Spent quite a lot of the week editing a one hour film programming for Hilary Hamilton who recently returned from safari in East Africa. Using Final Cut Pro we have out together most fo the footage now to an assortment of African music. We expect to complete the film next week.
One of the sessions for the Kings panto involved finding3 fart sound effects for the show. Rich and I searched the website soundeffects.com and were faced with 3 pages of links to fart noises. Half way through the first page we burst out laughing when we realised we had been seriously discussing the sounds… “No thats too long… too short..too high pitched… too wet… not real enough”, and then finally “That’s perfect!!”. The session was delayed when payment for the farts crashed the website, even at an outrageous 3:99 per fart!! Eventually payment was accepted and we carried on with the session….. what a job!
Most of the week and the week to come will be taken up doing sound effects and fixing up backing tracks for The Kings Theatre Goldilocks panto which will be going live on Saturday 1st December. All the work is coordinated by MD and piano player Rich Anderson. After the session on Friday I plonked Rich down in front of the studio keyboard and got him to demo the studio keyboard plug in sounds and it was amazing hearing sounds that had always s0unded good suddenly sounding fantastic in the hands of such a wonderfully inspiring player. Richard is up there with the best keyboard players I have ever recorded which include Stuart Wilson, Ronnie Rae and the UK’s best named piano player Brian Kellock.
14 year old Mike Dodds is in the studio doing a weeks work experience. Mike is an astonishingly adept Bass player for his age and has several compositions he wrote on the Bass using a strumming chord technique he has developed himself. He is also picking up the basics of tape oping and getting a good overview of how the studio works. His Mum Louise is a singer who approached me to get Mike the job, she used to sing with Dave Robb, a bazouki player and songwriter with whom I have recorded two albums over the years. I predict that Mike will become a musical force in the years to come if he sticks at it and keeps going the way he is.
Also in the studio this week is songwriter Colin Asquith who’s track ‘In 3/4 time’ has turned out amazing. Despite the title the track has 3 time signatures, 2/4 - 4/4 - and 7/8 and not 3/4 as the title suggests. It was a tricky track to program but it has turned out sounding quite natural and flows really well.
I am also doing a remix for a dance track for songwriter James Forrest which is fun.
Just doing some audio work for The Kings Theatre in Edinburgh this week. It involves putting together sound effects and tweaking backing tracks fir the live band for the forthcoming panto Goldilocks which starts a week on Saturday. MD and phenomenal piano player Richard Anderson has been using Offbeat for two years now. A lot of work goes into the production of these events and although a bit of a laugh for the kids, the business of putting a panto together is a deadly serious business!! :-))
The album I worked on for Universal Records has been named as Spirit Of The Glen and last night the album was officially launched at Edinburgh Castle. The album which features the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards is set for release on November 26th. Pipe Major Potter, who has previously worked with Mark Knopfler, Mike Oldfield and Engelbert Humperdinck, said “We recorded Amazing Grace in 1972 as a Pipes and Drums and Military Band and it got to number one in the UK pop charts for six weeks and also went to number one around the world and we were given 13 gold discs for Amazing Grace. One is in our home headquarters in Edinburgh Castle Museum and the other ones are all on the wall within the Pipes and Drums barracks back at Fallingbostal.
“It’s 35 years since Amazing Grace got to number one and so we were in talks about doing Amazing Grace again, and it came about that a person who’d come and seen the Regiment asked us if we would want to record it again.
“And from there, he then suggested that possibly not just do Amazing Grace, but actually do a full album. So we then went and recorded a full album with Universal, and we did that in August, while we were on the Edinburgh Tattoo for a two-week period, so it was quite a busy summer schedule, trying to record an album and perform in the Edinburgh Tattoo in the evenings.
![Spirit Of The Glen is released to the public at the end of November 2007 [Picture: British Army]. Opens in a new window.](http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/8ACAFEFB-67D1-4594-BE0E-23EF484C4F2C/0/MasterSOTG2.jpg)
“All the Pipes and Drums were involved in one way or another with this album, we all went in the studios and various people within the band contributed in different ways. We got very involved with the production side, myself and a small team along with producer John Cohen, went into Heartbeat Studios, which was actually on a farm, and for the two-week period the Pipes and Drums were heavily involved with the different aspects of making the tracks. So we had a very good input in what the end product was.”
My son Paul and I have been working on a single by 3style called “Get On Up”. Both the A side which we have mixed from a recording they supplied which was done at James Locke’s Mission Hall studio and G’s studio. Paul has taken over the remix and just used the vocals and live drums from the original recording and added his own strings + drums. The band are signed to Mani Shoniwa’s Black Sugar label. I worked with Mani’s band Yoyo Honey back in the early 90’s doing demos from which he achieved a major record deal with Silvertone Records. I also did the job for Universal Records lately as Mani had recommended me for the job and managed the project of me recording for producer Jon Cohen, mentioned in earlier posts.
Been focusing on the debut album for Kirsty which is the studio’s main production project for 2008 and so far it’s off to a great start. The album is a blend of simple acoustic arrangements and dense electro acoustic tracks which feature her unique electric violin sound and distinct vocal style. The first single “cause it feels good is due for release in February 2008 and will be followed by two other singles before the album is finally released in around Spring time. Tracks can be heard on the offbeat sampler which can be found on http://www.offbeat.co.uk/lounge. Check the track list there and use the wimpy player to skip to her tracks.
