘Hearts first’ was any good, especially the beats. So I didn’t make all that much progress – adding things and deleting them again.
I ended up going to Antje Öklesund to see Phoebe Kreutz play live. Always a pleasure. It looks like I’m gonna play there, too.
Today I wrote and recorded a new ending for ‘Hearts first’. The indecisiveness completely gone. There’s still quite a bit to do to finish the song, but I’m gonna play at Grüner Salon tomorrow night at VoicesUp so I started rehearsing the songs I will play. ‘Hearts first’ amongst them. I’m gonna perform it on the grand piano, sing and sometimes tap a rhythm on the piano. Maybe even integrate the looper. More rehearsing tomorrow and then more work on music on friday.
