Tag Archives: home studio

Catching Up With Old Friends

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Recently I caught up with an old friend of mine Jeff Smith whom I had lost contact with for about 8 years.

When we finally caught up it was lovely to discover that there was none of the awkwardness or guilt that sometimes comes with a reconnection with a good friend after a long time apart, we just picked up where we left off and interacted as if we saw each other yesterday.

Besides fulfilling a need to reconnect with an old friend, I contacted Jeff to let him know that a song we wrote together way back when called “Billboard Angel” was going to be part of the next SCALA CD release.

I can’t remember how Jeff and I first met but what I do know is that he’s an amazing guitarist, studio engineer and an all round nice guy with unique perspectives on life which make for great conversation and for writing really good songs.

It’s through reconnecting with Jeff that I’ve become really inspired to get stuck into my home studio setup and start recording my songwriting ideas again, something I very thankful for.

I want to finish this post today with another example of a song that Jeff and I wrote. It’s called “Groove With You” and it touches on the concept of two people who just can’t seem to connect fully even though they adore each other. I just love the funkiness of the song.

Enjoy!

Groove With You
© 2001 (C. Stewart / J. Smith)

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Peace,

Corey :)

A Pinch And A Punch…

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Logic Pro
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Today is the first day of July which in Australia means that it’s the start of a new financial year which also means that its tax time and APRA live performance returns submission time, yet another couple of large tasks to put onto the ‘to-do’ list however, it has been a very busy week so far.

Monday night was a SCALA board meeting, Tuesday night was Synchronicity Police rehearsal, Wednesday night I was MC’ing the Open Mic @ The Dan and tonight I’m MC’ing the monthly Open Mic @ The Third Cork. Amazingly enough, I get Friday off because of a cancelled gig. Phew!

What was the point of all that? Nothing really, I just wanted to get some things off my chest and to put in some text-links to other projects that I’m involved with but I do want to tell you what happened yesterday. It was a home recording studio nightmare.

You see, yesterday I managed to wipe all of the Logic Pro 9 audio loops from my hard drive. I don’t know how I did it but I’m going to be spending all day re-installing Logic Studio.

How cool is that? Not!

I was doing some recording with good friend and songwriting collaborator Adrian Miller and I immediately had a brilliant idea… Lets use a drum loop from the audio loops library.

I thought it would be as simple as dragging and dropping the loop “Lo-Fi Country Loop 9″ into the prepared audio track but, even though the file was visible on the screen, I press play and it wasn’t working. After half and hour of mucking around I was at the point where I had the problem well and truly licked however, I clicked the wrong dropdown menu function and all of the loops vanished. I went cold and my insides freaked out a little.

I shut down, restarted and opened up a previously recorded song hoping for a miracle but still, no loops but I did get a nice little message saying that there were indeed no loops installed in the library and that I need to use the discs provided to rectify the issue.

Thank goodness I have the full legal copy of Logic Studio.

Now I hear you ask “what lessons have you learnt from this experience?” Well, reading the manual from time to time comes to mind but the most important thing I realised was that if I don’t know it, don’t click it.

I know what Phil Spector would’ve done if he were in my shoes… Is there a gun in the house?

Peace,

Corey :)

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Home Recording Experiments

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For years I’ve wanted to have my own home recording setup, a songwriting suite where I can, at any time, record my songwriting ideas for either future reference or for pre-production purposes. I remember looking at the home studios of my friends and thinking to myself “one day, I too can have this”

Now, with the final piece of the home studio puzzle purchased and installed a fortnight ago I have achieved my dream. Here’s a couple of piccies for you.

The engine room

The main keyboard (with Barry in the background)

At the moment I’m using:

  • 27″ iMac using Logic Pro 9
  • Presonus Firbird audio interface
  • Fostex monitor speakers
  • Rode NT3
  • Rode NT1000
  • M-Studio MIDI keyboard
  • Some Casio digital piano
  • Alesis SR16 drum machine
  • Line 6 POD X3

I must admit, the learning curve I’m experiencing has been very, very steep and there have been times that I’ve thrown my hands up in air in frustration convinced that I’m “never going to get this” but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from all of this is that you learn a lot about yourself when you’re faced with a huge challenge.

I’m going to put some home recording experiments online very soon so feel free to send me feedback but in the meantime, the rain is pelting outside so I’m going to fire the home studio up and make some more music.

Peace,

Corey :)

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