tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540847752920534672024-02-02T02:17:14.125-08:00Chris-T-Bassistchris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-57215937899463202242013-05-03T10:34:00.000-07:002013-05-03T10:34:38.963-07:00Monarch to the Kingdom of the Dead<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ll never forget the day I first heard Reign in Blood. I
don’t think my neighbours will either. I was the only metal kid in my street
and I’d just discovered the ability to wind people up by playing metal
obnoxiously loud. I was only young, so don’t hate me too much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neckbrace covering "Angel of Death". (C) Scott Morgan 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn’t believe the ferocity and the intensity of RIB. I’d
never heard anything quite like it. If you’ll forgive a clumsy mixed metaphor,
it was like I jumped from a Madras to a Phall. That first riff in Jeff Hanneman’s
<i>Angel of Death</i>, the stabs, Tom’s scream…Or
there’s the version on <i>Decade of
Aggression</i> when out of the feedback from <i>Mandatory Suicide,</i> Tom introduces the song, and the crowd screams
its approval… I don’t know how many
times I’ve heard or played the song, but when I hear the original it pushes my
pulse way up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, my mum was horrified, she thought it was
just noise, the worst noise I’d subjected her to. My dad quite liked it, in
fact it was the start of a long period of me not being album to find albums as
my dad had “borrowed” them. But anyway, I instantly loved the effect that the
music had on me, and on other people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’d always loved watching Slayer videos, and my favourite
memory was seeing them live at Donington in 1992. It was very odd seeing Slayer
in the early afternoon whilst standing in a puddle, but the boys were awesome.
Jeff in his LA Kings shirt, Kerry
actually having hair and Tom being amused at the “you fat bastard” chants, in
the middle of a wet and windy field in Leicestershire. That was the first of
many trips around the country to see Slayer. I think they’re the band I’ve seen
the most and I saw them in small venues as well as at the large festivals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I always felt Jeff was an underrated guitarist – I think his
guitar was always quieter than Kerry’s and it’s a shame. My favourite solo of
his was in <i>Seasons in the Abyss</i>, and
I’m pretty sure that is the first solo I ever truly learnt. He wrote some of my
favourite songs – <i>War Ensemble</i>, <i>Seasons in the Abyss</i>, <i>Raining Blood</i> and of course, <i>Angel of Death</i>. Hardly original I know,
but we used to end the Parricide set with <i>Raining
Blood</i>, and in my Neckbrace days, <i>Angel
of Death</i> was one of our two covers (the other was <i>Gung Ho</i>). So as a band,
Slayer were a major part of my life growing up and of course they were the impossibly
high benchmark against which we set ourselves in bands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see people on Twitter and Facebook moaning when people
RIP celebrities, and of course one person’s hero is another’s zero. Yes, tens /
hundreds of thousands of people die every day and for the individual’s family
each death is tragic. But when band
members die, you have to remember that they had an integral part in their fans’
lives. Clearly Jeff wasn’t a superstar, but I never saw him as a celeb. For a
good part of my life I felt that he and the rest of the band were just distant
friends. And to die in such a bizarre way is horrendous for anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A truly awful last few months of life followed what for us
in the UK is the strangest thing, a spider bite. He was in a medically induced
coma for a while, and originally there were concerns he’d have to have his arm
amputated. The band thought he was on the way back to recovery but he fell ill
again and died of liver failure on Thursday at the ridiculous age of 49.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sleep well Jeff, and thanks for the inspiration. Monarch to
the Kingdom of the Dead.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-58710770152693590452013-05-03T09:03:00.000-07:002013-05-03T09:18:43.127-07:00How not to get work experience in a recording studio<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: Good morning Space Studios<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Voice: (nice, pleasant) Oh Good morning, I’m sorry to bother
you but I’m phoning to see if you have any work experience for my son…</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqruP3x_QoQhbXdQ70odGlMspPWgXAX9DKlAC21EmmvfydnXahol9J7fAAwyOeR-UpifzmEEm3bQ4w9-hA9q9JhJvuTuUp2CnOAkgHDlGQ5wKdDAIy6p4BLeQX7aWo_TVdW47CQhGBYh1B/s1600/picture_of_me_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Angry Engineer" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqruP3x_QoQhbXdQ70odGlMspPWgXAX9DKlAC21EmmvfydnXahol9J7fAAwyOeR-UpifzmEEm3bQ4w9-hA9q9JhJvuTuUp2CnOAkgHDlGQ5wKdDAIy6p4BLeQX7aWo_TVdW47CQhGBYh1B/s320/picture_of_me_1.jpg" title="I'd just hit record" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'd just hit record when the phone rang...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yep, another frequent phone call for us. I find this one a
bit more annoying than I probably should. It’s even worse when it’s a
grandmother phoning. (It’s always a mother or grandmother incidentally). I
could understand it if a school made an approach to us for work experience on
behalf of the students – in fact I would feel much more comfortable with this.
But no, it’s always a very nice, harassed sounding mum or nan, and never, ever
the would be candidate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s all a horrible joke though isn’t it, work experience? I remember when I
was an apprentice mechanic, the only thing lower than me was the poor kid on
work experience. Because of the insurance and H&S issues, said poor kid was
only allowed to push a broom, and even then only in certain areas. All day,
leaning on a broom. Some would say of course that that is perfect preparation for work, being bored and not allowed to do what you want, but really it is
nonsense. And what do the kids themselves expect? When they come to us, do they
expect to suddenly be working with a client, making mix decisions?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it happens, yes, they do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have had several kids of different ages (from year 10 to
second year degree students) come through on work experience, and on the whole,
I’d employ three of them again - rather tellingly, one of them was a film
student, the other two were marketing (and only did marketing in the studio).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the engineering kids were ok, but if I ever gave
them any real work to do, basically I’d have to redo it afterwards – and hell,
that’s fine, I didn’t expect them to be able to do the job completely and they have to learn at some point don't they?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually one kid managed to debreath a whole bunch of voice
recordings for me, which was pretty cool and saved me a bit of time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the majority I remember sullen faces, or faces
looking at me in wonder when I suggest they clean some mugs away, or tidy some
leads up. One kid, a physics student actually suggested that as a physics
student, tidying cables was below him. He then complained after half an hour of
tidying (badly, I should add) that he was bored. Welcome to work!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSTTa4Sjcx_LbuMPZdHwKU6ecPf1-6JjBW7l8S9OdFPEiBw09HgE8kZtWPrMnk2dF3btSCPCqZA93neJLRm0nCAjYRGCoTf-6go72zY8zMlI53HoNvFHnC8X601VAIX7jBTo_wo4_O-R1/s1600/studio_leads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Studio leads" border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSTTa4Sjcx_LbuMPZdHwKU6ecPf1-6JjBW7l8S9OdFPEiBw09HgE8kZtWPrMnk2dF3btSCPCqZA93neJLRm0nCAjYRGCoTf-6go72zY8zMlI53HoNvFHnC8X601VAIX7jBTo_wo4_O-R1/s320/studio_leads.jpg" title="Lead Spaghetti" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The bane of every recording studio intern</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then there was the funniest thing I have ever seen with work
experience. I told one lad that he could sit in on a foley session. I explained
the process of recording these naturally occurring sound effects what they were
and why we were recording them. He came in after we had recorded the footsteps,
so we had moved onto spot effects. So, to set the scene, we were recording the
layers of sound effects for an explosion, which was in a cartoon. This lad was
sat watching me, intently watching a screen with a kids cartoon on, whilst in
the foley stage another bloke made explosion noises with his mouth, through a plastic bag wrapped around a mic. I
think he thought we were trying to wind him up into not wanting to get into the
recording industry. Or he was wondering whether he’d come to the right place.
Or maybe he just thought we should have been committed. Poor fella, he really
didn’t know where to look or what to say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And what of unpaid interns. Or slave
labour as other people might call it. Unpaid internships happen in several
wildly different industries, and it’s kind of seen as you serving your
apprenticeship with the company. Or slave labour as other people might call it.
But some companies use internships to really help these kids grow into the
role, and start them off on the very lowest rung, but with the prospect for the
intern to move up that ladder. It’s very difficult for both the company and the
intern – it can be and often is very dull for the intern, and it can be so
frustrating for the company, because they do want you to make some kind of
positive impact. I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of the legality of
internships in the UK, that’s for anybody else to discuss. The fact is that
they do exist here, they are probably unfair, but figures state that anything
from 60% and upwards of people who do an internship get a full time job
afterwards. Just because something has happened frequently before doesn’t
necessarily make it right – however, the concept of doing unpaid work in
creative industries such as recording or the media was something of a rite of
passage. And let’s face it, there have always been more potential employees
than positions in these industries, and they are highly desirable jobs, so you
can understand why the employers might want to “try before they buy”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know of some employers, especially in our field, who see
the internship as a way of making the knowledge the interns have learnt on
their courses actually practical and useful before they employ them. I also know
of interns who have bemoaned going back to Uni because what they have learned
on the job has shown their course to be nonsense at best. I’ve mentioned some
of this before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But back to my original point. I can relate to all of this,
because I was exactly the same, I always
wanted to get into recording when I was a kid and I had no help from my school
or careers people. But did I get off my jacksie and actually phone anyone?
Don’t be silly mum, Grandstand’s on in a minute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’re hoping that we can work with some kind of paid internship
programme in the future, and if we do, we will probably go through work
placement bodies. We’ll also make details available on our website and through
social media. My suggestion to anyone looking for internship / work experience
in the UK would be to go through such bodies, because they make contact with
studios / related industries and they ensure that there is some kind of scheme
in place to make sure you actually get to do something related to what you want
to do. But you are going to have sweep
floors, or make coffee or tidy cables. You probably won’t get to see daft men
making vocal explosion noises to cartoons though.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios.
He’s been an apprentice and he’s done internships. He’s also been the mad man
making explosion noises through a carrier bag.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-65298092562736829322013-04-16T03:05:00.000-07:002013-04-16T03:05:39.654-07:00Let's Get Social<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I look at my laptop in the morning, the first things I
open are Facebook and Twitter. I’ve got my Soundcloud on the bookmark bar, my
Tumblr account is patiently waiting for me to do something, as is my Flickr
account. The least said about my Myspace page the better (don’t go looking for
it, it’s not worth the effort). I’ve got my Reverbnation account, which I
occasionally use, but I only really got because I thought it was necessary, and
of course there’s the creeping tide of Google and Google Plus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghD5sf1q6TEgzSqvAtAo8lo6UCxIvKf52ddz5zcPqsypmnooGkmgwS4e3ZasFmwJs9vuWONDzb4xzWO0eXvAfScHfAchJ-RzwXGIJKPl5vE3Cjn7B3jOMQzZ30JELw2llCB_MbXxvkE77E/s1600/chris_control_room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Recording Studio Control Room" border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghD5sf1q6TEgzSqvAtAo8lo6UCxIvKf52ddz5zcPqsypmnooGkmgwS4e3ZasFmwJs9vuWONDzb4xzWO0eXvAfScHfAchJ-RzwXGIJKPl5vE3Cjn7B3jOMQzZ30JELw2llCB_MbXxvkE77E/s320/chris_control_room.jpg" title="Working with Pro Tools in Studio 1" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must stop wasting time on Pro Tools and do some Twitter</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So that’s just me, a whole bunch of social media accounts
that I’ve jumped on, to both ensure I have my preferred names, and also just in
case it turns out that they are next year’s Facebook and Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One website suggests that Google receives two million
requests for data a minute. In that same time, 42000 statuses are updated on
Facebook, 36000 tweets are sent, and a staggering 72 HOURS of content is
uploaded to YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s a lot of information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then there’s us doing our thing and posting music, or
talking about making music. I don’t know how much of the Facebook sharing or
tweets are about music, writing a song or being in the studio. In my case,
several have been about struggling with software and hardware (thanks Avid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So who is actually listening? How do we stand out in this
utter chaos of (let’s face it) mostly drivel being shared?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it’s quite funny that social media has made the
world smaller, but for us musicians it’s really emphasised the point that we
need to get out and play to our audiences. I feel that we owe it to ourselves
to back up the social media, use it by all means, but we can never take our eye
off the ball and remember that we actually need to engage with the punter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we use our social media properly, then yes we are
engaging with our fans and followers. But I just have a feeling that we’re
going to go back to doing loads of really small gigs and hopefully they’ll be
well attended because of our exemplary social media skills. We used to run a
night called Space Lounge, where we’d invite an artiste or two to come into the
studio and do an acoustic unplugged set in front of a small invited audience.
As an added bonus, we miked them up and recorded them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3D24AZPv9-7f8RpPM2uapeP7icIUo1p-g6vB5Vjm8sjkxfPAY6vrI6I6dxXQFceSuNLnOe1rVjV4B3mFYsMKCosxHM-b38TpWAatxQY6zrHarNjF9H5vImSyy5-wpMZLTUbmdm3KlgdYy/s1600/Live_Room_Space_Lounge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A Live Recording Setup" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3D24AZPv9-7f8RpPM2uapeP7icIUo1p-g6vB5Vjm8sjkxfPAY6vrI6I6dxXQFceSuNLnOe1rVjV4B3mFYsMKCosxHM-b38TpWAatxQY6zrHarNjF9H5vImSyy5-wpMZLTUbmdm3KlgdYy/s320/Live_Room_Space_Lounge.jpg" title="Space Lounge set up in Studio 1 at Space Studios" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Studio 1 set up for a Space Lounge</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These were really nice evenings, we always had a full
audience (even though it was only ever going to be a small audience due to the
size of the room) and it was a way for the artistes to really engage with music
lovers. There’s a not-so-new trend of people playing in other peoples living
rooms, and you can’t get much more up front than that. Check out the YouTube
vids of people busking on the NYC subway! There’s some great music and some
appreciative audiences, especially on the L train stops.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of YouTube and gigs, I found it interesting
following the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' recent request for people not to film the gig on
their smartphones. A piece on the BBC website showed that a company called
45sound had developed a brilliant application that could recognise gig video uploaded by
fans. Using some amazing mystical dark art technology, it replaces the sketchy audio with
professionally recorded audio from the gig. Where multiple footage sources are
available, viewers are able to change the camera angle. I think this is yet
another encouraging movement, and it appears that the record labels are behind
this. It is of course another way for musicians and fans to interact. I wonder
though what happens with the footage copyright, and also what happens with
editorial control? What happens if someone has their phone right up the
vocalists left nostril? Does the band / artiste risk alienating their fans’
goodwill by imposing editorial constraint on uploads, or should they just grin
and bear it and bask in having a lot of hard work done for them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Only time will tell I suppose. But what I think we can safely say is that doing these kind of gigs alongside the usual range of club and bar gigs, and also alongside a social media campaign is a good way forward. You get several bites of the cherry to directly engage with your audience. I guess I would definitely advocate a return to singing songs around a campfire – but someone from Health and Safety would probably tell me it was dangerous or something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can see some of the Space Lounge videos here<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=154084775292053467" name="_GoBack"></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/spacestudioslounge?feature=watch">http://www.youtube.com/user/spacestudioslounge</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One or two famous faces might pop up.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He
is personally responsible for a good hard drive's worth of drivel on the net.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-65823877851555501492013-04-09T06:22:00.000-07:002013-04-09T06:23:31.939-07:00Are studios irrelevant these days?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CR78dpzH21TK_FHf6f7iKbJxtliMU7K_-A8tb8xAw1DH0JYnmkLZNetZtfFM6iP8RnfoGR6f_1IQIDMnfjH-faLCqXbz8sRKRzjE_Nz9U27Wzf76yMB1D4T-O7hrgiFG5MdWfUtNa37K/s1600/DSC_0386-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Recording Studio Control Room" border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CR78dpzH21TK_FHf6f7iKbJxtliMU7K_-A8tb8xAw1DH0JYnmkLZNetZtfFM6iP8RnfoGR6f_1IQIDMnfjH-faLCqXbz8sRKRzjE_Nz9U27Wzf76yMB1D4T-O7hrgiFG5MdWfUtNa37K/s320/DSC_0386-5.jpg" title="Studio 1" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It looks just like a real studio</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this day and age, you can see why people would ask this
question. Why bother spending your hard earned cash when you can go and buy
some ludicrously cheap software and track stuff yourself? We all know people
who have (ahem) illicit copies of software that us respectable types have spent
thousands of pounds on, who are willing to record for free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or of course, why not go the whole hog and build your own
studio? If you have the time and resources available, that’s a truly fantastic
idea, and one that I would love to do myself. I’ve got a rudimentary
understanding of treating a room, and it would probably “do”. I’d probably have
a nervous breakdown with all the woodwork involved, as I’m not a patient chap
with woodwork. Anything else I think I’m pretty cool with, but woodwork? Forget
it…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even with a good, solid amount of treatment, you’re not
going to completely stop sound getting in and out. If you’re building your
studio in a house, then even after treating the room you’re still probably
going to have to look out for your sound leaking out and disturbing the
neighbours. Or you could have their sound leaking onto your tracks. Then
there’s the issue of building a treated area for mixing. Even if you’ve had
your room calibrated, you run the risk of disturbing other occupants, and
having to stop recording or mixing just when things are hotting up is a real
end to creativity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this is moot if you have a farm somewhere, and you
can convert a barn or an out house. If this happens to be in the Dordogne, I’d
be delighted to come and help you set it up and perhaps engineer for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The way that things are going, it’s even easier to get hold
of some very good equipment for a fraction of what it used to cost. You don’t
*need* a huge console these days, although of course there is a time and a
place for these. Preamps and channel strips range from the easily accessible
budget options to boutique beautiful stuff you’d have to save for a few months
for. There are some very good mics out there that can be picked up for around
£150, and some that you could buy for the price of a second hand car.<span style="color: red;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me state this case first of all, a great engineer will
get a good sound using a cheap mic and the inbuilt preamps on a USB box. But in
a studio, you’re going to get a combination that is really hard to beat. You
will get rooms that have been properly treated and will sound good. You’ll get
some nice mics, hopefully Neumann, Telefunken, AKG, Schoeps etc. You’ll get the
more expensive boutique preamps like Neve, SSL, Avalon or Focusrite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFVWeinb43c0_SOj31naiTJp5kzWDJuhc7qUUf73P-Bo0TJuGhFnNncuTmBiUWSarlpy8PX4n_GPwtw6VTNy1mU5soKLSRNE7pfoJ1HRHw9xYHFB_w8g0MkGXi39ltgfNkcFGeY4VWUK-/s1600/u87+bottom-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Neumann U87 Microphone" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFVWeinb43c0_SOj31naiTJp5kzWDJuhc7qUUf73P-Bo0TJuGhFnNncuTmBiUWSarlpy8PX4n_GPwtw6VTNy1mU5soKLSRNE7pfoJ1HRHw9xYHFB_w8g0MkGXi39ltgfNkcFGeY4VWUK-/s320/u87+bottom-2.jpg" title="Neumann Microphone" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A microphone, yesterday</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But that’s all for show isn’t it Chris?” I hear you cry in
despair. Well, no. <a href="http://www.chris-t-bassist.co.uk/2012/11/i-have-gas.html">I've written a bit</a> about this in another blog, but the fact of
it is, it's simple. These tools are the tools used by professionals on
professionals. If you really want to get the very best sound out of your
instrument, be it guitar, voice, sax, tuba etc., then you want to have the very
best microphones pointing at it, and you want it going through a great preamp.
Besides, you’re paying for it, and who wouldn’t prefer 5* to 1*?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In larger facilities you’ll get options to use different
equipment, different drum kits, different amps. Also in larger facilities you
will get the big console, and in the top end studios you’ll get Neves or SSLs,
and you’ll incur the cost of having someone who can maintain them and who actually knows how to use them!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wherever you go, you’ll also have an engineer who knows how
to use these and get the very best out of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The benefits of having an engineer with you are manifold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They can worry about setting mics up and everything else
while you can concentrate on the important bit of getting ready to get the
tracks down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You don’t have to worry about whether you’ve gone into
record, or worry about getting levels as they have got it all covered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’ll be listening to really make sure each instrument
sounds the best that it can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re a good and independent set of ears, and they can act
to help you get the most of the session. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re also going to be keeping track of your takes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’ll have someone who can sort out monitor mixes for you,
so one of the band doesn’t have to stop and adjust a (real or virtual) fader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In many cases, the engineer will take a co-production role
with you if you ask them to, and they can help, offer advice, and in some cases
they can coach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a simplistic list, I do not mean to belittle the
activities of an engineer, they really can be an important but transparent
instrument in the band.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=154084775292053467" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But yes. You certainly can record at home, and there’s
nothing wrong with this at all. In fact it’s brilliant that we can have such
incredible technology at our disposal. It can be such a boost to creativity.
But I don’t think it’s going to be replacing the need for a permanent full on
studio facility just yet, especially for recording live instruments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He
hates the smell of Rockwool in the morning.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-26896078084972534972013-03-26T03:32:00.000-07:002013-03-26T03:32:51.965-07:00Gizza job<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: Good afternoon Space Studios<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Voice: Hi, yeah, what it is see is I was wondering if you
had any jobs going there like?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: Well, I could use someone to answer the phone, or maybe
clean the toilets<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Voice: No man, I mean producing like<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: No, I’m afraid we’ve got everyone we need for that at
the moment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Voice: Well, can I send you my shit like, so you can hear it
and see what you think of my beats?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: Do they clean the toilets?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is an all too common phone call, probably heard in studios across the country. Despite having plastered
over our website that we did not have any vacancies, we got upwards of twenty of
these kinds of approaches a month. Or, they’d be pitiful approaches from kids
with impressive sounding degrees from various universities around the country.
It is heart rending sometimes, it really is. Speaking as someone with an
entirely unrelated degree, but which holds as much use unfortunately as a
chocolate teapot, I honestly sympathise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I really do wonder what these kids are being told before
they get saddled with insane debts and a degree in a subject (along with
goodness knows how many other graduates) in an industry that basically consists
of dead mans shoes. I should be clear though – if music tech / sound recording
degrees had been more available back in the mists of time when I was going
through UCAS, I’d have jumped on a course, no doubt, instead of worrying about
how you say “good morning” and what the bleeding felicity conditions of such an
approach are…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not going to knock the degrees – I believe in Socratic
learning (especially now people have to pay for it!), but really, what do the
poor graduates expect? Are they told how difficult it is to get a job? Or that
their degree may not be looked at in the best of lights? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sure, a degree does bring some rigour to it, and I assume
the graduates have to do some kind of reading, research and assignment writing.
These are of course good skills to have, along with the oft-quoted myth of time
management and self starting skills (yes, I have used those two lies on a CV before).
But is such a degree really worth the paper it is written on? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How much time do the students get in the studios? How much
time do they get practising and listening with mic placement? Or coaching
singers through difficult spells to really nail that take? In my experience,
I’ve found that on different courses in different Unis, undergrads haven’t been
allowed near the sexy desks that are in the prospectus. I’ve been told of
undergrads only being allowed to use Behringer boards while SSLs sit gathering
dust. Granted, if you can get a good sound with a Behringer desk, then
excellent, you have some kind of skillset going on! But the kids are drawn
there on the promise of using the good gear, but never really getting near it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Then there've been
lecturers visiting our place and enjoying actually being in “real” studios,
rather than jerry built plasterboard studios provided for the students. Again,
these are probably good enough to highlight a point, but is it good enough for
someone being saddled with £20k of debt?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would never want to tell anyone not to go to Uni, it’s a
blast and they really are fantastic days. But I would recommend perhaps an
alternative degree (music, physics, hell anything except Language and
Communication!) – and then either buy a small recording rig and a subscription
to Sound on Sound and just get out there and record as much as you can. Get as
much extracurricular experience (behave yourself) as you can. Actually I’d say
that to anyone doing any degree – join in with as much student society action
as you can, it’s where the fun is at.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or you could even get
some work experience in a studio. But that’s a story for another blog…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He
hated his degree in Language and Communication and doesn’t see why anyone else
should have enjoyed theirs.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-59168370240025721682013-03-08T09:34:00.000-08:002013-03-08T09:35:44.442-08:00My admiration for those who do it<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet again, it's another late blog. My excuse this week is not that the dog ate my homework. But I was in the process of moving half a garage full of stuff to our new place, part of which was our big Pro Tools rig. Oh it is so nice to have it back, so it can sit there, whirring expensively at me as I fight to overcome the hideous self-doubt that is manifest whenever I try and write something..<br />
<br />
I've wondered aloud before about why the hell we bother trying to make music
these days, but one thing that I really should make clear is I love working
with the people who make music. Not only that, I have enormous respect for
those that do, and then go out and play their own songs.<br />
<br />
First and foremost, I respect the fact that they have taken the time to write
the songs, and they've gone through the self doubt processes. These I
understand can be fatal for a songwriter's career. I’ve often wondered if this
is something like the yips that golfers get when all of a
sudden they are unable to make a seemingly simple putt, or for cricketers and
baseball players, an inability to bowl accurately or even let go of the ball at
the right time.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although this is possibly a neurological condition (focal
dystonia), some experts have postulated it is caused by momentous events in the
athletes life, but it tends to hit golfers more if they have been playing for
25 years and upwards. It could also be brought on through excessive use of the
muscles involved and intense demands of concentration. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thinking too much. Overthinking things, weighed down by the need to win, or perhaps in our case, the need to be creative, or even the overwhelming expectation that you *must* create something. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Similar
to this is that hideous songwriting block, which can affect anyone, but must be
incredibly hard (and possibly even more like the yips) for someone who has been
writing proficiently for years</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="color: #222222;"> Whatever,
the fact that the songwriters manage to get beyond even the initial self doubt
is an incredible feat as far as I'm concerned.<br />
<br />
Then they'll put the track together, jam it a few times, and then maybe perform
it at an open mic. This for me is possibly the most incredible thing ever. How
anyone has the brass balls to stand up with only a guitar or a keyboard and
their voice and sing their own songs is beyond me. I have nightmares about this.
The Exorcist, The Omen, Paranormal Activity and any future horror film combined
could not touch the utmost dread that doing this would instil in me.<br />
<br />
The point is, it seems at every stage of being a singer songwriter you are
holding your heart out for anyone to take a stab at. The initial writing
process, where you bare your soul. Jamming it, making the melody (the melody
that you came up with, that could be as personal to you as the lyrics) work
with a chord structure. Fine tuning, self editing, but not letting the self
editing destroy your creativity or your desire to carry on making music. Then,
and only then, it is played to an audience, and you have no idea of how the
song will go down.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #222222;">If you're lucky, you'll pick up reviews which again must be
a nerve shredding thing. Even a bad review from a no-mark
"journalist" in a free 'zine must be a hard thing to bear. But then I
guess you have to understand that their only creativity comes from destroying
other people's creativity!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I still wonder why we bother making music.
But you guys out there, writing and performing your own stuff. You rule, I love
working with you, and I love watching you perform. So keep going and don't give up, and don't let your computer / notepad / manuscript paper mock you with its incessant blankness!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-35805078231419438982013-02-19T07:28:00.000-08:002013-02-19T07:28:55.995-08:00Try, try, give up again<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">I don't understand why we can only try ideas once.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
That's one of the most perceptive lines from Lisa Simpson there. It's at the
start of "Today I am a Clown" and Lisa rescues Maggie from the locked
bathroom. Marge tried using a coat hanger to open the door, but it didn't work.
Lisa tried it, and it works.<br />
<br />
So what's this got to do with what is laughably a blog on the music and
recording industry? Well, it’s been a while, but as I said in the last blog, we're
been off to the States, and then moving to London, and so we have had to start
packing stuff away. We've also had to start clearing the hard drives, and
backing everything up.<br />
<br />
Wow. Look at all those brilliant business ideas. Look at all the great event
ideas we had. Look at all the bands we worked with. Look at the terabytes of
unfinished songs. It seems it's only when the painful process of moving rears
its head that we actually look at all of this stuff.<br />
<br />
We tried a lot of the ideas once and never carried things forward. There were
multiple sound reasons as to why...but really, why did we only do it once? If
you've invested the time in planning and organising the event, product,
programme etc., why not give it more than one airing? Unless it costs you a
stupid amount of money to do it, or it seriously distracts from income
generation, you owe it to yourself to do it again, don't you? Most of the stuff
we tried we didn't continue because of a low turnout, or because people baulked
at paying a price - even when we got subsidy from the local government! But
perhaps we should have pushed again, aimed at a different market, tried
different price points or tied in with other partners. These are all strong
ideas that we intend to use in a different way in the future.<br />
<br />
There's the often used quote from Einstein (or Franklin, or Browne, or the AA
or an old Chinese proverb) that insanity is doing the same thing again and
expecting different results. And there's a bit of truth there - but try telling
that to Robert the Bruce! He watched that spider repeatedly attempting to spin the web, and it gave young Bobby the inspiration to rouse his fellow Scots to fight and die for their wee bit hill and glen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #222222;">Your mileage
may vary on this, but it hurts to look at some of the great things we did only
once. We were held back by crippling overheads, and a client base who only
wanted stuff if it was fully funded by someone else.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But those ideas…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We
owed it to ourselves, and to the ideas, to try again a few times.<br />
<br />
Then there's the songs, the seeds, the concepts. So much stuff that was good,
bad or indifferent. But it is all sat there uncategorised on the hard drives. I
spent a fair whack of time metaphorically dusting the tracks off, giving a
rudimentary mix and bouncing so that I could at least have a listen when I was
in a less stressed state. I just don't get how I got to the place where the
track took shape, drums, bass, guitars, string arrangements, melodies and some
vocals, yet I left it mouldering.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That's two things that I've picked up from
our moving escapade. Unless we are seriously out of pocket or our income
generation is seriously compromised, I'm going to make sure we try our new ideas
several times. What's a good number? I don't know, but let's give ten times a
go. I shall let you know how it works out!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The second thing is that I will go
through my work in progress disc once a week in some downtime and mix down all
the seeds and snippets alongside the finished tracks and make sure I get them
all in an ideas folder and on our iPods. Maybe I'll send them out to
collaborators. Whatever, the thing is we came up with these ideas, so let's
really give them the chance they deserve.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. People often find him trying.</span></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-86130383610956850642012-12-24T04:29:00.003-08:002012-12-24T04:29:47.476-08:00New Software = All the fun of Christmas for adults.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a bit longer getting this blog live, due to travelling back from the States, jetlag and then travelling around the UK. </span><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Being a studio geek is great nearly all of the time. You get to sit in a dark room, and if you’re lucky enough to have windows, you get to have the curtains closed during the day. You get to play music all day and call it work. Unlimited coffee and tea breaks are almost mandatory. Technically you get to choose the hours you work, and technically you get to choose the work you do. Although this often turns out to be biting people’s hands off if they offer you work!</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Some bits are exceptionally cool. You get to buy awesome sexy gear. I remember getting my first Pro Tools rig and installing it over the space of a couple of days – optimising the computer, then installing and registering all the software. That was only a small rig with a small yet powerful interface (M-Audio FW1814). Days like these followed, with new bits of hardware arriving as our empire developed. The best one I have ever seen was when our first HD rig arrived, and everything was loaded off the back of a lorry (not like that) on a couple of pallets. Loads and loads of boxes to be unwrapped and opened. It looked like Christmas Day in the Thomas household all those years ago!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />As we’ve adapted and updated the studio, the big purchases are fewer and further between these days, but this morning was a nice change. Komplete 8 arrived, and the excitement I felt took me back to the day when I unwrapped my first Scalextric in the early 80s. I suspect that I had a bit of the apprehension my dad must have felt as well. I was all keyed up by the excitement of it all, but he probably had that little nag in the back of his mind – “ok, which bit of track will be dead? Will the power controllers work?” I suspect he knew that he’d have to put it all together whilst I hopped from foot to foot wanting to drive those little Walter Wolf WR5 F1 cars around (yeah, that reallyshows how old I am). Even then, I held up the same principles of today, as I was always the black car – Never Red. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I don’t know how well Scalextric works these days, but it seemed that part of the fun back then was the game not described in the users manual, called finding-the –faulty-bit-of-track-and-fixing –it-before-The-Queen-at-three. It might be that this game is no longer needed and everything works fine straight out of the box. (If Hornby wish to send me a set to verify this, I’d be delighted to report back...)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Which leads me to the point of this. There’s always that thought that you’ve spent however long installing the software and then you go to run it up and there’s a problem somewhere. I started installing an hour ago and I’ve still got 8 discs to go! But I want to hear it running now...Then there’s the next bit of having to learn how to use it. I suspect the old Scalextric was a bit easier to learn:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Ensure all track works. Check.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Align contact braids (carefully removing carpet fluff from previous death-dive over the banked curveinto the no-man’s land between telly and coffee table). Check.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Squeeze trigger, not too much but enough to get the car moving. Check</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Get all excited and send car through crash barriers and hurtling through space into potted Yukka.Check.<br /><br />Repeat ad nauseum till dad walks off in disgust.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />So I could have some tortured analogy about still having to check if all the tracks work, and I guess you could at a push suggest putting the car in the slot is akin to using a preset sound or effect (I said it was tortured). But maybe dusting off previously crashed melodies and songs and coaxing a bit more out of them with the new toys? Yeah, that works, and potentially having a new track spiralling out of control metaphorically into a household plant could be the overuse of presets, too much instant gratification.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />It always seems to be the case though, you get your system running properly, then something new comes along, or a new version is released, or a new OS update comes out and you spend the next few weeks running around trying to get everything working again. Repeat ad nauseum. </span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember being taught that once you get your system working, leave it. Do not upgrade until it is utterly necessary. But I guess these days we seem to be in public beta mode for all of the software manufacturers and upgrading / installing new customer service packs etc is almost a prerequisite. But then we should expect all of this thanks to Moore’s Law and the doubling of computer speeds yearly.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Hornby never did this to you. And you never had to register Scalextric using a challenge and response either…</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exy5xZuCrmk">Merry Christmas Everybody</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He *really* used to wind his dad up with the Scalextric.</span></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-39693053998526413932012-12-10T19:22:00.003-08:002012-12-10T19:25:03.668-08:00I used to be METAL<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">My mate at school, Chris Warne, once gave me a tape of a really exciting band. This
was way back in 87 or 88. The band was Guns n' Roses, the album of course was
Appetite for Destruction. GNR became a gateway b</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">and, and it wasn't long
before I was into the Mighty Maiden, Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer. Then things
got re</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">ally heavy, and I got into death metal. I went to uni, joined a
thrashy/death band and never looked back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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We went on the compulsory ill-fated tours, we got signed, our label went bust,
we travelled hundreds of miles to play to two people, we played in Europe where
the punters turned out in droves and knew the words to our songs (we didn't do
it twice though...).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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And it slowly fizzled out. We used to laugh at the guys who cut their hair, or
those who joined acid jazz bands. After a few years I joined a more numetal
type band and we had a lot of fun and a bit of interest from the press. Then
came the day, the fateful day. I started working with Mary Hopkin on her
archive albums. Nothing brings you up short like hearing beautifully played and
recorded folk music. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. I was walking
around, voluntarily singing folk tunes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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There's the scene in More Bad News where Den ribs Vim for singing "Mary
Hopkins" songs. Oh how we laughed. Oh how we thought metal and folk could
never mix.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Oh how I laughed at the guys who cut their hair and joined and joined acid jazz
bands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Oh how I cut my hair. Oh how I stopped listening to metal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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At the same time we employed Gerwyn as an engineer, and he came along with a
huge knowledge of acoustic acts. He was insidious. He'd leave CDs around. He'd
leave track suggestions. He was intent on turning me to the light side. This
was compounded by recording bass for Jessica Lee Morgan on her album.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br />
And so, I did my first gig in NYC this week, at the world famous Arlene’s
Grocery. It was a lot of fun. I’ve seen Jess do a couple of gigs here, and
we’ve seen friends' gigs – Jamie Hartman at Rockwood, Mike MacAllister in the
Alphabet Lounge. We’ve been around music most of the trip, as you’d expect. One
thing that has really struck me is the professionalism with which these things
happen. I’m talking about the way that the clubs actually run the nights. You
have to have something under your belt before they’ll even consider you. As a
rule, the sound guys are solid and they are both approachable and
knowledgeable, which is a shock when you consider some of the stuff we’ve all
had to put up with in the past.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Then there’s the professionalism of the bands – because the
venues demand you have some kind of heritage, it seems to ensure the bands are
good and do their thing. I think it’s a really exciting scene here, you have
these very hip places in Manhattan, and a really vibrant scene for songwriters
over in Brooklyn, and they’re all put through - if you’ll pardon the pomposity
- some kind of peer review.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And finally, there’s the professionalism of the punters. Yep.
That’s what I said. Generally, people turn up at the right time, and they are
attentive. They join in when they’re told to. They tend to be quiet when it’s
necessary – like if Jess is playing “Your Girl”. But they also know to actually
put their hands in their pockets and part with some hard-earned. It feels like
there is a mutual expectation between the performer, the punter and the venue.
The venues will only put on good bands, or bands that can pull a crowd. The
punters will only turn up if the band is good, thus the band has to be good. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The punters are what makes it. I hope that we’re going to
go that way in the UK with appreciative and attentive audiences backing great
musicians, and perhaps even, you know, paying them for playing. Because it
makes it a lot easier to keep schlepping your gear around when you know that
someone’s going to put some money your way.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He goes around singing "Shamarack" a little too often.</span></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-27540688329444896392012-11-30T14:51:00.002-08:002012-11-30T14:54:21.208-08:00I have GAS<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hello. My name is Christian Thomas. I have a problem with GAS – Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I first realised I had this sad affliction when I was a kid and my parents bought me a little Casio keyboard. As soon as I had it, I wanted a bigger one. When I got a bigger one a few years later (behave yourselves and stop giggling at the back), I realised that I wanted something to record the two instruments on. When I got older I wanted a guitar. Then I got a little bit older and got a job as a mechanic. This badly affected my GAS as I had to buy my own tools, and a Snap On man used to come round to our workshop every Friday. There was a lot of snobbery for tools (I’ve warned you) and if you didn’t have Snap On, you were a joker. Alongside all of this, I wanted another guitar. Then a bass. Then another one. Then some pedals. Whether I needed them or not, I wanted them.<br /><br />And then we got the studio. Buying stuff for the studio is like Christmas. Even buying relatively dull stuff like power conditioners is fun, because it comes all wrapped up in a box and you have to Open The Box Carefully In Case You Have To Send It Back. And then you have to be sad and geeky and plan where it’s all going to fit in the rack. That’s a guilty pleasure of mine that is. <br /><br />Now, I want to make a comparison with my being a mechanic here. There’s this incredible snobbery about the tools we use in both professions. As I said above, Snap On is THE brand of choice – Facom are probably second (they were when I was in the trade), King Dick and Britool were just about ok. Anything else? Forget it, you’re not serious. There’s a point to this – a crap drop forged spanner from a catalogue shop is going to break pretty quickly. With Snap On or Facom you get a 25 year guarantee. I’m sure they do break at some point, but I never saw it happen. I saw loads of crap cheap spanners break though. The moral – you buy crap, it will fail, you can’t do your job. Ignore the bit about a bad workman here – if a spanner snaps, it’s a crap spanner. <br /><br />We have the same in our industry. There’s loads of great names out there. Neve. SSL. AVID. Avalon. Pro Tools. Neumann. These are the industry standard. These are the Champions League. These are that bit in Star Trek when Zefram Cochrane is the first human to develop a Warp Drive and the Vulcans show up. These show you’re on the scene and you’re serious. <br /><br />And this is where the snobbery exists. The fact is, you can do your job without the exciting acquisition of beautiful shiny expensive stuff. A good engineer will get a good sound out of bog standard onboard preamps and a cheap mic. I’ve had to use cheap gear, and it’s done a job. But I wouldn’t want to rely on it every day. I’ve used certain manufacturers gear and it’s failed, or it has put excessive colouring into the sound. It always feels like a bit of a compromise. But the fact is, these things are ok, like those catalogue store spanners. They’re fine if you’re doing a bit of light recording, or you’re tracking some rough demos. But for shooting an album, well, if it was me, I know that I’d want to be using the best gear. <br /><br />As it goes, when we got our first Pro Tools HD rig, we had the Zefram Cochrane moment and we got approached by the big labels. We had the expansive studios, we had the mics and pres and we had the Warp Speed of the HD (I promise that is the last Star Trek reference in this blog). But for the day to day stuff we had an interesting position… <br /><br />Our day to day clients simply didn’t care. Either they were just happy to be recorded and be in the studio, or they didn’t want to pay the prices that having the plush studio, boutique mics and industry standard recording rig entailed. These guys preferred to go to backstreet studios down the road and get a cheap recording they weren’t happy with. Then they’d come and complain to us about it! <br /><br />It’s the clients who don’t care about the equipment that we really love working with. They’re very similar to the top end clients in that way. The big name artistes and labels kind of expect you to have the shiny expensive gear. They come in and just do the thing. The same thing goes for those nice clients who just want to record. It doesn’t matter to them what mic they’re using (or who else it has been used to record). All they know is we help them get the very best sound they can get, they don’t know or care that what they’re being recorded through is the best there is. <br /><br />But I know. I definitely want more gear. I can’t get away from it. It is a compulsion. It is my precious. It’s good though because it does obviously help me to do my job, and I know that just like a Snap On spanner, it will keep doing the job I want it to, reliably and the chances are it won’t fail on me in the middle of a session. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Christian Thomas is Production Director of Space Studios. His GAS is a serious problem. If you would like to make donations of boutique preamps, microphones, bass guitars or Snap On tools to him, he would be delighted.</span></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-57803435685979051762012-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:002012-11-28T13:55:31.886-08:00Permanently Plugged In<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gartner suggest that worldwide, one third of mobile phone sales are smart phones. In the UK and the US just over half of the sales are smartphones. I think New York must account for a huge part of that percentage in the US. It seems that most of the people you see on the street or on the subway are plugged into iPhones, and half of that amount are plugged into either Blackberries or Galaxies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> If they're not plugged into their phones, they're plugged into, and tapping away on iPads or Kindles. I did a very rough head count on the L train the other day. I reckon there were 80 people in the car, and 60 had headphones on. Around 20 were Beats by Dre. About 30 brave / stupid souls had their devices out in front of them. I grant you, you have to do that with a kindle or a iPad, but I digress. A further 8 were reading (shock, horror) books or magazines.<br /> <br /> "So what Chris, it's the 21st century, get with it man" I see you tweet. Well, yes. Don't forget I am a total gadget boy geek, I own iThings, I have a Blackberry (yeah, don't laugh).<br /> <br />My point is that so called Apple Theft is responsible for 14% of crime in NYC. These guys wander around, plugged in, and with their phones out in front of them. Now it's a free world, and let's face it, you should be able to do what you want without fear of some arsehole nicking your gear in broad daylight, or in dark night time. But with those figures, wouldn't you keep your phone in your pocket?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And another thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> I'd love to be able to use the iPad on the subway here (well, when it's not too packed, and you can get a seat). As a visitor, having MTA details available would be very useful, as would having a map of the Above World so you <a href="http://www.chris-t-bassist.co.uk/2012/11/a-new-york-blog.html">don't get in an harassed and in a hurry New Yorker's way</a>. But then you hear that very soon, there'll be free wifi on the subway, and I know they have trialled this on the tube in London as well. I think it went better than they thought as it was originally just for the Olympics, but I understand that it is on and available until Christmas now. However, it seems we're going to lose one of those sacred moments, like being on a flight, where you can legitimately and understandably be off the grid. Not that being on the subway is any way a quiet thing, but at least you can not think about work or emails whilst you are serenaded by the leak from the Beats headphones of the douchebag next to you.<br /><br />Then again, Jessica tells a story of how a record company executive tried to contact her offering a deal. Because she was on the underground she didn't get the message to her pager (ok, that's dating the story a bit) until she'd got back above ground and on the grid again. By the time she got the message and got back in touch, the deal had mysteriously disappeared. So if the technology had been in place back then she'd have had a deal. And I'd have been a kept man. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I guess I could sacrifice those moments of "peace" after all!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He is aware of how plugged in he is.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-25552977605061629092012-11-16T12:42:00.000-08:002012-11-28T13:54:28.622-08:00A New York Blog<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We arrived. After the fun and games of moving out, and being nomadic, saying farewell to our friends and family, we got here.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> I haven't been here since 2005, I loved it then and it doesn't look like much has changed, except perhaps it has got a bit cooler, which seems impossible.<br /> <br /> It's great walking around Manhattan, you've seen it so many times on tv or on film that it feels like home already. There's nothing like the sound that greets you as you go up the subway. The taxi horns, the sirens blaring and the smell of pretzels wafting down. Then you have to be careful on the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) because if you look up at the sights, an harassed and in a hurry New Yorker will politely remind you exactly as to where you should be looking and perhaps you wouldn't mind doing your sightseeing at a different time.<br /> <br /> Actually, that's interesting because I am going to explode a myth here. It isn't the tourists that cause problems. It's the New Yorkers. The ones who are checking their phones as they cross an avenue on red. The ones dawdling along doing the same. The ones who stand in groups on the sidewalk (got it right this time). The ones who stop dead in the middle of a crossing to talk about whether to go into a shop or not. And my favourite, the ones who stop at the top of the subway steps to check their emails! I mean really! Is it that important to see what Alejandro from accounts has just done on FarmVille?<br /> <br /> And the dawdling, come on guys you can walk faster than that, and if you weren't jammering into your iPhone you could probably manage to walk in a straight line too!<br /> <br /> Don't get me wrong, I love NY and I love the people, but walk more sensibly!<br /> <br /> So what are we doing here? The plan is simple, to work on our business plan away from the UK; it's too emotional there. Jessica is working to get gigs, and to get herself in front of management and labels, and hopefully picking up some session work as well. Then there's a bit more of a plan, to write as much material as possible in order to batter the publishers back in the UK. And somewhere in between, to hang out with Jessica's lovely family, meet some old friends, make some new friends and to have as much fun as humanly possible. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He is indeed having a nice day.</span>chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-71409080007533430472012-11-09T12:35:00.000-08:002012-11-28T13:52:55.636-08:00Jobs that make it all worthwhile<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like to think I’m a pretty laid back bloke. I try to take
the rough with the smooth roll with the punches and any other cliché you might
want to add. I guess it’s one of the most important attributes in our industry,
as is a very good sense of humour. Sometimes even my bonhomie gets a bit of a
battering. Usually when I’ve spent time on the phone with a bad timewaster – or
even better when I’ve spent time explaining the way we do things, then have the
would be client go somewhere else, then come back and complain about the
service they received at some two bob studio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then you think of the jobs that make it all worthwhile.
Most recently we worked with a special needs school who we have worked with in
the past. We worked with the same class we had worked with about four years
ago, so it was lovely they remembered us and great to see how they’d grown up.
We were recording the kids to backing tracks. I inwardly groaned when I saw the
songs I was recording, as we tend to record the same songs with parties and
solo experiences. But then I dropped the
track into record, and spent the next two hours with a huge smile on my face.
These kids were just putting everything into what they were doing, and they
were loving every minute of it. No drama, no divas, no pouting, they got on and
did their songs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were approached by Follow Your Dreams a while ago, and
they asked if we could help them out with some downtime recording for some of
the kids they work with. We do these sessions in pretty much the same way, but
because of some of the needs of the kids we tend to only offer one song. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, these were incredibly powerful and emotional
sessions. Some of the kids were exceptionally competent – one who springs to
mind beautifully belting out “Do-Re-Mi”. I had to pad the mic and drop the gain
way down on the preamp. Such gusto, and again he was absolutely loving it. He’d
obviously been practising with his parents, and he knew how good he was – he
took all the compliments he received as if everyone was merely stating the
obvious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then other sessions are heartbreaking, working with a
lad with such deep autism his communication with us was basically echolalia.
But thinking of him working his way through “You Got a Friend” still chokes me up. I had a sense of being welcomed
into his world for a very brief moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are other issues, in the way that Jess has
to adjust the way she coaches, or the way we manage the expectations and needs
of the clients. There’s also other things to consider, like making sure the kid
knows that a disembodied voice is going to talk to them through the headphones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These jobs are especially gratifying as we originally set
the company up with a remit to work with people who wouldn’t ordinarily get a
go at recording, and it seems that now we are making inroads doing this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On a different note, the hardest job I have had to do is
probably the one that puts everything into perspective. I recorded a solo
experience with a chap who had outlived his time. He’d been given six months to
live and his time was up. He knew he was going, and so he wanted to record his
and his wife’s favourite songs. All well and good, and we had a lot of fun.
Some of his friends turned up, and there was a bit of a party atmosphere in the
control room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then he wanted to record his goodbye message to his wife
and his family, and he broke down several times during this. I’d lost my dad a
few months before, so it was still a bit raw - I managed to keep it together,
but only just. I filmed him as well, and it was nice to be able to give his
wife all of the footage, and all of the audio from the sessions as well. It is
the hardest job I have ever done in my life, but it’s right up there in the “I
have done something that has had a positive effect on at least one other
person” stakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every time I hear “Sweet Caroline” I think of him and his
wife, and I think of all the other really nice people we have helped out. Whenever
I’m having a bad day I think of them and I thank them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios.
Sleep well, Dave.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-42673607305105771642012-11-02T12:32:00.000-07:002012-11-28T13:51:32.200-08:00The Moving Blog<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />For the second time in three years, we're packing things up in a hurry. The first time was back in 2009, when we moved out of our old 2500 sq ft premises. That was a bit of an "Operation Frequent Wind" last-helicopter-out-of-Saigon moment, as we cleared two studios and two edit rooms, along with the green room gubbins and kitchen stuff. The fun bit was trying to cram everything into a considerably smaller place, stacking gear high in boxes literally from the floor to the ceiling. We eventually got all the gear stowed in new homes, and sold or gave away the bulk of the rest of the gear.<br /> <br /> And now it's time to move again, as we head for pastures new, firstly across the Atlantic, and later, well...who knows?<br /> People say about us in the recording industry that we should never throw stuff away or sell it, and I agree with this sentiment on the whole. Except when I come across boxes from that first move that haven't been touched in the best part of three years. <br /><br />It is short sighted to bin working gear, but really how useful is any of this stuff? Sure, I have kept little interfaces, they can still work, and can be used in an emergency, or we can set it up for interns or whatever in future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have to consider all the compatibility issues. Have you got all the drivers? Does your OS support the hardware? Does the recording software support the hardware? Hell, does the hardware still work, or have small furry creatures set up home inside it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of it, you just have to let it go. It's funny how important it all seemed in those frantic days of leaving the old premises, and it was beyond the Saigon moment - it was more of a scorched earth policy. Nothing and no-one left behind! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thought of it still being there when we get back though fills me with a sickness, bordering on dread. Part of the plan when we get back is to move into a new form of the business, and having leftovers seems like it anchors us to an old way of thinking. Which incidentally is part of the reason for us trying pastures new, to get away from old mentalities, old fears and old hopes.<br /> <br /> Somewhere along the way, we have to pack away our personal gear, and get the house ready for tenants to move in.<br /> <br /> So anyway, see you Stateside! <br /><br />Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He is sick of seeing boxes.</span>chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-44871555245342134042012-10-26T12:26:00.000-07:002012-11-28T13:15:22.653-08:00If it sounds right…One of the first things people say to us is “You’ve put something
on my voice, I don’t sound that good do I?” – and generally the answer is no we
haven’t and yes you do. This is because of the extension of one of the famous
old rules of recording – if you get the sound right at source, it’ll sound
right in the mix. Ok, that’s a generalization, but the point is it’s often
true. If you get the sound of your guitar right when you’re tracking, you’re
not going to have too much to do in the mix. Likewise, if we get the very best
out of you when you’re shooting your vocals, then we’ll have less to do with
cutting takes together, let alone using trickery like autotune.<br />
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One of the guitarists in one of my old bands said that he
couldn’t read or write music, he played purely by ear. He reckoned if it
sounded right, then it probably was right. One thing to say about this guy, he
had an exceptional ear, and his pitching and timing was superb. He’s a very
good guitarist too! There’s that element where you might think it sounds
“right” but you’ve kind of glossed over a part, or perhaps changed a melody
slightly here or there. But if it’s got to be right, then you have to make sure
it’s right preferably at source.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a different field, the Alexander technique talks about
how we end gain. Specifically this is how we make a movement without actually
thinking about what we’re doing to do that movement. So we go to stand up, but
all we focus on is the actual goal of being stood up rather than the process of
transferring the weight from one base to another. Doing this end gain can lead
us to all sorts of pain and bad usage of our bodies. What has this got to do
with recording and getting the sound right at source? Well, very often people
just chuck microphones at instruments on a fire-and-forget principle. They
automatically close mic instruments on a drum kit, automatically close mic the
speaker on a guitar cabinet. But is that really giving you the best sound?
Sure, if it gets you the sound that you’re looking for, then fantastic! But how
much is being missed out if you don’t listen and find the truly optimum place,
rather than just close miking because that’s what Mr X producer said on such
and such a forum. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The principle is the same for when people come in to record
with us. Very often, the recording
session is the end gain if you’ll forgive my borrowing from Alexander. They
don’t think about the process of getting to that place, they don’t fully
practise the song, they may not be too clear on what happens in the bridge.
There is perhaps an expectation that they can just come in and record and we’ll
press a big red “MAKE IT GOOD” button and all will be well. Well, of course we
can (ahem) improve some elements, but we can’t polish the proverbial.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This leads us to another of those studio truisms – if you
have a good performer with a good instrument going through good (well placed)
mics and good preamps, then you should get something good at the end.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So if you’re thinking about heading into the studio, and
wondering how you can help your friendly engineer or producer to get you a good
sound, then make sure you give them a good sound at the source!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He
can often be found hiding under desks gently weeping.<o:p></o:p></div>
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chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154084775292053467.post-37816235831185935952012-10-19T12:19:00.000-07:002013-04-15T15:29:07.120-07:00Why do we bother making music?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I sit in front of my Mac with a brand spanking new,
unsullied-by-any-form-of-music-empty-Pro Tools session patiently waiting for me
to do something, I am struck by a fundamental question…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What on Earth am I doing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this day and age, why would anybody want to make music?
We have never seen such an explosion in the creative arts. The democratising
process brought about by incredibly cheap and powerful digital recording media
(audio, video, photography etc.), awesomely powerful software and computers has
made it possible for anyone and their dog to give their Muse some airtime. Now
I’m not saying that’s bad. It’s not, it is fantastic, and perhaps one day it
will bring about World peace, and align the planets. Well it might.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the point is why do those of us mug enough to do it as a
profession actually do it? Unless you’ve been living under an insane rock, you
must know that hardly anyone actually wants to buy music these days. As I write
this in early Autumn sun (you should get out from under that rock, it’s
beautiful at the moment!) all sorts of IP things are happening, and apparently
certain pirate site users are being targeted. Does this mean the end of
pirating? No, I don’t think it does, but it might mean that there are some ways
that we can attempt to earn a crust without having some divot upload our tracks
to P2P sites. Incidentally a friend of mine always seems to suggest that it
can’t be theft if he illegally downloads something as it as it still exists for
the person he stole it from. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The process of recording an album to the same quality of a
commercially available release involves some cost. Of course, you can pick up
some amazingly good gear for not much money – but do you have the understanding
of the software to make it work properly? Can you afford the very best mics to
get the right sound? Can you afford the instruments? Have you got the right
sounding rooms? I’ll talk about this in another blog (lucky you), but the point
is, all of the above cost money, and if the end results are stolen, how will
people be able to produce the same quality in the future?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The same goes for people who download films illegally. That
is crucifying the film industry, and it means that studios are not taking punts
on films, because obviously people are going to nick it rather than go to see
it at the cinema, or hire it on DVD (or get it through Netflix or Lovefilm or
AppleTV or whatever)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The same friend suggests that he wants to make a living from
his music rather than his day job, but he’s happy to have his day job fund his
music…<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s a certain amount of truth and beauty in that – he’s
doing his music for the right reasons, he has some damned fine riffs that he
needs to get out there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Surely that’s where we all started with making music? We
discovered that somewhere deep within us (somewhere very very deep in my case)
our Muse was suggesting we put that little melody together as we walked to B&Q
to get some wallpaper paste.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So where do we go next? Is there a way of making music available
in streaming form, so we never actually own the content? Is that actually desirable?
Is there a better way than Spotify? Is the Netflix model the way forward for
music?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or should we all just give it up and sing songs to each
round the campfire?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Thomas is Production Director at Space Studios. He
encounters blank Pro Tools screens too
often.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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chris-t-bassisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898140620451230217noreply@blogger.com0