Just a quick note to say Transit of Venuses first single ‘Enemy’ is now available for $1.99NZ from Amplifier.co.nz.

Format: MP3, 256 Kbps.

Enjoy!

Started with a pencil sketch.  Took a photo of it, got it into photo shop to colour/edit it, then chucked the "color halftone" filter over it.  A fun way to spend a sunday

Special thanks again to Michelle Klaessens (The Rock Factory) for a fabulous mastering job, Mark Towl (Stapleton) on drums, and Mike Johns (Revolution Brother) on lead guitar.

The Gear (because recording is always just an excuse to play with fun things!):

The song was entirely recorded and mixed at home in Cubase, with my ancient Tascam US122 USB interface.  I used Adobe Audition for a little wave form editing in the form of noise removal on a funny hiss from the piano (must try solve that some day).

The Drums are recorded from the line out of a Yamaha DTXpress electric drum kit – thanks to Go West Music Henderson for the loan.

The piano is a line out taken from my Yamaha CLP-230 Clavinova via a stereo headphone output

The rhythm guitar is my 1999 Ibanez RG520 (V7 and V8 pickups) played through my Peavey Triple X head and Peavey 5150 cab, which is mic’d up with an Audix OM2 dynamic mic and an Audio Technica AE6100 dynamic mic.

The lead guitar is Mikes Fender Strat played through his bizarre set-up involving an amp that’s rewired to bypass some bit of it and another external unit.  I’ll have to ask him about it sometime because I didn’t pay much attention at the time.

The vocals are me singing though an Audix OM2 straight into the interface, that was turned up to the max to get a bit of distortion going on. (In hindsight this was probably not the best way to do it! )

I am changing the site template as you may have noticed (if not, try hitting refresh – or you’re reading from an RSS feed lol).  This tends to be a very slow process, because for some reason – my add on domains take a lot longer to acknowledge changes than my main domain.  I wish I could get to the bottom of this, because it’s very frustrating sitting here clicking refresh, and clearing my cache, and wondering if the changes I have made have worked at all.  Any ideas on this?

On a marginally less geeky note… Yay!  Today is the day I will get my latest song back from mastering.  And it is exciting, becuase I’ve just realised it will be Transit of Venus Projects first song actually finished and released as a single!  (I must finish some of these other demo’s some day).  It will be only released digitally (iTunes and Amplifier), apart from a tiny tiny limited edition run (25 signed and individually numbered).  The first 10 of these are for the people who were involved in this project, but if you want one of the others they’re $10NZ (+ postage), give me a yell kristie@kristieaddison.com and I’ll sort you one out.  First in first served.

OK, I will probably post again soon with more details and a streaming MP3

Here’s a few recording pics in the meantime, none of me though.  I record alone!

^ Mike Johns (Revolution Brother) bends it like Beckham.  Sometimes.  Though, I’m not sure if he actually is doing that in this picture.

^Angel (Annoying Fox Terriers of Doom) gives Mark some good advice on simultaneous barking and drumming.

^Mark Towel (Stapleton) closes his eyes and wears his headphones over only one ear so he can pretend he’s a DJ.

Just mixed down a song today to be sent off for mastering. It’s the rewrite of the Derelict Theme song to be released as a single. Had a fair few hiccups in the recording and I may have done a little irreparable damage in the mixing (don’t ask! If you spot it thats great, and if not, well I’m not telling ), but I have decided I’ve spent long enough on it already, and if I don’t finish it today I may never finish it. So it is finished, the 8th of the 8th 2008 is probably a lucky day (for anyone other than Rincewind at least) so I’m sure it’s gonna be ok. I’m just glad it’s over!

Special thanks to Mark Towel (Stapleton) who jumped in on drums, and Mike Johns (Revolution Brother) who did a fab job on lead guitar.

Will post finished version when I get it back from mastering – hopefully next week…