A new studio assembles like Voltron

segbot — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:24:46 +0000

Other people were out frolicking. A somewhat old term that, but more than appropriate no doubt. Roller coasters, taming lions, computer games and possibly even disco dancing. Crazy kids. Me, I was moving the studio once again. Some readers of Create Digital Music might remember that it was just over a year ago that I wrote an article called “Moving Music: 10 Ways For A Geek To Move House”. I loved the space I had moved into when I wrote that article, with the studio gear dominating the lounge room in close proximity to the kitchen. The fun I had throwing fresh vegetables and spices around in a wok only metres away from Kris hard at work on Begin Again. On the flipside, picking up the refrigerator when trying to record acoustic guitars while reviewing microphones for Time Off. Mostly a great space, but a chance came up on a unique property only a short walk from the current one, and a few months ago it was all about cardboard boxes, carrying things up flights of stairs and trying not to drop things on my feet. With a modicum of success at best.

With a great German friend visiting for a short while, I set the studio up in the lounge room once again, this time temporarily, and even took the opportunity to sample her and some other friends shouting on my remix of the Vitreous track, Guise. While they were, of course, in the kitchen. While I am going to miss the reoccurring kitchen and lounge room theme, and recording Germans shouting things like “discotheque!!!”, I am celebrating the chance to finally set up the new space and get all the old gear out. I’ll post some more pics once I’ve had the chance to tidy it up and work out some of the sound treatment. I don’t think you really need an amazing room to make music, and there are countless examples of this (I wrote more than a few tracks in the old Segue live set in headphones and hotels while travelling for work), but I do have a wonderful feeling about this space and the hours I will enjoy creating here. Check the full studio picture on FlickR for a rough tagged run-through of what’s what.

Before I Catch This Plane

segbot — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:40:46 +0000

A quick post after an all-night geeking session. The clock is ticking on a few cool projects before I fly out to join a project taking place in Vietnam and Cambodia. The trip is part of a charity challenge that we have been looking forward to, but the flight departs in 48 hours and there is still a lot left to do! Recently we have been bringing some life back to these blogs as we ready for an exciting 2009, which is obvious I hope just from looking at the site! A quick bandaid solution to get the dialog happening again, and as such its about time to drop some audio files of whats been up.

First up a couple of snippets from the pre-masters of Reset and Forever. Kris and I worked on these ages ago but they got lost somewhere between here and the label, and we lost track of progress of the releases. Crazy I know, but it does happen. Thanks to the magic of internets and interwebz and even innawebz, these will be up on Beatport once Smashbang Records work their mastering magic and everything sounds sweet. For now, here’s a taste of whats to come.

Forever teaser

Reset teaser

Next up a little bit of a session from late last night. This is pretty raw but its only fitting to start giving some insight into whats happening in the studio. Kris has got me in to do a quick mixdown of his quite inspired track “Begin Again”. Id love to claim thats because my mixdowns have suddenly become magical overnight, but its more due to some issues with his DAW and my brand spanking new production tower. The original tune is a lovely slice of melodic progressive house with plenty of subtle twists and turns, as Kris is frustrating adept at. His other forte is big woosh build ups, which he eschews here and keeps it nice. Which is where I come in. Here’s one of at least 10 or so nasty directions I’ve taken it. This direction won’t make the cut for the remix I daresay, but the general groove sounded good at 3am.

Begin Again (not a) Remix snippet 1

Begin Again (not a) Remix snippet 2

Apart from that I will be headed off to Vietnam shortly where I hope to get some field recordings and do some editing on the little Acer Aspire One we will be travelling with. Banging Cambodia progressive tech or bust.

Segue » Studio

A new studio assembles like Voltron

Before I Catch This Plane