Tag: scott riesterer

CDs and Contests and Gigs and News and Stuff

Hey look what I got!
Hey look what I got!

The CDs of Sonidos de Cuba have arrived! I’ve already given a few out to some of my Rockethub supporters and the rest of you will receive them soon. They look great thanks to Tania Clarke’s wonderful album artwork. Next I’ll send off a few to CD Baby so the physical copies will be available there too.

It’s a little funny. Two of the people I’ve given copies to have commented on how long it’s been since they’ve bought a physical CD. I know the format is definitely waning in use as people move towards digital and cloud based music, but I really wanted to have some physical copies. It just makes the album feel that much more real, complete, and professional. Continue reading “CDs and Contests and Gigs and News and Stuff” →

The Stories behind the Sonidos

Sonidos de Cuba (Sounds of Cuba)

In March of 2010, I travelled with my fiance to Cuba for ten days. Despite the short amount of time I spent there, I was overwhelmed by the complexity, culture, rhythm and pulse of the country. I brought with me a Zoom H4N portable recorder and gathered various snippets of the rich acoustic landscape. After returning home, I began using these recordings as a foundation for my own music. I spent many hours editing, warping, looping, filtering, sampling, and mangling the sounds to distil them into songs. Over the next three years, I created an album of electronic music that attempts to tell the story of this visit. I made this music in an effort to relive and restructure not merely the recordings, but the memories of my time there in order to share this journey with others. Hopefully you’ll feel transported as you listen and enjoy these Sonidos de Cuba. Continue reading “The Stories behind the Sonidos” →

Sonidos de Cuba, finished at last!

Sonidos de Cuba, finished at last!

Sonidos de Cuba is now live and available for download from Bandcamp and CD Baby. I’ve also ordered a limited run of CDs with beautiful artwork by Tania Clarke of Side-B Design.

You can get the album through either of the links below:
http://scottmfr.bandcamp.com
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/scottriesterer

My subscribers may have received a flurry of e-mails in their inbox yesterday. I sincerely apologize for that! I was diagnosing a problem on my website that made the widgets appear at the bottom of the page, and the apparent solution was to republish every post. I didn’t realize that it would e-mail each post again! You’ll notice that the widgets are back at the side of the page, and now there’s a nice little Bandcamp store ready for action.

In the next couple days I’ll be making a more detailed post about the album, describing and explaining the stories behind the songs and the recordings used in the songs.

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!

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