Reaper: not another DAW, the other DAW?

For audio recordists, maybe you’ve not heard yet of a recording software called Reaper. If one had to sum up this DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with a few words: convenient, affordable, well very affordable, solid, stable, compatible with much hardware or plugins. Plus its developpers are listening carefully to its users, making frequent (free) updates and trying to grant customer wishes. Yes it does exist! I have to admit I really dig their philosophy. People on forums sometimes talk about how they gave up famous DAW like Pro Tools, Cubase or Logic for Reaper. To be fair, let’s say that in terms of plugins they do not compete (yet?) with Logic or Pro Tools, but if you use third-party plugins, like most users do, it’s not a problem at all.

On the radio (new song)

On the radio. Listen on streaming here.

Composed, recorded, mixed and mastered  on sunday February 7, 2010

I’m still on the experiment of distorted guitars.

Download it for free here.

Around the corner (new song)

Around the corner. Listen on streaming here.

Composed and recorded on January 30, 2010

Mixed and mastered on January 31, 2010

I’ve use the same process as you can read on my previous post.

Download it for free here.

Listen to a new song

New song called “Blur”, click here to listen (streaming)

Composed, recorded, mixed, mastered by cats’ eye on January 29, 2010

This afternoon I’ve decided to do the following thing:

Composing (and improvising), recording, mixing, mastering one song. I wanted to experiment with distorted guitar layers. Here’s the result.

This is not perfect, for ex. the double voice is improvised, this is the first take you hear. I wanted to use only spontaneity in the process.

If you’re interested, you can dowload it for free by just clicking here.

The XX

Album theme

Oh yes and the theme of my new record is the “social mirror”. That’s why it’s called Perspectives. (Not only because of Gehry’s building on the cover).
By the way the picture hasn’t been deformed, the building’s really like that. Gehry’s the architect who recently build the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Interesting work, but he’s not one of my favorite, though I really like what he did in Prague.
What are your favorite architects by the way? Just post your answers on the comment page if you feel like.

Twin amp

My amp is crying at the moment, because it has no rehearsal space to live. Yes those little things live!
ps: If you have any place to rent, drop me a line!

Almost out

The record is almost ready for the factory. I can’t wait.  The musician/rec engineer I’ve worked with has yet to finalize the master.
Recording with him, this way, was definitively a cool ride.
No song (except a couple of items) was arranged before recording in the studio. The idea was thinking & arranging while recording. I was fed up with intellectualizing every note, line, performance.
We decided to play everything ourselves. Because this is how rock music works: our limits make our style. Because in the end we all use the same f chord progressions, instruments, gear. So we played guitars, keyboards, bass, drums (!well we tried to), laptop. We basically completed one song a day.  I’ve often finished lyrics behind the mic. It’s just crazy how you can be instictive when you work like that. Because at first I wondered if the lyrics would dramatically suffer from that.
So 10 days, 10 songs. But easily 15 days of mixing. And 5 masters. Mastering starting last september and modified when there was time to listen/write comments/think.

Track order

Track list… Looking for the right order for my record. I’m not sure, but it seems that I’ve found the “right” order. Do you also have this impression when you make for ex. mixtapes: there’s no objective rule but you know that in a certain order it works. Like it has to be like that, but you don’t really know why.

Record

Cool cool cool I’ve just received the (nearly final) mastering of my record. I can’t wait to send it to the cd factory. I’ve been waiting for so long. I can’t wait to have the record in my hands, we’ve been working so much on it. When we have the physical cd I’ll probably have the feeling that the record is “really born”, if that makes any sense to you.

Festival ticket rush and prices

Just wondering why people madly rush for music festival tickets these days. 110.000 tickets/130.000 have been sold in 45 min for a festival I often go to. 45 minutes! And moreover tickets get more expensive year after year and most of the time the prices are just highly indecent. Well I’m not gonna pay 150$ to see Leonard Cohen… Festival tickets for less than 100$ become the exception… God where do people find their budget to go to festivals all along summer?

treasured instruments: the fender rhodes

Fender Rhodes are highly considered among keyboardists. Since its commercial release in 1965, it has never left the modern music arsenal, from jazz to folk, from rock to electronica. Every synth that tries to imitate it can come close to its sound, but not totally mimic it.

It has this mix of mild medium sounds and bright glockenspiel-like textures that makes it useful for a lot of styles. Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock used it a lot in jazz. In folk-rock music, mixing it with acoustic guitars is always creating a nice effect. In alternative rock, Radiohead makes an extensive use of this instrument for example.

Technologically, we can understand why it sounds the way it does: a hammer hits a tine – very likely the kind of tine you find in a glockenspiel – and the sounds is captured by magnetic pickups, the very same technology you find on electric guitars.

I don’t own a Rhodes myself, because until a few months ago it wasn’t manufactured anymore. But the studio in which I’ve recorded owns one, so I was lucky to be able to put onto tape the “real thing”. So otherwise I’m using the virtual instrument devoted to it on my garageband and I have to say that it sounds really good and close to the real instrument. Most of the time, I would not be able to tell the difference, it’s when you hit the notes hard for example that you hear that it’s a fake one… So it’s kind of my Rhodes for the poor… By the way I’m still amazed of the sound quality of garageband instruments, as this software is already integrated when you buy your mac.

Damien Rice, Rootless Tree

Here’s a live version of Damien Rice’s Rootless Tree, that he recorded for a tv channel. This song is from his second record, called “9″. It shows Damien Rice’s music at his best: cool songwriting, deep interpretation, for a very emotional result.

Ok, we don’t feel like listening to Damien Rice anytime, because it’s mostly sad songs and of course it’s not suited for any occasion. But listening to his 2 albums, it’s clear that there’s not a lot of stuff to get rid of – if any – because he can write and interpret songs with a real intensity and authenticity that you don’t find a lot anywhere else.

His way to build his career is also quite interesting and honest. He recorded and mixed himself his 2 albums, recording at various places and houses. Once again this “Do It Yourself” road that we’re used to hearing a lot these days but here there’s nothing to do with marketing and the way to sell an artist.

The production and recording work in “9″ is really better than what he did in “0″, but the songs in “0″ have such a quality that you soon forget about this lack of recording and mixing techniques that would have made it a “classic” album, so to speak.

Shine a light

I’ve just seen “Shine a light” yesterday. Whether you like the Rolling Stones or not, if you like rock music it’s a nice experience. Beautifully shot, edited and most of all mixed: like when a cam’s getting close from a musician, the sound of him increases. I think it’s one of the coolest thing about the movie.

I think it has what I’d call the rock’n'roll soul all along: this thing that you feel about rock creating deep emotions, this thing that made me want to make rock music in the first place I guess. When you feel music from your chest flowing all around your body… Well that’s it for the limbic explanation, at least for today

And cool end by the way, maybe the only cgi manipulation in the movie that we’re aware of.