The Null Device Blog

(since I’m updating this more with random album statuses, I’m just going to pick random song titles as my post titles)
After my daily dose of The Simpsons I crawled back into the studio last night.  Since my cold has mostly cleared up, I recorded some much better vocal takes for the track I’m hoping to finish in time for a compilation submission.  It’s tabla-tastic, and is pretty much sticking to the vocal-techno mold (so not a ton of modulation).  I made it through three verses and two choruses before my head refilled with goo and I had to stop.

I also pulled out the fiddle and an irish tunebook and started sightreading my way through some jigs and reels.  It’s been a loooong time since I’ve done any amount of sightreading and it’s a skill that has atrophied a bit over time.  I’m not exactly planning on using these particular slip jigs or anything, but I am trying to re-familiarize myself with the idioms and techniques so I can fuse it with other things.  We’ll see what comes of it – the resulting experiments could be very cool, or they could be achingly twee and saccharine.

What I’d really like to attempt requires one heckuva balancing act.  If I go too far one way, the tracks sound like pedestrian electropop.  Too far another way, they become too experimental and borderline unlistenable.  Too far the third way, and they’re watered-down world music.  Difficult.  I’m not sure how sucessful I’ll be, especially since at least one of the tools I want to use is being fussy with Logic.

One thing I’m hoping to do with this album is recruit a few more guest musicians.  My own talent at some of the instruments I want to use is limited at best, so I figure finding a professional/gifted amateur is really the way to go.

The first such session happened on monday night, when Alec the o’ud player came by.  We chatted for a while, I briefed him on what I want to do, and then we set up a mic and a beat and he proceeded to jam around a maqam for several minutes.  I got a nice clean take, so I should be able to do intersting things with the output.

I am excited about this.

Man, I really dislike the “salesman” aspect of being a musician.   Updating the presskits, sending them out, applying for festivals…it’s a drag.  And it’s expensive.

Very soon I need to schedule new press photos, too.  Also a drag.  I’d much rather be writing music. 

Still, been sending out the kits, and hoping for a response.  I’m probably overreaching a bit, aiming for some of these big festivals and the like, but hey, go big or go home.  We’ll see what happens.  I’m attempting to slowly extricate us from being a “scene” band, as usual, hoping to find wider acceptance in a crossover state – if Rhys Fulber can do it, so can I, right?  I just need a beard and a #1 club hit with Sarah McLachlin. 

I need to find collaborators, too.  Whether they’re remote or local, I’m getting burned out on using resequenced loops and samples – I want the real thing.  Find me a sarod player!  Three o’uds and a tabla!  A small panjabi men’s choir!  A room full of dhols!  I should probably cast my net wider…

I’ve recently become completely enamored of the SonicTALK podcast, done by the people from SonicState.com.  I’m not sure why – they wander far off topic, don’t spend much time telling me useful tips and tricks, and yet it’s incredibly fascinating.  Product and industry rumours, gigging war stories, oddball custom gear, classic bands…just random musical trivia and prattle, and it’s awesome.   Run by one of the guys from early-90′s dance group DNA (remember “Tom’s Diner”?), they enlist the keyboardist from Chic, a music software developer, a tech for Duran Duran, a music blogger from Germany…guys with long, storied careers just on the edge of music industry fame, and they have great stories and histories.

Oh, and it’s VERY british. 

I love it.

I’ve gotten a few productive things done in the studio recently, and that makes me happy. For one, it means my bout of insane writer’s block is over, which is one hell of a relief.

Of course, the headcold is NOT helping. It’s hard to take advantage of new monitors when everything sounds muffled. And certainly it’s hard to sing with congested sinuses. I managed to lay down some sketch vocals on a track through the copious application of decongestants, and the vox sound passable but I know I can do better.

After my ears cleared a little bit I did get to take advantage of the A7′s very detailed high end. Fixed some mixing problems I initially didn’t even know I had. That’s a really cool feeling.

Got going on some new tracks. One started as a minimal house thing with tablas and a sarod loop but as it goes along it keeps getting progressively less minimal. Right now it sounds kinda like an iiO track except with ethnic percussion. I threw in a sort of Bear McCreary-ish breakdown after the third verse but I don’t think it fits very well. I also decided to transpose the whole dang track down a half step so my vocals sat better in the mix – the original key was decent but the upper range of the vocal melody got a little thready so bringing it down just a smidge seems to have fixed that. I intend to pull Jill in for some vocal harmonies on it.

All sorts of other stuff is in the works, too. I’m experimenting with big spacy dubstep, I’ve got a track that sounds kinda like 1997-era Tricky except with a lot of Bollywood samples, which I may glitch up a bit to minimise the “hey this is a loop” sound. I’ve also got some big tribal-ambient thing that I haven’t decided what to do with yet. I think it’s angling in a sort of Delerium-ish direction.

On another tack, I’ve dug out a bunch of my Irish fiddling books. I’m hoping to get back and improve upon the meagre chops I had for this sort of thing back in college. I noted a few weeks back that a good fiddle tune and a bhangra track have very similar patterns of swing and accent, so if I can pull it off there may be a little fusion thing happening. And really, I’m always looking for any excuse to work the violin into a track.

I still want to buy a dhol.