Yesterday we had a conversation about the time it’s taking to complete our tracks…. so to blow away the cobwebs we challenged ourselves to record a track in its entirety in an hour: we settled on a few suggestions for covers and gave ourselves some more limits: battery powered gear only (so laptop, bus powered audio card,dynamic mic, Portasound keyboard from 1987), and ‘let’s do it somewhere we won’t be disturbed’… this place turned out to be a freely accessible, but dank smelling old school.
Well, we did it today….., and here’s the finished mix (a full 15 minutes work) and a video (another hour.. including learning the new I Movie)
So, here it is. From the ‘one hour cover sessions’ : Two Divided By Zero (originally by the Pet Shop Boys)
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Hi all
Quite in the WAA camp, but loud behind the scenes.
As ever, day jobs grind activity to a painful pace. We have the first ‘proper’ single ready to go, and film makers on board , then film makers disappear in a bizarre betamax tape strangling (maybe)
So
We’re back working on the sleeve and finishing the album.
If we could just manage to live on the dole………
http://www.wearealtered.com
http://www.myspace.com/makerecordings
http://www.myspace.com/wearealtered
http://www.makerecordings.com
After so long on these recordings, we spent a while sitting back before getting on the saddle again.
Debates about tracks and how they fit together and lyric changes… we seem to have settled on a shortlist. Spent the week redoing bits and bobs. There’ll be a sudden flurry of finished mixes, but this part of the process has been hard. Both of us thought we’d have finished long ago and it really affected us.. not having finished ANYTHING is hard to take. The silver lining, though, is that we have a renewed perspective and can’t wait to get something out.
The first WAA Cassette will be ‘We Became So Close’ : just needs remastering.
Mean time, the Soundcloud site has a free WAA track to download or stream.
See you later.
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Busy busy busy
JR : re writing some words
JM : Mixing reapproached material.
Talking to some film makers a little.
Time limits have gone out the window but I think it will all get finished at once. Keep yer ears peeled
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Good question. Album picked up pace. Then we stopped for the summer (well, you have to get a tan), then we slowly gathered speed through autumn and by winter were back on it. We lived with some stuff we’d done, and whilst some captured the spirit of the songs, other versions ended up too, well, ‘polished’… the thing is, both myself and John can produce quite well, thankyou very much, but that means that we went down a route of production rather than getting to the heart of the songs.
So we reconvened over Xmas 08 and hired an old school hall out, took our laptops, and a Russian mic I bought for a quid from Ebay,acoustic guitars and a PA and played a couple of songs over and over trying so many ways of getting to the heart of them. From the surroundings we recorded the acoustics of the room via our laptop mangling of the tracks we laid down, took away the guitars and were left with what you hear: ‘Bandages’. Another track came out of the same session, which we’ll play you when its ready. This way of working took us back to how we started the sessions last year…. We’d just forgotten how special those early sessions were. Can’t wait for you to hear the fruits.
XJM
Ive been mastering the we are altered single this week. In doing so , I dug out a few interesting links to the boldly named “loudness war”. I thought you might like to have a read if you’re technically inclined or wonder why music isn’t as quiet as it used to be.(Jazz fans, look away now)
The obligatory wikipedia entry, here
A good, understandable video explanation, here
A nice in depth article, here
Its hard not to get sucked into this when youre mastering: modern Hip Hop has literally raised the bar … and it’s the most popular genre in the world, domination our ears, so when you compare your own material, the temptation is to simply compete compete compete.
JM
Here we find Lou Reed.This clip proves two things:
1 he has habit of murdering his own material live.
2. a group of moustaches does not maketh the band
He’s still cool though
JM
w e a r e a l t e r e d and MAKE RECORDINGS are a two man operation… no legions of staff, no offices. So we have to turn our hands to pretty much everything: sleeve design being one of those things. I spent some time with gorgeous textured card trying out some ideas for the CD promo.
This has given us a chance to define who we are, and what MAKE is about, too. You’ll love it as much as we do.The single’s been mixed. We’ll tell you more soon. You’ll want to see as well as hear it….. JM
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Hello.
Welcome to our world.
We’ve spent the best part of a year writing and recording some songs for the album. It’s sounding beautiful, it will look beautiful and its beautiful that you’re here to share it with.
You’ll want to hear it, own it, share it and touch it.
The album is half mixed:there’s still recording to be finished. The single will be out in the summer. From then on, we’ll be on a rollercoaster : you on board?
