Pyra Draculea Sound

Fini. I Think.

2011-09-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

This blog hasn't been updated in ages and it seems a little superfluous to where I'm really putting my effort in - my Maqlu project - so screw it.

Perhaps in the future I may revisit it, but basically I'm just going to maintain the one blog from now: blog.maqlu.com

Maqlu stuff: Video for "Lord of the Flies"

2011-05-03T04:12:00.000-07:00

Made a lil' video for "Lord of the Flies" off the new Maqlu EP, Haze.

All footage is in the public domain, music and lyrics copyright 2011 Pyra Draculea.

Haze is now available on iTunes.

And to tie it in with the more usual theme of this blog, promotion tips etc., here's a couple points I don't mention elsewhere on the web: I whipped this video up in Final Cut Pro over the course of an evening. Yes, more time might have made it better, but hey, there's some fun spots where things line up just so, and I think it's a good example of what a band or a solo artist can do on their own. Actually, you can do an even better job, as I plan to next time. Might even spend a whopping two evenings on it.

You can do just as good a job in iMovie and there's a bunch of other free or cheap video editors - I just use Final Cut as I learned it 3 years ago at school and I already have the software and can't be bothered to learn any other program.

Hell, you can make a video on your iPhone now.

And as noted above, this is all public domain footage. In other words, this is an example of a "zero dollar music video" which is one of the latest buzz things. All it cost me was time in digging through archive.org, time in going through my videos and making sub-clips which I though might work, and time in figuring out how to order them and then tweak the edits into the final form.

I plan to do more zero dollar videos over the rest of the spring and summer until all of my songs have one. Some might retain a public domain focus as for this one, some might be me figuring out what footage to shoot around town and working from that, some might be me roping my best friend into filming me in mock performance type situations, etc. All of them will cost me only time.

So - there ya go. I'm the queen of excuses and procrastination, and as a solo artist I don't get to share the workload and now even I have a music video.

2011-04-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

New Maqlu EP Haze comes out tomorrow, actually it's already up on iTunes.

Secretly I'm dreading the bullshit cheerful robot email from CDBaby congratulating me on the release. I remember a year ago today when Blood came out thinking "oh shit, that was today?!" when I got that email.

I was in the studio out at Vogville running for Dave Ogilvie while he mixed Raggedy Angry's new album. We had just picked them up onto our management roster at Synthetic and I was busy as Hell with that session and the usual work stuff. Also April 30, 2010 was the start of the MIDI Ghetto tour with 16volt, Chemlab, and Left Spine Down and I was going to the show at the Rickshaw Theatre. And various other shit was going on that meant that while I was glad the release was out, I really couldn't deal with it appropriately and in fact I didn't until damn near July. I think the only people I told on the actual day of the release of Blood were Isaac, Josh and Clayton, because I ran into them at the Rickshaw and somehow the conversation got around to what I was up to musically.

I was a little thrilled, though, that I'd managed to actually do the release and get it out there. Even though the reality is it's not really that hard to do, you'd be surprised how many artists never even get to that stage. And I of course came of age in the days of "Big Daddy Record Company" as I seem to recall Mona Mur putting it, so actually just going ahead and putting it out there all by my lonesome was a big deal, at least perception-wise if not in terms of the actual reality of recording, mixing, getting it mastered, doing the art and getting it released. As with so much these days in the current state of the business, it's getting your head wrapped around the process more so than the actual process.

The year's been hectic and weird and crazy and good and bad etc. Blood charted, its follow-up Black charted, which was a nice feather in my cap though ultimately it doesn't mean much. Haze closes the circuit on these three EPs, originally to be called Tales From the Black Heart but actually when the CD comes out in a month or so with all 3 EPs on it, I'll call it blood.black.haze.

I'll leave the EPs on iTunes etc. as their own discrete entities, the CD album is just for those who want a physical copy, doesn't make much sense to do a digital release for it when the songs are all already available digitally.

I'm working on new material which has evolved from where I was with the first cycle, though lyrically I suppose it's pretty similar.

Well, maybe not, since a lot of blood.black.haze seems like a lifetime ago, even though it's sort of a "same shit, different day" feeling for me.

Wonder how long til the Russian pirates find it. Took them a couple weeks to discover Black, then they went back and found Blood a few days later. I guess at least they're interested enough to rip it off.

Lots of stuff on the go, most of which is too early in its development stages to mention lest I jinx it, and while I'm not in the studio running for Rave on a session with one of our bands, that's only because we just finished the mix for The Rabid Whole's new album a couple weeks ago now. End result is the same - when the robot emails me today, I'll be glad to have a new release out but at the same time I'm busy dealing with other shit.

Catch ya later, though not as late as last year [should have CDs by mid-May and will be servicing college radio by early June].

Article on Vancouver's Electro Scene

2011-01-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

Missed this originally, caught it thanks to a post on twitter.com/musicwaste

Sparks Fly in Vancouver's Sizzling Electro Scene, by François Marchand in the Vancouver Sun

Some interesting points on how 3 different artists have developed.

24 Hours of Radio Art: The Maqlu Tarot

2011-01-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

Today at noon PST I did an hour long set on CiTR's annual 24 Hours of Radio Art, in which I debuted my series of short compositions, The Maqlu Tarot.

22 short compositions loosely inspired from meditating on the 22 cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, designed to be played at random to see what it evokes.

Sonically it ranges from mutilated spoken word and distorted guitar to lovely little MIDI brass compositions to carefully arranged birdsong samples that almost sound plausibly natural to pseudo-club 1990s industrial.

The Maqlu Tarot is available as a free download from my website (a .zip of all 22 MP3s) or you can grab individual tracks off my last.fm profile.

This is the order in which they were played on 24 Hours of Radio Art. The randomization was set by putting the tracks on shuffle through an iTunes playlist.

XVI TEMPERANCE
VII THE CHARIOT
I THE MAGUS
II THE PRIESTESS
VI THE LOVERS
XVII THE STAR
XIX THE SUN
IX THE HERMIT
IV THE EMPEROR
XI JUSTICE
V THE HIEROPHANT
XV THE DEVIL
III EMPRESS
0 THE FOOL
XVIII THE MOON
VIII STRENGTH
XX JUDGEMENT
XII THE HANGED MAN
XIV TEMPERANCE
XVI THE TOWER
X THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
XXI THE UNIVERSE

More information: http://maqlu.com

Podcast of my timeslot on 24 Hours of Radio Art.

Maqlu chart positions

2010-09-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

So... found out my little EP, Blood, under the artist name Maqlu, which I also produced and mixed, has been hitting the Canadian college radio charts.

First, back in early August I found out I scored my first chart entry: CFRC in Kingston, ON, had Blood at #30 on their Top 30 chart for the week ending August 3rd.

CFRC chart on !earshot

Not a bad start.

Then earlier this week I found another chart position for Blood - for the week of August 31, 2010, it was #7 on CFRU Guelph's Electronic Top Ten chart!

CFRU Electronic Top Ten for August 31, 2010

I also found I hit #21 on CJAM's Top 30 chart for this week. [CJAM is 91.5FM in Windsor, Ontario and I believe its signal reaches into Detroit as well.]

Super stoked... and then I noticed they also do an electronic chart. I clicked on it to discover Blood is #1 on their Electronic Top 10 this week!

Giddy... I am positively giddy!

CJAM Electronic Top 10 for September 14, 2010

Maqlu on Euanator Radio on CJSF

2010-07-31T01:39:00.000-07:00

Today I popped into CJSF Radio up at Simon Fraser University to be the guest on Euanator Radio from noon to 1 pm.

We chatted about my Maqlu project, about remixing, etc. and I played a couple of tracks that I haven't played elsewhere yet:

"Move Through Me [Pulse Mix]," a remix I did of one of the tracks on Blood

"Paws Off," a rough mix of the noise piece off the upcoming EP, Black, which I only finished a few days ago

my remix of the Rabid Whole's "Faith In Yesterday [Maqlu Mix]"

"Lord of the Flies," a stark almost a cappella piece that will close out Black

In case you missed it, here are the podcast links for the show:

Maqlu on Euanator Radio July 30, 2010: Part 1

Maqlu on Euanator Radio July 30, 2010: Part 2

Thanks again to Euan for having me on the show, it was a blast and I hope your listeners enjoyed it as much as I did.

Raggedy Angry new album teaser

2010-06-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

LOL - I saw part of this before but was obviously flipping between multiple tabs in Firebox, so I only just realized I'm hiding in the background in a couple of the shots from the studio!

This album can't come out soon enough for me - can't wait to leave it on endless loop and piss off the neighbors by blasting it super loud for, oh, about 6 months straight should be a good start...

Anyway, check out more stuff from Raggedy Angry on their MySpace:

Raggedy Angry on MySpace

Hey, looky looky what came out today

2010-04-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well, look what I found on iTunes today, the actual official release date:

Maqlu: Blood

And here I was thinking I didn't have to start promoting it til after the mixing session I'm sitting in on til Sunday [Dave Ogilvie is mixing Raggedy Angry, it all sounds killer and I will resort to pointing and laughing at the rest of you who can't hear this stuff til September. Wait, I won't hear it again until September. Shit. Nevermind].

Because I thought iTunes followed the usual new releases on Tuesdays schedule the rest of the North American music industry follows.

Oh well. The propaganda campaign will begin on Monday as scheduled.

In the meantime, go buy my lil ol' EP. It's awesome.

[The album liner notes are on my laptop, which I don't have with me today, so I shall post all that later this weekend.

Client tracks posted [Gore-Tek]

2010-04-19T00:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I worked with, produced and mixed Gore-Tek on a four-song EP. Two of those songs, "Clinical" and "Of The" are now posted on Gore-Tek's MySpace:

Gore-Tek on MySpace

EP 1: Blood - Cover art

2010-04-17T02:12:00.000-07:00

Soon to be available for digital download... and by "soon" I mean I set it as Walpurgisnacht via CDBaby, will likely take a little while to propagate itself out to the various hawkers around the world.

But anyway, here's the cover art:

Coming Soon...

2010-04-10T23:34:00.000-07:00

So, Chris Lacroix's Virtual Terrorist shall soon be releasing an album or EP, and it will have the remix I am now sending Chris.

I remixed "Thermonuclear Weapon" - when I interviewed Chris and Scott Fox for the Vampire's Ball in regards to iVardensphere I momentarily forgot the title and called it "Thermonuclear Something Or Other" and joked maybe that will be the title of my remix. Unless I hear objections, I think I'll stick to that.

As soon as I hear Chris has it posted somewhere, I'll post links below.

Graduation

2010-04-02T01:07:00.001-07:00

I shed my skin
When the party was about to begin
I'm light years away but I'm walking back...

Something on my mind
Makes me run when I thought I'd run too far

- Duran Duran, "(I'm Looking For) Cracks in the Pavement"

Time to shed my skin.

I spent 10 years watching my iguana do that, so I know a swift kick to the head is the best way to start the process, then peel to help the process along.

The last little bit has been that uncomfortable itching while my skin was too constricting yet not yet ready to slough off, but there's a break now that I can get my nails into.

It's like driving east across Canada on the TransCanada. At the eastern edge of the Rockies you go around the peak of the last pass and suddenly the country seems to drop off in front of you and the entire continent spreads itself open before and beneath you and you hang suspended in mid-air for a few moments before sinking down to continue on your way. You feel that you can see clear to Newfoundland.

And so it is done.

[Well, this is just the beginning, actually. But the preface is done.]

EP 1 News

2010-03-30T17:29:00.001-07:00

So, the first EP's masters came back yesterday from Scott Fox [of iVardensphere, working out of Noise Haus Studio].

They sound killer.

Looking at doing a digital release with maybe 200 physical copies printed initially, and there might be some label distro for it, I'll know more in the next few days.

EP 1 shall be titled Blood. This is the final track listing:

Writhe
Wounded Animal
Poison Their Well
Move Through Me
Trouble Thing
Os Invidus

Hoping I can get it out for around Walpurgisnacht.

Maqlu HQ, March 10, 2010

2010-03-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

Just some shots I took last night when tracking vocal overdubs for "Whore." This track is the last one to be finished for EP 1, and will be mixed tomorrow evening at Nimbus.

After that, it's off for mastering with Scott Fox of iVardensphere.

Jigsaw [Speak Mix by Maqlu] now on digitalgunfire.com

2010-02-22T17:49:00.000-08:00

So, I got an email this morning [okay, okay, 4:30pm, morning in my book] saying I should look at the following page:

iVardensphere Remixes vol. 1 on digitalgunfire.com

Seems the good folks over at digitalgunfire.com liked quite a few of the remixes on the new iVardensphere disc. Including mine: "Jigsaw [Speak Mix by Maqlu]."

Hell yeah!

New toy: Korg MS2000

2010-02-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

So, I recently got myself onto EBay [welcome to the late 199os, Pyra!]. Why, after ignoring its existence for so long, did I finally cave in?

Because I decided that I longed for a Korg MS2000, and I saw they were available on EBay.

So, I won a nice little black unit, won it in a pretty low-key bidding war, and now it's sitting in my living room. I shall be learning all its nuances soon and incorporating it into new material. I also figure it'll be invaluable for when I can't put off playing live any longer.

I'm keeping my eyes open for other cheap and useful synths on EBay, and now that I've seen that ARP Odysseys can be had for as little as $1500, I think I'll start saving up for one of those too.

Long live synthetic sounds!

[OK, OK, it's a cheesy double entendre for a certain record label I work for...]

Opera

2010-02-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Late last night I found myself thinking an old thought, something I am quite sure I first thought in 2001, maybe earlier. The thought was of composing an opera.

Why it came up last night I don't know, but as I was working on other things the wheels got turning in the back of my head and I found myself with the barest skeleton of a theme, maybe a bit of a plot, a couple of characters, and a fragment of an aria melody and words.

Which I guess means I am going to write this thing, seeing how I already started. It's not really a high priority on my to-do list, and since I figure it'll be rather in depth and take a lot of time, I figure if I finish it before I turn 40 in 2018 I'm happy.

After all, clearly the idea wants to rise to the surface. Really how hard could it be? The main challenge is in seeing it through to the end, orchestration and the rest will come along as I go - so far I seem to be my own worst critic, so if I write something that I don't hate, it'll likely be good by other people's standards too.

Granted that I don't know a huge amount about opera, but I can learn, and maybe a little ignorance is a good thing. I want to blend in modern sounds, noise, dissonance, weird textures, maybe even some industrial influences, but also other classical threads like plainchant, so it'll be a departure regardless. [It'll still be more Wagner than the Who, though.]

Can't say too much more because I don't know anything else at this stage.

Anyway, in doing some casual YouTube surfing, I found some interesting snippets.

First up, Stravinsky. "No Word From Tom" from the Rake's Progress. Sung by Felicity Lott.

And I think we all know the "Kill the Wabbit" song, at least in part. Er, Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

And from Britten's The Rape of Lucretia:

And Korngold's Die Tote Stadt:

iVardensphere Remix

2010-02-09T23:23:00.000-08:00

Next Tuesday the 16th of February, iVardensphere will release their first remix album, featring remixes from the likes of Komor Kommando, Psykkle, Left Spine Down and more.

Including one from yours truly, working as Maqlu.

I'll post links and more info next week.

DJMix.Net Links

2010-01-31T01:55:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in this post about ProtonRadio.com, I recently did a guest spot on DJMix.net presents.

It's now up on DjMix.net at the following link: http://djmix.net/DJMixPresents/PyraDraculea-Jan222010

Download it, stream it, share it around. Set list is as per the top link to my previous blog entry.

Pyra Draculea on ProtonRadio.com

2010-01-22T03:45:00.001-08:00

Pyra Draculea on ProtonRadio.com

In case anyone happens to see this instantly, it's live on ProtonRadio.com until 4AM PST January 22nd, 2010. After that you can listen on demand.

This will be exclusive to ProtonRadio for a couple of weeks and then it'll go up on DJMix.net. Once on DJMix.net I think anyone can listen for free, but on Proton it's a pretty cheap subscription. I'll post the links as I get them.

In the meantime, here's the tracklisting:

01. Nurse With Wound - Astral Dustbin Dirge (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [United Dairies]
02. Boyd Rice - Assume the Position (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation and Editing by Pyra Draculea) [Caciocavallo]
03. Maqlu - Trouble Thing (ProtonRadio Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
04. Raggedy Angry - Chest Pains (Original Mix; Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
05. Maxwell Maxwell feat. Peter Breeze - Fuck Talk (Original Mix; Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
06. Ministry - The Nature of Love (Cruelty Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Wax Trax! Records]
07. Landscape Body Machine - The New Deal (Original Mix; Edited by Pyra Draculea) [Interdimensional Industries]
08. I, Braineater - Hammerhead (A Capella version from an interview with Jim Cummins on the Vampire's Ball; Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
09. Pailhead - Man Should Surrender (Original Mix) [Wax Trax! Records]
10. Excessive Force - Queen Bitch (Original Mix; Edit by Pyra Draculea) [Wax Trax! Records]
11. Fake Shark Real Zombie - Angel Lust (Ghost Frequency Remix) [ID]
12. Pigface - Work to Come (Original Mix; Edit by Pyra Draculea) [Full Effect Records]
13. Maqlu - Whore (ProtonRadio Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
14. iVardensphere - Wormtongue (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Synthetic Sounds]
15. Nickelback - Figured You Out (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Roadrunner Records]
16. Left Spine Down - Reset (Maqlu Mix) [Synthetic Sounds]
17. ohGr - Collidoskope (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
18. Maqlu - Writhe (ProtonRadio Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
19. SKOLD vs. KMFDM - It's Not What (Original Mix) [KMFDM Records]
20. Revolting Cocks - I'm Not Gay (I'm So Gay Club Mix by Dave "Rave" Ogilvie and Colin Janz) [13th Planet]
21. Rammstein - Pussy (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Pilgrim/Universal]
22. Jakalope - aka Cupcake (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [ID]
23. Betty Hutton and Howard Keel - Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Rhino Records]
24. Boyd Rice - Assume the Position (Original Mix; Digital Manipulation by Pyra Draculea) [Caciocavallo]
25. Maqlu - Dream Come True (ProtonRadio Edit by Pyra Draculea) [ID]

24 Hours of Radio Art Set Listing

2010-01-18T11:46:00.000-08:00

Originally stuck up on my show's blog, thevampiresball.blogspot.com

Pyra Draculea: 24 Hours of Radio Art set podcast

Well, this was the first year I got a slot on CiTR's annual 24 Hours of Radio Art. I played a few of my noise pieces, one of my songs which kinda of fit [maybe], and a long mash-up/collage I decided to call "The Obvious Thing To Do."

Noise pieces/collages/weird "songs" [I guess the terms vary based on your definitions]:
"Os Invidus"
"Dream Come True"
"Tim's Beneath My Feet"

"Os Invidus" and "Dream Come True" will be released on the triple EP I'm working on. "Tim's Beneath My Feet" I'll probably hold for another project, in the meantime it's up on my MySpace.

Mash-Up "The Obvious Thing To Do" includes parts of the following songs, plus some different samples I have:

Mormon Tablenacle Choir: selections from Handel's Messiah.
Anton Szandor LaVey: "Satanis Theme" Satan Takes A Holiday.
Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the others."
The Electric Hellfire Club: "I Dream of Demons" from Electronomicon.
Nelson Eddy: "Ave Maria" The Lord's Prayer.
Boyd Rice: "Hatesville" Hatesville.
Duran Duran: "Notorious [Live Version]" from Do You Believe In Shame? 12".
Marilyn Manson: "Antichrist Superstar" from Antichrist Superstar.
Rocky Horror Show [Original Roxy Cast]: "Sweet Transvestite" from The Rocky Horror Show.
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult: "Kooler Than Jesus" from Kooler Than Jesus.
Boyd Rice: "Mr. Intolerance" from Hatesville.
Duran Duran: "Do You Believe In Shame?" from Do You Believe In Shame? 12".
Marilyn Manson: "I Don't Like the Drugs [But the Drugs Like Me]" from Mechanical Animals.
The Electric Hellfire Club: "Hymn to the Fallen" from Electronomicon.
Duran Duran: "Drug [Alternate Mix]" from Do You Believe In Shame? 12".
Raggedy Angry: "Chest Pains" from Pestilence.
Elvis Presley: "I Want You I Need You I Love You".

Inspired by the fact that my slot was on a Sunday morning. Also maybe a little bit of the notion of a religion becoming like a drug for some people.

People will probably get the wrong idea about the back half of that. And by people I mean any of my relatives Googling me looking for dirt.

Plus my parents have the weirdest record collection, albeit unintentionally so. Most of it's my music, though. [And my music collection is intentionally weird.]

Much of this stuff was messed up through a Behringer mixer, using its aux sends to go to a Big Muff distortion pedal and a separate send to a Guvnor overdrive. I was originally going to live mix prepared tracks on air, but then I got going on preparing those tracks and before you know it I was done.

And yeah, I realize the really obvious thing to do would be to juxtapose that Marilyn Manson track with a certain Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but I didn't find all of my parents' vinyl collection, just a couple pieces. I swear by next year I'll have dug more of it up.

There were also Librivox recordings of public domain works: "A Freeman's Worship" by Bertrand Russell, "Of Truth" by Francis Bacon" and Humboldt's "Degrees of Enjoyment." And yes, I did swipe a sample from "Os Invidus." What can I say - I needed a guy saying something like "that's all I ask" in both.

There were also two songs: at the beginning CiTR's music director Luke Meat requested that I start with the Birthday Party's song "Happy Birthday." And at the end I had enough time to squeeze in a song of mine called "Lord of the Flies." In order to mess it up more for the noise/collage motif, I layered a couple of Controlled Bleeding LPs under it. I forgot to note which ones.

So, that's that. Until next year, back to your usual Vampire's Ball programming on Friday nights.

CiTR Radio's 24 Hours of Radio Art

2010-01-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

It happens every year on January 17th. CiTR has a day of special programming consisting of noise, audio collage, mash-ups, weird stuff, etc. etc.

And this year I got me a time slot!

January 17th 2010 from 9 to 10 am. I will be playing at least two of the three noise pieces I've made for my EPs [each ends with a noise piece], maybe all three if I get the second one done in time. I'll also be playing some other noise things I've made, and I'm thinking of doing a mash-up of interview segments from the Vampire's Ball, maybe live mixed with some noise and synths too. Might play a little Hellen Keller too.

So don't miss it! 101.9FM if you're listening live in Vancouver, citr.ca elsewhere. And don't worry my fellow night owls - it will be podcasted so you can indeed hear it even if you don't plan to be conscious at that ungodly hour of a Sunday morning.

In other CiTR/the Vampire's Ball news, check out the show this Friday night from midnight onwards when Phil Western will be my guest in studio. Phil's bringing some electronica and other goodies on vinyl, should be loads of fun.

Halloween Mixing Session

2009-11-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

So, I've been in mixing since 6pm in the big room at Nimbus, working on the G-Series SSL.

Initially when I snagged the time I figured I'd get 3 songs for my album mixed in the 10 hour session, but since I realized earlier this week I would not have time to track the backing vocals for one of the three, it actually worked out just fine.

That song was "Siamese Twins." I did spend the first 3 hours of the session just reamping the mountain of synths for it, and there may yet be more synths added. I might even add some guitars just to be all retro or whatever. [Just kidding - I'm not likely to add guitars to it, though it does seem to want some noise and more synths.]

Anyway, synths re-amped it was time to get on to the real business of the night.

I set to work on "Dream Made Flesh" and since it's a fairly straightforward noise piece where I tried to arrange things so as to not step too much on each other in placing all the samples it's made from, it went pretty quick. Mostly it was finding the right level of burying for the spoken word to get it to sound more like a thought in the back of your head than a vocal, and getting the end to be a blurry cacophony yet one with enough definition that you can still pick out little details. I think I got it right.

Taking a little break to tear down the reamping set-up in the live room and stretch after sitting behind the board for a few hours, I then set up "Trouble Thing." I had previously mixed it on the AWS, but then I sped it up slightly, and to that end it needed a proper new mix and some vocal edits.

At this point I'm printing stems for it, and it sounds killer. I'm actually thinking in order to make sure the whole album is mixed on the G-Series I might actually see what days it would be feasible to come in super early in the morning to have 4 hours before classes start to mix a song per session. Booking it ahead of time is usually iffy and really unless it's a long mix session or if I was tracking beds with a band, it doesn't make much sense to use prime time, but if I can get my ass up and be here by 5am, I can always go back home to sleep before coming in for class and no one else will be after the room at the same time.

Might incur the assistants' wrath in making them come in super early, though. We shall see.

Look Ma, I'm in the paper..

2009-08-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

They spelled Dave's name wrong, which I fixed here. Oh well, I think that's the main error that jumped out at me.

I was mixing something that day so I think I actually talked more about tricks I learned from Bill Kennedy, but perhaps killer tom fills and nitpicky mixing details aren't as interesting to other people as they are to me.

The paper version is up on our bulletin board here at Nimbus.

Source

Inside Vancouver's school of rock

Nimbus School of Recording Arts teaches engineers the whole music-business package

By Chris Brandt, Special to The Sun

August 24, 2009 10:40 AM

Part 2 of a five-part series on Vancouver's music scene

As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.

It’s a maxim that has become gospel in the music industry, as the rise of digital media and the decline of the big record labels compel artists and producers to take an increasingly entrepreneurial approach to their careers.

But you can’t “do it yourself” if you don’t know how it’s done, and that knowledge isn’t always easy to come by.

Published resources become obsolete as quickly as computer software manuals. As the business evolves, mere book knowledge and classroom experience are not enough.

Fortunately, Vancouver is home to a wealth of talent that is ready to guide the way with hands-on mentorship.

“I just want to give back,” says music producer Garth Richardson, who is renowned for his work with artists such as Kiss and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Music and mentorship run in the Richardson bloodline: Garth’s father Jack discovered the Guess Who, and the Juno award for producer of the year bears his name.

Jack Richardson mentored many of the leading Canadian recording engineers and producers, among them legendary producer Bob Ezrin, whose credits include Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Now Ezrin has teamed up with music-publishing impresario Michael McCarty, longtime studio educator Kevin Williams and Richardson, to continue this spirit of mentorship at the Nimbus School of Recording Arts. Even the name revives the spirit of the elder Richardson’s studio, Nimbus 9, which is now owned by Burton Cummings.

Some sound recording teaching programs show up-and-coming music engineers how to track a visual representation of a sound wave on a computer screen, but not to actually understand its audible equivalent. “This is the difference between training engineyes versus enginears,” says Richardson. He recalls his frustration when he met a young engineer who spent $14,000 on a program, but could not burn a copy of a disc at the end of it.

“It is like this all over the U.S. and Canada,” says Richardson.

The program at Nimbus consists of four modules: Sound recording, music production, artist development and music business. Each course is six months long. The staff expect aspiring record producers to complete all four modules, while other students may focus simply on the business courses.

Nimbus shares space with The Farm Studios, where students receive hands-on, professional studio experience. Students can attend workshops on professional recording sessions, and can observe others’ sessions, too. Each course is limited to a maximum of six students, to allow each person more time with the equipment.

Staff encourage students to make use of any empty studio time, and remind them that they have 24-hour-a-day studio access. After all, Richardson says: “Rock and roll doesn’t shut down at 10 p.m.”

Students don’t simply learn to press buttons and turn dials, but also how to deal with people — the production module includes regular classes with a family counsellor. After all, understanding a little psychology can help a musician get the most from a recording session.

Nimbus student Pyra Draculea is halfway through the sound recording course, and describes the mantra of the school as: “Come on, go do it.”

Draculea also relishes the networking advantages that come from exposure to guest lecturers that include Nine Inch Nails engineer Dave Ogilvie.

Three of the most prominent and legendary studios in California echoed Draculea’s praise for the Nimbus approach. In an e-mail interview, Shivaun O’Brien of San Francisco’s Sound City Studios — where Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors were both recorded — described Richardson as instilling an “old-school work ethic that until now has only been handed down from one generation of engineers to another and is sorely lacking in many of today’s music students.”

She shares Richardson’s frustrations, and says “most recording schools would rather teach their students to look at music on a computer monitor and run a computer rig instead of teaching them to mic a drum kit and more importantly, actually listen to the music they are recording.”

Jessica Castle of Ocean Way Recording Studio in L.A. — home to albums from Frank Sinatra to Radiohead — adds that “Garth Richardson is an amazing and established figure in the music industry. He has great vision and technique on what makes a phenomenal recording and how to go about getting it.”

Gary Myerberg, chief engineer at L.A.’s Eastwest Studios — where The Mamas and the Papas recorded California Dreaming and The Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds — was also enthusiastic, saying: “I honestly would love to be able to be a fly on the wall and hear the wisdom transferred to this next generation … its a no-brainer that a Nimbus grad would be on the top of my list as a possible candidate for a position at our studio.”

Richardson predicts a demise of the major record labels in the next three to four years.

“There will be no more Sony, no more Universal — they will just be marketing companies.”

Whether or not Richardson’s prediction comes true, it’s undeniable that artists and producers must already take more responsibility for elements of their careers that were traditionally managed by large corporations. Richardson wants to show them how.

Special to The Sun
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

"It keeps getting better everyday."

2009-06-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the control room for a moment today, chatting with Garth and company. After mentioning some good news coming down the pike, he said the title line.

I tend to agree, borne out by how things have progressed in the last year.

Tomorrow I get to go on a field trip to the Warehouse for a talk with Randy Staub about mixing. Like Garth said...

Some Quotes on Process from Trent Reznor

2009-06-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

They're all old news, having been published in 1999's Electro Shock by Greg Rule, but the book is new to me and I thought it was fun how some of the things he does are similar to how I work. Quite possibly I absorbed the information unconsciously during the years I was a hardcore Nine Inch Nails fan reading all the interviews I could find.

Anyway, here's a few choice quotes:

... hit each drum at several velocities and recorded them... When I programmed them, and even when they were perfectly quantized, they didn't sound like a drum machine.

When I listened back, I thought, "Hey, that's pretty cool. Someday I'll come back and fix it." And of course I never did. That was it. ...A lot of what I do is accidental. I luck into things. I think that due to laziness -- not coming back and fixing thing -- they end up becoming more interesting. My instinct it to repair, edit. ...But then I'll get so used to hearing it, I'll end up leaving it alone.

If you're going to make music, have something to say, and have some unique way to say it. To me, I look at the studio as a tool, an instrument.

I've looked at most of my music and it's based on a groove or a mood, and I make a song around that versus a song that's based on traditional harmonic chord progressions or whatever.

Luv-a-Fair May 28th Article/Interviews

2009-05-02T01:55:00.000-07:00

Below is the original version of the article I wrote on the upcoming Luv-a-Fair club night at Celebrities featuring DJ sets by Steven R. Gilmore and CEvin KEy.

It's on page 5 of the May 2009 issue of Discorder Magazine, available in Vancouver. A PDF of the issue is available here: PDF of the May 2009 issue of Discorder Magazine

For anyone who's too young or just wasn't paying attention, the Luv-a-Fair was Vancouver's iconic alternative/new wave club. Opening in 1975 as a disco-spinning gay club, by 1980 it had switched to New Wave. Vancouver's burgeoning alternative scene coalesced around the Luv-a-Fair and members of not-yet-legendary bands like Skinny Puppy could be found hanging out with other musicians, scenesters, and artists.

Next month, a couple of them are coming home. Skinny Puppy's CEvin KEy and artist/designer and former Luv-a-Fair DJ Steven R. Gilmore will be spinning classic tracks popular at the club between 1980 and 1985 at a special Luv-a-Fair club night at Celebrities Nightclub.

KEy says of the blend of music at the Luv-a-Fair, "I had never heard songs like 'Ricky's Hand' by Fad Gadget or 'Warm Leatherette' by the Normal, or 'Empire State Human' by the Human League. I was so inspired by the music I was hearing that I had to work there - mainly so I could know who all the artists were!" Gilmore relates how he came to be one of the club's DJs in 1980: "The manager at the time, Kenny, asked me what I thought they should be playing in the club and he hired Michael Wonderful to DJ. One night Michael quit unexpectedly so Kenny threw me into the booth. I had absolutely no experience as a DJ so I was scared shitless. CEvin was the light man at the time and he gracefully helped me."

DJ Pandemonium adds, "You'd have an even mix of mainstream and college kids and straight out alternatives and freaks. Whether you personally liked every single song was beside the point: by the end of the night, everyone would be partying together. I haven't seen that before or since."

Luv-a-Fair closed in 2003 but the club is still remembered fondly. Recently promoter Vernard A. Goud has thrown a series of Luv-a-Fair club nights, inspired by his Facebook group dedicated to the Luv-a-Fair scene. "In a matter of a month I had 1000 members," Goud says. "A lot of them said, why don't you throw an event? Three months later I threw my first one. It was meant to be."

DJ Pandemonium has been involved since the first new Luv-a-Fair night. His first thought when he heard of the concept? "Hot damn! I have to check this out - and weasel my way into a guest DJ spot! Anywhere I can check out an Art Of Noise or Nena Hagen twelve-inch, surrounded by people appreciating it, is like a dream gig!"

Word soon spread. "I was speaking with [former Luv-a-Fair waiter] Rick Forde and Joanne Denis about the club, noticing all these people still talking about the Luv-a-Fair," says KEy. "I thought it would be a cool thing to mention that Steven and I had made a list of some of the classics. The next thing, I heard back from Vernard, who was excited for us to spin it for the Luv-a-Fair events."

Gilmore laughs and adds, "As egotistical as this may sound, there are a number of clubs here in Los Angeles that play music from that time period and I have always thought that I could easily do the same job or better. Now I'm going to have an opportunity to put my inflated ego to the test!"

So what we can expect? "The same music I played between 1980 and 1985. Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, The Cramps, The Stranglers, Liquid Liquid, Wire, Gang Of Four, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Bauhaus, The Slits, etc." according to Gilmore. "I'm going to be DJing the same set that I did almost 30 years ago. 30 years, yikes!"

KEy adds, "Steven and I compiled a list based on what we could call classic Luv-a-Fair tracks. It will be our treat to spin them in their original form as it was in the day. So get ready for time travel!"

Luv-a-Fair Presents: Skinny Puppy's CEvin KEy & Steven R. Gilmore plus special guest DJ Pandemonium. 9:00PM May 28th, Celebrities Nightclub. Tickets at Flaming Angels, Zulu, Little Sisters, Priape, and online at ClubZone and http://luvngraceaffair.com

The Age of the Import

2009-04-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

So, I'll be writing a piece for Discorder on the upcoming Luv-a-fair Presents Skinny Puppy's CEvin KEy& Steven R. Gilmore event (May 28, Celebrities) and I'm in the middle of reading up and doing interviews.

Both CEvin and Steven talk in their interviews in the latest issue of ALT: Rock Culture and Lifestyle Magazine about the importance in the pre-internet age of getting those exclusive import discs.

I might have missed the heyday of the import shops on Seymour, but I am fortunate enough to have caught the tail-end of them. I went to Odyssey Imports all the time in the last couple of years they were there, and of course the venerable Track Records (somewhere I think I still have one of the iconic paw-print plastic bags from there).

I remember going occasionally into the place that was on the northeast corner of Seymour and Pender, called Collector's RPM. Too many cool things I wanted, too little allowance (I was maybe 14 at the time.)

The shops were a big part of my growing freedom when I was first able to go downtown alone without being hassled by my parents (though I probably claimed to be going with friends more often than not). Ditto the Underground - in its original location in the basement on Robson between Granville and Howe. And of course I could write a whole other ode to Granville Book Company and the old Duthie Books at Hornby and Robson where I bought so many books on punk rock and industrial (and witchcraft and comic anthologies and...)

I still have all the stuff I bought in those shops. Public Image Limited's Live in Tokyo on vinyl. Other PiL stuff, rare import Sex Pistols. And a couple of years later, some of my first Nine Inch Nails. Actually, I think my copies of Sin and the other early CD singles all came from Track.

I bet you somewhere I still have business cards for Odyssey, maybe even Collector's RPM. Probably right next to the Track Records bag.

I also absolutely loved Sam the Record Man. Imports could be gotten here too, and of course Sam's lasted years longer than the other three. When it went under, there was plenty of advance notice and deep sales and I mined their industrial section (yes, they had one! On the mezzanine floor, you turned right and there it was) for KMFDM, Electric Hellfire Club, a couple of anthologies like Industrial Revolution 3 on Cleopatra Records, and anything else that looked cool.

After that, it was A&B Sound. Which was OK, but really, "import" here just meant they were going to charge you another ten bucks (ie, in 2003 I found a copy of HIM's Razorblade Romance before its North American release and it set me back $30, but I was just glad to find a wad of Finnrock CDs without having to wait for them if I ordered online). You could (and I did) order all manner of stuff if it wasn't in stock, and I did love this place too, but it wasn't the same as the old import shops or even Sam's. When A&B ceased to be in the last year, I really only noticed because one day I drove by and there was no sign of life during what should have been business hours. It didn't matter, I'd already moved on.

Back to the old import shops. There were many, of course, but really only three that mattered to me, all within a block of each other on Seymour Street between Dunsmuir and Pender.

Collector's RPM was to first to close its doors. I didn't know in advance, I just showed up one Saturday morning to find it locked up and apparently abandoned. I didn't know then just how much my city was going to change, vanish, and turn into an endless parade of faceless and soulless coffee shops and mass-market mainstream clothing shops, but I must have sensed something wrong. The first whiffs of a bad wind blowing and a turning tide.

But I was young and didn't think the others would disappear. Up the block to Odyssey I went. I've actually dreamt of Odyssey Imports many times since it closed. I remember vividly the double-height space, the slate blue walls, the white melamine racks for the vinyl, the rack of t-shirts in the back where I grabbed my first Marilyn Manson t-shirt. And the blue walls were covered in posters. I got Cure posters there, of course the obligatory 1990s Nine Inch Nails poster of Trent Reznor with the black PVC gauntlets (I would later see the same poster as part of the set of the eldest kid's bedroom on that stupid "Home Improvement" show and laugh my ass off at the improbability of such a character actually listening to any NIN). I think I got my first couple of Nine Inch Nails poster calendars there too, though later on I ordered them straight from England.

And there's the Depeche Mode poster I have rolled up somewhere. Far too big for any available wallspace in my current home, I know it will find a place of honor in my living room one of these days when I'm out on my own.

It seems I mostly remember buying posters and t-shirts at Odyssey, but I know I bought some music there too. The usual punk suspects from my mid-teens when I was first discovering punk and Goth, but before I really got too into industrial. And something calmer from a band called Slipstream. I was in there and captivated by what they were playing, and so I bought it.

Then one day Odyssey was closed too. Maybe I had a sense and hit the close-out sales, but I don't remember too much other than it not being open anymore.

Track lasted a little longer still. It had been THE place for my brother and his band of metalheads and hardcore fans, though of course its stock ran the gamut of the hard-to-find. I spent lots of time and money in Track, including managing to order a copy of David Sylvian's Weatherbox set. The owner put the order through his connections and it took about a year, but eventually, Weatherbox came in, having passed through who knows how many hands through the network of import shops around the world and back to Track, and I got a phone call to come and get it. I still treasure that box set to this day.

I mentioned my Nine Inch Nails discs and Track. That included assorted Trent Reznor interview discs, including a picture disc of Trent's muddy head shot at Woodstock 94 which still bears its fluorescent yellow Track Records price tags: $15.49. And I have another Trent interview disc which has a little clock mechanism on it. I took the battery out last fall once I was starting to record in here, because all the tracks had Trent's tick-tock coming through loud and clear. I believe I got that from Track as well, but maybe it was one of those things I ordered from memorabilia companies in the USA or the UK.

Eventually Track went under too. I think Noize Records was the same owners, opening a little hole in the wall just down the block. That's where I got my vinyl copy of Pretty Hate Machine, which was more just something to have since I mostly use CD and had a copy on CD that was already well used by that point.

I think Noize is hanging on and still around, but this brings us to my own current hypocrisy: Like so many others, I mourn the loss of the import shops, but no one is faster to go to iTunes than me. I should go to Noize, and Scrape, maybe even Zulu more, but I don't do that very often. (I mostly go to Zulu for concert tickets.) I also buy a big portion of CDs now directly from the artists at shows, so I can pat myself on the back for that one, and of course I review CDs for Discorder and as a DJ at CiTR I used to get CDs left in my mailslot, and I anticipate that will start again now that my show has started again. And of course, I have access to all the stuff in CiTR's library, and to leftover promo CDs (which is how I've found many great bands as well as some shitty ones). A week or so ago during JunoFest, I bought at least five CDs from the merch booth at the festival, knowing that 90% of my money was going directly into the artists' pockets.

And several bands I like are friends of mine who just have never bothered to make a CD - they post new music straight to their blogs or MySpace or ReverbNation.

The upside is that it's now cheap to get the music on iTunes, and it's instant. This is how I have all but two of my beloved Boyd Rice albums, not to mention numerous others. Of course, Boyd fans like myself would notice that you can't get his whole catalogue on iTunes yet, and there is but one lonely Non album available, Easy Listening for Iron Youth. Now, this isn't such a horrible thing for me, as CiTR has a bunch of other Non work, so I can go and listen there and still play it on my show. That's just me and other CiTR DJs, though.

There are other issues: DRM and limited transfers, which may not be so bad for people like me who don't upgrade hardware very often. You get only a teeny reproduction of the album artwork if anything, and for engineers like me, where's the production information? If a song is great, I want to know who mixed it. Where did they record it? What other information is missing from a download? And there is nothing like having the physical artifact in hand. I bond with CDs more than MP3s.

Which brings us to Amazon. I've bought tons of music through Amazon as well (for some reason, much of my Amazon music purchases tend to be more along the lines of belly dance music, maybe because it's so hard to find anywhere else now that A&B is gone.) And it's cheap too, though I have to wait a couple weeks for its arrival. But yeah, I love Amazon too. This is where I can get obscure stuff that may not be on iTunes and which is definitely not in stores.

But there is something missing from both of these places. It's the stumbled-upon finds or recommendations from a knowledgeable staff or what happens to be being played in the store. Really, it's the death of browsing. If I go to Amazon, really belly dance music is the only thing that I browse the section for and choose the old fashioned way: based on whether I like the art. And that's because I will tell myself I can spend x dollars on new belly dance music and I don't have a specific checklist of what to buy. (And I don't do this often.)

Anything else, I have that checklist. I go, I find that thing and order it and that's it. Maybe if I see something in the "others who bought this also bought" that looks interesting, I might add it to the checklist for later investigation.

But that's not the same as browsing in an actual store. Two of my all-time favorite bands were found this way. I walked into the HMV in Richmond Centre one day in high school with $25 to blow on music and no clear idea of what to buy or if I did, they didn't have it. I wandered the Rock/Pop section until I felt a pull to a given area. I flipped through for something with an interesting cover.

I found Gentlemen Take Polaroids by Japan. And thus began a love affair with David Sylvian's work that is now going on 15 years long. Of course, I quickly found out how Japan fit in with the New Wave stuff I already liked, but the actual discovery was totally random. (And I bought much of the rest of my Japan and David Sylvian stuff from Sam's or Track.)

A similar thing lead to my discovery of Marilyn Manson's debut Portrait of an American Family around the same time (summer of 95, I think). Only that was at Music World in the Lansdowne Shopping Centre in Richmond.

Music World eventually went super-mainstream and closed down within the last year. And HMV was never really on par with the import shops, though they were pretty good for a mall store. I can't be bothered to go to HMV anymore though - it's all shitty hip hop/top 40 crap and 50 copies of the same shitty CD, maybe one shelf of metal but at this point if you think I'm paying $30 for a CD I get at a show for $20 or on Amazon for $15, you're nuts. They're not what they used to be.

Hell, Future Shop often trumps HMV in my books. Which isn't to say they don't have the same strategy of many copies of the same old shit, but I've often been surprised by what I've found there. I've never seen Skinny Puppy discs, but I found Jakalope's Born4 in the Lansdowne Future Shop last December. I got Crystal Pistol's debut there a while back. They often have a bunch of Steve Vai's stuff for some inexplicable reason, and then there's the miracle DVD: shopping for my brother last Christmas I stumbled upon a Cannibal Corpse DVD set. How the Hell that found its way to Future Shop, I'll never know, but Joe absolutely LOVES Cannibal Corpse, and that finished off my shopping list.

Those are freak situations, though. Mostly I venture to Future Shop for computer shit or to buy new Nickelback CDs. (Yeah, yeah, yeah... everyone has a guilty pleasure, and mine is stuff like "Something in Your Mouth"...)

Anyway, to wrap this up: I dearly miss the import shops, even if my own habits have turned to digital delivery more and more. But at least I was lucky enough to catch a little bit of the glory days, and I'll always appreciate that.

Back to my reading up...

Sudden MBox Noise Cured

2009-02-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

So, I picked up my MBox sometime in September and all has been well until the last couple of weeks where I've had some annoying line hiss coming in.

You could see it in the fader strips as soon as you armed a track to record: the green level indicator would fly up a good quarter of an inch or so to roughly -32dB. And in the waveform you could see it in the rests and gaps as a thicker than usual line running down the middle of the track. And of course you could hear it in the silences.

Shit.

I think this might have happened once before and I jiggled the USB connection and it went away. This time, not so much.

I went through the whole signal chain and it wasn't the guitar cables I use, nor the Mogami XLR cable. It wasn't the DI box, ground lifted or not. It wasn't the guitars or the keyboards or the bass or the microphones.

This led to the conclusion that it was either the MBox or the USB connection. Fearing it might be the MBox and being too busy to really do much about it, I've been either EQ'ing it out or where songs have enough layers and enough loud parts (and being that I make industrial and noise influenced stuff anyway) I've just relied on masking to kill it. Some gating as well, but I've found it tends to sound hiccup-y on certain quieter parts (or maybe I just haven't figured out the finessing of a gate yet).

But I have a potential band demo on the horizon and while I might use work-arounds on my own stuff (since I often add in shaped hiss and fuzz noises on purpose), I was determined to fix the problem in advance of doing actual client work. Today I had some time so I bought a new USB cable in the hopes that I might have a cheap fix instead of something much worse.

I suspect I'm the only person to ever ask the kid in the computer section of London Drugs if they have any low-noise USB cables, based on the confusion on his face. He didn't have any clue, so I just grabbed a short one with the appropriate ends and went home to test it.

I plugged it between the iMac and the MBox, fired up Pro Tools, opened a recent session, added a new track, and held my breath as I armed it to record.

The red button flashes. Dead silence. Which is a good thing. Absolutely no noise whatsoever.

I hooked up an SM58 with the Mogami cable and did the usual inane babbling that goes with line checking - the levels were good and there was still no noise.

Problem solved. I should have tried this two weeks ago.

EDIT: I've also noticed that if I've left the computer running for a while [a day or more on sleep instead of shutting it down], then usually I'll have the MBox hiss issue as well. Sometimes simply unplugging the USB cables fro 5 minutes and plugging them back in works, other times a restart is necessary for quiet operation.

1920s Proto-Synth?

2009-01-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

Article on NoiseAddicts.com

Well, just goes to show, there are no truly new ideas, just refinements, twists, improvements, and better technology.

I would have guessed electronic music started in maybe the 50s at the earliest. Ya learn something new every day.

Waking Life excerpt

2008-04-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

A friend just sent this out on MySpace, and I've just watched the full version (albeit in low-res) on GoogleVideo:

I quite like the animation and the content is quite intriguing as well. Looks like my Amazon buying list just grew a little more.

IMDB listing
Waking Life on Google Video (98 minutes)