REEEECORDING - I

Today I spent most of the day in the soundproof booths at college having a bezz at some recording. The computer technicians here at the college were kind enough to help me set the room up and show me the basics in using condenser microphones. I originally set out to just use the space with my own dynamic microphone, my USB audio interface and maybe another few dynamic microphones, if there were any available at the college for me to use. I learnt how to operate phantom power which enabled the condensers to work. This was pretty daunting as I didn't want to blow any microphones up at all today! I told them I had used the recording software "Audacity" before when I was younger, so they opened it up and got the audio interface and the microphones working, then they showed me how to change between the different input channels. After doing all of this I got on with tracking some stuff.





This is the space I used today to record. It was reasonably sized but at times I did feel quite claustrophobic. Maybe this was because it got hot really quick. I couldn't turn the air con on as the noise it made was picked up on the recordings.





This is the audio interface I used today. It's a good bit of kit and was easy enough to operate.

The microphones I used today :-



AKG C 1000 S



Sure SM57





I didn't get the names of the over heads as they had nothing written on them like the AKG C 1000 S and the SM57. All I know is that they were made in Australia.


- These are a few of the more successful tracks I managed to record...

TEST I


I placed the AKG C 1000 S in front of the sound hole on the guitar. Should have moved it a bit further away as the track is clipping at points, making it uncomfortable to listen to in places. Parallel to the left and the right of me I placed the over heads about 2 metres away. I adjusted the stands about 6ft from the floor. A lot of the room got picked up

TEST II


TEST III


The next two tests I basically used the same set up but tried varying the input levels and moving the mic's further away. I am satisfied with how these tracks were turning out but there is still clipping in places (not so much on test III as test II). The AKG microphone wasn't really working out, maybe it's the type of guitar or the way I was playing.

TEST IV


This is by far the best recording I got out of the day. For this particular one I tried placing the SM57 in front of the sound hole. This gave the recording much more clarity and less clipping. I also swapped round the over heads to see if this made any difference and also managed to pan the two tracks 100% left and 100% right before exporting the .aiff file. Can definitely tell the difference here, the sound is much fuller especially when listening through headphones.

Today was very valuable indeed and I have learnt quite a lot through doing it myself. Even though I got a little help at the start of the day. I have record many things previously with various bands, but in them situations I didn't have to set up any of the recording equipment. I'm glad that I can now go into the booths and just get on with it. Next time I shall book it out when I have some completed songs.

Take into consideration next time :-

- Microphone positioning
- Editing before exporting
- Focusing on one song/Push myself to make a finished product
- Experiment more with microphones and other instruments

Collaboration - II

Tonight I got round to starting my part of the collaboration with Robo. The quote I went for was "You are only as old as the last time you changed your mind.", here is what I came up with...



Ended up with this old wrestler kinda looking like he's just about to nail someone. I'm happy with what I've created but it's not about the content, it's about the processes that were used to end up with this end product.



- Original sketch, I drew this without the help of any reference material.



- Made it slightly bigger, this enabled me to get more detail and to thin out the line width.



- I refined the lines that make the different components by repeatedly drawing and tracing them. I made sure I got the lines as consistent in width as I could. It didn't take me very long to end up with something that started to resemble to the final outcome.



- It took me a few goes when trying to draw it as a whole sketch, but I got there in the end and I am happy with what I've drawn. I did this by scanning 3 different sketches into photoshop and putting them together. I took the legs from the drawing on the right and placed them on the left hand sketch, as it is shown above.



- I cut the eyes out of this sketch and placed them onto the final to finish the drawing. There is a lack of detail in some places, I shall add bits when it comes back my way.

This in all fairness is not really the an ideal way to be creating my illustrations. It took me quite a while to create the final piece, even though I wanted to draw it over and over to refine it, I didn't end up with something at 100% complete. I had to take bits from other pieces and put them all together.


Will now have a go at adding to Rob's effort towards the collaboration and try end up with something totally complete...

KINGDOM - II

We printed our father a tee for his birthday the other week and he kindly agreed to model it for us...



Didn't have a camera on me when were setting up the screens and printing. Will make sure I take one next week!

Gipi

Over the summer I did a lot of work in the petrol station at work. This usually consisted of just sitting there, taking money off of people and going for fag breaks every half hour. I thought this summer I would at least take something into work to read whilst I was down there in my kiosk. I ventured into town and went to various shops such as, OK Comics, Waterstones, Traveling Man etc. In OK Comics I came across a book...



..."Notes For A War Story" by an Italian cartoonists (filmmaker, author) called Gianni Pacinotti aka. Gipi. As soon as I picked this particular graphic novel up I instantly fell in love with it, bought it and read half of it on the bus home. As soon as I got home I had a look on Amazon to see what other publications he has made. I found another novel...



...called "Garage Band" and purchased it straight away. His style of illustration is beautiful! Really care free, but still so delicate and agile. The use of line work and watercolour within each panel works really well together. To go with this great illustrative style he also produces amazing stories, although they are quite short and don't take long to read, they are still intriguing and left me very anticipated to turn to the next page. I'm not a huge graphic novel enthusiast, but I will definitely be on the look out for more Gipi novels and possibly similar artists.

KINGDOM.

Kingdom is a project my brother is running at the moment to try and make a bit of cash money. He first started it for his final major project last year when he attended the ND Graphics course. His end of year show is featured in the college prospectus this year...



He then went to posting one of the designs from the project up onto Emptees.com to try get some feedback and to see if people would be interested in purchasing a tee. The response was great, click here to see the comments.

I don't know how many tees he has bought in total, but next week we are going to get on with getting them printed. He said he is going to split all profits fiddy/fiddy with me for printing them. Shweeeet!!!

Cameron Wisch

This guy is one of the most under rated and talented musicians I have come across to this date. He’s a past member of The Medics, Le Rug, and Ra Ra Riot, drummer of the math/prog/hardcore trio Zona Mexicana. He writes and records his own original music, which consists of drums, guitar, singing and keys.



Here he is performing "What Star Do You Live On?" a whole lot of thought goes into creating this style of music. He uses difficult time signatures, creative drumming and he put's on a very energetic show. Only singing and playing drums live, he plays along to a track that's been pre-recorded. This takes a lot of skill as he has to be very persistent throughout his whole set, as doing this leaves him no room for mistakes. I just don't really understand why there is barely anyone at this show, I would love to see this spectacle live!!!

Click here to have a listen to some of his songs, if anyone is reading this, or download his CD "Flower Wars" here.









These are some photos taken by Peter Kaiser from "Drums and Paint Performance" at SUNY Purchase, and here is the video...



He is also studying classical composition at SUNY Purchase in New York. Here are some of his compositions...

Collaboration - I

My buddy Robo approached me the other day at college and proposed that we should collaborate together. We agreed that we should both pick a quote each and then draw something in relation with the quotes chosen. Then we'll send these two pieces back and forth, adding bits each time to see what we come up with over the course of this project.

Here is what he sent me...



...with the quote "from death comes life". It's freaking sweet!!! I shall have a go at adding something and send him something his way for sure. I was talking to Matt about the whole collaboration effort and he liked the idea and suggested we should screen print a massive poster at the end. Really excited to see what we both come up with and what the end product will look like.

Tee Design - I

At the start of the summer I got asked by a friend to design a t-shirt for his band, Postmortem Promises. I feel kind of bad as I didn't really give it a go over the summer, but now I can tie it into this project. Here is where I got up to before we received the comm tech II brief...



I created this outline within photoshop and then...



...I dragged it into illustrator and pen tooled in the linework. I kind of left it when I got to this stage, the file was just sat there gathering dust until I showed it to Matt. We both agreed that it wasn't looking too good and that I should really be working on my original sketches to achieve a better looking troll, which is really what I am trying to get out of this project. I need to keep drawing and drawing and drawing until it hurts.



This is a quick sketch I drew from these few references...





I shall update my blog once I have made some progress.

Logo design - I

Here in my home town of Morley we have a wicked good rugby team called Morley Rugby Football Club. Walking past their ground and their practice fields like I do everyday to get to my garden I notice something. There is this big black wall at the back of somebody's garden that I never really noticed before.

I have recently watched Banksy's documentary, Exit Through The Gift Shop...



...It's a documentary based on this French guy who basically stumbles upon and follows a few street artists. Within the documentary it shows these street artists creating and putting up their pieces in various locations. Throughout the whole documentary it shows the artists using some kind of adhesive paste to post massive prints on walls and on the sides of buildings. When I saw this I thought I would like to have a go, then when I saw the black wall at the end of the field near my house I instantly wanted to post something on it.

I was thinking, how could I tie this in with the comm tech II project. I have never really tried creating logos within Illustrator before. So I went on the tinterweb and directed my self to the Morley Rugby Club website to have a gander...



...My initial idea is to re-design this logo that I found on their website. I noticed that that logo is basically the Morley crest...



...I think if I take a few aspects from the crest and put them into my logo I should hopefully create something quite interesting.

I really enjoy making gif images...

Comm Tech II

"Document your ongoing exploration of your relationship to communication technology through a blog. We want to see a broad understanding of the ideas behind the technologies you have chosen to explore, a practical understanding of how to use them and the choices you've made when applying them to your projects. Include your working process, mistakes, thoughts about materials, techniques and any other information that's important to your investigation."

Really excited for this brief! Just got home from the Lecture with Matthew Hodson. Today, with all it's glory and its wetness, was the time I met the fella and I think he's a real awesome dooood. Very much looking forward to getting to know him better and to get on with this whole comm tech v.2 malarkey.

There are already a few ideas buzzing about the place with these self directed projects we have to do. The main areas I feel like I need to focus on will be illustration orientated. I want to explore and develop my drawing technique to help me refine my practice. Looking into different mark making tools, my creative process, designing for print and all the technologies involved should hopefully help me in doing this.

I am also very keen to get my music that I make out into the public's ears and the D.I.Y approach to making this achievable. We have the soundproof rooms at our college and a whole array of microphones to mess about with. I do have a fairly good understand of garageband as I've experiment with this software from time to time. Would very much like to learn a more established type of software like Logic or Cubase, but that's a whole other course on it's own.

Let's freaking goooooooooo...