Rivermen creative process

2004-01-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

This blog is terminated, but kept online as a record of our transition from Rivermen to Late on Earth.
Please visit/hear/enjoy us at:

The Late Page

or,

loelife

Lots of love, always! / Tisa & Johan

2003-10-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

Anubis is now afloat, although in a non-finished state. Main-attraction DOWNLOADS are not there yet. Eve wonder Why I use the term "Afloat" in connection with, well, Anubis? Of course it refers smartly to "The Ship of Deprived orgies" in Gravitys rainbow. I'm a sucker for obscure references... so obscure I have to reveal them for anyone to get it... see ya /Tisa

2003-09-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a rollercoaster ride for a while now. Mixed bag of good and bad. Music? fat chance! Anubis? nearly there... To bad the Bitch Slap saga is hanging, I could need some entertainment right now... New song idea on the guitar : "Krysantemum" /T

2003-09-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

THIS IS THE TIME FOR CAPITALS: I GOT THE JOB! GOTLAND HERE I COME!!! :-)

2003-08-26T01:52:00.000-07:00

Good stuff keep coming: I got accepted for an interview and they actually pay a flight ticket! What could possibly go wrong? er... no, don't answer that;-) /gray

2003-08-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

tada! Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a fully functioning, proffessional mix of "Wild wild waves" - I'm not 100% content with the vocals, but hey - Getting all that studio time for free isn't such a bad deal;-) The real magic came from the dbx quantum-unit. I'll put the track in my "Baffling-vault-of-weird-recordings" (wink, wink as the apple turns...) for later use when "Anubis" is afloat.
If you ever have been involved in commercial music production, or other studio work you'll find this link hilarious, well written and very very funny: The Daily Aventures of Mixerman

Bye bye;-) (for now)!!! /gray

2003-08-20T02:27:00.000-07:00

Having spent some time with the test mix I am fairly satisfied. What is odd though, is that all vocals appear to be slightly "behind" in timing. Now, some of the blame lies with the singer (ahem;-) - not "opening up" soon enough, but I also get this lagging feeling. We'll have a new session this evening to really, really wrap u p t h e t ra ck (no, this time its for sure, isn' it??) Caught a few words with temper on IM last night - downloading stuff. that's it, I'm out of here:-) /Tisa

By the way, some of the unwashed masses could do well reading something by this guy!;-)

2003-08-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to log some studio time. Put down som e voxals on Wild wild waves and marveled at the wonders of serious DSP-capacity. We also cleaned up the track a bit, maybe too clean if ya know what I mean? The rest of my life is in transition. Already having ants in my pants waiting for a important call:-( (new job)

rite, we'll try to wrap up the track tonite... hm vibrato guitars?? /gray

2003-08-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

mooh and howdy! my life feels like sloshing through a vast ocean of swedish peasoup (Small bits of pork stuck between my toes)... applying for a new job etc etc waiting to sell flat etc etc waiting to move to Gotland etc etc etc... there you have it: PEASOUP!!!

/Gray

2003-08-04T04:59:00.000-07:00

Did some really neat, softo vocoder-beats. They'll prolly come in handy later... Nice conversations taking place regarding Anubis and the technical challenges. trudging on... congrats to the Happy couple by the way;-)

2003-08-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

oops, it's working - expect to hear more from us soon (like in 3003;-) /Gray

2003-08-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well, oh well... trying to make the first post for eons and what do I get? Server error! :-( /Gray

2003-05-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

Went to see Lloyd Cole at Nalen Stockholm yesterday. Man, If I had half his talent I'd sure be a happy man! A bit curious selection of songs tough. A couple of his new ones were superb and he also did his magnificient version of "people ain't no good" I just loooved "Late night, early town". M and I headed back home directly, we're kind of stressed out... moving and all... Laters

2003-05-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

Well, at long last a job opening has surfaced on that small and windswept island i'm about to migrate to... I'll try to find the time to FTP a basic version of an old song. Temper will prolly wonder why it has changed its name, hehe - I changed the lyrics and the title. I also have some idea about what to do in order to upgrub the grub organ (I'll feed it a Hash Brownie and a large whisky maybe!) Bwaah I'm so tired today I could fall on my head any minute, but it's okay - I'm so happy I could scream. Very surreal actually. Some days ago I started to recreate the arpeggio-synth sound from that Ol' Eurythmics song, "here comes the rain again". NO, It's not a cover in the works! I just need that particular feel for a new song. Maybe I'll have a go tonite and at da sem time play with 2.5 yes yes Moodles noodles nice device... In the meantime I'll just spend the afternoon hating my current emplyment and STHLM commuting... See ya around Fuckface - don't screw anything I wouldn't screw (Hey Im a Grim Rocker in a leather jacket today:-)

2003-05-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Installation of affore- and "in other channels"-mentioned software went well! Temper has managed to fairly recreate the incredible grubby backwards-organ sound. Overall it's very good, but maybe a little too clean. Love the sound of the new Scream4 dist. unit. M is moving and applying for work. I have a severe hangover today... mmmm laters

2003-05-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

Mmmm...bit-envy! Temper is already running Reason 2.5

Days like these I just wonder: "Hey, where did my life go?"

It's becoming increasingly apparent that we have completely misunderstood this Blog-Thing. A blog ought to be a unstructured rant stream-of-conscienceness-thing. Not these rare, short and cryptic blurbs of ours. But hey now, I just created a new blog today (as if the world needed another one) but I won't reveal the adress until Anubis is ready to go. Did a compilation of our latest tunes (4 songs!) for Joe C.

Yours Truly, very much in Love & Lust ;-)

2003-04-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm currently seeking to borrow some studio-time for putting down good voxals on Wild waves. Possibly for a mixdown as well - my own computer croaks on the massive load (Is that the spectre of P. Spector i hear rattling in his grave?). Also we made good progress on Anubis to a point, but now it is calm again - Sweetster M, is just too busy;-)

Have yourself a Tiger-day...

2003-04-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I would like to add that work on Anubis is about halfway. I have also completed a rough version of a new song. I'll polish it some more and send it of to Temper for some magic drums, creative input and the "mung" removing process a.k.a. mastering. Currently having nightmares about Jade Leary (The FairPlay guy:-), chasing me with a big stick...*joking*

"Everyone has to come from somewhere and the earth is a sphere..."

2003-03-14T01:58:00.000-08:00

Long time no post! Well, work is trudging along, I am trying to learn more about mastering. Also, lo and behold, I have registered as a beta tester for Reason 2.5 (downloaded the beta testing version yesterday). Haven't checked it out just yet, but it looks so, so, SO COOL!!! Hope my dear partner in crime Mr. Gray is doing allright...

2003-03-11T04:49:00.000-08:00

Well we actually have a lot to blog about. So much in fact, I don't have the time to actually...eh blog it down (or up) We'll be back, hopefully soon.

2003-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Finally sent off what feels like a reasonable finished version of Bleak House to Gray. Hope you like it, my man! Meanwhile, on with the next ones...

2003-02-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

Hello J! Please email me the following personal information: 2-4 influcences and inspirations for you (music, movies, people whatever...) - place of birth - If I ruled the world, I would...? and some other items like favourite drink, shoe-size and what have you... busy little coders, tap tap tap

2003-02-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

new post...

2003-02-08T04:47:00.000-08:00

I'm playing the waiting game, but that sure is better than the killing game...;-) our blog is in nice order, work continues on the new site, and yes, I'm a-waiting new stuff. The feeling reminds me a bit of those childhood X-mases. Time has been spent, in part, preparing content for Anubis (that, my friends, is just another word for "writing text that goes into a HTML-page") I'll get back as soon as I have laid my sticky little fingers on da new stuff bubba

2003-02-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hello! It's nice to hear from Temper once again. It's even nicer to hear that a new version of Bleak House is in the works. I guess sometimes you have to tear things down in order to build them up again. As much as I'd like making music instead of fiddling with HD:s, installers etc, I'm afraid it's necessary. The first steps are taken. Jaguar is roaring, a midi-keyboard is ordered at the store. Meanwhile back at the farm, the ol' Nord is stumping around looking understimulated and sad... While waiting for new gear to arrive I've actually has taken to activate the inbuilt webserver in OS X! Yes, I'm now able to successfully serve my own webpages to...er...myself:-) Still on a modem, with a Geek Factor of 10... That phatt ADSL line is making me very jealous. Now it's time for bed my children...

2003-02-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

YIEHHAAAA!! We are online at home! A big, fat, fast ADSL modem and surfing takes on a whole new meaning... you will probably hear a lot more from yours truly now!
Anyway, poked a bit with Bleak House and I must say that it is sort of... finished. Yes, it has been said before, but after a few listenings it still sounds pretty good. I will pack it up and send it to Mr. Gray, lessee if it tickles his fancy...

2003-02-04T03:47:00.000-08:00

This blog is a guinea-pig for things to come. I´ve changed my mind regarding the Radium keyboard. I'll probably go for the brand spanking new Edirol PCR-50 instead: leaner, meaner and less dorky (come on, admit it: A MIDI-keyboard can never be as cool as a genuine synthesizer:-) But time goes on and you have to move with it or be a, a... eh boring ol' reactionary...

TROPHIES

...smoochers to all our fans (sob sob)

ps. soon I'll post the story about the Upgrade (be afraid, be very afraid...) in tormenting detail MOAHAHAHAHA

2003-02-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Me and Loveable webmaster M, spent the evening fixing our archives. The result was very nice indeed:-) There is a warm and fuzzy feeling inside - happiness I guess;-) (M says Hello!, one blogging-night and already a seasoned veteran... laters...

2003-02-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

Upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2 went smoothly...;-)

2003-01-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

Ah, my dear colleague is reconfiguring his setup! Cool :-) Meanwhile, I have been reconfiguring Bleak House again (yes I know, I'm hopeless). Couldn't find a guitar sound that blended well with the rest of the sounds on the track, so they ended up in the trash (except for one track at the end). What instead? Well, went back to basics; I listened to an old recording of it to see which components were in the original. Found that the main ones were a synth bass, a long distorted lead sound and a soft background carpet from my Microwave. AH! So, went there, did that and it works! Just got to balance the mix and repair a loop and some drum sounds (they were somehow wrecked in the upgrade to Reason 2.0). Then, send it off to Mr. Gray...

2003-01-27T04:28:00.000-08:00

Placed an order for another HD (40 Gb) and Mac OS X 10.2! Yes, I found the safest solution (altough a bit pricier) to my upgrade worries. I'm going to install Jaguar on the new drive, hehe, how smart am I? Been tinkering some with the Blog template. Fixed it so a link to our demo and e-mailadress shows up in every post, very neat me think. Asked around about the Radium. tempting, tempting indeed... At long last I managed to burn a emergency disc with disk tools and a system folder. Why it took so long. Well, let's just say I have my reasons (can you say "software license"?) While at it, I installed MP3 Rage to edit ID3 tags and MPegger for encoding. Neat, Now I can write in Full title and the link to our forthcoming site in all our public MP3 releases. One small step, each and every day... Cheers!:-)

2003-01-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

Another test... HTML template

2003-01-23T02:47:00.000-08:00

Previous post gladdens me immensly!!! All of a sudden things are moving (altough slowly). Last evening I sat down with The Sweetest Woman In The World And All History and managed to keep my little stickies of her long enough to actually get going on Anubis. Whats more interesting is a slight shift in mentality I've experienced lately: I'm getting ready to, gulp, bite the bullet and: SELL MY NORD LEAD 2! there, I've said it, and it feels... hm, good:-) Just think about it: I never ever use the internal sounds - just the keyboard for midi-action and the knobs for tweaking Reason devices. THis means I sit with a very nice and very expensive overkill-situation. Selling the Nord and my vocoder could land me enough dough to upgrade software (SX, R2, Mac OS X etc) and a nice radium-keyboard. Curious about Bleak. Guitars? eh? Now If I just could get a couple of minutes free for connecting with da mann...

2003-01-23T02:04:00.000-08:00

Finally completely up and running at our new place (moved the very last of the stuff over just a week ago). Everything I need is now unpacked. Have also plugged in my new electric guitar via SansAmp distortion and S100 multi-effect, and boy, that distortion kicks ass! Just wish I was a better guitarist, but I'm getting there... Have also revamped 'Bleak House' with nice new sounds from the new Reason 2 devices (read: Malstrom) and put a couple of guitar tracks down... YAYY, we are rock n roll!!! ;-) Can't wait to sink my teeth into 'Codeine'... Installing the latest update of Reason resolved all the problems that I had before with the ReWire integration. Everything runs really, really smooth! :-D Rocking on...

2003-01-21T05:44:00.000-08:00

Ran a instrumental test-mix of Wild waves. The horn section could be louder. Missed mr J on da Fone several times:-(, need to send the file to him so he can work his drum-mojo on it - just some more tweaks first. And the vocals? hm, haven't started yet. I also calculated the cost of moving to X. The result? (Hold on to your seat now): at least 500 quid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well it was a nice dream...

2003-01-17T06:05:00.000-08:00

Nothing really new to report... "I took my medication, I feel worse"

2003-01-10T03:31:00.000-08:00

Went to bed velly velly late. Working on WWW and made significant progress. Most notably the TRANSITION (ta-dam!) between the main part and the finishing "weirdo"-section of the piece was given some shape. Exchanged the Cheesy trumpetsamples in the chorus for a full blown 16-bit french horn multi sample beast. Much better... so there. Boy am I fed up with winter? Yes, I am fed up with winter. sleeeepy....

2003-01-08T04:40:00.000-08:00

Spent several hours constructing patches for the NN-19. Source material is a lot of wonderful Orchestral samples from E-mu library. Also some progress in arranging a new/old one, at last the basic structure is in place. I'm not totally satisfied with the sounds though... Love/T

2003-01-02T05:06:00.000-08:00

Hohohoho...er... Have'nt done much music lately. Been busy stuffing myself silly with sill, potatoes, and 200 variants of Dead Hog (a lotta "Nubbe" too ;-) ; :+) New Years Eve I put 1/2 kilograms of Dead Ox on fire with Cognac Pooff!!! But there are one piece of happy news that just might be of some significance: RME Has put up a link to a beta driver for my card YEAY! (eh, the driver itself is missing, but at least something is happening) ... the long and winding road to X sigh* Happy Xmas and a happy new to mr J and his companionesse miss J :-) blblblblbalblblbalbalbabalalbalb

2002-12-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

HELP! We are lost in some zoo full of evil animals who all want to know how we are doing today!!! Seriously, we are sitting here at Disneyworld, draped in the sugar and grease that is the world of Disney. It's christmas as well, to top it all off... Rides are cool, yanks are not (Julie has refreshed her hatred to all-new levels). Wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year!!!!! Peach.

2002-12-18T01:46:00.000-08:00

MRRRROOOAAAHHH!!!!! Hmm...Did I mail the FP Toolkit, or not? Been struck with a terrible flu (vomiting, fever, pain in the limbs (all Limbs!) durchfall (if you don't know what this highly colourful and apt german word means, go look it up, whydon't ya?) etc etc). Well I managed to get up on my paws friday evening for the art performance I've been working on. Against all odds it was a sucess. FISH! Great to hear about Temp's move. "A room of one's own" - and all that... bla bla, anyway I hope he'll get plugged in and start to do stuff soon, like a final-final-son-of-mix on Bleak. Days are creeeeeeeping by. Merry X-mas and oh, by the way: Beta drivers for the PST card is reportedly "coming soon" (what, like next deacde or...?). At least it seems like a light at the end of the tunnel (er, it might be a train WATCH OUT) GASPLATCHA!!!!!!

2002-12-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

I have moved!!! Wow, it is such a great feeling to unpack stuff and have plenty of space for everything! I now have a studio room all to myself, have unpacked all my essential comics (like Crying Freeman and Kozure Okami) ;-) Also spoke with Gray, the winter darkness is eating him a lot more than it eats me (but again, he lives in Sweden which is quite a bit darker). Oh well, it will turn in a couple of weeks and get brighter again, so hang in there buddy!

2002-11-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

Been fighting with Reason for a while... it kept saying that the files are of a bad format and cannot be opened!!! WAAH!! Anyway, it got resolved finally with the new bugfix update. It appears that when you have song self-contained settings it will behave like this, but this was fixed so now I am happy again. :-D Work continues on the songs, getting up to speed a bit now...

2002-11-22T03:45:00.000-08:00

Phone conversation with drummer Temper yesterday:-) FairPlay seems like a nice solution for us. I'll mail the FP Toolkit To JL ASAP. I'm currently working on an Art collaboration to be performed in Stockholm 13-14 december. Nevertheless I managed to lay a foundation (basic patterns and such) on an other Oldie of Ours, hehe. The title and some lyrics will be changed... The weekend looks good, Sleeeepyyy heeaaadd SNorf zzzzzz/M

2002-11-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well, fancy that! A posting from me! It's been a while, but guess what, I'm moving again! This time it will be for good I hope, I'm sick of moving. Busy days of course, not much time to do the music stuff. But, got some stuff done, I set up a default song in Reason which will act as a template for any new songs. Not the most exciting work in the world, but it does lay the foundation. Otherwise it's dark and rainy. Oh well, the show must go on....

2002-11-12T04:19:00.000-08:00

At least I sleep better these days... Nevertheless it feels like I've piled up several months of tiredness. Dream department in my brain is working overtime like crazy as soon as I drowse - weird! Otherwise: no progress... cold... blaah!

2002-11-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

Checking out PayPal FEAR, LEECHES! hehehe

2002-11-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

bip-bop-bop-bop...METRONOME ANGST!

2002-11-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a believer in telepathy and stuff like that, but since I met M strange things happen...

2002-11-04T02:12:00.000-08:00

Ahoy! Sinking rats! Been on a salty sea-trip to the cool island of Gotland. In my company (of course) was the likewise salty skipper of my heart: M:-) Days ahead are extremly busy. I need to find some time to tweak WWW and do some Demo-ish recording of vocals. And then send it off to the UK. hehe, I'm a lazy sucker...MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

2002-11-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

Goddam. Had a little session where I plunged deep into the realms of Malstrom in Reason. Jeez, that thing can churn out some massively cool stuff, all you need to do is modulate! Started creating a 'default song' with drum mappings for the sampler etc. Take a couple of steps back to go more steps forward...

2002-10-31T05:57:00.000-08:00

With my feeble skills in HTML I managed to mess up the whole template. I'll get back on this subject. The big question right now is: "How do people find time for endless rants in their blogs?" Myself, I'm struggling to squeeze in a few lines here and there - not very interesting, eh? Our loveable webmaster has not yet started with Anubis. But that's allright 'cause JL is busy moving. It feels like a giant gridlock... I've actually been thinking about buying a 2nd hand Pwer Mac Cube lately. "-OK, that's it", I here you say, "he's gone over to be a permanent resident of Jolly Ranch" But hey, consider the PROs:

1. Cheap, obvious
2. Small, obvious
3 Silent, excellent as a music 'puter

now if I just connect a Fire wire interface...

2002-10-30T07:29:00.000-08:00

testing... do we have hello?

2002-10-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

Meta stuff: trying to find a way to include URL for our mp3.com page and contact email in EVERY POST MOOHAAHAHA!!!

2002-10-30T06:13:00.000-08:00

This love is unlike any other feeling I've had before. It is deep, unnegotiable and earth-shattering. I am lost, yet safe. Headlong into the unknown, yet enjoying every second of the ride. Tomorrow...

2002-10-28T04:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I did some more on WWW (hehe, Wild Wild Waves, catchy isn't it?) I'm also curious about Malström... what happens if you feedback the outputs to the inputs? HOOWWLL? is the distorsion better than the current one (wich sucks)?? Queries, queries. Longing for Sweets... Hm I haven't been able to figure out how to do "so gone" - all of my ideas sucks heavily upon implementation. Maybe I'll send the beast to J and let him spank on it:-)

2002-10-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

OWWYEAH!!! Got Reason 2.0 today, and boy is it cool!!! Malstrom rocks, it can generate just the kind of ondulated sounds that I like... and there's a 'proper' sampler in there with splits and layers... *sigh of relief*!

2002-10-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yalla. Moving slowly forward with production, a little each day. Currently awaiting delivery of Reason 2.0 (how disappointing is it to check the post every day, discovering that no delivery came today either?). I CANNOT WAIT! It just looks so mega-cool... Also need something that can feed 48V phantom power to my condenser mic, the options are many. Gotta start packing soon, moving again. Will I ever settle down? Oh yes, this time... Lovely girl + big house + fab country = roots established. I can even have my very own studio room! YAYY!!!

2002-10-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

blog-a-doo, blog-a-dee... Barely had the energy to mess with "Wild waves" - found some unexpectedly good guitar-samples (NN-19) that sounded like, hm, very pompous and distant. Wish I could play reasonably well electric myself... Played Faith to some colleagues at work (Mind you, they are LIBRARIANS!) and they all liked it very much. At least they say so, one can't never be too sure...

2002-10-07T04:23:00.000-07:00

Had a weekend meeting with the worlds most loveable webmaster about Anubis. Collected some graphics, evaluated pictures and discussed the general outline and so forth...mm yep we did some other nice things too...;-) Begun thinking about better words for So gone, thinking a lot about arrangements. Latest idea: three (3!) different bass lines... Major disappointment this week: SX is for Mac OS X only:-( So why not upgrade? well, some software I use will never make it to X, second it's a lot of "unknowns", not to mention the cost. But the major deal-breaker is the driver-situation for the PST-card. Or, rather the lack of driver-situation for the aforementioned card. Yep, thats right, no drivers, no fun, no music! Guess I'm stuck in 9 for the foreseeable future.

ROASTED ANGELS AT SATAN'S FEAST!

2002-10-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

Visit to UK went according to plans. We are set on a new name for the band and also took a lot of photos. Cubase SX Rocks!

2002-09-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

In a very late nocturnal session (INSOMNIA!) I managed to recreate a neat "hack" that makes reason into a passive-massive bank of mucho CPU-economic synths that feeds into Cubase. The difference from ordinary Rewire is that I can use the advanced cubase sequencer and also record and edit tweaks in standard cubase midi-parts C00L! I'm sure there are other who use this method but it sure was new to me. It feels like a totally new system... Bring em on. Need to call J about Arrival and such. bubba /M

2002-09-18T02:19:00.000-07:00

hehe, that is cool. Paying up my airplane-ticket to UK today. We plan to take depraved photos, consume alcohol, shave off all pubic hair and intoxicate ourselves with acid until we reach the edge of the universe... er, not really. Just some socializing and discussion about name change. Laters...

"Do you have humour?"
"We are dead serious. All the time. When gravitation is on a coffee break, we pop in and mind the store..."

2002-09-17T00:27:00.000-07:00

Currently working on three songs simultaneously: 1. Bleak House (well, it's finished, I'm just using it to get to know the new sequencing software). 2. Watchman, getting down to some real hardcore production on it, having a bit of a problem with the Taiko drum and the hell voices. Taiko drum?!? Hell voices?!?!?!?! Patience children, it will all be revealed in time. 3. Faith, the newborn from Mr. A. Not much work done, just tossing some ideas on production of it. Mr. A. wants to make a proper recording of the guitars on it, so once I get them I'll start for real. By the way, how's this for a song title: "The Bomb Bomb Loopapa Tribe Drown Themselves in a Vat of Marmite"! Everyday dadaism, isn't it wonderful?!? Found this title in the upcoming Tear Garden Vault CD, see http://www.litany.net.

2002-09-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Had a cold and in the weekend I went fishing for crayfish! Great fun, but no music:-) Thinking about Anubis continues

2002-09-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

Installed new sequencing software yesterday and boy, is it slick! Everything is finally communicating as it should, so more advanced production is at hand!! YAYY!!! Life is great...

2002-09-04T04:23:00.000-07:00

Started to work on some ideas and loose guidelines for our site-to-be. Code name: Anubis. hehe, if anyone can figure out the pun the beer is on me:-)

2002-09-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

hm I feel that a great puncturing of the previous auto-panegyric post is in order here. "So gone" has one major problem, and that is the fact that the current lyrics (admittedly ad-hoc words) SUCKS! Sweet Muse, where is the inspiration...

2002-09-02T05:42:00.000-07:00

Just started work on a new song (working title: so gone). I think it will be very different, the melody (actually there are SEVERAL melodies INTERACTING, gasp...!) is very ornamented and the structure of the song isn't quite so minimalistic.. exciting indeed! lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove...:-)

2002-08-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

Well, well, just spoke to Mr. A. Just one small, final tweak (taking down the noise arpeggio a bit by closing the filter a tad) and it is finished! Will try to get that done this evening, then we are done with that one... Current works are finishing Watchman, continue on Codeine and the ever ongoing task of writing new stuff. There are also some old songs that need to be reanimated, so there is plenty to do. Peach.

2002-08-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

I finally sat down and had a listen to Bleak house. This mix is much juicier and more interesting with the tweax. Two occasions the arpeggio is on the edge of bearable, and comes across as noise/electro percussion ala early 80s. But I think I can accept that, after all we are underground right? Right?! hehe jocularities aside I think we just might have hello on this lil' fella' Soon I will start to go on about next song buahgahahaha

2002-08-23T04:43:00.000-07:00

we are the weird online-orchestra....zoot

2002-08-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

yes folks, BH arrived in "Coyotes" (the FTP-server) virtual pockets yesterday. But of course someone screwed up royally (Bio-ware problem huh) and It was not on the cd I took home. As we sometimes say up here in sweden: ARGH! J tells me that it's complete though...

2002-08-22T00:46:00.000-07:00

Finished another version of Bleak House yesterday, I am very pleased with it! Sent it off in MP3 format to Mr. A for him to listen to...

2002-08-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

Ah, finally a posting from me!! YAYY!! Well, back from vacation. I did some shopping, I bought a good digital camera (what a blessing it is not having to fiddle with film and developments) and a control surface for my computer (Evolution UC-16). Sat and worked on Bleak House yesterday, and boy what a difference some buttons make when it comes to real time tweaking! I really got it kicking this time! I expect a delivery of a new hard drive plus some DDR memory this evening, I'll work some more on it when I have installed it.
Peach,
Johan

2002-08-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

Nice conversation on the phone with my significant-band-other:-) Not much progress on the mixing-front (bleak house) but I guess some things in life just can't wait (nowhatImean nowhatImean eh?) On the other hand we did some planning and discussed our future webpage. Looking forward to a beefy Pow-Wow as soon as I can make the trip: Photo-sessions, Aint it dead yet, Pints etc etc. Native-Instruments are a phatt bunch!!!

2002-08-20T03:27:00.000-07:00

I know I know, we don't post much these days. Yesterday I installed this software (yes it's true:-) and it was kind of allergic to my sound-card. Luckily I found a new driver on the card-vendors site. I just DL'd and everything worked fine again. And What about Suffering for ART I here you scream. What about sex, drugs and herbal tea? Aah you are a boring band...

2002-08-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

I've had my birthday and it was OK, though totally non-musicrelated. Johan has the CD and I got some positive indications on borrowing a semi-acoustic Godin from a friend (cant wait to make a proper re-recording of Faith.) The weather is extreme. sitting at the computer indoors is just out of the question ->outdoors hehe. Hoping to get a visit tonight, don't wanna slurp that Chianti Ruffino all by myself (or maybe I should just SHOOT IT... MOUAHAHAHAHA....

2002-08-08T05:37:00.000-07:00

Right now the weather is too sunny and paradisico for me to really do any music work. I rather get a sun-tan than a screen-tan. Today I bought a set of Nylon strings for that special someone. The acne-kid behind the counter looked like he'd been recently lobotimized. Come ON! When I was a kid I used to look up to guys working in music stores. They looked so cool in their black T-shirts and seemed to know just about everything about Amps, electric guitars and even...gulp SYNTHESIZERS! (Like switching them on and plugging in a pair of headphones so I could have a try, for instance). Times change apparantly, 'cause acne-kid here prolly couldn't tell a pick from a kick hehe. So where are we Mr Lang? Tried to use the trad-phone but the number seems to be disconnected. <--!insert K-werk tune here--!> BAAAZOOODANGDANGDANGFROOOK!

2002-08-05T02:56:00.000-07:00

OK, we are back on air, back on track, in da house, whatever. I have sent a CD to Johan with my (admittedly not perfect) version of faith. I also provided the samples upon wich "codeine" is based. Made them mono, since they were sampled that way for the first time (stereo-samplers wern't that common back then (oh my, here I got that Monthy python feeling: "We lived in a shoe-box on the motor-way"!)). Maybe we should bit-crush them into 12-bit, 30 Khz too, for that authentic Prophet 2002 sound. Now I wonder if J. has gotten his gear up? Some special someone;-) is interested in designing the forthcoming web page, Yey=o) Why can't life always be like this?/OK now kids, don't shoot wine...//TISA

2002-07-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

By the way, I had a very sweet saturday night together with M. I played Faith to her and she was delighted;-) Sometimes it's good being a musician haha!

2002-07-28T04:20:00.000-07:00

Here is the list of preferred changes on "Bleak house":

(note that everything is peachy fine, we are talking details here folks)

1. Bring up the kick by a fraction of an inch of a nanometer:-)
2. When "indialand" melody kicks in for the first time, it is quite loud, subsequent repetitions is perfect in volume. Is this compression related or mix related? We might want to bring that first one down some (not much, just a little)
3. The backing vocals on chorus #2 is supercooly mixed with a tite treble and punchy modern compressed sound. Nevertheless it should be taken down a little.

Rest of the items are related to "the voices of the psycho-underground"...

4. there is a hilarious scream followed by a "yeow". We need to take that "yeow" away because it sounds goofy here. The "angry" voice says "it's burning my hands" twice, it should be lower in volume. Lower the volume also on the following whispers that say the same thing.

5. although the formant-fx is outer space coolio on the verse it doesn't work on in the end on the "come on" and "don't touch me". either take'em away completely or run them at a very very low level with just some reverb.

This is pretty much it. Of course we need to have a mouth-to-mouth discussion on this over the phone.

and ooh, a last nitty-gritty nitpicking thing: the remaining synthopercussion over the last bars doesn't add that much maybe. take away perhaps. Mo'chix/da Phatt regulator hahahahahahah

2002-07-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ahh, friday! And I have the next three weeks off work! That will give me time for working on some music and production as well as sorting out my new flat (all my stuff are in a big pile after the move). Will be most interested in Mr. A's comments on Bleak House...

2002-07-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Seems like Mr Lang was able to get his own password or something. Good, it feels more ahumph, professional ;-)

2002-07-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

testing if and who...

2002-07-25T06:48:00.000-07:00

Ah, Mr. A. added me as an admin for this blog, so now when I post this, my own name should show up...

2002-07-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

Preparing a list of suggested changes on Bleak house. This evening I will collect some stuff on CD and send to J (think CHAINSAW:-).

2002-07-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

Johan: It's been a while since I wrote something here, been busy moving. Now I'm sitting in my new flat with a large pile of stuff that needs to be sorted out... haven't got my computer rigged up yet, so I haven't been able to do any work. This will all be sorted out next week, as I am on vacation for three weeks!!! YAYY!! Boy, do I need it. Most interested in Mr. A's new song, will be waiting for it in anticipation...

2002-07-23T04:11:00.000-07:00

Finally I've received final candidate 1 of Bleak House via FTP. I'll listen to it carefully, just to see if there's any micro changes that needs to be implemented.

2002-07-22T01:08:00.000-07:00

now maybe, just maybe... I have a friend, whose brother owns a Godin guitar. Maybe I can rent it or borrow it for a couple of days:-)

2002-07-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday recording "faith". I realize that my guitar sucks. The ground hum is terrible and its darn hard-played too. I got rid of at least some hum by connecting a mike to the same channel and switched on phantom power on the desk. Dont ask mew how or why... The end result was beautiful however. I prolly need to do more takes though. I would love to keep an acoustic guitar + voice version even if we proceed with a more full blown production. The joy of being a songwriter is when you hear something and you cant really believe it is you, the work takes off and seem to originate from without your mind... ehm strange but a warm fuzzy feeling... I WANT TO HUG THE WORLD NOW!!!!

2002-07-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

Doing a default song for rewire-work in reason. Also need to make a more suitable Autoload-config in Cubase... So tired with all this "my latency is lower than yours" talk (since it's just another tiresome variant on the my dick/car/dad/whatever is bigger/better/faster) I'm quite happy with my RME on 6 ms, but soon as I mention that I get to hear a fucking sermon about creamware and hammerfall and whatever. Just shut the fuck up will you. The Local latency of an ol' DX-7 is prolly more than 20 ms, and did we ever hear complaints about that? Right, thought so... conclusion: numbers are not that important

2002-07-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Been a little lazy lately with updating the blog. There are a lot of stuff going on (birthdays, haircuts etc). Also we had the annoying "error 503" wich has prevented posting. Consulting the help I found out that the blog-people are "working on the problem". I get these images in my head of a bunch of computer geeks, skratching their heads an pointing towards a screen filled with garbled, incomprehensible code. I had the opportunity to check out Reason 2.0 and its a "must-have". Hope I can pay my dealer a visit soon. Anyways STAY ON TA`RGET!;-)

And oh, by the way, the CD has not arrived yet. God How I Just Hate The Snail-Mail...

2002-07-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

The power of Reaktor 3.0 defies all comprehension...

2002-07-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

ARGH! the agony! no CD! Kill, kill kill...

2002-07-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

Silly Bonus Story: The Who was late to the gig. Dashing out from the hotel and into a Limousine. After a couple of blocks, Keith Moon suddenly yells: "Stop the car! I forgot something important at the hotel". "Come on!", the others moaned, "can't it wait? we're late goddammit!". But Moon was adamant, and they went back. Moon hurried into the buidling and came back after 5 minutes. The rest of the band was curioius. "What was it that was so important? What did you do up there?" "I forgot to trash the TV" Moon replied...

(I know I know I have no sense of humor) Anyways, what do you call a trombone player with a beeper? A bloody optimist!

2002-07-10T04:28:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! can't wait to get home to my place this afternoon. I'm pretty sure there will be a nice little cd waiting. I just hope the little nitpicker within won't find any problems with the mix. Also looking forward to meet a friend on saturday, He's got Reaktor 3.0 and Reason 2.0 DROOL! twiddle-a-knob-a-doo :-)

2002-07-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all! This short hiatus has given me the opportunity to formulate a small strategic plan. As soon as I can catch Johan on the phone I'll discuss this with him. So what is it? Hm, can't tell you, it'll spoil the suspense hehe. I've been told I look much happier these days, and that is 100% correct. Will this mean that I will start writing happy tunes? No frigging way! Melancholy, drama, and tears lost in the rain are my favourite subjects. Until next time: release your inner freak;-)

2002-07-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

I heard some of Bleak house over the phone, and thought its hard to tell I think I will like it. There are some painters messing in my apartment and later I will have to lodge some aquaintances of my parents for a few days. This means that there will be no recording until next week. Soon enough there will be two new rivermen songs though. Also toying with the idea of putting vocals on "codeine". Maybe it could work if I mix it "punk rock style" with a lot of distorsion. Two of the most promising songs right now is "Wild wild waves" and "Faith". Waiting anxiously for CD to arrive by the snail-mail......

2002-07-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

Johan: Guess what: Bleak House is finished! Oh yes, at last! It has been burned on CD and is on its way to Mr. A for approval. I listened to it a lot of times in different stereos; it may be that you need to take the kick drum and the vocal harmony down a tad if you want to be picky, but I want to hear Mr. A's opinion first...