Stormcellar Band Home Page

Mixes are in, thanks to Pete's hard work. (and willingness to run late for dinner)

We had some file pathing problems with Pro tools - somehow  during the transfer between the Laptop installation and the Studio installation, the session decided to forget where the files were stored, leading to a moment of "Holy Crap!' as we searched for the Bass tracks and three missing songs.

Have no fear, everything was there, the program had just gotten a little absent minded and needed some help to remember where the files were. 

Whew.

Some re-linking later and hey presto, some desk mixes. The boys have all picked up their copies for review and we'll spend the week reviewing the raw mixes before we start working out what to fix, change, add, replace, subtract, etc.

I have formed my own opinions but wont share them yet, as I don't want to influence  the responses from the various Ears we have listening to the tracks now.

I can say that a few of them need work, but there were certainly one or two, that even in a completely unmixed state, sounded damn fine to me.

Our objective is to have the album out by mid year, but that's a guide line. If we can get it up to scratch more quickly, great; if it takes longer, so be it.

We're scheduled to be in the studio doing Guitar overdubs etc by Monday 5th of March, which will give us a week to form some opinions before we start messing with it. Thereafter, we have any Bass fixes, additional percussion, harmonica and vocal replacement or overdubs, then harmonies, then mixing, review, remixing, review, mastering, review and...

Yikes. Whilst all this is going on, I am still working on concept art for the cover and as per usual, having to go through many iterations before I come up with something that gains the approval of the guys.

Here's some of the concept art I've been trying.

But my actual preference was something along the lines of:

However there has been some comment to the effect of 'What's with the chicken?'

I can only offer by way of limited explanation, that I am a fan of Little Feats album covers and that our albums have definitely been influenced by them,

although to be fair, Spacejunk was really a follow on from the ideas on Canned Heats 'Future Blues'

Here's a reminder of our spacejunk cover...

In any case, after I got back from recording, and  taking into consideration objections about chickens, I decided to try something completely different.

The letttering is still a bit skewiff and it hasn't met with approval from the two main sources I check for such things, so it's back to an iteration of the original idea: So I tried a Sci Fi Angle...Klaaatu Barada Pollo! B'gock!

 (sigh)

Oh well, back to the drawing board. I've still got a few weeks to go before I need final art. Meanwhile, I'll be experimenting with ideas until I get the peculiar curled eyebrow look from my two test subjects that tells me I have it right - hey the process worked allright  for the last albums :-)

The excitement mounts as we stand by to collect the desk mixes (raw mixes) of the recorded material from our week away at Bawley Point.

Will it be glory or disaster? Will there be clicks? Bad vocals (ummm....), strange harmonica notes (probably), fantastic perfect drumming (but of course, it's the Theo, the Dutch Machine at the drums after all),....

I could on on, and will do, but not now, for right now I shall revel in the vain hope that the first take of everything is ferpect. I mean Perfect.

Heh.

The next step is to listen to the mixes, decided where I...I mean 'we' need to replace things and then it's on to the studio for...errr....studio stuff! Harmonies! Solos! Additional percussion! Madness awaits!

Our first three days of post production is scheduled for early March, giving us a week to listen to the takes and decide what we want to do with them. Saty tuned as we go into Stuuuudioooo Freennnzzzzyy!

Monte, our official Band Technologist (he rates higher than I do on the Geek scale as he designs his own computer chips) has been working on a new...errr...thing.

It could be an alarm, a DJ tool, something for Cars or a musical instrument. Who knows?

Monte is having a look at hooking this up to the harmonica with a note analyser so that it will flash different patterns when I play different stuff on the harp. Another cool Monte moment!

The recording adventures continue, for part 1 click here

Day 3

Day three of what the boys were calling 'MJEB's Holiday Camp' was the first solid recording day. Despite continuing problems with Clicks, Pops and Hisses, we pressed on with the recording. Here are Mike Rix, Rosie and Paul doing some preliminary work on a song. Cant remember which one.

The environment  around the Bawley Bush Cottages is very pretty, here's a view from the verandah area on the left hand side of the house.

Walking forward you come to the lawn

Down past those trees is the Lake, which meanders towards the sea near Bawley Point.

Looking back, you can see the bush off to the right.

We started the day with Texas Rosie and then moved on to 'She Keeps You Moving On'.

Theo was happy with his drum sound, the amps were performing well in the 'Reactors' outside, and in between takes, the boys discussed musical stuff. Or something like that. Here's a moment of the discussion.

When it was time to do a take, I had to go all the way to the back of the building, to the bedroom where we'd setup the vocal area. Here's me following the cable run, with Pete wandering behind me going 'wtf are u doing?"

I start at the room mike inside the main recording area of the Cockatoo Room and head all the way through the kitchen of the Cafe Cottage to the awesome Brauner microphone we borrowed. That mike was so powerful it could hear the future.

The hi tech vocal booth setup.

I was using my RF in ear monitors to hear the band via the room microphone plugged into the monitoring system. They would drop out every now and again which made things kind of interesting, and in between takes I'd have to scurry back to the main room to go listen to the take.

During the auditioning of the playback we found that half a second of the song (same old blues) was missing and we started scratching our heads wondering WTF was going on.

Was it the power? the laptop? The software?

The problem reminded me of the dramas we used to have in the early days of Non Linear Video Editing on the PC, where the systems would just dump frames when the data throughput got too high for the I/O to deal with, so I downloaded the manual, checked under trouble shooting and wouldn't you know it, it was the same problem -  latency.

In order to run the TASCAM US1800 with Pro tools on the laptop, you have to make sure that your data throughput isn't too high or...you get Clicks (aha!) Pops (AHA!), crackles (!!!) and data dropping! Eureka! We had found the cause of the dramas.

Just by changing the latency settings we suddenly cleared up the data loss, the funny sounds and all was right with the world. Hurrah! Oh. Except for the monitoring system which still had some clicks, but that seemed to be a power issue when the water pumps for the property came on. Still, as long as it wasn't making it onto the track, hurrah!

Despite the problems, by this stage we had already recorded 4 tracks successfully, so it all boded well for the following day.

Day 4

With the click/pop thing resolved, we were now up and running at full speed and the tracks started to go down quickly.

The boys did some work on two songs I hadn't found lyrics and melody for yet (well, I had but I wasn't happy with it) so they just put it down anyway, knowing that I'd have time to sort out the lyrics and melody in the studio or later on during the week.

Here's Mr Rix working on his Bass ideas for 'Hard Times'

As the afternoon wore on, things were moving at speed and we got up to recording 'Feel so blue'.

Just as we finished the take, Theo knocked over a glass, and as we were cleaning it up...DISASTER!!!

I noticed that the TASCAM had disconnected from the Protools box and thought 'hmm, they must have bumped the power cords.'

I tried rebooting but the USB connector light wouldn't come on and a strange and horrible hissing noise was coming from the monitor headphones.

Uh Oh. Ever had one of those moments when you pretty much know something isn't right? As the boys gave me a hurry up to crack on and record the next take, I had to hold a hand up and ask them to take 5 whilst I ran through some tests.

After 10 minutes I realised this was not going to be a quick fix and we broke the session for dinner. Thankfully Theo was on KP for the night (great Spaghetti) giving me a chance to do some elimination testing.

Drivers? Reinstall, check, fail. Cable? change, check, fail. Alternate Laptop? Install software, check, fail.

Uh Oh.

Bill fortunately had a Multimeter and we tested the power supply. 12v, all good. Ok, so its not the power.

After we had checked and tested everything we could, i went to The Google (knower of almost everything) and googled the problem...which was when I found that the users had reported the same problem. The solution? 

Get a replacement unit.

Oh Noes!

Crisis! Woop Woop! Warning! I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that! Danger, danger Will Robinson! (Insert your favourite malevolent computer phrase here).

3.5 hours away from Sydney, 2 hours away from the nearest big computer store, it's 6pm, you're 7 tracks into the recording session with two and a half days remaining, what do you do, what do you do????

Rule # 1 - Don't Panic 

With the words of our wise friend DDJ (engineer of the location recording on 'Carl's Chair's) ringing in your ears like some Yoda flashback voice over

''MJEB....yoooooo werrrrrrr bloooooody luckeee with carls chairrrrr....foooolish...jedi'

you realise that while we think we live in a Star Wars universe, full of good and evil, light and dark, we actually  live in more of a Adamsian-Hitchikers universe, full of infinite improbability, where randomness is your friend and undoing.

AAAAAAyyyyyyyyyy

In other words, 'Sh-t Happens'' - especially in Computer related stuff. Don't sweat and above all, Don't Panic. Summon your inner Zaphod Beeblebrox and remain cool as an Arcturian ice lizard whilst you contemplate your ruin and the likelihood that the band will lock you in the sound isolation cabinet and turn the amps up.

Ahem. In all actuality, it wasn't that bad. We started checking around for replacement recording units, to see if there was something that could interface to Pro Tools, replacements for the tascam, local suppliers, local studios, etc. Anything to reduce the chances we'd have to go back to Sydney for more gear. We also contemplated cancelling the rest of the recording session - we'd already recorded 6..maybe 7 tracks, we could cut our losses.

After Dinner (good option), a cup of tea, retesting the gear once more in the vain hope it would come back to life, Pete volunteered for a Kamikaze Mission back to Sydney that night to go get another unit of similar ilk he had at his studios. After trying everything else we could think of, we bravely accepted his selfless offer and Pete disappeared into the night, a strange light shining from behind his eyes, bound for Glory!

Err...um...ok, he is just a Top Bloke and a Saint and drove home, grabbed the gear, spent the night and drove back the next morning, but where is the fun in saying it as simply as that? Where's the drama?

:-)

Three Cheers For Pete!

For those of us Left Behind after Pete's Rapture (Hallelujah!), it was time to try and rehearse the last few songs we had yet to record (or finish writing), in particular, 'Light In The Distance' - a song so controversial within the band that it may or not make the album (ooh! There's the drama!). We finished by 2am and awaited the morning and Pete's return.

DAY 5 - The Return Of The Saint

Dawn and an uneasy silcence that was broken only by the mournful call of the ....oh hang on. no it wasnt like that at all.

In fact, it was gorgeous. The birds were singing, the bees were being, the other stuff that goes on in the forest was happening, and Pete returned with the required bit of technology. Yay!

It slotted straight in, worked straight away and By Jove, we were BACK! Huzzah!

With 6 tracks done, the first take of track 7 down, we realised that if we pushed for it, we just might make it, and awaaay we went.

Tracks went flying down as the boys roared into action, vigorously doing musical stuff with things, all winding up securely nestled in the arms of the laptop, connected to a new interface. Seen  one Tascam, seen'em all. Yay!

Just as we finished the last song for the evening, the weather started to close in. Stormcellar weather again...

 The dusk brought out the wildlife, and what would one of our location recordings be without the odd marsupial?

Theo summoned up his Dutch Courage and went to go play with the wildlife. At least that's what I think he was doing.

As we finished our dinner break and Marsupial Petting, it was time to keep going, to try and get another track down.

Mr Wizard had been trying out different selections from Bill's Guitar Collection..

 We finished another song and found that we only had two left - Sweet As Pie, which was due for an acoustic, ambient mike recording and the contentious "light In the distance'

Would we have enough time on our last day to get two songs down and do the bass and drum overdubs? 

Day 6

Outside on the verandah, before breakfast we had some very cute visitors.

Day 6 started with a Bang. A literal Bang. Mr Wizard nuked a glass of tea and found that the temperature differential between inside the house and outside the house had a surprising effect on his Glass Of Tea. Yep, music and physics.We're entertaining and educational!

After an early night the previous evening, Pete was up, bushy eyed and Brightly tailed and by 9am, the Bass overdubs were done (The Upright bass needed acoustic miking and we couldn't do it whilst the drums were live in the room).

by 9:30am we had started on Light in the Distance and were up to a 3rd take when the Kick mike started to click.

Ye Gods. The Gremlins were out. However, just as mysteriously as it arrived,the glitch left us, and we finished the song just on midday, leaving time for the other acoustic overdubs.

We packed down the electric recording setup and re-miked for acoustic.

 Mr Wizard and I did  a version of  'Sweet as Pie'  around the ambient mikes, just with Slide and Harmonica, and as we finished, we realised we had completed 13 tracks. We had made it.

Almost...

Rosie and Mr Wizard did some Acoustic Instrument over dubbing until the weather changed again and a Thunderstorm rolled down from the mountain, meaning that the sound of the thunder was too powerful to exclude from the microphones.

Mr Rix and Saint Peter both had prior engagements back in Town(ish) and proceeded homewards with our great thanks, as we began the pack down procedure.

Day 7 On The Road Again.

After a night of watching Mr Wizards favourite foreign films, we arose the next day to repack the van and, in another brilliant idea for ending a recording session, head to another gig! This time, 400 kms away in Oberon.

we returned the Cockatoo room to its former state and with fond memories, a hard disk full of songs and one faulty Tascam unit, we hit the road.

until half a minute past the entrance to the cottages where I spotted a sign for local, small apiary honey and couldn't resist. Taking the Van in a U Turn across the highway is a commitment to local produce not for the faint of heart.

I knew that the local honey would contain the same 'terroir' (for wont of a better term) as the recording - the scent of the local flowers and a reminder of being there.

I stopped at Bee Wise Honey

where Ian Lees has his apiary to check it out and filmed him as he measured out a few jars from a batch of honey taken from his local hives only three days earlier.

i asked him to fill me in on it a little. Ian explained to me the differences between Mass Produced stuff and his small batch stuff.

Ian's daughter Merryn was kind enough to show me some of the hives. I would have got a close up of the bees but one of them decided I was a tad too close and buzzed me, so I got the message and beat a hasty (and wise) retreat.

 Theo and Paul who had seen me do a u turn whilst yelling 'Honey!' thought I had maybe gone a little wackier than usual and had continued on to the next Petrol station, so Rosie and I, and several Jars of Bee Wise Bawley point Honey (it's awesome) headed down the road after them.

As I was driving, Rosie took most of the photos of the long journey from Bawley Point to Oberon, skirting the mountains and national park through Goulburn,  so I'll let him fill you in on the details and pics of that journey - amazing cloud formations, crazy roads, crazy Bike Enthusiasts, potholes, sunshine and rainstorms, yikes.

Suffice it to say that we arrived in Oberon for our evening gig in good order.

Henry was there to meet us and help with the PA, thanks Henry, and we were rejoined by Mr Rix, all the way up from his Kiama gig the night before.

They still haven't fixed that street sign outside the RSL...

As the evening darkened, the skies put on a show.

And as that was what we were there for, so did we.

Cheese to Wendy, Misty, Loz, Charmayne, Steve and all the Oberon locals for dancing their proverbials off.

This brought us to midnight on the 7th day and the only thing that lay ahead was the return trip through a Blue Mountains that had been slammed by thunderstorms.

At a gas station where the toilets AND the eftpos were knocked out. I was tempted to add 'Cellar' at the bottom of this picture.

Rosie got some great pics and vids of the fog and rain we drove back through, so hopefully he'll add thatin his version of the blog for the week.

For my part, I can conclude simply that we had a great week, despite the tribulations, and topping and tailing it with gigs was a crazy but excellent way to spend seven days.

I'd add my thanks to everyone here but I did it in the first part of the blog already (go back and check!)

The boys played admirably, the sounds were good, the company excellent and the outcome?

We're scheduled for our first post production on the 5th of March and we expect to start reviewing the tracks this week. As we progress, yes, you guessed it, you'll hear about it here first :-)

Stay tuned!

MJEB

Howdy Folks, we're back from the recording session and as promised, here's the blog. Rosie and the guys got some pics and footage and this time I am really hoping they'll overcome their dislike of the Blogging editor and get something posted.  

Luddites.

Ahem.

That was a heck of a week and after consideration (and a well needed sleep) it looks like we got a result. The proof will be when we go into the studio for review, but that's not today's subject.

Right now, kick back, relax and enjoy a week in the country with Stormcellar recording Hired Guns & Borrowed Glory.

Item 1 - Thank you

To paraphrase the old quote 'If I have seen afar, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants' I can more personally say 'If we have made an album its only because we have received the willing assistance and help of a whole bunch of people'.

So to our personal giants, thank you.

In no particular order our thanks and love go to Monte Chan,  Bill Varday, Geoff Columbus (AKA DDJ), Vicki Slattery (and MJ for letting us borrow her), Rick O'Neil, Pete Doherty (Saint Peter), Bill Powell and Pip at Bawley Bush Cottages. Yes you'll all get thanks on the album art too, but this is the right place to start the blog.

T-1 - The Night Before

What's the best thing you can do before a recording trip? Who knows, but we decided to do a gig.

Once again back to our favourite White Bay haunt at the Bald Rock.

We were joined on Bass by Mr Arthur 'Mitch' Mitchell for the evening. Cheers to Jan, Martin, Suzanne and Claudette, Josh, Fred , Joe and all the folks who came out for the evening.

 We ended by Midnight, packed away the gear and headed back for a rest before the early start to the first day/

Day 1

With Carl still away and the two huge sound isolation cabinets to shift, we needed what is technically known as a Big Ass Van, which we picked up.

During the design phase for the cabinets, we opted to make the padding removable, which made the packing a little easier as they doubled as road cases.

Packing the requirements for a recording session and 'Away Mission' (uh oh, star trek reference, Tres Geeky) is a task and Tetris skills are handy. 

With the van packed, GPS programmed, and a nifty plug for the iPhone into the radio console, we proceeded out of town, down south towards Bawley Point.

Rosie and I stopped in Berry (Tourist Paradise) to see all the day trippers heading back to Sydney after a Sunday at the markets. I was hoping to catch some of that awesome Chai they do at a particular shop down there but with Tourists gone, we were out of luck.

However, Paul and Theo had located a suitable alternative vendor of comestibles (ooh arr, pies like)

We arrived at the recording location as evening settled. To our great delight, the location was terrific.

Yes, yours truly was on KP for the week. Such is my lot. Expect a cook book soon. 

 We started unloading the van, checking the room for acoustics, (wandering around clapping and making meaningful ''Hmm' noises) and then setting up according to the initial floor place (see previous blogs)

The Bawley Bush Cottages are set on Lake Willinga, a few Km's back from Bawley Point and the surf beaches there. At night, standing on the lawn that runs down to the lake, you can hear the sound of the ocean rumbling in the distance.

On either side of the cottages is rainforest (citation required...might be some other type of forest) filled with Birds, Bees, Goannas, Bugs (I got bitten something shocking by Mozzies) and assorted Noisy Wildlife. Given that we'd borrowed some massively powerful microphones, you'll no doubt hear some Native Wildlife noises on the album :-)

 I went outside that first night to look at the stars, here's the view back towards the Cockatoo Room (our main recording area). 

Meanwhile, inside, the setup continued.

The Cockatoo room was bright sounding, so we had to mess around with the placement of blankets and sound baffles for a bit.

We found that the central corridor dividing the Cockatoo Room from the Cafe Cottage was sound dampened, so we opted to set the guitar isolation boxes up in there.

As you can see, we labelled them clearly so Paul and Rosie wouldn't get confused :-)

Pete was due to arrive the following morning, so our objective was to have the place as ready as we could, but without wiring it, so he could come in, listen to the sound, decided where to place things and then we'd crack onwards.

Bill Varday, our first ever official Guitar Tech had volunteered for the mission and brought a selection of primo guitars, strings, tools, you name it.

Setting up on the sound isolation cabinets as a temporary work bench, Bill got straight into restringing and doing Secret Guitar Stuff. I don't know what it was, ask Mr Wizard or Rosie, but it looked impressive.

Some sort of impressive guitars of some description. I think Bill talks about them in the video:

While Bill was busy with Guitar Boffinry, some of us were taking it slightly easier...or 'working' as guitarists might say :-)

As we realised it was now 2am and we had an early start we all retired to our various bedrooms in the Cafe Cottage (yay, I got a proper bed this time! Woo hoo! Luxury!) and bunked down for a nights sleep before Pete's arrival in the morning.

Day 2...Again

Day 2 was scheduled for sound setup and testing, to see what we needed to do with the drums, mike placement, amp placement, etc.

We tested the sound isolation cabinets with some noise, found that they worked well, ran them for a time and found that the amps were heating up, stuck inside all that insulation, even with the boxes not closed all the way.

This led to the phrase "power the reactors down' being used to describe the regular process of testing the amps for heat levels and then shutting them off and opening the cases to allow them to cool between sessions.

Here's Paul and Bill checking the Reactor Core temperatures.

Mid morning, Pete arrived and we began cabling and running up the sound recording unit.

Despite having done a cabling plan, diagram and yakked about the whole process during pre production meetings, we still wound up using every single cable and adapter and bit of kit we had to hand and almost ran out of adapters...almost.

. Borrowed Glory indeed - like this little unit from Rick - a single input to 3 output splitter thing preamp thingamajig whatzit.

As Pete did some adjustments to mike placements, it was almost time to try some recording and see what the sound was like.

We spent the rest of the evening testing sounds, using Texas Rosie as the test song. By the end of the evening we had identified from sound issues with power fluctuations at the recording unit (or so we thought) and we were getting clicks, crackles and pops from the recording unit and the PA system that's built into the cockatoo room. Pete was both puzzled and worried - if we got a good take with a click in it, it would be unusable.

We puzzled over the possible reasons for it and tried turning off fridges, pumps, lights, changing plugs, circuits retesting cables, yikes.

After a few hours of this we decided there was little for it but to proceed as best we could, and on that bombhsell,  stopped  for dinner and a rest.

PART 2