Moving Forward

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and looking forward to an enjoyable new year.

Things here have started to come together again, the studio has been back up and running for a little while now with brand new computers installed with Windows 7. I must say using Windows 7 really seems to make everything else run very smoothly, although it did take a little tweaking. Sorry to all those Apple fanboys, but having used both Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I have to admit that the latter is everything Apple wishes it could be but isn't in so many ways. I am very happy with my decision.

As for the album, I have been reorganizing the songs and at this stage it looks like there will be 12 songs in total for the Virtual World album. Which is great because I originally only intended for there to be 10, but sometimes you have stuff you like so much that you just don't want to let it go. Of course anything could happen and maybe something may still be dropped after we have played the songs to a select few for feedback.

Another update will be soon!

Keep on Rocking.

It Never Rains But It Pours

Sometimes I feel like I am recording Chinese Democracy (that's right, the album that took 15yrs to make). A few weeks ago all of the inputs into my desk seemed to stop working, so after spending a lot of time fault finding, re-installing things, changing cables and computers etc. (the desk controls the computer) nothing seemed to fix it. I also have a removable drive system, so I replaced the current drive with the older one that was running my Cubase SX3 system and the problem was still there. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the problem was my firewire interface card.

So I ordered a new one, which took two weeks to get here, only to install it and discover that firstly the new replacement card uses a different chip set to the old one which my system really doesn't like (thanks Adaptec!). For more information on why this can be a problem just do a Google search for "Tascam FW 1884 firewire adaptec 4300".

So after a little bit of tweaking I got it up and running again but my input problem still exists. So now I believe there is a problem possibly on the motherboard as everything worked fine when connected to my Macbook Pro. Which means I have to now go out and totally rebuild my computer as I can't buy a replacement for my motherboard anymore (it is a few years old now) and all of the internal connections/configs have changed in the last few years.

Just to add salt into the wounds I came down with laryngitis last week and I couldn't speak for 3 days! Maybe in 14yrs time I might be able to finish this album :(

Hopefully next post I will have some good news.

Keep on Rocking!

Cubase 5 and More Delays

I have been extremely busy of late and unfortunately very little of my time has been in the studio. With the small amount of time I have spent in the studio, I have been getting used to some of the new features in Cubase 5 which arrived a few weeks ago after many delays. Overall I am very impressed with it and hopefully things should work a lot smoother now between the two studios.

I have also written a couple of new songs for the album whilst at the same time discarding a couple of others. Sometimes a song can sound good at first but eventually it doesn't have that lasting quality. To me this is important, and if I am not enjoying the song anymore then I can't imagine anyone else enjoying it. That said, Mick Jagger never liked Satisfaction when they first recorded it and look what happened. However in the end decisions need to be made and you just hope that they are the right ones.

Unfortunately all of this also means that finishing the album will be delayed a little. Primary recording is nearly complete and we have been working on rough mixes as we go, including entirely re-recording the longest and most complex song on the album (about 10mins long), which should help speed up the final mixing stages, at least I hope so. So at this stage We are looking towards a release date around Feb - March 2010 but this could change.

Of course there is a silver lining to all of these delays. That is: Considering this is the first album to be written, recorded, produced, mixed and engineered etc. in our own studios hopefully we will have ironed out all the bugs and pitfalls so that the next album can be produced with a process like a well oiled machine.

I will try to provide some more updates soon.

Keep on Rocking!

Studio Upgrade

Things are going to slow down a little, music wise, over the next two months as I have made the decision to upgrade the studio software to Cubase 5.

Currently I am using Cubase SX 3 but Murray has recently moved to version 5 in his studio and it is now becoming a little awkward going back and forth between the two studios. So the logical solution is for me to also upgrade.

This should provide many advantages, as the new software is far superior to the one we have been using. Also it will allow Murray to record the drums in his studio and bring the recordings back without any issues.

The down side is that I will have to learn how the new software works and I may need to re-sort some of my workflow, and this will take time.

In the end it will be a great benefit for the album.

Rock on!

Bit by Bit

Bit by bit over the last couple of weeks things are slowly coming together. As mentioned in my last post, with my wife having a baby I have been kept quite busy and haven't been able to dedicate too much time to working in the studio.

But we have managed to do some work on the album. I finished the vocals for the latest song and yesterday Paul came down to the studio and recorded a couple of tracks.

Slow Progress

These past two weeks have been a crazy roller coaster! Considering we hadn't really done too much over the past two months, we all had put aside some time to work on the album during the last two weeks but everything that could go wrong did.

Firstly my wife is expecting a baby anytime soon, so that has kept me busy and then my young son came down with a bad cold, keeping me up late at night and thus my mind was not very in tune with the studio. Then we had a friend's father die, all during the first week! We only managed to get the basics of one song done and I have to re-do my vocals as they sound forced and tired.

The second week hasn't been much better. Unfortunately I picked up the cold and was out of action for most of the week. Singing with a cold is not a good thing.

Having said that, I managed to put together another song which I wrote last week. I just need to finish the vocals, which I hope to do over the next couple of days. It has a very 80's feel to it, which wasn't really intended, but hey it works.

Keep on Rocking!

Sneak Peak

We have had a lot of people asking us about what the music for the new album sounds like. So here are a couple of videos taken from the studio for a sneak peak at what to expect.

Please remember that these songs are still not finished or mixed as there is still a lot of work to do and possibly some changes to them both, but we hope these will give you an idea of where we are heading.

The first song is the title track from the album called "Virtual World" and the second song is titled "Everything for You".

Enjoy...

Song in the Making

Here is a short video clip of a song that currently has the working title of "Born to Live". This is essentially how a song begins and then we build upon it from here. As these are only the initial rhythm tracks some of what you hear may change yet.

Enjoy...

Update

It has been a while, so here is a little update.

We have been slowly working on the album and have had a little break recently. We have some new gear in the studio which we have been having some fun with and probably getting a little side tracked :) But not to worry, the plan is still to have the album out later this year.

However the real news for today is that we have launched a myspace page for the band: http://www.myspace.com/bangkoknights

Keep on Rocking!

Mark.

New songs

Just a little update, we had Paul Berryman in the studio on Sunday. We spent the time working on a couple of song ideas he has for the album, and I can say they are going to sound great!

Malfunction

Yesterday I managed to break one of the monitor speakers! The tweeter decided it just no longer wanted to work. So here is the culprit:

Album Progress

As this blog is new, we should take the time to let you know where we are up to.

Basically we have been seriously working on the album on and off for the last 3 months, before that we had spent most of 2008 tweaking things in the studio, recording bits and pieces as ideas came and just getting a good (as best we can) work flow up and running. We try to spend time in the studio at least once a week, sometimes more.

That work flow essentially works like this: I get an idea for a song, I work out a rough structure for it, I then record almost all the guitar parts, then I put a guide vocal track down. After all of that we then leave the song alone for a couple of weeks (sometimes longer) and then come back to it and decide whether anything needs to change with the structure, now that we have something we can actually hear in its somewhat entirety. This is important because sometimes in the heat of the moment you might think you have just recorded something amazing and/or perfect, but when you come back to it with "fresh ears" you may have a different opinion. Once we are happy with the structure I then do the final vocal tracks, then we add any extra guitars or changes, then other instruments, then drums and finally we do the mixing and mastering etc.

To some this may seem a little disjointed, but it works for us and that's what matters. When you own your own studio you can get away with this :)

That being said this is where we are up to: We have now completed the final vocal tracks for 4 songs and are sounding great, and the other songs are in various stages of the above process.

I should also take the time to thank Trond Holter for his advice on the vocal tracks. Thanks again man!

Rock on!

Mark.

Welcome

Welcome to the Mark Hamlet Studio Blog! Here we will be posting about our time recording the album 'Virtual World' at Virtual Night Studios. Keep checking back for info, pics and video!

As the posts go up please feel free to comment!