The Making of Paul Winders “Boy Dust” part 1
Well, since about half way through 2011 I haven’t done much Complex Engine music, as my efforts have been directed at making a CD with Paul Winders and the Goodness. It has just come out – we have the...
View ArticleThe Making of Boy Dust part 2 – drums
So, some idiosyncrasies about recording Roland Vdrums or whatever they are. Snare – When recording we mostly went for a high pitched ka-doing type of snare drum – we were thinking pop I guess, and...
View ArticleSome new VST’s
The Slate Digital VST’s have become part and parcel of my mixing now, and have helped me make a significant improvement. In particular, ummm, all of them…the virtual consoles, the bus compressors, the...
View ArticleDIY Valve Vari-Mu Adventures
I’ve recently been working on a point-to-point build of a vari-mu compressor. Unlike a lot of DIY, the circuit is the work of local professional and so not publicly available and I can’t share it. I am...
View ArticleIn The Box Vocal Processing
I’ve been getting good results lately with multiple parallel compression on vocals. Quite possibly I am getting better at singing too, but that is still pretty debatable. My current thinking for...
View ArticleA Good Week For Music in Auckland
First up we had the Jack Body “tribute” evening at the Auckland University Music Department, which was a varied and enjoyable night out. Then a couple of days later the NZSO with a newly commissioned...
View ArticleEP #1 nearly done
It has always been my intention to make a series of 4-song EP’s. The inspiration for this is “Fourth Drawer Down”, a collection of singles and oddments by The Associates. It is one of my favourite...
View Articleaiming for the stage
Well, I know that throwing music out there to be swept away by the long tail is a pretty pointless exercise, and I miss the smell of stale beer on the stage floor. So, to follow up on my groundbreaking...
View Articlediabolical mastering
ok, so I’m showing my age here – I bought the new Echo and the Bunnymen cd “Meteorites” – and have a new addition to the “worst mastering ever” list. Not compression from hell this time (as was the...
View Articlethere must be better things to do
Lord help me now I need to spend my time making & integrating a facebook page. To say nothing of twitter, reverbnation, tunecore etc etc
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hamptone tube mic pre
This was one of my first “proper” DIY projects, the valve (or tube) mic pre designed by Scott Hamptone and kindly made public. I built two channels with my own layout – part of the fun is turning the...
View Articlein memory of peter gutteridge
I have added a song for Peter Gutteridge, a Dunedin musician who died on Monday September 15 2014. I knew Peter over a period of about 15 years when I lived in Dunedin. His music has been quite...
View Article“a gift of sorts” deconstructed
1st day of the month – new song! Well, in this instance it came out a few days back in memory of Peter Gutteridge. I’m not so prolific that I can just crank the handle and do another one, so I’ll write...
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LittleBits modular synth
The LittleBits modular synth is a great little plaything. It runs from a 9 volt battery, and comes as a dozen or so components – oscillators, mixer, filters, random voltage generator, delay,...
View ArticleRIP Sam Prebble
Our friend Sam Prebble has died. Sam took his own life, and no-one understands why. We are defenceless in the face of something as utterly incomprehensible as it is true. Sam was a gifted musician –...
View ArticleWar on Drugs review – Powerstation, Auckland
Goddamn I got it wrong again. According to the 2 reviews I read, the War on Drugs gig at the Powerstation in Auckland was pretty awesome. I was ready to go home after 3 songs, but I stuck it out, at...
View Articleramblings on the nature of spare-room music
I think it is generally acknowledged nowadays that making music is not problematic. I am lucky to be one of the <insert big number guess> with a computer, a guitar or two and a microphone in the...
View ArticleNew song for Feb 2015 –“o boy”
“o boy” is now up on the music tab here, bandcamp and soundcloud. I’ll write a bit about how it went together soon.
View Articlenew song for march 2015 –“age of mistakes”
back on schedule with a new song every month, this one started over a year ago as a loop using a couple of vst synths and a few drum samples, took a major diversion about december 2014 and was finished...
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