That's right, it's that time again. Vinyl Jacket's new single 'Koala' has been finally finished and is doing the rounds online ready for it's physical release next month. You can have a sneek peak here
I also ended up doing live sound for them at NewcastleGateshead Evolution Festival which was a total blast:
Outside of this, my bands have started gigging a bit more. Had the first gig with my disco/funk band Black Snow, which is just great fun all round. Below is the demo we recorded:
I'm also gigging with Soul Technique a little more and we have our next gig on July 11th supporting Alex Clare at the Cluny 2, so that's worth checking out!
Finally, I'm moving across to the other side of Newcastle in july, over to Fenham. Excited about that, as i've been based in Heaton for so long. Couple that with a new computer and things are looking promising for the rest of the year.
Well, things are off to a great start this year. Vinyl Jacket are storming the world with their single "Painting Stations". It's getting plenty of airtime, including a full play on Radio 1, Capital FM, BBC6 Music, and every regional BBC Station. Have a deeks below:
Also, Matt Stalker & Fables are getting ready to release their new album with a show at the Independent in Sunderland, on April 1st. So get yourself down if you appreciate great honest music with exquisite harmonic and melodic gold!
Even more special is that both bands appear together in NARC magazine this month, so be sure to pick it up. It's free!
Recording also re-commences with Cloud City Trap, after a christmas hiatus, so expect more tasty treats from them, hopefully in the shape of an album release!
Also, if you're visiting BaseHQ any time in the future, we're now rocking Pro Tools 9 down there, which means I can work much more quickly, confidently and efficiently than ever before, and the first session was with the band Kobadelta which went swimmingly.
Outside of the production world, I am starting to get in the swing of things with Soul Technique and for good measure here is their latest single, Move With Me:
That's right! On Monday 11th January, Vinyl Jacket's new single "Painting Stations" was played on the Chris Moyles show to an audience of 7.2 million people. Excited doesn't really sum it up. Shaking profusely is probably more accurate. I can't imagine how the band felt. It was their hard work that got the song there, I am merely a background player who put a lot of time and energy into it, and explaining why you're even excited to the uninitiated is a job in itself. Regardless, it was a huge moment for myself and most importantly the mix survived the wall of BBC compressors very well! Have a deeks below :) Vinyl Jacket - Painting Stations [Chris Moyles Show, BBC Radio 1 11th Jan 2011] by Liam Gaughan
In other news, Cloud City Trap are coming back to continue with work on their as yet untitled album and I've also joined a new funk band, called Soul Technique which you can find out more about, at http://www.soultechnique.co.uk. Needless to say, as a bass player it's a very fun gig and playing in a band with an MC really does excite me seeing as I religiously praise a lot of hip hop, especially the way the rhythms interact with the beat. Lovely.
So Avid finally did it, they have released Pro Tools from it's hardware and now it's out in the wild for all to use. Greatest move ever if you ask me! I took the plunge the other day and it's a lot more stable than 7 or 8 ever was. It's great to have ADC, multi-track Beat Detective, better import settings, higher track counts, and basically everything it should have been from the start. Regardless, this is all useless without some great musicians to be filtering through it, and before Christmas we should be seeing some more music from the likes of Vinyl Jacket, Cloud City Trap, and I'm also excited to be mixing the new Matt Stalker and Fables record. This guy's chord choices will make you weak at the knees!! Hear more from each band below:
There hasn't been much news in a while, I've been busy recording and mixing Boogie Down, (which you can hear in the player above) and Vinyl Jackets, whose next 3 tracks are nearing completion, and there's some tasty production coming up on those so hopefully you will all enjoy that. It was also the first time I used a Heil PR-30 dynamic mic for the vocals, and to be fair it sounds pretty hot, and I'm considering making the purchase!
I've also come to use melodyne for more than it's pitch correction alogrithms. It's also an amazing gate, seems to know exactly where the note starts and ends and it is much cleaner than a real-time gate. You can also use it to level out dynamics, such as when a vocalist changes from main to falestto, there's usually a big volume drop and increasing the volume of those syllables sounds a lot more transparent than letting a compressor do the work. It's something I had to pay attention to using the Heil because it captures the body of the sound so well, but some of the intricacies become a little to quiet compared to other phrases and melodyne really nailed it.
I'm also moving house at the end of the month, so want to get the mixes done before then. There's nothing worse than battling with a new room especially when there's pressure to get mixes finished! So hopefully even more audio gold being released in the next few weeks!
Thank christ that's over, note you can only see about 2/3rds of the tracks on the edit window, and about half on the mixer. Not to say bigger is better, but it's certainly my most intense mix yet, sounds great though, the songs should be released soon!
The computer just couldn't handle it at all however, and the only way to open the session was to bypass plugins (by holding shift as it loads) and then enabling them one by one and praying that it did not crash, or refuse to play with DAE errors. :( Really is time for a new computer I think :/
