Category: News

Introduction to Crowdfunding

I’ve launched my first foray into Crowd-funding! In order to raise funds to complete my album I’ve decided to use a site called Rockethub. Similar to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the site allows you to raise money by offering rewards. In my case I’m basically collecting presales of my album. I’m hoping to raise $500 to cover CD duplication and digital distribution. If I manage to exceed my target I’ll be able to put that towards having the album mastered. Any contribution you’re able to make is much appreciated!

Sonidos de Cuba has a new look!

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Check out the cover art for my album! It was recently finished by the beautiful and talented Tania Clarke of Side B Design Studio (side-b.ca) who also happens to be my wife. She took some gorgeous photos during our trip to Cuba. If you’d like to have a look please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidebdesign

In other news, my show at Sequential Circus 11 on August 18th was a lot of fun! I was pretty nervous leading up to (and during) my set. I’ve never sweat so much while playing and my slick lips had a hard time hitting my higher range. I was feeling pretty sloppy with my trumpet playing, and not feeling too good about my performance until after I finished. I received a good round of applause and was given a lot of congratulations on my set so I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought! The rest of the evening was fantastic.

Phonotactic had a great journey of a set using Ableton and a Kaosspad. He went from mellow funky dubby music to thumping floor fillers. Then Tarekith took the stage with his Elektron duo (Octatrack and Machinedrum). His set was smooth, cool, and full of slick production. Next, Dark Arps emerged with gut throbbing basslines and tech funk delights. My friend dubbed him the Techno-borg as he was wearing a Sci-Fi suit that glowed and flashed to the music. It was hot enough there in shorts and a T-shirt so I imagine he was baking in his Borg suit. Muxx followed him with a high energy techno set that reminded me of fun times in early raves. His “One night in East Van” had the whole crowd chanting along with him. Lastly Vincent Parker switched things up with psychedelic synth washed dubby beats. Good times indeed!

The Sequential Circus crew should be posting the sets on their website soon if you’d like to hear them for yourself. I’ll post a link once they emerge. Meanwhile, I’m working on sound design for one of the rooms at this year’s Dunbar Haunted House. It’s turning into a fun creative project making the atmosphere for a Daycare of Doom. I’ve even done some voice-acting. Just one song left to complete for Sonidos de Cuba. This one’s called Ascensor (for now) and features a recording of the elevator in our apartment in Vedado. It would only go up to the 7th floor, but our Casa Particulaire was on the 9th so we’d have to hoof the last two floors. Working elevators are something I never realized I took for granted in Canada until then. Once that one is finished I’ll spend some time mastering the album and then I’ll be able to finally unleash it on the world!

Upcoming gig at Sequential Circus 11!

I’m pleased to announce that on August 18th I’ll be opening at Sequential Circus! Playing at one of these shows is a real honour for me as they’ve been a big inspiration for my own music. They’re a bi-annual party focused on live electronic music. Always a lot of fun with a friendly happy crowd.

Here’s the official word: “Sequential Circus is dedicated to promoting the understanding and recognition of live electronic audio/visual performance as an evolving artform. Through our events, we will provide a venue for artists to explore and develop expressive technologies and to perform before an appreciative audience.  We will strive to provide the best possible experience for artists, audiences, volunteers and staff, and to foster a healthy artistic community with Vancouver as its capital.” http://sequentialcircus.ca/

One of the guys playing is someone that I actually learned from in developing my own live set. If you’re looking for some ideas or instruction on how to acquire and put together a live electronic gig he’s got a very thorough blog entry. He’s got some other great stuff on site too so it’s worth checking out. http://tarekith.com/assets/playinglive.html

For my live set I’ve stemmed all of my songs down to 8 tracks. Specifically Kick/Snare, Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Bass, Chords & Leads 1, Chords & Leads 2, Chords & Leads 3 (this one is usually my solo horn stuff), and SFX. That way, I’m using each track on the APC40 and I don’t have to scroll side to side. I use a custom Live Effect Rack on each track with Looping, Bit Reduction, Distortion, High and Low Pass Filters, and an Auto Filter. I’ve got Delay and Reverb on sends. I use Send C for my white noise sweeps. I have a noise generator controlled by an envelope follower that I created in Applied Acoustics Tassman on Send C, and each track is sending full blast to that return (along with Sends A & B). I use the crossfader to control volume and the Cue button knob to vary the cutoff frequency. It occurs to me now that since I’m not ever changing the value of Send C I could assign that one to something different if I wanted. I’m also not making use of the Panning controls at this point. So there’s still a couple things I can change to spice things up. Oooohhhhh the possibilities!

One last bit of exciting news: I’ve been featured on CITR Radio! You can listen to a podcast here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Citr–ClassicalChaos/~3/ZXbm3uVjU6g/20120722-090104-to-20120722-100117.mp3

Audio Trademarks

This is an interesting article from the Vancouver Sun regarding the recent move by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to allow the trademarking of sounds: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Sounds+that+send+message/6490368/story.html?goback=.gde_726837_member_109465483

When I was working on the concept audio for the Chevy Volt, there was a tremendous amount of thought and discussion that went into the emotional impact that the sounds within the vehicle would have on the driver. They wanted to convey the power of the Volt, but at the same time make it feel welcoming and not agressive. They also wanted to highlight the green technology of the car. I experimented with synthetic and natural sounds like water and wind to zero in on the tones that best suited what they described. I recorded spinning magnets, my breath through a conch shell, and a plucked cello and layered them together for one cue. The whole project was an interesting challange and a fun process. I’m glad to see that CIPO is taking audio trademarks into consideration and I hope it means that more companies will consider audio branding.

More travel means more recordings

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I recently returned from my honeymoon in Japan and Thailand. Naturally, I brought my Zoom H4N portable recorder, but this time I also brought a Rode NTG3 shotgun mic and a small contact mic. I recorded over 5GB of audio over the three week trip and I know I’ve got some great stuff but I haven’t had a chance to touch it yet. I really enjoyed all the chirps of the Cicadas and the rhythms of the trains so I spent a lot of time recording those.

I’ll post my recordings once I’ve had a chance to go through them and clean them up. Then I’ll start mangling them into music!