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Well, Fantasy Bridge Land has been rather quiet of late. I felt I was a bit too close to all the tunes to retain any objectivity, so I decided to leave it all alone for a week or two.  Pretty much all the keyboard parts, and the vocals are done now, only one track is awaiting bass, and we’re still trying to organise the drum tracking sessions, so I just found myself tinkering, and I didn’t want to fall into that old artist’s trap of not knowing when to stop, and potentially overworking things.

So I just put things on hold for a while. To get some space from the songs, listen to some other music, and hopefully regain some perspective.

And I think, it might have worked.  I had a listen through the latest mixes in the car the other night and immediately  decided that the chorus in Together on the Shores of Time needed a high harmony part.  So last night I put on my best falsetto voice, and went for it.  I’m really happy with the results.

In other news, I have been unhappy with the studio layout for a while now, with the sofa down the side wall opposite the keyboards.  I mentioned this to Sue and she confessed similar feelings about her study.  We worked out if we swapped around some of the furniture between us I could get the sofa at the back of the room, and lay things out a bit more ergonomically.  That agreed, I went off for a week travelling in Paris and London.  And the brilliant thing was, while I was a away Adam came around and helped Sue move everything.  I came home to a completely tidy and re-arranged studio.

And it’s brilliant.  I’ll try to put some pics up so you can all see.

I’m also thinking about filming some of the studio sessions, so you can see the working process first hand.

So, watch this space!

Or.. that big grey thing behind the microphone…

The second studio toy that santa brought was a Vicoustic Flexiscreen, which is a gadget that sits atop your mic stand and absorbs reflected sound energy, giving a much deader acoustic environment around the mic.

It’s a bit like having your own personal vocal booth.  Many home recordings suffer from the fact that they are recorded in less than optimum acoustic conditions.  You might think your room isn’t imparting any character to the sound, but in all likelihood, untamed reflections from walls and ceiling are interfering with the sound in a most unflattering way.

I had already invested in some large absorption panels made from rockwool, and these have gone a long way towards a more neutral recording space, but vocals could still be a little boxy in character.  But the flexiscreen appears to have tamed a lot of that now.  Which is excellent.

So, onward with the work!

As I mentioned in the last post, I got a couple of toys for the studio under the Christmas tree, and this is the first of two posts to tell you all about them.  So, first up we have a new MIDI interface from Mark Of The Unicorn: The MOTU Micro Lite.  For those of you that don’t know, MIDI – The Musical Instrument Digital Interface – was developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association back in 1983, to standardise the way electronic instruments (primarily keyboards) talked to each other, allowing one synth to control another, or another device entirely, like a sequencer to take control of the instrument.  Since then MIDI has become ubiquitous on keyboards, and anyone who has spent any time with electronic keyboards will be familiar with the three DIN connectors on the back – MIDI IN, MIDI OUT and MIDI THRU.  Anyway, the Micro Lite is a device that allows a computer to interface from it’s USB bus to MIDI equipped equipment. To quote the MOTU blurb:

micro lite is a 5-in/5-out MIDI interface (compatible with Macintosh and Windows).

Built from the same technology found in MOTU’s flagship MIDI Timepiece, the micro lite is a professional MIDI interface that provides portable, plug-and-play connectivity to any USB-equipped Macintosh or Windows computer.  The micro lite takes full advantage of USB, giving you high-speed MIDI throughput, sub-millisecond timing accuracy, support for “hot-swapping” and plug-and-play expansion.

Computer MIDI interfaces used to be a common sight in studios, and everyone and their dog made one, but as the  software instrument revolution took hold, everyone gave up on their MIDI controlled hardware in favour of software plug-ins.  Now as any regular reader might know, I like software instruments as much as the next guy, and they afford someone like me the opportunity to include the sounds of a classic Hammond organ, or a Moog modular synth into their projects.  However I still like real synths, real hardware with keys, knobs, and of course, for the most part a MIDI socket or three to allow them to be controlled by a sequencer, or DAW.

Up until now I have been using an Edirol 2 channel interface, which was fine, except that a) I have 5 external instruments which meant that I had to daisy-chain them via the MIDI THRU socket, which causes problems when you have multitimberal instruments capable of receiving multiple signals on different MIDI channels, and b) for whatever reason, the mac didn’t like the Edirol driver and the interface would regularly become unavailable for no good reason, which was annoying. To say the least.  Now while little one or two channel interfaces are still to be had, MOTU are pretty much the only game in town when bigger more pro devices are required.  This thing is great.  It’s built like a tank, and device driver is stable and solid.  Nice

As I type, I have the keys and modules all cabled up to their own dedicated interface, and from Logic, I can just call up, for instance, the little Prophecy, select a sound and play.  Which means that I’m having fun trying out all sorts of new lead sounds, and new pads.  Ahhhh!

Well, here we are…  It’s 2010!  No flying cars, no space bubble habitats and no silver lycra suits for everyone.  (OK that last bit is good!) However, hopefully we can look forward to the culmination of the Fantasy Bridge Project and it release onto an unsuspecting public.

Let me wish you all a fantastic new year.

Christmas in Fantasy Bridge Land was great, there were new studio toys, which I’ll tell you about over the next few days, and lots of opportunities to try them out. Got a bass tracking session in with Adam too, and got a rough cut mix of the whole album together for Paul to look at from a drumming perspective.  That was interesting to do in its own right, because it was the first time I sat down with a CD of all the tracks in the right running order and listened through on the big speakers downstairs.  I made copious mixing notes and highlighted some areas that needed attention in the tracking and editing department.

And so with lots of things to do in 2010, it’s on with the show…

Not much has been going on over the last couple of weeks, hence the silence on my part.  This hasn’t been helped by the real job meaning I’ve spent all week in London… And this time no portable kit to hand.  However, in a few spare moments last week I was looking at the lead sounds I originally chose for A Day by the Sea, and I decided that a stock lead from the old EMU Proteus Rompler weren’t that interesting.  So I popped open the Arturia Moog Modular and developed a couple of interesting leads based on three triangle oscillators, two filters and two VCAs with different LFOs driving the filters and panning the VCAs to the left and the right. The sound has the same whistle -like quality of the original sound, but are far more individual interesting and, of course unique.

I love the immediacy of this synth.

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s December already.  And I can’t believe that the Fantasy Bridge project is in it’s 6th month already. Perhaps it’s time for something of a round-up of progress so far.

The observant readers out there might have noticed that progress at MarkOneMusic is rarely linear.  In fact the image of a butterfly hopping between flowers probably comes to mind.  This is partly because work proceeds in quite small chunks in evenings and at weekends, and it is rare that I will get a whole day on the project, so it necessitates a mindset of: what can I usefully get done in the next hour and a half. The other reason is, because, by not getting bogged down in any particular song, all of them are remaining pretty fresh, and my enthusiasm, likewise.

Right now I am tracking the remaining vocals for A Day by the Sea, and once that is done, pretty much all my keys and vocals are in the can. The outstanding tracking will be bass on four tracks, if Adam is able to fit in the time, guitars on three tracks – I have guitarists who are keen to do the sessions, but sorting out people’s availability is not going to be easy.

Which leaves the big unanswered question of drums… I’m keen to see if my old bandmate Paul can add real drums, but he has his own business and is mega-busy, and although he’s said yes in principal, I don’t want the project to flounder while we try to organise  both his time and a venue with good acoustics.  We’re due to get together over Christmas, so one way or another the question of drums is going to be resolved.

As I reported a few days ago, mixing is complete on the one track with no drums, bass or guitars, and Dawn, now has a mix that seems to translate pretty well to different systems, so I do have one track in the can (Only 9 more to go!).  I also have a completed test mix of Fantasy Bridge to see what the result will be, if I go with sequenced drums, and I’ve had some good feedback on that, so if the live drumming thing doesn’t pan out there is a plan B.

So, progress, will, I suspect slow down from now until Christmas, Adam is looking at a day tracking session over the holidays and in the next week or so I’ll be trying to cajole guitarists into committing to dates.

Other non-music related progress.  I have the front cover artwork and back cover done.  I need to decide what the inlay will be, a single sheet, or a 4 or 8 page booklet.  Note to self, look at the difference in costs with some duplication companies.

That leaves me to try and define a target for project completion, if it is not to drag on through much of 2010, and I guess in my own mind, I’m now kind of looking at a Spring release date.

But, as always, watch this space.

There are a number of keyboards that define prog rock.  And of course amongst their number are the giants: The Hammond B3/C3, the Minimoog, the almost mythical Yamaha GX1 and the Mellotron.  Now, I have to confess a kind of love-hate relationship with the mellotron, I can’t deny the impact it had on music in general, and the prog rock genre in particular.  It’s use by Tony Banks on those Gabriel era Genesis songs such as Watcher of the Skies and by Rick Wakeman on the Fragile and Close to the Edge albums, these sounds defined my musical upbringing.  More often than not the Mellotron was associated with those somewhat plaintive string sounds (Think: The Moody Blues Knights in White Satin) But Mellotrons were capable of flute sounds, brass, and choir sounds)

But on the flip-side to this, I always thought that it’s very nature was it’s weakness.  An electromechanical keyboard that worked by dragging lengths of tape across multiple tape heads each containing a recording of an instrument, or ensemble playing a note, in effect the first sample replay device. You could only play 8 second notes, because then the tape ran out. If you played a big chord the pitch dropped due to all the friction, and they were prone to tape flutter, breaking down or even on the odd occasion, catching fire!

The tape frames wore out and consequently the sound became more muffled with time, and Messers Wakeman, and Banks have written or spoken about their dreadful Mellotron experiences. (The story goes that Rick once took one out, poured petrol over it and ceremoniously set fire to it!) And while you can’t deny the melancholic slightly fluttery, slightly detuned sounds that define many early prog tracks, I was always more drawn to the shimmering, albeit more artifical sound of devices like the Eminent String synth and its ilk. OK, prog purists, please don’t hate me!

Despite all that, I decided that Home by the Sea was the sort of song that lent itself to that old school sound. I decided that in the 6/8 synth solo I could just imagine someone like Tony Banks playing a string part with his left hand, on a keyboard behind him while he noodled out the solo part. Who am I to deny my imagination?

So although I’m not Tony Banks and I don’t have a Mellotron, I decided to add the part anyway.  My Alesis Fusion 8HD is, I suspect the most underrated keyboard in the world.  It contains a rather amazing powerful sampler and is capable of some incredible sounds.  One of the sound design companies that worked on this keyboard on behalf of Alesis was  Hollow Sun and Steve Howell from HS provided his NewTron Bomb samples for the Fusion.  This is about as authentic as you can get, samples directly from an original with nothing added or taken away other than being seamlessly looped so they play for more than 8 seconds.  I decided on the rather excellently named Tape Watcher program (Apparently for the intro for Watcher of the Skies, Tony Banks set switch on his tron to somewhere between the Strings and Brass settings, which made the machine play a bit of each tape)

And so despite my ambivalence towards the venerable ‘Tron’ it is nonetheless going to find its way onto the album after all.

The first track is done!

Bar any nasties detected when trying it on different sound systems, I think I’ve finished mixing Dawn. It’s the only track that has no drums, bass, guitars.  It’s just keys and orchestral programming.  Clearly, it would be better with the addition of an entire symphony orchestra, but since we are a little lower-budget around here, the orchestral parts are courtesy of Garritan Personal Orchestra. Which in orchestral sample libraries is also low budget. (Some of the top libraries around cost almost as much as hiring an orchestra!) but I think with some careful programming, it’s capable of quite amazing things, and whilst it’s not going to fool a discerning listener that it’s the real deal, it does provide a lovely sonic canvas when working in the classical idiom.

Anyway, while we are on the subject of mixing, and apropos the picture at the top of the post; more than one sort of mixing goes into making an album around here…  Regular tracking sessions have been augmented by the addition of the odd late night cocktail provided by the ever-supportive Mrs Green.  Of late the favourites have been various martinis, and of course the ever popular Tequila Sunrise. And while I can’t say definitively that these libations aid the creative process, I can confirm that they are nonetheless a refreshing adjunct to it.

Cheers!

I love the Adam A7 monitors.  I really do.  They are open, revealing, accurate, incisive and, er… Loud.

Now this is usually not a problem.  We live in a detached house on the outskirts of a town. If I am mixing late then I’m not disturbing the neighbours.  But Mrs Green, well sometimes I’m up in the studio mixing and she’s downstairs trying to watch a DVD, or something on TV, and those Adams… Well, did I mention they are loud?

The other thing is, that although they are splendidly revealing monitors, at 46 Hz they are 3dB down, and from there they tail off steeply.  Which is the only real downside to mixing on nearfield monitors.  As someone recently said to me, the upshot of this is that getting the bottom end really right is something of a crap-shoot.  While I could just say, “never mind the low-end, I’ll just roll off everything below 46 Hz”, I really do want to have some Moog Taurus-esque bass in there.  (As I have said so many times before, this is prog, after all!)

My reference system down in the lounge is a pair of B&W DM603 floorstanding speakers and a REL Acoustics sub-woofer.  This combo has been carefully tweaked to provide a pretty flat response down to 20 Hz, so while I can check the low bass response of mixes in the lounge, I refer you to the above fact about Mrs Green trying to watch her DVD.

I do have a pair of AKG K240s headphones, and while these are pretty good for general purpose studio duties and are quite comfortable for protracted listening – which is why you’ll find them in radio stations the world over – they aren’t quite audiophile.  And it is for this reason that I have now acquired a pair of Grado SR125i headphones.  These are amazing.  Open, revealing, accurate, incisive and, er… Loud.  Except that they are only loud for me.  And they happily go down to 20Hz.

Which means the mixing can go on, and Sue can happily watch, undisturbed. Whatever time of night it is, and I get to hear what is going on in the Earth-shattering department.

Now, where are those Moog Taurus samples?

Last night was great. Actually, last night was amazing.

Last night we went to see Yes live at Bristol Colston Hall, and it was, without a shadow of a doubt: awesome.

I have to confess to a certain amount of trepidation.  Rick Wakeman has more or less retired from touring, and had suggested his son Oliver Wakeman to take on keyboard duties. Jon Anderson had to pull out of the tour almost before it began due to health problems (He appears to be recovering now thankfully, and is doing a series of one-man acoustic shows now) but they ended up drafting in frontman from Yes tribute band Close to the Edge, Benoit David, who sounds uncannily like Jon (I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when he got that call: “Hi, Benoit, this is Chris Squire from Yes.  We’d like you to join the band”).

But I need not have worried. Oliver is a Wakeman and a Keyboard player, and stands surrounded by keyboards.  He even looks like his Dad!  Benoit, as I said sounds uncannily like Jon.

And they all flat out rocked.

If you get the chance to, go and see this show.  They played stuff from many parts of the canon, including two tracks from the only non-Anderson non-Wakeman album, Drama. Stand-out moments were And You and I, Heart of the Sunrise, and the Encore, Starship Trooper. Oliver’s rig was similar in scale to his Dad’s Yes rig – 8 keyboards in a U around him.  And we sat 5 rows back, right in line with the Keys.

Now as you probably know, Yes are one of my major influences, and seeing them live last night has inspired me to push the Fantasy Bridge project even harder, to redouble my efforts to create an album that does justice to the prog genre.

On with the work!