Alchemea concept-recording, 'The one night band' song written in the moment. Tim Wheeler on vocal/bas, Guy Dean on drums, Tom Proost on guitar/vocal. It's quite funny when English people do backing vocals on your Dutch lyrics..
I might end up making a more composed version of the same song later on, but for now..
NOT mixed/edited by me!!
Good fun.
Amazing mixing lecture last week, learned so much, feel like I have to re-do everything I've done..
Sometime last weekend I went to see faith'n'fury, a band we recorded at Alchemea. It was gonna be easy. Outside of London though, we would take a coach the band arranged from Dartford. My classmate TK reassured me she was gonna get me back home without any problems, little did I know..
Maybe you could tell from the picture above (unlikely), but it's Southend-on-Sea. Yes indeed, I was at the beach.. the venue appeared to be just a bit further than I anticipated.
Saw the band, they put on a nice show. The gig ended, we got a cab to the train station, missed our last train, hiked along with the band (very lucky) 'till somewhere down in South-London. London is much bigger than I thought.. Had to wait for a long time in the cold for some night bus to show up. No idea just where about we where..(on the bus, still reasonably high spirits, still early)
To cut a long story short: it took us another 2 buses to figure out where we where in London, walk another half an hour, wait another hour to catch the N73, direction seven sisters. Pretty cold, pretty tired. Left home at 5.20pm, got back at 4.20pm. Last time I trust TK on taking me to a gig 'just a bit outside of London'.
I did see the sea though. Surprisingly black.
You know, when sometimes you are really completely happy with something you did? This the mix I did with the fait'n'fury multitrack we recorded, the first time I'm pretty satisfied with my work. 3-piece band. 10 guitar tracks, 3 vocal tracks, 1 bass track, 8 drum tracks, multi-tape and a Big SSL-G desk, you can hear the noise coming from tape. Some puzzling, it's hard not to mud up the guitars, but I managed.
*Daniel Kahneman on the difference between the 'remembering self' and the 'experiencing self', in short, the only thing that seems to count afterwards is how we remember experiences. As such, the last part of any experience seems to be the most important one, because this is what we remember. I will post the video when it becomes available.
*William Li on some groundbreaking cancer research. In short, the fact that angiogenesis might become very important in the next generation of cancer treatments, an alternative to chemotherapy. His question 'can we eat cancer to dead?' on which the answer appeared to be 'yes we can' was very striking. Something to watch.
*The fact that TED-talks have been watched 200.000.000 times around the world, with 2500 people translating them.
*Dan Barber on true eco fish-farming without waste. *Nicholas Christakis on 'obesity clusters', showing visualisations on how the fact whether you are obese depends largely on you social network. Striking. *Kevin Bales on the fact that ALL slavery can be sustainably solved by spending $10.8 billion dollar. Amazing.
*Yoni Benatar pilots mini drones from his iphone with augmented reality.
*A debate pro-contra nuclear power, live, on stage between people who Really know what they are talking about, with an audience that can Really change the outcome of the nuclear debate, fascinating. Kind of changed my view on that matter actually. *Jane McGonigal on the fact that we should harness the qualities of the gaming community to solve real world problems. We need more gaming. Not everybody agreed.
*David Byrne (talking heads) on how music adapts to its physical environment. *Nathan Myhrvold with some geeked-out inventions. Including a machine that "Shoots musquitos with Lasers" (no kiddin, they did a live demo on stage..., proper Austin Powers, 'Laser')
*Stephen Wolfram on http://www.wolframalpha.com/ , the online search-engine that can do maths and solve problems by combining uncombined data.. *Seth Berkley on flu vaccins and how lucky we have been up until now. His work on making a "retrovacinallity" vaccin that might last much longer than one year. Also, HIV.
*Mark Roth on 'suspended animation', making organisms seem dead and make them able to sustain in low-oxygen environments by lowering temperature and applying hydrogyn sulfide while being able to wake them up again afterwards without any harm. Working tests on mice and others. Human trails are coming up. *Sergey Brin, a google-founder in an on-stage interview about the threat made by google to stop censoring google in China due to gmail account being broken into by the Chinese government. *Bill Gates on the energy- and climate-crisis. C02 = people x services/person x Energy/service x C02/energy-unit. The only thing we can really change is C02/energy-unit. By 2050 we Need -80%! *Denis Dutton, philosopher. Bottom line(?)'How does beaty makes happy? -> esthetic pleasure is nature's trick-alternative to tasty things.. *George Whitesides on simplicity. What is it? Complexity has been studied, simplicity hasn't. *Chip Conley on how we measure national welfare. GDP needs to become GNH (G National Happiness), isn't that what really counts.
*James Cameron, maker of titanic and avatar. *Sir Ken Robinson, on 2 types of people: those who love what they do, those that endure instead of enjoy life, living for the weekend. *Jamie Oliver (one of my heros) now fighting for a food revolution in the USA. 'obesity kills'. This year's TEDPrize winner, every year TED sets out to achieve one new TED-wich. I do think the public laughs a bit to much, it's not that funny... MUST SEE: I am translating it into dutch as we speak. See also
"Live each day as if it is your last," said Mahatma Ghandi. "Learn as if you'll live forever."
'And now for something completely different': SuzyAlone by judasproost Made in a jam-session with fellow Alchemea classmates, mixed from tape on the SSL G-Series. Recordings started late and ended early.. I play the guitar on the right. Only listenable when relaxed or in need of relaxing (I guess). We where really pleased with the result of our fiddling-around.
Yes, I know, I over-compressed this one.. that's what people expect these days.
Just as a measure of comparison, I put up the original version. Note that the drums 'pop' much more (although they are, strangely enough, mixed with compressed drums), there is a lot more dynamic going on. You would be able to see it on the wave-form, if the song wasn't so long. Altough, even this version is compressed. SusyAlone original squashed by judasproost
The real original is below (and even this one is ever-so-slightly compressed using the SSL-console) SusyAlone original comp by judasproost
-pleas make note that you are listening to MP3s !!!, not proper WAV-files-
On another note: I am 'enjoying' the results of an £8 hair-cut. Happy for what you could expect fort £8. Short, but it will grow back, that's what it usually does anyway.
-currently rather busy watching TED2010 live-stream, but do want to put something out-
This piece of music is an assignment for college. My first midi-piece ever made in pro tools, using only the standard instruments (except for the guitars and sampled drums). Enjoy.
Still having bit of a cold, although I've been taking my medecins.. So I decided to go and see a GP (General Pract.).
Apparently, here in the UK you have walk-in centers. I walked into the wrong center at first, but after some directions I got where I had to be. It's a strange thing, you sign in, they have you waiting at some sort of a reception, then you get to see the walk-in GP on duty. And the best thing about it: it's all for free!
Anyway, got to see the GP, after some questioning etc he concluded: I have a very bad cold. It's nice to know, you know..
Finished it last week, now looking for something new, thanks to WS for pointing this book out to me. Great book, makes you wonder about nearly everything. Nice writing style although sometimes the translation into dutch has some bugs. Recommended (can be lend on request).
Looking for something scientific/philosophical, if anyone has got suggestions, you know where to find me.
I'm an engineer leaving Belgium and my present life to go and live in the big smoke for 356+ days.
Please pardon my English-ish mistakes, I'm learning as I go along..
