Sunday, November 22, 2009

God Is An Astronaut!

Hello!

First up, the stuff i've been listening to for the past few days, which i HIGHLY recommend for anyone slightly into post-rock or ambient sort of stuff.

God Is An Astronaut - All Is Violent, All Is Bright; Far From Refuge and their self titled album.





These are pretty much the only three i have so far, but boy are they awesome. No really heavy stuff, just light melodies interweaved and backed by strong bass and drum tracks.

Caspian - Tertia. Pretty similar to GIAA, but both lighter and heavier at the same time.



As far as events go, the last week was pretty much dedicated to recording and editing Chris "Bubbles" Au's encore composition. A Sennheiser 401 up close on the hammers (he has this amazing kawai rx grand) and a Shure SM57 slightly off axis behind the stick as more of an overall mic. Both mics into an ART usb dual preamp, and recorded with adobe Audition 3.

Video was recorded was my mediocre sony video camera, but it did the trick.

The audio turned out to be pretty good, nice, clear and crisp but slightly harsh due to the nature of his pianos. Nothing a quick EQ couldn't fix.

So on Thursday, we went through the videos and tried to sync the audio and the video with the *cough*pieceofshit*cough*adobe premiere (or maybe it's just my old version). But we pretty much wasted a day because the audio just didn't want to sync AT ALL; the first few seconds would be fine, but then it'd die afterwards. AP also decided to turn the video a nasty shade of blue, so he looked like a bloody smurf.

At 5, we started to get pissed, so i just decided to try sony vegas instead. And lo and behold, managed to finish it in about 40 minutes.

Are pizzas meant to be 18 bucks delivered!!?, cause we wanted a few for lunch, but it was too hot outside to walk. Looked online and holycrap they're 18 bucks each. So, we opted to pick up, and whaddaya know, 5 bucks each for a custom 70s lot and godfather. Saved 26 bucks just by walking a little in the heat.

During editing, Mr Au made quite an intelligent comment: "Hey! That's me!".

Also saw a handful of ruse people at the UNSW interviews today; i actually have no idea how well i went, and neither do most of the people i talked to afterwards. One of my interviewers also had this lazy eye, so i had no idea if he was looking at me or not. Haha, ended up being really distracting and kind of strange because i didn't know if the eye contact was there or not.

Aaaaaaand, many packages have been arriving this last week and a bit...

I wonder what they all are!



Stay tuned...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Buddha's Shopping Spree!

God it feels so good to get rid of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL my school crap. My room will be entirely empty after this, but not to worry, it'll be much nicer as a small home studio setup. Muahaha.

As for the shopping spree:

Thanks to the Department of Defence and the Reserve Bank, i am now 500 bucks richer (name and address blurred just in case):




Which will go towards my amp/effects fund!, currently sitting at about 2000.YEAH BABY. Hopefully, i'll get the following setup (skip of you don't care):

Running in front:
MXR Dynacomp for compression, into
BB preamp for slight boost/dirt on clean and low drive channels,
Vox Satchurator for Satriani style drive,

FX loop:
MXR 10 band EQ, for precise frequency shaping and emulation of voicings,
My current ME70 for delay/modulation/volume controls.

Shure SM57 dynamic instrument mic, and a analogue to usb adaptor of some sort.

As for amps, i'll be going around to different shops over the next few weeks, trying out as many as possible and posting up mini reviews for you UG people. Pwahahaha, it will be incredibly awesome. Once i get everything set up, i'll start recording heaps, so stay tuned!

Oh, some cool wallpapers i found to spice up your desktops:






Also, dad's going to Europe on a business trip in January, so i may tag along and go explore Europe when he finishes his jobs there. Hopefully visit Rome, Paris + Normandy, Berlin and possibly London if i go.

Dear god i'll be spending so much money, hahahah. However, that's soon to be fixed.

Well, enjoy your well earned break everyone, and safe and happy trips!