Been working on yet a new version of Hello World, or rather a total makeover. Watch out for a preview/pre-listen soon. Until then take a listen to this version from the archives. A 2,5 year old accoustic version! Unique and exclusive material, as they say ;)
/M
Demo song
Analogue drums and triggers
For a long time it has been our intention to blend analogue drums with digital drums to get that human feel to the electronic sound. Finally, last monday we were set to go! By having added a drummer to the ‘The Livelong June’ live set-up we now have a superb drummer handy.
This studio session though, was purely a technical trial and error session, it turned out. But definitely worthwhile!
So what we did was to have the snared tuned for a shot gun sound. The kick was already prepared to have a nice fat sound. The intention was to get that perfect sound already on the analogue drum set, but we didn’t manage to get the depth and mid/bass frequencies from the snare. So we decided to go for the character of the sound that we where after and to mix the final stuff in Cubase. Then we started test recording. To be honest it sounded crap in the recording room (according to the drummer). But, when we got the mix right it sounded amazing! Finally, the analogue feel was there!
Next step was to get the midi triggers in place and working. After some misfortune with broken cables we caught the midi signal and found a nice electronic sound for it. The initial mix of electronic and analogue sounded almost perfect!
By that time it was already getting late so we decided to postphone the actual recording session until next time. Really looking forward to that since this feels like the last part in ‘the quest for the livelong sound’..
When the recording is in place, next thing will be to mix it with the programmed drum patches that our top notch drum programmer has created.
What a milestone!
Studio session – Human drummer
Found this short video, from October last year, in the archives. It’s taken from the studio session when we tried adding that human feel to the drum tracks. So, this is actually a live and kickin’ human drummer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MErpre2nf7A
Five hour studio session – Down the drain
Yesterday we took on a massive reconstruction of ‘Homesick’. We’re transforming this pretty soft and emotional song to something more upbeat and more ‘in your face’.
Yesterday evening we had a five hour session where new drums were added. Some industrial stuff there.. Also we did a massive rearrangement of the tracks. All in all we had a productive and very successful evening of hard work.
Very fruitful.. If it hadn’t been for that &&@#% computer. After five hours it turned out that not a single thing had been saved. And yes, we hit the save button several times during the session.
So now we’ll have to do it all over again. Luckily the result is worth the hard work.
(You put me in) Robot mode
We finished a new song tonight! The recording process took quite some time but it turned out rather nice.:)
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Finally: a (human) drum machine
Finally, things are happening on the drum side of things. After struggling with programming and over-dubbing drums manually, we finally managed to find a professional drummer to help us out.
Just tried a few ideas tonight, but the original intension of having a human drum machine still holds. Actually, we’re even more convinced after having tried one.. This gives us good hope on finally finishing a demo track, since this has been the last piece of the puzzle.
A new take on ‘Homesick’
Had a feel that ‘Homesick’ was/is a good song, but became nothing but a ‘ballad’ (in its negative meaning). Feel satisfied with the lyrics which have a good depth in them and even though they were written in honour of my grandpa who passed away, I’ve come to realise that they also cover other situations in life. Also the chords and structure of the song are nice.
Music wise though, I forced on a pumping bass synth and added some extra bouncing bass to it. My intention was to crack down the original soft feel and nothing does that better than an unstoppable bass! Added some extra melodies to lift the chorus and a new sad (but not soft) riff. There are still stuff to be done with the song. First we need to cut down on tracks, but also the drums and the long outro need some caring.
/Marcus
Here are the two versions for comparison:
The old/original version of Homesick:
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The new version of Homesick (yet to be mixed, etc.):
[ca_audio url=”http://www.thelivelongjune.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Homesick-mix-130917.mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player” autoplay=”false”]
Rhythm tracks to “You put me in robot mode”
Here is a video of us working in the studio!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEaDWaOooz8
The life we could have lived
A piece of lyric i wrote today. Its about death and
other serious matters.
The Life we could have lived
I’m talking to you, you who destroy all that is pure
I’m talking to you, you who ignore
All that is true all that is true
I’m talking to you, I’m talking to you
You who hate all of us
I’m talking to you, I’m talking to you
Tell me..
Why did you take everything from us
What made you do everything you did
You crashed and burned everything we had
The only thing that’s left are plans
of a life we couldn’t live
Of a life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
You crashed and burned everything we had
This is the life we could have lived
I’m talking to you, you who have left a hole in our soul
I’m talking to you what have we done
To deserve all of this, to deserve all of this
I’m talking to you I’m talking to you
Please give it back all that you took
I’m talking to you I’m talking to you
Tell me..
Why did you take everything from us
What made you do everything you did
You crashed and burned everything we had
The only thing that’s left are plans
Of a life we couldn’t live
Of a life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
You crashed and burned everything we had
This is the life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
You crashed and burned everything we had
This is the life we could have lived
This is the life we could have lived
Race against time – final (demo) cut
Here is the final result of the mix. Enjoy and leave a comment.
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