Crystal Castle Trip

I had promised my friend Chris that I would take him to Crystal Castle some day, and I finally took him there yesterday. It is one of my favorite places around Byron Bay, and I usually spend anywhere between 2 and 4 hours there no matter how many times I've been there before. It is scenic, serene and beautiful.

Here are a few pics.

A Dragon fly

Rocks

 

Little Lamp

Leaves in Harmony

Weeping Rock

Crystal

Crystal Singing Bowls

A Singing Bowl

Life in Water

Pearl Drops

Journey

The Path of Life

Extreme Music Making

My friend Carlos showed me this link the other day... It completely blew me away. Featuring Amon Tobin, a Brazilian born genius settled in Montreal, the series of videos shows how he makes music.

If you're into sampling, this one's your new favorite :) Check it out!

It's really inspiring how far some people can go to make music out of random sounds. I tried something earlier this evening and was pleasantly surprised to see what I could do with sounds recorded on my laptop's microphone and time stretching, pitch shifting and modulating those sounds. I'm seriously considering getting Max for Live so I can program my own plugins like my friend Alex Moss. He built a superb plugin from scratch that samples and loops a random sample that you feed into it. I fear I'll lock myself up for a month and just play around with the software and eventually get fired from my job if I start using Max!!

Another link that you might find interesting is http://www.everydaylistening.com/ . This is a brilliant and inspiring website showing some really innovative artistic work that people are doing all around the world.

Enjoy! :)

To Sydney or Not To Sydney...

I've been toying with the idea of moving to Sydney. I have family friends there. It's a lonely life out here in Brunswick and Byron post 5pm for me. I'm not a party animal. I don't drink or smoke. I don't like to be around people who do either. I'm a boring guy.

But Sydney is appealing. There's a lot more life out there. There's a lot more happening for me, lots more like minded people to hang out with and create more music. Not to say Byron's not good enough for that. I have come across some amazingly talented musicians since I've been here and it's been a humbling experience having musical brainstorms with them. I've had spontaneous jams, both on stage and off stage and it's the atmosphere I cherish and love the most when these jams happen.

Although I don't miss city life, I long to share my life in Brunswick/Byron with someone. It does suck living alone. I've been wanting to move out of Brunswick and into Byron, somewhere close to where I work, but I know that nothing's gonna change. I'm a boring guy. I'll continue to be one. :)

Finally a Nice and Relaxing Day

I decided to take the day off.... well... most of it.

I spent the day with Carlos and Nora, two of my close friends here in Byron. We went to the Byron Markets and then had some lunch. We spent the evening on the beach and hung out at their place for a while. It was one of the most relaxing days I had in a long, long time. The day was gorgeous. The sky was as blue as it can be and the water was as clear as it can be. The sun was blaring, but the wind was steady and pleasant.

I figured I need to go to the beach more often, considering that I live literally a 5 minute walk away from Brunswick Beach - a long, beautiful stretch of sand that goes right up to Byron Bay!

I'm about to start a collaboration with Carlos for my own music soon, where I will be integrating the flute into some expressive electronic music. Looking forward to the production sessions... it's gonna be so much fun!

Nora Wendell

Carlos Pagotto

Nora and Carlos

Glendon's Angels - Season Finale

So I had my last recording session with the Angels on Saturday night and it was another hard night at work for the girls. We recorded vocals on the 6th and last song and it went really well. All the girls nailed their takes and we were actually done with the vocals fairly early.

I did a quick rough mix, after which I was forced to sing in exchange for a bar of chocolate. I caved in to their demands. I think henceforth they'll offer me a bar of chocolate for NOT singing... WIN! :) . We had our little photo shoot and sweet goodbyes. Tracy is leaving for uni soon. Laura's in year 12 and Johanna's still in school.

L-R: Rob, Paddy, Stephanie, Akshay, Glendon, Tracy, Johanna, Laura

L-R: Akshay, Paddy, Laura, Glendon, Tracy, Johanna, Stephanie, Rob

L-R: Glendon, Akshay, Paddy, Stephanie, Rob, Tracy, Laura, Johanna

I hope to work with the Angels again some day. It has been an absolute pleasure recording them and I hope they had a good experience recording with me and the crew. MASSIVE thanks to Stephanie Kong and Paddy Raleigh who have relentlessly assisted me through the recording sessions. And thank you Glendon for giving me the opportunity to work with truly gifted talents!

Season 2 updates will be added shortly :)

The End.

Byron Bay Lighthouse At Night

We were in Byron for some dinner and ice-cream tonight and we decided to go to the Byron Bay Lighthouse. It is one of my favorite places in town and I like to go there quite often, especially at night since there aren't many people around and the place is quiet and serene and it's virtually a hideout for me. It's one of those places where I would stay there all night if I could!

I took my camera along hoping to catch the lighthouse in all its glory in moonlight. All the pics have been clicked in pure moonlight and there has been no processing done on them, except for minor cropping. Here are a few samples... Click on the pics to open full resolution pics!

A Painful Day

Today I had one of my worst days of the year so far. It began with a little niggle on the left side of my abdomen which rapidly grew into an unbearable shooting pain. It reached a point where I could barely stand up, so I took some time off work and slept off on a couch in another office so no one could find me. Funny enough, the CEO of the company walked in, had a chat with one of the girls in the office and walked out... and didn't even spot me :)

The pain has been going up and down all day and I'm clueless about why or how it came to be... it's just there... constantly poking at me as if to say "Hi... I'm still here... can you feel it?" I had dinner and went out with a few friends to my favorite place in town to distract myself and it worked well... I distracted myself with some photography again. It's really cool to be able to do so!

Anyway, the bottom line is I'm still in a lot of pain and I'm sincerely hoping it goes away tonight!! I desperately need to catch up on some sleep!

Crazy days

Just thought I'd touch base...

I've been sleeping 3 hours a night on average for the last couple of weeks. It's been intense trying to maintain a balance, but I never expected to be this busy. I've got a massive bag full of tracks pending and I will be needing some help to mix the songs I've been recording. 

I've been getting a lot of projects on a weekly basis, and it has come to a point where I have to put all new recording projects on hold. I really need to catch up on some rest over the weekend, but I don't see that happening either. I need to go to Melbourne for a break, but I'm not sure if I'll be going since I'd like to attend a ceremony at work around the same time...

If a day had 30 hours... you'd probably find me like this on my bed....

And no it wouldn't mean that I'm drunk... I'm just a mad machine who can go without sleep for days on end, and still be productive and creative. I've been working on some incredible projects lately that have pushed my mental, physical, creative and emotional boundaries and it's been a pleasure pushing myself to these new limits.

Jean's Cafe

Our little Jean, the lady who runs the cafe at my workplace deserves a theme song. I came up with this track when I was a student. It turned her into a pop star overnight as the track went around emails being circulated like a virus among the students.

I thought I'd revive it again among the current bunch of students, so I put it up on SoundCloud.

Here's a link if you're interested!

http://soundcloud.com/flautistry/jeans-cafe

All the sounds you hear in the rhythm section were sampled using a Zoom H2 recorder, then chopped up. I made a sample patch using EXS24 in Logic and wrote a beat. I made another patch with Jean's vocals so I could have a play with a little beatbox solo :)

Have fun!

Glendon's Angels - S1 E6

I had another recording session with Glendon's angels last night, which went on late into the night... pretty late....

Glendon played the drums, which we recorded last Thursday, courtesy of the awesome Stephanie Kong. Glendon and Laura recorded the bass and keys at home. By the time we did the vocals, the girls had a full on backing track to sing to, which hadn't been the case so far.

We started recording at 10:00pm and went on till about 2:00 am. Johanna is a little powerhouse and the first take was a bit too powerful. Once we pointed it out she mellowed it down, but we would've liked her to push it a bit harder. Without us saying anything about it, miraculously, the third take was spot on - perfectly executed and the emotion was right there!

Tracy and Laura have sweet silky voices and they lay down really nice harmonies. Glendon had a production idea of a large choir singing "aahs" in the background, during which I had another 'most embarrassing moment in a recording studio ever' moment. I had to sing my idea of the harmonies to the girls... ummmm... enough said....

At the end of the recording, we felt that we had a full song, and I felt that I needed to deliver a better rough mix of this song than I had with the other songs... The idea was to make the drumkit sound huge even though we had very few microphones on the kit and no room mics. I thought room mics wouldn't help the vibe of the song since I wanted clean and short transients for each drum hit, but still somehow make it sound huge.

There's nothing a bit of reverb can't fix. I used a long reverb for the drums and the vocals and the keys (since I was too lazy to patch another reverb... silly me). Ironically, it worked well! The drums sounded big... really big! I doubled up the snare rim shot on a duplicate track so that I could match the levels of the snare hit as well as the rim clicks. After some quick EQ and compression, I had a decent rough mix happening.

Glendon, Rob (Laura's father) and the girls stayed on till I finished the rough mix... I really appreciate that. I felt bad for them for making them wait so long, but they went back happy and that's what counts! Stephanie Kong and Paddy Raleigh toiled into the night with me and I cannot thank them enough for their help. I could virtually see the sun rise at 5:45am as I was driving back home!!

We've recorded five songs and there's a 6th one coming up next weekend before Tracy leaves for uni. It's been an incredible journey so far on this project, and I will be putting all my heart and skills into this production. It means a lot to me.

The Long Week That Was

Yep... just as I thought I could have an easy week, it ended up to be longer than expected... a lot longer!

I've been staying up almost every night trying to finish stuff that's been pending. I ended up not sleeping at all on Thursday night. Friday was a good day at work though... My dear colleague and friend, Jan Muths got his BA (Honours) in Recording Arts from Middlesex University, and PJ (Campus Manager) decided to throw a surprise for him . We dragged him out of the office at 4 pm and PJ sneaked up from behind and chucked a graduation robe on Jan's shoulder! Needless to say, Jan was ecstatic and a everyone chilled out for the next hour at the cafe with a few beers and chips.

I stuck to drinking chai... I got a few pics though!

 PJ sneaking behind Jan to throw the gown on him

Left: Jan Muths... "super nerd"

Right: PJ congratulating Jan

My Little Sister's Dream Come True

I'm really proud of my little sis... she finished her Bachelor's Degree in Arts, but was always interested in becoming a beautician. We both succumbed to peer pressure and had to finish our degrees before we took the plunge to pursue our passion. 

Finally, she took the plunge and opened up her Salon, Spa and Academy called Flicks and Fringes. It looks better than I expected and to see her grow into an individual with authority over a business is satisfying. She is very skillful and creative and has the ability to amaze you with her creativity... and I'm sure she'll amaze everyone who walks into her salon.

Here's a sneak peek into her setup.

I wish her all the best in this venture and I hope to see many more branches open up in the near future! Her brand is here to stay!

Pro Tools Tricks 2 - Recording

Have you ever used "duplicate" playlists? If you haven't, you should. Duplicating playlists allows you to record over what you just recorded, without actually erasing the audio region that you had before. That way you get to see all the takes once you open your playlist view on the track.

Bear in mind though... this could get hectic if you have a musician who is struggling. I also tend to use loop record mode for musicians who struggle with just that one little complex part. I set my loop points so that the musician has just enough pre-roll and post-roll to be in the groove and record him on the loop. Then you can right click on the region and export your matched loop regions to new playlists, something that you can use for post production a lot.

If your musician needs over 10 takes, get him to take a break. If he needs over 20, tell him to go home
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But I didn't tell you that :)

What drives me?

A lot of my friends constantly ask me... "How do you do it?". They're referring to my crazy sleep patterns and late nights followed by early mornings, followed by more late nights and early mornings. It's as if my body is able to cope with 4 hours of sleep a day, or so it seems. It does have its drawbacks, and long term effects, but at the moment I'm in a creative space like never before. I've been learning things at an incredible pace and I see myself getting better at it. I've been working 8 hours a day, then recording musicians at night, only to come back home and shoot pictures and time lapses. So how do I do it?

Watch this video below and see if it answers my question. I first watched this video when Dr. Gert Gast showed it to my class when I was still studying. It has left a lasting impact on me, and has radically changed my views on social acceptance of highly creative individuals.

 

This is the only video that I have saved on my phone and I watch it regularly before I sleep. Sir Ken Robinson is a brilliant speaker, and what he says in the video, is totally in sync with my belief. I am creative by nature and I have a habit of thinking outside the box... all the time. I grew up in an education system that not only concentrated on academic progress, but also nurtured my extra curricular talents and encouraged me to pursue what I love and have faith in my abilities. I think I am very lucky that I love my job. I don't think of it as work, but merely an activity that I am passionate about. I do get tired and it does get stressful sometimes, but I still have this drive that pushes me to keep at it, and improve with each passing day.

I am enjoying this creative space at the moment, and I hope that my friends and acquaintances benefit from my creative space as well, so that their talents are nurtured and encouraged. I love learning new things and I am open to learning virtually anything that I come across. At the moment, I am learning more about photography and polishing my skills in audio to take me to the next level.

That is how I do it. :)

Night Sky Shots

I got back home after a late night recording session and looked up... I just couldn't miss this opportunity! My initial idea was to go for a time lapse, but it was already 3:00 am and the camera's battery wasn't charged enough to go for a couple of hours. Still, I figured I could practice some shots so I could find a perfect place to go for a time lapse the following night. While I was setting up, I saw at least 3 shooting stars at different intervals... if only I could've captured them!!

I need to get a faster wide angle lens, which I hope to borrow from Glendon before I buy one for myself. I need to set my exposure time to <15s or the stars move just enough to cause a blur. OR... I set up my telescope mount and track the stars all night :) Anyhoo, enjoy!