I borrowed a Yamaha DT Xpress 4 for some recording tonight, along with a drummer since drums are not really my forté.  I thought an electric drum kit would be perfect for an evening recording session at home, as it wouldn’t keep the neighbors up like an acoustic kit would.

I wasn’t familiar with the kit before we started, so when it arrived I was actually expecting a USB port for MIDI.  But unfortunatly only the higher models that come USB equipped (so I hear).  The kit does have a MIDI out, but no MIDI in so my cunning trick I was planning was foiled from the beginning.  (This cunning trick would have involved recording the drums on a midi track, quantising and editing to my satisfaction then running the MIDI signal back into the kit and this time recording the audio output.  It’s a very cunning trick that works quite well with keyboards. )

Instead of the cunning trick I just recorded straight from the line out into my USB interface.  I was really impressed with the easiness of the whole process.  Just two leads.  Not ten mics and ten mic leads and ten mic stands and endless soundchecks.  And the whole kit folds down so easily that you can carry it up the stairs in one trip.

Obviously an electric drum kit can not replace a really nice kit in a great studio, but for home recording I think it’s a really great idea.  I loved the samples in the DTXpress, it has some that are cheesy and fun and some that are very usable.  While I probably wouldn’t go out and buy this particular model myself, as I definitly want a USB port (or at least a MIDI-in as well as a MIDI-out) after playing round with it I am definitly keen to try out some of Yamaha’s other electric drum kits to find something that suits my purposes.

Just been through re-instating all the media files.  I’m not sure if it’s firefox, or if I’m doing something wrong, but Mr Refresh button seems to be not doing his job too well, so some of my changes seem to be taking a long time to show up.  If things aren’t working for you, just try pressing refresh a couple of thousand times.

I haven’t updated the media files on the portfolio page because eventually when the other changes I’ve made decide to take hold, the portfolio link should take you through to my new portfolio at www.kristieaddison.com Since my page seems to be refusing to refresh at the moment I can’t test this yet!

Thanks for your patience, and thanks heaps to those of you who’ve taken the time to change all your links!  I know it’s a pain and I promise not to move the site again too soon

Next blog is going to be about a Yamaha Electric Drumkit I will be having a serious play with on Tuesday night.

EDIT:Playing with drumkit tonight (Thursday) instead of Tuesday.

I have moved this site to a new hosting spot, I hope everyone managed to find this new one somehow… I posted from the last one with a message saying I was moving, oh, at least a day or two beforehand.  Actually, it’s taken me a little by surprise because I was think i had until the 19th to change everything over, but it appears I only had till the 17th.  Hopefully I’ve got everything important…

I imagine all the media files are not going anymore as they still point back to the old site… But I’ll get on it and sort them out toot sweet.  Most of the reason behind the move, is I’ve bought Kristie Addison.com for my portfolio to sit on, so everything is run off that now rather than my old bands site – since my old band is pretty much no longer – bar the occasional reunion gig.

Slowly building my portfolio site, pop over and see it if you like…  it’s http://www.kristieaddison.com and will hopefully make me look so fab and pro that lots more people will give me lots more monies to write music for them

If you have any links to the old site would be super uber fab if you could change them to point here!  Cheers

Derelict Alpha was just released yesterday, I downloaded it shortly after midnight and began playing my way through (slowly, because I’m terrible at games).  Even though I’ve worked on the game it was just as exciting for me because I hadn’t played it since the beta which didn’t have my sounds or music in, and theres been a lot of other changes too.

A huge congratulations to ERIC HOGAN on finishing this big project.  Erik is a talented indie game designer from Auckland NZ and he has developed Derelict in his spare time over the last 9 months.  You can download Derelict for free from his website.

Notes on sound design for Derelict.

I came into this project as it was nearing completion, there were already a lot of sounds in the game from various soundbanks, and already three tracks of music from the other musicians Samuel Gavin, Edward Clombe, and Bill Norris.  I wrote two additional tracks and began working on the sound effects.

One of my favorite effects is the sound the teleport module makes in the game.  The teleport looks like a cylindrical blue forcefield, and monsters are transported onto the ship through them. I created the sound for these by plugging an instrument lead into my recording interface, and moved my thumb about on the hot end creating sounds like electrical hum.  Then I just chucked in a little phaser, a touch of reverb and that was it.

The sounds the monsters make in the game were a lot of fun to do.  I used my Digitech Vocal300 vocal effects processor to pitch shift the signal down and my old reliable Audix OM2 dynamic mic.  Just recorded snarling and lurking and scary breathing all pitched down, again a touch of reverb to replicate the sound of a big deserted spaceship.

The footsteps were the most challenging sound for me.  Because these sounds were recorded at home not in a studio to keep the budget down as this is not a commercial project, keeping out the background noise was a bit of an issue.  Especially when weather is involved.  But if it’s not weather it’s dogs barking, neighbors mowing the lawn, or people driving past.  In the end, I found the best way for me was to use a dynamic mic instead of my condenser, and to manually silence all the sound between the footsteps.  The dynamic mic was a tough choice because I had to get it much closer to my feet for the recording than I had my condenser, so it was tricky to walk realistically in one spot while being careful not to kick the microphone or tread too hard so that vibration traveled up the mic stand into the mic.  All in all, I’m reasonably happy with how the footsteps came out.

Here are the music tracks I wrote for Derelict.