19.06.11 - DAY 170 - 17 Layers

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An A Cappella track tonight. 17 separate vocal tracks. I cut everything up in distinct sections or riffs, to make it feel a bit more rigidly arranged (almost like I would with synth riffs or electronic elements) and the 'beat box' vocal beats were chopped up and put into a sampler so that I could play them like a drum machine. Aside from that, there's only reverb, EQ and compression used (oh a tiny bit of chorus effect on the 'bassline').

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

25.05.11 - DAY 145 - Spite Bytes

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Vocoder action. Some synth and voice. Lyrically it's a celebration of creativity and a reaction against the nay-sayers who make comments like "Oh, if you make a song in a day, it can't be very deep/meaningful/good/important/insert meaningless adjective claiming to have authority on the value of music!" Which of course, I disagree with completely.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

11.05.11 - DAY 131 - Phuzz City Five

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Kaoss Pad One Take Wonder. OK. Gotta go now. Byeeeeeeeeeee....

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

21.04.11 - DAY 111 - [ʃʊ̣ḍ]

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I can't wait until I can move into a new studio, with all my equipment. Moving out of my last studio, back home, was painless enough, but making SADFAY songs from my bedroom has it's drawbacks.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

07.04.11 - DAY 97 - Palms

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Today's been pretty busy and pretty stressful. I haven't had a chance to put a lot of time into SADFAY, so I've gone for another, Kaoss-Pad-One-Take-Wonder! Today's theme: Ain't Money A Bitch? Damn Straight! I iz tired of workin' for nuthin' be-atch!! ... And so forth.

This one is very much like "I can" from the other day. I apologise for the very obvious similarities / lack of new ideas, but you know, the Red Nex / Lou Bega / Eifel65 / 2Unlimited / were allowed...

Anyway, I want a chilled beer and a cigarette right about now.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

05.04.11 - DAY 95 - I Can

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Diary of Day 95 of SADFAY:

• Woke up at 10am.
• 
  
• Watched a bit of crap TV.
• 
  
• Checked email, facebook etc.
• 
  
• Seen a challenge for me, laid down by the inimitable Rachel Austin: "... a catchy, pop, kaoss based tune... your challenge for today."
• 
  
• I mulled this over for a few minutes and then went back to bed.
• 
  
• Woke up at 5pm.
• 
  
• Showered, dressed, jumped on a bus up to studio.
• 
  
• Arrived at studio 6:45pm.
• 
  
• Made some ridiculously spicy chilli con carne (it came out of the can like dog food with kidney beans).
• 
  
• Devoured said "food" while writing some lyrics. Theme for today: "I can do this".
• 
  
• Set up Kaoss Pad, hit record in Ableton and banged through my first take about 7:30pm. Hit stop. Yep, Kaoss-Pad-One-Take-Wonder... Done. No mixing, mastering, edits, other processing or effects.
• 
  
• Started uploading finished song at 7:45pm.

Job done!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

12.03.11 - DAY 71 - Cascades

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Another spin on those "Spinning Plates" - the Ableton Live set up of loopers and effects I've created. I spent a bit of time this evening experimenting with ways to automate the recording of my voice so that I could create a "cascading" effect with the loopers, i.e. timing the record state to kick in on each looper, one after another. And I mean "experimenting" in the traditional, scientific sense (at least G.C.S.E. level of science anyway), where I documented my aims, my experiments, problems, solutions and so on. Finally discovered there was a way to achieve what I wanted and I played with that approach to the set up, then allowed myself to improvise over around it with my controller (the Korg Nano Kontrol is such a great wee piece of kit). Feel this set up is at a point where I could easily turn up at a gig and create a decent range of improvised vocal music for the length of a performance. ... Which is nice...

Also, as schmaltzy as this will read, I want to dedicate this song to the friends that are there for me and who nurture and encourage me in both my creative ideas and in who I am. I just feel there is a time to stop and recognise how fortunate I am to have some really fucking brilliant friends who make me feel valued and who I hope are aware of how much I truly value them too.

Right. Enough of that sort of thing. I'm getting all emotional here...

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

10.03.11 - DAY 69 - Spinning Plates Part 4

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Another live vocal performance thang today. I cheated a little and prepared some of my vocal loops before I hit record, so perhaps one could argue that it's not 100% live. Though the final thing you're hearing was all performed and recorded in one take.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

09.03.11 - DAY 68 - Spinning Plates Part 3

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Another live vocal piece using my "Spinning Plates" approach to looping in Ableton. Recorded at the studio tonight, I've updated the set up to include the Kaoss Pad and I'm now controlling all the midi parameters in Ableton with my Korg Nano Kontrol. These two new ingredients give more options for layering and makes things a hell-of-a-lot easier to perform with. Synching the Kaoss Pad with Ableton was tricky though, as my laptop refuses to communicate with it via USB (crappy Windows drivers strike again!) But I always like a bit of the "punk" ethic of having to wing it.

More sketchpad doodles + Pixlr colouring with the difference tonight being that the image was photographed and transferred to the computer (my scanner is at home).

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

08.03.11 - DAY 67 - Spinning Plates Part 2

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Carrying on from yesterday's track, I decided to make another live vocal piece that is based on my set up in Ableton, that I'm now going to call "Spinning Plates" (not a reference to Radiohead).

Still toying with the idea of dedicating this week to vocal / a capella pieces.

My set up in Ableton is quite fun! It is made up of multiple "Looper" plugins, with a midi controller assigned to certain parameters so that I can switch between each looper track and re-record into them as I perform live. I call it "Spinning Plates" because of the way I switch between the different looper tracks: Re-recording into them is like making them spin again. My motivation to keep the whole performance interesting was to keep updating the looper tracks, so that nothing stayed the same for too long (and became boring). I guess I'm always trying to find the balance between repetition and change when I'm doing these kind of live performances.

As for today's image: It's more sketch book doodling and Pixlr colouring.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

07.03.11 - The Err Chorus

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Today's track came about after watching a short performance by Caroline Pugh at Blick Studios. Caroline is a folk singer who uses a loop station and other experimental techniques to create unique vocal performances. I created a set up in Ableton Live that would allow me to layer several tracks of voice and apply some "slice" effects.

Also, today's artwork came from some doodling I was doing in my new sketch book, followed by a bit of colouring in from my mate, Poopy Bear Face, who was giving me a bit of a crash-course in Pixlr.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

07.01.11 - Bedroom Voices

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It's 23:33. Another tight one. I imagine this is going to be a bit of habit, this getting-the-song-uploaded-just-by-the-skin-of-teeth, so I should probably stop going on about it.

Anyway, tonight's piece is a cappella. I recorded my vocals using laptop's built-in mic and Ableton Live, in my bedroom (sorry for weird-ing you out, flatmates!). I also used a piano patch in Reason as a guide track.

It's a short one tonight, but I think, definitely short and sweet.

And that's about it. Enjoy!

Cheers ^_^