Posted by Jerry on June 5th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music
Well, the first mix was a bit over cooked with the delay – it sounded like this was recorded in someone’s bathroom! So another mix and it is sounding much better. Good enough to burn off some testers for the band members so we can agree on which numbers will make the final demo. I also took the opportunity to try out Belkin’s CD Launch Pad – CD labelling system. I bought it because it was the only one promising mac software for formatting the labels. The labelling machine has a rather twee ‘Star Trek’ look to it, but it is well shaped for a person to grip it easily and comfortably – even a left-hander like me.
I used the label templates for Adobe Illustrator (there is PC software included, but only templates for the mac) and selected a suitable background from the fairly wide range provided as free art, and placed the text within the boundaries… and guess what? It worked first time 🙂 It does an excellent job of positioning the label on the CD and the supplied labels worked well with my ink jet printer to produce quite a professional result. So I am a happy chappy!
Now to produce a CD cover and with luck, I should have a decent looking and sounding demo ready to post off on Monday…
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on June 3rd, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music
Phew! after a hectic session we’re pretty happy with the initial pre-production results – some good raw material to work with for our demo CD. In case you were wondering why I haven’t been updating my blog the past two days – that’s the reason 😉 We now have enough material and hopefully I should be able to complete the mix-down and run off the first CDs this weekend.
I also designed and wrote a promotional pamphlet for the band so hopefully, that, along with the business cards, should provide a professional presentation for prospective folk festivals and clients. It all seems to be happening at once as most of the festivals for next year want(ed) applications in by 1 June this year! Oh well, we can but try.
At this stage it looks like we have four useable songs and two sets of tunes for the demo CD – a good few weeks work!
Now I just need to find a CD label-making kit and mac software…
Ah time for a beer and some sleep!
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on May 10th, 2004 — Posted in Music, Technology
Phew what a night!
Another night another track down – this time it’s a set of Irish jigs: Freize Britches and Lark in the Morning
You can find the music for these in http://www.thesession.org although the versions we use are from the Adelaide Celtic Music club repertoire from about thirty years ago – the same source as Suzette Watkins and Chris O’Conner’s “Begged Borrowed and Stolen” tune book.
Fairly happy with the result – and the Tracktion software is a breeze to use! I highly recommend this application. It accepts VST filters and is truly drag and drop. And everything you need is on the desktop – not hidden behind layers of menus.
Still have to put the bass tracks down, but we have three or four quite useable tracks now, and that with probably three or four songs should give us a fair demo CD for the festival crowd and to generally secure us a bit more work.
Must get some sleep now.
cheers
Jerry
Comments Off on More recording
Posted by Jerry on April 25th, 2004 — Posted in Music
Well, after a bit of work we have a couple of tracks together – here’s a live recorded track to listen to 🙂 Let me know what you think – it’s a couple of Irish reels called Paddy Fahy’s No1 and Gravel Walk… more like a run really!
[I have removed the recording so it doesn’t clog up slower servers – hope you enjoyed it while it was there. I’ll be uploading some MP3s of thethe band on our soon-to-be-established web page – JE]
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on April 25th, 2004 — Posted in Music
Finally found the music to a tune that has been driving me nuts for months – Green Gates reel – I keep hearing it in my head to the point where I have been able to pick out the broad shape of the first part of the tune, but not close enough to be able to do a pattern search among the ABC notation sites and some great Irish music collections online, such as O’Neills Music of Ireland and Allens Irish Fiddler And my favourite tune finding site: The Session.org And last night i found the tune – with the sheet music. Big learning binge this weekend with me learning “The Musical Priest” and “Star of Munster” reels.
Must get back to recording tomorrow. Today was the garden – I’ve been extending the garden watering system so that the whole garden gets watered.
Cheers
Jerry
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