Recording Studio Experience
Last week I was invited by some friends Shireen and Joclyn to go to a recording studio at the school where another friend Simon studies audio engineering. They wanted to sing and record Hallelujah (by Leonard Cohen then covered by Jeff Buckley) and asked me to play guitar for them. Lucky they chose this song because it happens to be one of my favorites on guitar and can play it all quite confidently. The two girls sang, doing harmonies for eachother while another girl Erin played grand piano and added a 3rd harmony to the vocals. It really was such a novel experience being in a proper recording studio, all the controls were hooked up to these remote boxes, so I could control the mix i was hearing in my ears (such as turning up my guitar and turning down the piano so I could concentrate). I also recorded a vocal track, that was pretty nerve wracking.. I've been trying to sing while playing guitar a bit here but still pretty self-conscious about it.. so singing in a recording studio being recorded while people listened was a little out of the comfort zone but a great experience!
The most amazing thing was that we absolutely nailed it first take! Two takes following were sub-par with me screwing up the 16 bar solo in the middle.. It's being mastered at the moment.. if I ever get my hands on it i'll try and post it somewhere. Hopefully there'll be some more time there to do other stuff in the studio. I'd love to record something with Sacha! Will need lots of practice beforehand..
Hot Tub Time Machine
Friday night just passed I went and did the movie 'extras' gig, brushing up with John Cusack. Pretty exciting stuff! Being on a movie set is lots of fun... I'm sure it'd wear off pretty quickly but very novel right now. The call time was 5pm, and we worked throught to 4.30am, it was pretty much just like the show "The Extras" - there was a tent full of food (like donuts and all kinds of awesome food) which you could eat as much as you want. They are required to serve a hot meal after 6 hrs and if you dont get it you're paid like double or triple time after that. About 70% of the time is spent in the Extras Holding Area which for this scene was about 300 full, so there's lots of socialising and meeting new people. I quickly made friends with the guy who had the idea of bringing a guitar (totally doing that next time) and there was lots of singing and talking and laughing to pass the time.
We had a big scene where we're all partying at a Poison concert set at Winterfest '86 (yes Poison, the totally awesome 80s glam rock band who were my first
ever purchased 'cassingle' from 1989 or close with such hits as Unskinny Bop and Every Rose Has Its Thorn..) was given a task of mingling through the crowd and giving random high fives (READ: I was paid to mingle around and give high fives) There were some extremely weird people there too.. people who wanted to be actor(ess)s and yeah.. haha very entertaining at the least! Then there was another scene where I had to walk behind John and some guy having a conversation. there were about 15 takes where they did it differently each time, but on the first one I had to do they finished the dialog early and had to run off in my direction which i wasnt expecting and had to remain casual and not flinch. Turns out John Cusack is like 6ft3! never would have thought that.. he is also a very nervous type, constantly chewing on his nails.. that kinda makes sense tho.
I also discovered that there's about 6 different agencies and apparently I'm with one of the worst.. So I'll be switching soon, and I was advised to shave the beard for my profile pic as apparently its easy to picture people older but harder to picture them younger and theres a lot more work for younger.
Verdict: All round thumb of approval to that method of earning money! Unfortunately it isnt consistent enough to rely on..
Great week!
Last week I was invited by some friends Shireen and Joclyn to go to a recording studio at the school where another friend Simon studies audio engineering. They wanted to sing and record Hallelujah (by Leonard Cohen then covered by Jeff Buckley) and asked me to play guitar for them. Lucky they chose this song because it happens to be one of my favorites on guitar and can play it all quite confidently. The two girls sang, doing harmonies for eachother while another girl Erin played grand piano and added a 3rd harmony to the vocals. It really was such a novel experience being in a proper recording studio, all the controls were hooked up to these remote boxes, so I could control the mix i was hearing in my ears (such as turning up my guitar and turning down the piano so I could concentrate). I also recorded a vocal track, that was pretty nerve wracking.. I've been trying to sing while playing guitar a bit here but still pretty self-conscious about it.. so singing in a recording studio being recorded while people listened was a little out of the comfort zone but a great experience!
The most amazing thing was that we absolutely nailed it first take! Two takes following were sub-par with me screwing up the 16 bar solo in the middle.. It's being mastered at the moment.. if I ever get my hands on it i'll try and post it somewhere. Hopefully there'll be some more time there to do other stuff in the studio. I'd love to record something with Sacha! Will need lots of practice beforehand..
Hot Tub Time Machine
Friday night just passed I went and did the movie 'extras' gig, brushing up with John Cusack. Pretty exciting stuff! Being on a movie set is lots of fun... I'm sure it'd wear off pretty quickly but very novel right now. The call time was 5pm, and we worked throught to 4.30am, it was pretty much just like the show "The Extras" - there was a tent full of food (like donuts and all kinds of awesome food) which you could eat as much as you want. They are required to serve a hot meal after 6 hrs and if you dont get it you're paid like double or triple time after that. About 70% of the time is spent in the Extras Holding Area which for this scene was about 300 full, so there's lots of socialising and meeting new people. I quickly made friends with the guy who had the idea of bringing a guitar (totally doing that next time) and there was lots of singing and talking and laughing to pass the time.
We had a big scene where we're all partying at a Poison concert set at Winterfest '86 (yes Poison, the totally awesome 80s glam rock band who were my first
ever purchased 'cassingle' from 1989 or close with such hits as Unskinny Bop and Every Rose Has Its Thorn..) was given a task of mingling through the crowd and giving random high fives (READ: I was paid to mingle around and give high fives) There were some extremely weird people there too.. people who wanted to be actor(ess)s and yeah.. haha very entertaining at the least! Then there was another scene where I had to walk behind John and some guy having a conversation. there were about 15 takes where they did it differently each time, but on the first one I had to do they finished the dialog early and had to run off in my direction which i wasnt expecting and had to remain casual and not flinch. Turns out John Cusack is like 6ft3! never would have thought that.. he is also a very nervous type, constantly chewing on his nails.. that kinda makes sense tho.
I also discovered that there's about 6 different agencies and apparently I'm with one of the worst.. So I'll be switching soon, and I was advised to shave the beard for my profile pic as apparently its easy to picture people older but harder to picture them younger and theres a lot more work for younger.
Verdict: All round thumb of approval to that method of earning money! Unfortunately it isnt consistent enough to rely on..
Great week!
1 comment:
Just stumbled upon this and what a treat. X Katrina K
Post a Comment