Some quick updates from what has been a busy spring/early summer.
- Work continues on a looping/ambient CD, this time of normal CD length. I am exploring the idea of multiple unsynced loops at once. I am also continuing to research alternative ways of setting up my guitar synth/looping rig. Boomerang III? Triple Play? The Boomerang is stereo, which is amazing, and allows 4 loops at once, with their own decay rates. But it doesn’t have the Echoplex’s unrounded multiply function which I use a lot. I need 2 Echoplexes for stereo though, and prices are pretty high. I can’t do multiple loops at once on an Echoplex, either. As far as the Triple Play, I don’t want to bring a laptop out to gig with, and it is incompatible with the 13-pin out on my Brian Moore Guitar. Tracking is fast, and when recording, you have lots of sound options. But my goal is to have a simple, easy,setup for live playing, which is almost always in mono. This might leave me with all older gear, which isn’t always a bad thing. I hate mountains of wires, and a long setup time. This might eliminate my Fractal AX8 from my looping rig, though. Decisions.
- Writing and demoing is happening on Julie Black’s 4th CD, and we hope to hit the studio this fall. No idea what form the CD will take…it might be something like digital downloads to start. Carrying around boxes of CDs seems ridiculous in this day and age, and isn’t the way most people listen to music. Plus, they are expensive to make. We are also working on studio issues, like fixing some wiring, organizing, and coming up with new ways to record.
- If you are friends with Julie Black on Facebook (or me), we Facebook Live 1 song from rehearsal every Wednesday at 9pm Eastern. It is an interesting look into the rehearsal process, which is hidden a lot by bands. Now I am noticing lots of bands in the area doing something similar. Did we start a trend?
- I am playing many shows with Julie this summer, check out the dates on her page. Solo ambient dates have been scarce as I rebuild my rig into something portable that gives me the options I need. Modern gear is great, but routing becomes a problem. I do have many solo acoustic shows this summer though, doing my improvised loopy stuff.
- I will try to be using some downtime to work on my Facebook artist page, and this website, which take time to update and promote. Thing is, as an individual artist, you only have so many hours of the day. I wish I could ask an assistant to do this sort of thing, but in the end, that person is me.
Keep checking back. When recording starts for Julie’s CD, I plan on having a studio log, with pics and notes from recording. It will be her most ambitious recording yet, with music not easily thrown into a stylistic box (my favorite kind).