A Clearing

Hi all,

I made it out to the Dan last week, and also gave the new drums a workout. 

Listen Online:

Recently it was brought to my attention that Radio Adelaide is putting together a new website, and are looking at expanding their mobile and podcast strategy.  

Additionally, it was re-asserted that all Radio Adelaide audio is the property of Radio Adelaide, and any re-broadcast or other use would require written permission.  

Of course, I have a significant bit of Radio Adelaide content on this site, including the Live @ Radio Adelaide record which was assembled from tracks recorded at Radio Adelaide, the Local Noise broadcast which it came from, and buried somewhere in the Audio folder is the episode of Songcatcher I was lucky enough to be featured on.  I may even have the video of that posted somewhere.

The point is that I want to continue to host this content (legally), and I would also like the opportunity to come back and do my thing again someday, so I immediately thumbed out an email alerting them to my use of their content, and asking for permission to continue to do so.

The good news is that permission was granted, so that's wonderful. 

It was suggested that I add a link to Radio Adelaide as well, so I've set up the "Organisations I Like" link list to the right.

I love Radio Adelaide, but I'm a bus rider and an iPhone user, and to date that has made it difficult for me to listen in.  

I took the Radio Adelaide Listener Survey, and was ashamed to admit up front that I'm not a Radio Adelaide subscriber, but then remembered that I barely have a way to listen, and that I do buy my Entertainment Book there, and I try to retweet their stuff as often as applicable.

Lately I've noticed that Radio Adelaide content is popping up on their associated blogs and twitter feeds in HTML 5 (read: iPhone-friendly) formats, which I've been digging, and they do have podcasts available, so I'm going to get that subscription going.

The survey also notes an iPhone app as a possibility to listen live, which is something I'm definitely excited for.  

Long story short, Radio Adelaide is awesome, they've supported me, I'm supporting them.   I've set aside funds to subscribe, and will make it happen this week.  

So listen online, feel free to fill in that survey, and if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to support awesome local Adelaide music and audio content.  

Self-Portait Fail

Greetings!

I am still doing my thing.  Been recording these songs.  This website has been quiet for some time, outside of my tweetage.

Last year I demoed them, mostly worked out the kinks in terms of arrangement, performance, etc.  

Then I moved house, which took some time to dismantle/remantle my studio.  

I'm back up and running at the new place, which it turns out is going to be a temporary rental, since at the end of our lease (unclear when that is), it's looking to be bulldozed.

This means I have a few months' window to finish this record or I have to let it sit while moving house yet again before the end of the year (possibly the winter).

My method has changed a lot, and not always for the better.  I got Logic Studio last year, as I wanted to have more professional-sounding mixes.  

I'm still tracking in Garageband, mainly because I have an older Mac, and it doesn't keep up very well when recording in Logic.  

The plan was to track in GB, and then mix in Logic.

I got the tracks to Freefall, one of the new songs, imported into Logic.  I then proceeded to mix them with intent to submit the finished product to the Unsigned Only competition, an American A&R songwriting thingie.  

It's not really my thing, but it sounded like a cool opportunity, and it gave me a reasonable deadline to work towards.

I did submit, but wasn't entirely happy with the results, which came at the expense of an all-nighter last minute mixing session on a schoolnight.

I've determined that the stock amp designer/effects in Logic don't necessarily have the level of realism I'd hoped for.  In fact, I'm finding that in some cases I still prefer the original Garageband (pre-'09 "guitar track") amp sounds.

I'm also having a horrible time getting the mixes to sit well in Logic…it seems that in order to get them to a modern volume level, one has to compress/limit the tracks to the point where the song sounds like shit.  

Garageband managed to idiot-proof that part of the process pretty well for me.  

If I cranked it to the point where it's borderline distorted, chances are I was pretty close to your modern industry level of volume.  With Logic, when I do that, it's way quiet, which led to a lot of head-on-desk action.   

My goal is to have a more "professional" sounding record this time.  I'm pleased to say that the actual performance side of this is working really well.  

Where I used to be willing to accept a certain level of imperfection in a performance in the interests of expediency, I have since decided to tighten up my standards.  I don't want my musical slackitude enshrined in perpetuity anymore.

Of course, I don't use auto-tune on my vocals or quantize/rhythm-correct my drums like a lot of the pros do, so this has forced me to raise my standard of playing/singing, often through brute force and repetition.

I do everything digitally, but I'm not willing to be outright dishonest about a performance.  

In the past, I have let performance issues slide when it would have been much easier to dodgy it up with some bullshit rhythm/pitch correction.  

About the most studio trickery I'm willing to engage in is splicing different takes together.  That goes for drums, too, which most people warn against splicing, but there are only so many hours in a day, and so many blisters a dude can get.  

For instance, I've sung Freefall about 70 times and I'm still not entirely sure I'm happy with it.  Most of those performances would have been passable in a live setting, but I'm looking for something that is competitive with bands I listen to, who often play for a living, have way more rehearsal/practice time, and still may be willing to digitally tweak things a bit after the fact.    

Freefall - Take 47

Most of these bands have extremely talented, dedicated singers, too.  

Plus there are all the usual hurdles with this sort of thing, like technical difficulties, mic'ing experiments gone wrong, gear issues.  It's a one-man show, so it takes time.

I know that perfection is the enemy of any creative endeavor, but I got to a place that I was happy with in regard to my cover of Snowden, and I'll get there with these songs too. 

The stuff I'm hearing in my headphones is definitely a massive improvement over the stuff I've put out so far, so I'm just going to keep plugging away until it's done.  

Now that I've been working on it for awhile, and I have a good idea of what I'm doing, it's moving pretty quickly.  I used the Freefall experience to figure out what not to do, and I did a lot of that, which has made the correct approach pretty clear.  

In my head, I already know how most of the album goes, and it is starting to look like more of an album thing this time.  

There are about eight finished songs, two of which I'm writing additional choruses for, four song fragments or songs where the appropriate arrangement is still unclear, and a handful of old, unreleased material I may pull out as needed.  

I can see myself cutting it down to those eight songs if I'm really harsh, but there will probably be quite a bit more than that by the time I'm done.

These songs are very much like my existing stuff in spirit/approach, but a bit more complex, with bigger hooks, more aggressive playing, and stronger writing in general.  

Songs I've played out before or that showed up at the Local Noise broadcast, like Consequential Matters and One More are definitely going to get the full band treatment.  

Other songs that have shown up on open mics I've posted like Standstill and Perfect Sunrise will be on there too.

Then there are songs that I've yet to play out, and there's at least one song that is such a band-thing that I'm not sure it can be reproduced in a solo acoustic capacity.  It's probably going to open the record.  

There's a ballad called Unsent Letter which I previewed at the Promethean Writer's Night which has since gotten a nice instrumental bridge.  It's unlike anything I've ever done before, but the drums are done now, with some tasty brush-work.  

As for the rest of things, I may try to get out and about before long…it's a bit cold for busking, but maybe I'll make the rounds at the open mics in the next month or so.  It's all kind of dependent on home/work life stuff, which is demanding.

I'd like to have some different stuff ready from the last time I did it though, and right now I'm kind of in the same place, song-wise.  Maybe some covers.  I'll do some rehearsal and see what happens.  

Recently I decided to go get an Adelaide City busking permit.  

The idea was to get myself and my songs out in front of people, and maybe make some money for charity in the process.  

After some googling, I picked the Hutt Street Centre for Adelaide's homeless and/or vulnerable to be my cause.

Amazingly, some of my colleagues decided to tag along, which delighted me, and I can't thank them enough for following me around Rundle Mall in multiple directions trying to find a spot to play, not to mention staying to the end.  It was really encouraging, and helped me through something that would have been very daunting alone.  

Halfway through, my lovely partner Emily arrived and took the accompanying photos.

It was Friday evening, and there were buskers everywhere.  As soon as I thought I'd gotten far enough away from the last one, I'd see the next one.

Finally, I had enough, and decided to cut up an alley towards North Terrace. 

Anyways, I played a half-hour, which is the maximum time allotted on the permit in one location, although I saw other people playing before I started and after I finished.  

I had almost forgotten my permit, but thankfully remembered and ran back in to grab it, as Rundle Mall security did actually scope me out and check my credentials. 

Here's audio of Compost Heap, complete with Security check.  

Anyways, it went really well, and despite the less-than-ideal location, I did manage to rustle up a modest contribution from the effort.

I plan to do it again soon, probably a weeknight this week, when it should be a bit easier to find some prime real estate on the Mall.  Hopefully I can rake it in for a good cause.  I'll tweet when I'm relatively sure I'm doing it and where/when.  

Setlist:

Disobey, Freefall, Standstill, Consequential Matters, Walking Into The Light, Compost Heap, Road Rage, One More