Allie Fox - album editing

On Friday Allie was back in the studio for the continuing editing stage of the album. We were working on the excellent ‘Mystery Of Life And Death’, a classical style track based on Allie’s acoustic guitar, Ron Shaw’s cello and Rod Clements slide guitar. The session was fairly intense as we waded through lots of takes by Rod and Ron and reducing them down to 2 basic finished parts. As it’s quite a long complicated track this wasn’t an easy job and keeping a patient attitude to the editing was really important. After 4 hours we still hadn’t fully completed the edits so we decided to call it a day and come back to it fresh next Monday. Monday 28th is also Allie’s birthday so that should be a fun session!

On the last track we edited I decided to add a one note organ to the end of the song. After doing that I realised I was on a track with the amazing Rod Clements from Lindisfarne. Now I can add Rod to the superstar artists I have played with

J2 kids

The recording stage for Peaceful World featuring the kids from Dean Park primary in Edinburgh is approaching completion. So far we’ve had the best 12 singers in the studio in groups of four. The kids perfomed really well having been expertly coached by teacher and writer of the song Randy Pritchard.

On Saturday I went on location to Ratho Village Hall with 2 mics, a Yamaha mixer and a DAT machine to record a group of around 25 kids just to record the chorus of the song. Today the final 2 kids, who didn’t make it to the last studio session, will be at the studio to record their parts and then it will be time to mix and master the track.

Brit Award Nomination-Spirit Of The Glen

The album Spirit Of The Glen is in the final running for the NS&I Album of The Year at the 2008 Classical Brit Awards. To vote for the album please visit this link

http://www.classicalbrits.co.uk/voting/

Anna Jarosz

Had a great session with pianist and vocalist yesterday. She was composing music for a film based on the life of Scots poet Robert Ferguson. Anna invited a violinist named Marion and between them they came up with some great pieces of music which we completed in 5 hours recording. I first met Anna through songwriter James Forrest who used her on one of his songs entitled ‘Beauty’. I subsequently introduced her to Ric Tod who also used her singing on one of his songs too.

Allie Fox - New album

Work has stepped up on this amazing guitar based instrumental album. Last week we had Fraser Speirs on harmonica which was an inspirational session. Fraser lays down completed and produced takes which are an engineers dream, completely off the cuff. We also had Elisa Carthy’s producer and MD Ben Ivitsky on whistle and viola on two tracks. Now that all the guests have completed their parts we are now into some heavy editing sessions prior to mixing the album which has been in the making since 2003!

Mega March at Offbeat

This coming month is set to be very exciting in the studio. Already confirmed bookings include ;- Randy Pritchard and the J2 Kids - Allie Fox - James Forrest - Ric Tod - Aegon Scottish Equitable (podcast to be confirmed) - Kevin MacLean - Anna Jarosz - Mike Kearnan, Brian Rice + Clive Moorhead (to be confirmed) , also Hip Hop acts Bruce Kilpatrick and Aggravated Assault. More work will continue on Kirsty’s new video for her song “Feels Good”.

Kirsty Music - Feels Good

We are currently working on the debut single for Vocalist and Electric Violinist Kirsty. The song entitled ‘Feels Good’ is an acoustic guitar based song featuring electric violin and a strong dance groove.The track will be completed this month and then a video will be craerted prior to release in March 08. For the promotion of the single we will be doing a radio tour in Scotland and playing small venues in preperation for the main release. For the ‘live’ version the song will be performed acoustically.

Simon Kempston + Rosie Hunter

Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist Simon Kempston is in the studio this week recording 4 new acoustic songs. Simon was in the studio earlier in the year with guitarist Louie Robertson. This time round the songs are more rootsy sounding and the recording, which also features violinist Rosie Hunter, is free of any overdubs and is strictly Acoustic Guitar, Violin + Simon’s very distinctive vocal. The recording is principally for swinging a gig at January’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, but it’s turning out really well and has a lovely fresh original feel to it. Simon doesn’t mess about and one hour into the session all the guitar parts were done and dusted. By the end of the four hour session all four songs were completed. The mix takes place on Wednesday.

Rod Clements + Allie Fox

Fantastic session yesterday on Allie’s album with guest slide guitarist Rod Clements from Lindisfarne. So far by far the best addition to the album as the slide really complimented Allies guitar style so perfectly. Taking advantage of the day we got Rod to play on 4 tracks and he was kept busy right up until the end of a four hour session apart from a couple of short coffee breaks. Looking forward to editing and mixing him into the album sometime in January. Remaining guests to appear now prior to completing the album is Celloist Ron Shaw and Harmonica player Fraser Spiers.

Tom Tufnell

Had a great session with young songwriter/guitarists Tom Tufnell on Thursday. The song entitled Numbers + Letters was about maths and how perhaps a music career was not as lucrative as being a maths genius but Tom conjectures that perhaps it is a happier choice. Hope to work again with Tom in the future. A really nice guy and a great musician.