Soundcheck, etc

Here at the DNA Lounge. Nearly 8pm. Soundcheck finished about an hour ago and went ok considering the technical elements involved.

Last Minute

As I type, I'm waiting for DVD Studio Pro to multiplex the video ouptut on the G5. I've spent most of the evening tossing things around in Final Cut, as is usually the case in the days before we play shows. This time, however, I ran into some annoying obstacles with Final Cut losing track of various clilps and mysteriously chopping/replacing others. It seems so random sometimes.

Tomorrow night is the final rehearsal. Last practice was a bit contentious, but only because we're playing a couple new songs that haven't been thouroughly though-out already. The two new songs in the set are definitely high points and we're all looking forward to finally playing them out.

RYAN

When Sleeping

These get the brain settled...

July Skies - Where The Days Go
Helios - Eingya
Console - Mono
Deaf Center - Pale Ravine

Rethinking Bass

Over the years I've spent some time thinking of ways to avoid bringing amps onstage for guitars. My original idea - which I still use - is the reliable Pod Pro that puts out a convincing guitar sound while eliminating all the negative aspects of amps (and stompboxes).

Now that I've added bass to the setup, I've had to consider how to do something similar for it. My original plan - the path of least resistance, of course - was to just unplug the guitar and use the Pod for the bass, as well. This definitely works, though I'm not in love with the results.

Tonight, I took a shot at running Guitar Rig inside the KORE environment and using the amps/fuzz inside it to get the tone of the bass and then added dynamic processing on top of that. I can't believe how good it sounds. It's a bit weird to get my head around using a laptop as my 'bass amp', but can't argue with the sound.

Rehearse, Record, Release

Rehearsal went brilliantly with very successful run-throughs of both the new songs in the set: 'Albatross' (from the upcoming EP) and 'It Will All Make Sense In The Morning' (for the next record). 'It Will All Make Sense...' for me is such a needed presence in our live set adding something that we haven't had up until now. Hard to articulate. 'Albatross' we've played before, but only now is it really working the way it should. I should also mention here that our friend, the amazing cellist, Zoe Keating will be joining us for the Nov 30th show, also.

The recording of 'It Will All Make Sense...' is really coming along nicely. So many great elements already - I'm quite pleased. Count recorded quite a bit of material for the song 'Seabright' in Dallas, as well. I haven't heard it yet, but he seems very energized by what was laid down. A few months ago Robin Guthrie (of Cocteau Twins), someone we've admired for quite a long time, played guitar on it also. Our timeline for the next album seems more realistic everyday, though those of you who followed us during the making of our last album will take that with a serious lump of salt. ;)

Today, I listened to the master of the 'Albatross EP' for the first time. These EP's are so fun to put together, as they remove a lot of the challenges that a full album brings. Admittedly, the EP format is not as vibrant as it once was, I still get excited by the possibilities it provides.

- RYAN

NP

Console - Mono
Billy Bragg - Worker's Playtime
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Goldmund - The Heart Of High Places
Guitar - Tokyo
Johann Johannsson - IBM 1401: A User's Manual

- RYAN

Still Learning & Techie Things

Just picked up a bass guitar again for the first time in quite a while - probably since I recorded some bits on the 'W&S' record. I think I finally feel comfortable with it's combination of guitar/percussiveness and I plan on getting quite a bit of practice time in. I used to hate bass when I was younger, having been more-or-less raised on electronic music. The naivete in that was pointed out to me when I realized that the bass parts on all the early OMD records were real stringed bass guitars. Over the years, I've also come to realize that bass, much like drums, has a lot to do with how people categorize music. For me, one of the most reliable ways to move a track away from an 'electronic feel' is to use a stringed bass - preferably electric. Picking up an unfamiliar instrument is always refreshing and invigorating and I've so far had quite a bit of fun 'refinining' my bass playing.

Another facet of our evolving performance is the new integration of Rebecca's laptop running Ableton live. Anyone who has seen us live is familiar with Rebecca's three microphone attack and this is sort of an extension of that - with her now being able to loop vocal bits live. Still working out the kinks and details, but this is perhaps the most potentially exciting development we've adopted in a while.

- RYAN

Crazy Week

It didn't seem like it at the time, but the past week turned out to be a somewhat crazy one. Anyone who reads this blog (hi mom) knows the trouble I've seen with plugins, but we've also had the first Halou rehearsal in some time. This included running through 'It Will All Make Sense In The Morning' for the first time as a live band (I think we've determined this to be the first two-bass-guitar Halou song), designing a cover for the new EP on the fly, and flying down to LA briefly for a quick trip that included some serious DVD Studio Pro lessons and an overdue encounter with Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant who turned out to be every bit as charming and warm as you could expect.

Tonight I hope to nail down the details concerning the video elements of the upcoming Nov 30th show. We've never seriously recorded video of any Halou show and this one is illustrating for me how difficult that can be. Video just isn't worth doing unless it's done right.

- RYAN

Some New Music On The Way

The new EP is more or less done with an iTunes exclusive release just around the corner.

Tracks:

1. Cello - An instrumental piece a'la 'Separation' and 'Alaska'

2. Ingenue (Different) - We enhanced the percussion elements quite a bit, removed the dodgy synth sound and replaced it with a pretty minimal electric piano, and Rebecca resang some of the vocals. A version far superior to the original, I think.

3. Albatross - This song was originally intended to be on the album but we really couldn't find a place for it. We've played it live a few times and it always sounds really good to me. I'm happy it's finally getting out there.

4. One Sunny Day - 'Separation' from the new album is actually the instrumental coda to this song. We wrote this at the same time as 'The Ratio Of Freckles To Stars' and 'Ingenue' but revisited several times before resting on this version. The ambient noises throughout are a very good example of one of Count's big strengths.

5. Night Divides The Girls - Also written around the time of 'Freckles' etc, this song is one I really enjoy - the middle part in particular.

- RYAN

Ugh

Plugin hell.

On The Weekend

Not much time spent this weekend on music-related pursuits but I did manage to get some further installs going on the new laptop tonight. For some reason, the Native Instruments authorizer is being stubborn, but it’s the only hitch I’ve encountered so far. Looking forward to getting the v4 Komplete bundle from NI soon to optimize things to the Intel brain...

Count is off to Dallas soon to work with Shadow on another remix and I’ve just started on production of a new Dynamophone project that will require a serious time commitment over the next few weeks. So far, I've primarily been running tracks through a nice tube channel strip to get more satisfying dynamics. More creative work to follow, hopefully.

More soon

Ryan

Laptalk

A few months ago, Native Instruments was kind enough to hook us up with their new Kore interface that has finally really got me excited about using software synths in a live context. The challenge with this kind of thing continues to be that the software is released a beat ahead of computers that are capable of really harnessing the capabilities.

Yesterday, I bought the new Mac core duo laptop to provide a little peace of mind as I try to run everything onstage in a couple of weeks. Most of the sounds we use are from chains of plug-ins that I never thought could be accessed live. Honestly, I’m still not convinced. We’ve never played with laptops onstage for just this reason. The challenge these days is that we really can’t avoid it. Most of what we’re doing now really requires sounds quite a bit more involved than what you can get from standard hardware sound module. So, we’ll see what happens with this during rehearsals and, hopefully, we’ll try some new things onstage Nov 30th.

I’ve also been continuing the development of some of the demos we’ve got for our next record. Honestly, I’ve been a bit disillusioned by the usual instrumentation and have been holding off on doing too much until we get into a ‘real’ studio with a selection of (non-virtual) instruments to play around with.

Rebecca has been itching to sing lately and, I’m afraid I’ve had little to offer in terms of new material. Rehearsals do go some way to appeasing, but there’s no substitute for coming up with something new and satisfying...