The Purple Pudding Clause 'Only One'

This video was shot and edited using my iPhone. The app is fantastic. Its called Cute CUT and is the best video editing app I have seen. What's great about it is that there are options for many different layers. You can have layers that are Video,Photos, Text, Drawings or Audio. All of this was done on their free version and was deliberately low fi but you could make something of real quality if you choose. They also have a Pro version for just £3.99

Cute CUT

Our Debut Album 'First'

Here it is. Recorded, mixed and mastered at home on Ipad and Iphone. Very cheaply!

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/first/id897541630

Mastering.

I've been a bit stumped with how to master the album. You can do it through the digital distribution site but a) it's not cheap and b) as good as they may be, sound is subjective and what they might do to it could be the opposite of how we want it to sound. 

So we've done everything to complete the album from home including the cover so I thought for better or for worse why don't we just master it ourselves using the mastering app.This has meant a bit more work making sure that the apparent volume of the tracks was levelled out and that the start and end of the tracks worked together. I've put it all on our Walkman as an album and I think it works but let's see! 

Album Completed Today?

So we thought we had it all in the bag. Twelve tracks and ready to go but then I did my thing and thought that a duet on one if the tracks that features me on vocals was better than me on my own. So today we will nail it! I think.

We have decided to go with the digital distribution company mondo tunes. They distribute to iTunes, Spotify, emusic and all of the other sights throughout the world for a flat fee. So if all goes to plan then the album will be available in 4 to 5 weeks. 

Recording With Heather

We've had some great contributions recently to our album project. Our lovely and very talented friend Heather visited and recorded some beautiful harmonies on a track with the working title Heart In Winter. We also recorded her track 'China Mind' with Rachel playing cello. Heather is recording tracks for a release soon to be announced. 

Progress

We have six completed and mixed tracks . So about half way to completing the album. 

I know that for purists of all things analogue what I am about to say will be poison to them but tough!

I love the fact that you can be recording and think 'what does the track need?' and then have available a huge resource of apps to instantly download and record. Our latest addition is the Mellotronics M3000, which is a brilliant digital version of the original mellotron and costs just £7.99! It sounds beautifully authentic and is a great deal less heavy to shift than the original! 

All Change Again!

In my last post I was telling you that I had switched DAW's to Auria because of the problems that I was encountering with Cubasis. Well I've switched back! The reason being that although Auria offers many more options and is head and shoulders above Cubasis as a proffesional (whatever that means!) DAW , the sound of it was troubling me. The mixes I was doing on Cubasis were far superior to those done on Auria. This could have been because the sound files I was transfering to Auria from Garageband were being squashed as the dynamic range was too great for Auria and there was no way that I could see to truncate that. So I made the decision to switch back hoping that Cubase would release an upgrade that dealt with the problems I was experiencing and they did! 

All of the previous problems I had encountered seem to have been sorted which is a bit of a miracle really. We have just completed and mixed a song with 28 tracks running, each with individual eq and effects-some of them with individual compression and two effects simultaneously-plus master compression and eq. All of this with no glitching.

Also what I have experienced with Cubasis is something that I have mentioned previously which is the freedom and intentionality limited options can give you. Cubasis has a very clear and understandable eq. The display really assists  the way I process information which is in an abstract non linear way. Well that's my story. 

Auria The Way Forward?

It pains me to say it because there is so much I loved about it but we have pretty much had to ditch Cubasis as our primary DAW for recording the album. I've started to work with Auria which is so much more stable and seems in a different league. You can add individual effects, eq, compression, mix automation......actually I'm not going to bore you with what it can do as it would take you all day to read it! Safe to say that it has everything required to record and mix the album and all for £30!

Bum!

Well the Cubasis looks professional doesn't it! 

We thought that having an App created by the geniuses at Steinberg

would be our safest bet for making our album but it has failed on many levels.

We decided that to keep things fresh and flowing that we would track on Garageband and then copy into Cubasis to do final overdubbing and mixing. The first problem was glitching. A lot of glitching! This could at first be overcome by re booting the iPad but it got worse the more tracks we added. Secondly there was a discrepancy in the timing between Garageband and Cubasis. This hasn't occurred when transferring to Multitrack Daw so we know that its a problem with Cubasis. This means that auto correct can't be used as the timing is totally out. 

The second problem is in editing. Shifting a track in time is a massive pain! If the increment is less than a beat then forget it as Cubasis snaps the data to a larger increment and it's impossible to get audio tracks in time.

There are also many limitations compared to cheaper DAW's and until Steinberg fix some major problems then it's not usable. 

We have decided now to go with another DAW which I'm not going to mention yet until we see that it works!

I Love recording At Home!

It's so great to be recording at home. You can monitor in the same sort of environment that most people listen to music in. Most people in my experience listen to music as a background to their life. Some of course listen intently but often there are things happening around people that has them not fully engaged with the music. It's easy in the studio to ignore that fact and have contrapuntal ideas carry way too much importance. Not that you want every overdub to be hitting you between the eyes but getting into the detail and recording way too many overdubs-something which I have been guilty of in the past- can be a mistake.

I gave a mix the ultimate test last night and played it through £1 speakers. The verdict? Don't buy speakers from Poundland!

We've already mixed two instrumental tracks and started work on the first song using bits we like from the demo and building on it.

Processes

I've just realised that I've fallen back into the trap ( my own created trap!) of too many variables. So I decided that we'd record and mix the album using the Cubasis app on an iPad but immediately I was thinking ok maybe I should be eq'ing this and a spot of compression and let's just tweak that LFO etc So we have decided to do all or most of the tracking on Garageband and then transfer the tracks to Cubasis for all of the fine tuning. Garageband is so simple and with so few options it keeps our creativity alive for us. 

We are set up and ready to go!

At last all set up and ready to go. It's not exactly Abbey Road but such a creative space and available without booking 24 hours a day! We have such little gear that I can easily list it here.

Akai S1000 sampler

EMU Vintage Keys

Micro Korg Keyboard

Jo Meek Compressor/Limiter

Ipad running:

Cubasis

Garageband

Alchemy

Nlog Pro

Nano Studio

iMPC

Launchkey

Nanologue

Midisynth

New Ipad new Apps

Our new iPad 4 (well second hand really but as good as new!)

We have decided to record the album using Cubasis as our recorder, mixer mastering machine etc anything recorded here can then later be transferred  to a PC or Mac into Cubase for mixing and mastering if we think that would improve the quality. Cubasis is just £34.99. A lot for an app but a small amount to pay for such amazing technology. We will still use Garageband for composing, creating and demos as it's simplicity enables you to not be distracted by too many variables. 

I have begun to transfer songs that have been recorded on Garageband into Cubasis. How this is done is quite laborious as you have to save each song track by track and the export it into the media files of Cubasis and the drag it into a newly created song with the same tempo as the original. One song with just 8 tracks took about 20 mins to do but I'm sure it will speed up as I get more familiar with the process. 

The availability of so many options is a bit mind blowing at first as I've become used to just getting it recorded quickly. Each track has individual EQ, Compression and FX's and then the same with the master channel. I'll keep you up to date how it's all going but my one concern is over stretching the iPad's processing capability and getting glitching. I heard that happen for a period until I re booted and went into Airport mode. It was then smooth. 

Using Multitrack DAW

Multitrack DAW EQ and Compression

I've just discovered a way of working and using the apps I have to their potential.

Garageband is so great to record as you have limited options and therefore don't get bogged down with detail that stops the creative flow but on the iphone there aren't even any options for using eq. So I use Garageband for tracking and then transfer the individual tracks to Multitrack DAW where I can eq and compress the individual tracks and master eq and compress. The only drag is that there is only one BUS send to the FX but not individual for each track so you can only use one effect on the whole mix. I'm now looking at how to defeat this using an 'outboard' app utilising Audioshare. Still, we are talking about mutitracking and mastering on a phone here! So I guess I should be grateful for this amazing facility! 

In The Bleak Mid Winter

Here is our rendition of Gustav Holst's 'In The Bleak Mid Winter'

Recorded and filmed entirely on an iPhone.

The process was:

I used Garageband for the basic tracking.I used Midi Synth and Alchemy Apps for the synth sounds. These sounds can be linked directly to Garageband using the inter app setting. I made a sample of our Kora

Kora

which I looped. I also sampled our glockenspiel. The vocals were recorded in the Multitrack DAW. It was then mastered in the DAW as well. The video was filmed on my iPhone and then put together on the Cute Cut App.
Cute Cut is fabulous! You can layer either video footage or photos and also draw over the top of images. I had been using imovie which is great but basic.

Glockenspiel