After arriving in Melbourne for another challenging mobile recording we set up and worked with what we had been given. For more info on the issues and limitations that we had to work with check this out.

The tracking days and nights went well, and after finding some curtains and carpet to throw around the large open room to help reign in some of the long reverb we were underway. Sadly a lot of the vocals were attempted to be sung live in one take as planned, however there was just too many things for Ash to think about and therefore a separate vocal recording session was booked for after this initial week.

What I loved about this mission was that with the right people, the right attitude and a few beers you can accomplish anything. I’ve learnt an absolute tonne about recording in this way and it only solidifies my thoughts that I would like to do more mobile recording and location recording projects coming up. The reality is that I just can’t afford a perfect acoustically controlled studio, I can ‘try’ and make something but to get it perfect costs hundreds or thousands of dollars and I just don’t have that money lying around (geee really?).

I think the vibe, the song, the people and working with what you’ve got are the most important things with any recording project whether it’s in the worlds best studio or done from your bedroom. I cant wait until the CD’s come back from mastering and they’re in the hands of all the people involved.

I would like to thanks everyone that helped out to make it happen: Ash, Em, Greg, Tony, Marg, Cal, Paul Rigby, the string and horn section, the choir, the dance school, the old orange volv… everyone.

In the meantime, here’s some pics of the process. Enjoy. I did.

Mobile, location audio or live recording whether it be for a band, a tv show or a film is always very interesting and often quite challenging. This particular mobile audio production project was no different and I loved it! Ashleigh Southam writes fantastically eclectic soundtrack style musical compositions that would equally be at home as a film soundtrack as they would snuggle into your ipod playlists. This concept album session come DIY music recording not only took me away from the recording studio in Christchurch but to a whole new country, Australia. Ash lives and works in Melbourne and really wanted to record his sophomore album there this year and approached me earlier in 2010 to plan out the sessions.

The concept behind this recording was that Ash wanted to track and record as much live as possible, where possible. Do it ‘old school’ Motown styles: One big room, all live, one take. Drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals, horn section, string section.. the works… all live.. all one take. I was intrigued by this and thought the challenge of getting out of the recording studio and into a massive room to work like this would be good for me, I mean you don’t grow and learn unless you put yourself into odd situations right?

I arrived in Melbourne in late September which was welcome relief following the large 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch earlier that month which had destroyed the old Sitting Room studios building and had caused a large deal of stress in the local music and recording industry. I caught up with Ash and we talked through the plan of attack and went to go and check out the space which he’d managed to secure for the project. Straight away a few issues became evident.

The Issues:

The time frame:
Due to me having to cancel work in the recording studio in Christchurch I was on a tight time frame and the musicians and location we’d chosen we were limited to a week for the entire album.
The location / The room:
Ash works part time at a dance school and because it was school holidays we were able to get access to their largest studio for the week. 450 sqm, 7meter high ceilings, hard surfaces and no acoustic treatment. Simply, it was a monster of a room.
The songs / The players:
Ash doesn’t normally have a ‘band’. Most of the players playing on this album were mates or ring ins that hadn’t spent much time learning or rehearsing the songs. To top this off, not all the players had been confirmed nor had the final string or horn section parts even up until a few hours before the first day of recording.
The Gear:
A lot of the gear I’d planned on bringing had either been damaged by the earthquake or I didn’t have access to bring. I’d arrived with a handful of mics and that was about it, we had to beg borrow and steal the rest and only ended up with a stock digi 002 (rather than my Black Lion audio modded 002r that I love and swear by), a behringer ada8000, some more mics, some cables and stands and the ability to only track 12 tracks at once MAX… WAY less than I am used to!

Stay tuned for part two… and what happened next.

Audio post production for tv and film is something that the sitting room recording studios has been doing more of in the last 2 years and I must say that I bloody love it! We were lucky enough to score the audio post production job for Push Play this year. It was heaps of fun and combined Voice Over ADR recording, Sound Design for the title sequence and Graphics, music selection, a mix and master and supply for broadcast. Push Play is the brainchild of Tony Palmer (ex What Now and NZ TV guru) and is a weekly magazine style sports show for children aged 7-17, and being aimed at a young audience was quite FX heavy in some of its sequences… tonnes of fun laying all of those Sound FX.

It screened every Sat morning on TV3 and then repeated numerous times throughout the week on the Sky Sport channels and as far as I am concerned is one of the best value for money children’s production around. I tip my hat to Tony and the Quick tv crew for their ability to pull this off every week with the resources available… and here’s hoping there’s more to come.

Earthquakes don’t like country music, who knew?

The Unfaithful Ways were so close to finishing the recording and mixing of their debut album up at The Sitting Room recording studios just as the dreaded quake struck Christchurch and temporarily dampened proceedings. Four weeks on however and it appears that nothing will hold back it’s release, which is surely just around the corner.

This particular band is comprised of some of the best song-writers in the New Zealand music and audio production industry as far as I am concerned and have a lot of potential to make their mark both here and overseas if they can keep refining their skills and most importantly – stick together.

The concept, process and reason for recording an album varies a lot between artists but I like to try and make sure that no matter who it is or their reasons for recording and releasing an album that the actual ‘process’ of the album recording is as enjoyable and memorable as possible. Most bands are lucky to record 1 or 2 albums in their lifetime as a band and when you think about it that way it’s a rare and beautiful thing that should be enjoyed and cherished so that was firmly at the back of my mind during this process…and I have to say this album is sounding pretty bloody good because of it.

To top off the end of the recording process the band were selected to be the main support for the US band ‘Band of Horses’ recent trip to NZ. We all flew up to Auckland to play to a sold out ‘Powerstation’ and The Unfaithful boys totally creamed it.

Anyway, be sure to keep your eyes out for this album as it’s full of poetic lyrics, timeless songs and some clever little gems. I am proud to have been involved with this and have had this be the last recorded album at The Sitting Room studios old location.

DIY recording success?

Pine have been one of Christchurch and New Zealand’s leaders in the indie pop revolution and a few months ago we finished up the recording and mixing of their latest album ‘Books and Magazines’.

This particular recording project was not only one of the last albums to come out of the studio (pre earthquake) but also one of the more interesting and interactive that The Sitting Room studios has been involved in. Aaron (guitar) had taken some time to record a good chunk of the album themselves in a Hall at the University of Canterbury over a summer. I’m a huge fan of DIY recording, the vibe it can create and experience and lessons that can be learnt as a band that records their own music.  Aaron and the band then brought these recordings to the sitting room and we ‘tweaked’, fixed, mixed, re recorded and re formed what is now the final album.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with the initial material that had come from the band’s initial recording session and would like to encourage other bands to think about doing the same some time.

Congratulations to Aaron, Steve and Hannah on this album and I hope the album release shows are a smashing success and you receive more glowing reviews like this one.

Well done little lady

A while ago (2009) Julia Deans  came to The Sitting Room recording studios to record a bunch of songs for her Debut Album – ‘Modern Fables’. This is just a very short post to say well done Julia, Dave all the musicians that played on it. The album has been released for about a month now and has been receiving fantastic reviews both here and in Australia.

It was a pleasure to work with you and be involved with the recording of such a wonderful piece of music.

I’ve just been reading a pretty fascinating ‘open letter’ from OK GO on the problems they’ve been having with their recent video (above) and their label, EMI. The video is actually pretty awesome.

Essentially, OK Go got famous for their clever videos (like this one) that got spanked around the web – served up via You Tube. Now however, EMI won’t let anyone embed their artist’s videos on other sites from You Tube because EMI only get paid if people watch the video on You Tube. In fact if you look at the video liked above you’ll see that embedding is “disabled by request”. Ouch.

Good luck going viral!

OK Go do a good job explaining the situation and, while it might be the sweet treacle of a PR person, they seem pretty sympathetic to EMI. Here’s a little quote from the article.

“Fifteen years ago, when the terms of contracts like ours were dreamt up, a major label could record two cats fighting in a bag and three months later they’d have a hit. No more. People of the world, there has been a revolution. You no longer give a shit what major labels want you to listen to (good job, world!), and you no longer spend money actually buying the music you listen to (perhaps not so good job, world). So the money that used to flow through the music business has slowed to a trickle, and every label, large or small, is scrambling to catch every last drop.”

Essentially how this reads to me is a band that has become totally soft after suckling at the teat of a major label for a few years! Surely of any band that would have a great shot at making a success of themselves without a label, OK Go would be near the top of the list. Without the millstone of a major label they would be in the perfect position to do some great direct to fan marketing (offering to have a fan feature in a music video for example). Instead though, here they are bemoaning the fact that we’re not buying enough music to keep the mothership afloat and ultimately, attempting to justify totally ridiculous policies and behaviors on the part of EMI!

The whole article could probably have been summed up by saying, “On balance, we value the safety and security of a major label deal that lets us do this full time and have a sweet lifestyle over the freedom to do what we want, when we want, with who we want. So, even though what made you love us in the first place no long exists, if you could all stop hating on us and keep forking out cash for our records that would be lovely”.

Maybe I’m being too hard on them. Maybe they’re locked into a contract and can’t wait to be free. Maybe a lucrative deal with a big advance is pretty tough to turn down compared to the uncertainty of ‘making it’ alone. Maybe they are actually really really angry and this was passed through a heavy PR filter before being released.

Either way, this is an absolutely classic example of all the stuff that is going wrong in the music industry: Indie band makes some cool videos which they put on You Tube. Public goes crazy sharing and embedding the videos on blogs and websites around the world creating a massive buzz. Record label thinks it can capitalise on all the great publicity and offers them a big record deal. Band release new video to promote the new album. Record label stops all embedding and sharing to conserve/maximise profits!

Genius!

Here’s the link to the full article from OK Go. It’s well worth the read.

UPDATE: You can read more about it in this Mashable interview with front man Damian Kulash.

Gotta get a record deal, gotta get a record deal!

That has been the catch phrase for young indie musicians for decades, myself included. Hordes of long haired, guitar wielding mumma’s boys religiously following the teachings and trends of ‘Rolling Stone’ or ‘NME’ all pinning their hopes on the fact that it just might be them that catches the next big break.

Those days are all but gone, big breaks are not quite as big as they used to be, record labels and deals are smaller and fewer and far between than ever before. The internet, digital media, digital audio recording and distribution have demolished those highly impenetrable walls, the game has changed. These days musicians are more often than not funding recording themselves (if not doing it themselves), possibly even funding the first run of CD production and then attempting to P&D deals and publishing deals. It seems a far cry from the Hay-day of yesteryear but it’s still a bloody great achievement when a band can manage to get through this process and get out the other side with a contract and a plan to forge ahead with. It’s an achievement, something that so many people have worked for and never managed to make.

Christchurch has produced more than it’s fair share of New Zealand’s best musicians and song writers and it’s time to pick up a pencil and etch another name into that list. The Unfaithful Ways, Christchurch’s latest young, hip band has just recently signed a publishing deal with Native Tongue and I am pretty sure that if they can keep their heads will be onto great things both nationally and worldwide.

Well done boys, I am very happy and proud to have been involved and really look forward to where you end up in the future! Keep an eye and an ear out for the next release from this group, and be sure to keep an eye out on NME magazine in a years time, I am positive these indie-country pinups will be gracing its glossy cover.

It’s been a while since I have talked and shared my thoughts and simply there’s no excuse other than the fact that we’ve been mental flat out busy! I am going to try and get this old girl of a blog back up to date over the next few days so what better way to start than with the RDU round up band competition.

Round up has been a cornerstone in the Christchurch music industry for years now. James and the RDU gang are doing a great job of growing this competition and this year was perfect testament to that. The entries I managed to see all created that sexy little buzz for me.

Jump ahead to the end of the competition and we were staring down the barrel of a loaded finals bazooka. ‘The Unfaithful Ways‘ played their best show of the year, The Burning sensations of course always strong with chch and SoulSystem ending the evening with their highly infectious danceable beats. But of course as we all know it was the newly formed ‘Sleepy Age’ that took the title.

The very next day they were in to The Sitting Room recording studios to lay their first single ‘Cat face’. We only had the day to get the song tracked and mixed so it as all guns blazing. It’s always a hard ask to get a band into the recording studio, meet the people, form those relationships, set up the gear, get the best from the band and try make it all happen in such a short space of time. Personalities and relationships is the only thing that will get you through the day, and luckily in this case the band is full of awesome dudes, simple.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and working with these guys, and with some great heritage in the ranks from the likes of ‘bang bang eche’, ‘Neil Robinson’ and ‘The insurgents’ this band is surely going to get some attention.

The first singe is a cute little song, and we’re all looking forward to having them back into the studio…. and it’s always nice to have the band genuinely say at the end of sessions things like: ‘Wow, thanks so much, this was the best time I’ve ever had recording. You guys easily have the best studio in Christchurch’

awwww… shucks… thanks… I completely disagree.. but thanks.

Check out the song Cat Face.

Cat Face by thesittingroom

Proudly and lovingly brought to you by Tim Chesney and Ben Edwards of The Sitting Room Recording Studios Christchurch, New Zealand. The south island home of audio production, sound design, mixing and location sound recording.

Last week we had the ‘always wonderful’ Julia Deans (FurPatrol) in at The Sitting Room recording studios recording tracks for her first ever solo album. It was a star studded affair with the a multitude of special guest appearances on the record. I wont name names yet but it’s going the be a KILLER album.

There will be more posts to come and something for everyone… I will have a gear geek out talk about the world class recording gear we had in here, there will be photos, and hopefully even a quick interview from Julia….but for now here’s a quick video snippet of the lovely time we all had together.

She is a lovely person, a very talented musican and a good friend… keep en eye and ear out for more details to come.

Proudly and lovingly brought to you by Tim Chesney and Ben Edwards of The Sitting Room Recording Studios Christchurch, New Zealand. The south island home of audio production, sound design, mixing and location sound recording.