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Music by Kristie

Transit of Venus presents Nosferatu

TRANSIT OF VENUS PROJECT presents ‘NOSFERATU’
A special screening of the original vampire classic with new music written and performed live by Transit of Venus.
Auckland rock band Transit of Venus are performing a very special one-night show on November 26th where they provide an all new soundtrack to F.W. Murnau’s legendary silent vampire epic from the ’20s, Nosferatu. Fronted by multi-instrumentalist and composer Kristie Addison, Transit of Venus have also recently released their debut EP Bittersweet Love.
TRANSIT OF VENUS presents NOSFERATU is live at The Auckland Performing Arts Center, 8.30 November 26. Don’t miss it.
BOOKINGS: www.tapac.org.nz & Phone: 09 845 0295
$30 adults, $25 students and senior citizens

Today I finally got around to updating this website.  While it’s been over six months since my last blog here I have been blogging quasi-regularly at www.transitofvenusproject.com with news of the latest happenings of the band.

On the game music side of things, the popularity of the iPhone has provided the opportunity for me to write for a couple of iPhone games. I can’t give you any details (NDA’s!) but I will let you know as soon as the games are released.

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2am Ramble

I am well and truly back in work mode after a fantastic and long overdue holiday in Dubai. I arrived home a couple of weeks ago and cleared (but not necessarily filed) a huge backlog of paperwork. Then got to work on various more serious things for a while. Not until the last couple of days have I managed to turn much attention to Transit of Venus. Spent today mixing with Dave from Miscreant Recordings. Turns out I’d made some rather irritating mistakes in the exporting of my audio. It’s a long and boring story, but the short of it is the mixing of this album may be a fair bit more time and effort than originally suspected. However the good news is that there are a couple of songs that are very close to finished. And the other good news is that I’m going to play some gigs with the new material soon.

It’s almost 2am and I’m worried that this post is not going to make great grammatical sense so I think I’ll call it a night and write something a little more substantial tomorrow.

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Amperzahn Reunion gig on You Tube

Last June my former band Amperzahn reformed for a one off gig for Keyboardist Michelle’s birthday party, and the set was caught on camera.  I have finally got around to uploading the videos onto YouTube and here they are…  Stuff ups and all! :D   Our excuse was the very limited amount of practice we had before hand, as we hadn’t played together for a long long time.

I’m on guitar, the keyboardist is Michelle Klaessens, filling in for Josh on bass is Anthony Corban, and Tory Staples is on drums.

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The Rock Factory 5th Birthday Party!

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2008 – A post mortem. And goals for 2009

Just a quick post as I’ve run off my feet trying to get things finished before I take off to Dubai for 3 weeks.  Last year I didn’t set any New Years resolutions again, but if I could go back in time and set some these are what they’d be :D

1.  Leave my job and have a go at being a self employed freelancer

2.  Take up piano after my 10 year break and learn Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# minor

3.  Get an full length album 75% finished (I’ll finish it off when I get back I promise!)

4.  Finally fix up that bass guitar that’s been sitting about in the corner not working for years

5.  Visit the Maton Guitar Factory to learn more about guitar building/repairs and get some hands on experience.

6.  Go seriously blonde

7.  Play a few acoustic gigs

8.  Ah I’m all out of ideas.  Maybe I didn’t get much done this year

9.  Though number 1 was a biggie so it more than makes up for everything else ;)

10.  Rock on!

Ok, I’m gonna break tradition and set myself some goals for 2009.  That way I can’t just make them up at the end of the year and pretend I’m awesome.  So in no particular order…

1.  Finish that darn album!

2.  Be calm and cool at the end of the financial year, stay self employed and don’t go running to beg for my old job back

3.  Host some successful art gallery nights at The Manor

4.  Finish a couple of paintings

5.  Get back into gigging and… Go on tour!  Preferably summer tour, but who knows…

6.  Finish that awesome guitar I started building in 2007

7.  Run a marathon.

8.  Learn another Rachmaninoff piece (not decided which one yet)

9.  Write music for a film

10.  Make a music video

Ok, I might even print that out and stick it on my wall for the purpose of proper motivational cliché :D

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, have fun at New Years and stay safe.

Catch ya on the flip side

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Recording Update

Here is a sneak preview for Meatmarket.  This is just a premix so don’t start getting all picky on it just yet ;)

It’s 7:30am on a Saturday morning.  I resisted the urge to sleep till 11 since I have a friend coming to record some bass tracks this morning and I need time to clear the myriad of coffee cups that litter my desk.  And time to write another long overdue blog.

Drum tracking is finished, a couple of songs have all the tracking done however most are still waiting on bass.  I am trying to nail a tough guitar solo in one particular song which is giving me grief.  I mean I can play it, but I just really want to play it solidly.  I just can’t seem to get that magic take.  Vocals are done on most of the songs, bar a couple.  Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) came in to record some guitar parts and brought with him a new song he’d written for the album.  I need to write vocals and other parts for that too.  A few tracks have moved on to the mixing stage.  I had planned to do the mixing myself but at this point I’m so sick to death of my own music that I really felt I needed to get a pair of outside ears in.  In fact I’m getting two pairs of outside ears with David Edtmaier of Miscreant Recordings and Michelle Klaessens from The Rock Factory doing some each.

A quick shout out to those who have contributed so far…

Mike Johns – Guitar

Tory Staples (Battle Circus) – Drums

Christina Chunks (Infinite Flying Kick) – Piano/Synths

Robin Liu (Infinite Flying Kick) – Guitar

James Dudley – Guitar, Backing Vocals

Dave Edtmaier (Miscreant) – Guitar, Bass, Mixing

Anthony Corban (The Mysterons) – Bass, Guitar (Yet to be tracked)

Harry Champion (The Exiles) – Bass

Michelle Klaessens (The Rock Factory) – Mixing, and no doubt she’ll throw in some piano and backing vocals

 
icon for podpress  Meat Market Pre-mix [3:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
posted by Kristie in NZ Music,Recording,Update and have No Comments

Drum Tracking

Spent a large part of the weekend recording drums for my album.  Got in Tory Staples, the drummer from my old band Amperzahn.  He’s currently playing for a few other artists including one of my fav NZ bands ‘Battle Circus‘.  I had planned to record drums at our fav recording studio The Rock Factory, but I soon realized we wouldn’t have enough time there as we had done no pre-production and had never even jammed on most of the songs.  So we ended up setting up for a three day recording/learning session in a rehearsal studio.

Starting early and finishing late with short breaks to catch the Santa Parade as it went past and to play an acoustic gig, the weekend went by in a blur.  I will be really interested to see how my drums tracks sound in the mix.  With no engineer on hand I was a little worried at first but everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.  I haven’t loaded all the tracks off the computer there yet.  I’m not used to using a Mac so I got a little frustrated with all the shortcuts being different.  I recorded in Logic which I have used a little before but such a long time ago that it may as well have been not at all.  However by three in the morning on Sunday I was starting to get the hang of it and even remembering to press Apple+S for ‘Save Project’ instead of Ctrl+S for ‘Solo Track’ :D

Also by three in the morning on Sunday; Tory had blisters on his hand and the rehearsal room floor was decorated with a sprinkling of sawdust from hacked away drumsticks.  A china cymbal that had been bit damaged on tour was now completely history, and we had consumed enough caffeine to wake a drowsy elephant.  In my case that was only just enough coffee to combat the few unwise vodkas I had after the acoustic gig.

The acoustic gig on Sunday was interesting,  I was very unprepared (story of my life) having spent most of the week stressing about getting this album finished before Christmas break, and generally running about like a headless chicken (the metaphor not the band).  Played partly solo but mostly as an acoustic duo with  friend of mine Mike Johns.  Had good feed back after the gig so either we played well thanks to our 20 minute practice before the show or all our friends are sweet kind liars :D

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I’m playing a gig on Sunday

Theoretically I’m spending Sunday afternoon and Sunday night recording Tory Staples on drums for my album.  However in reality we will be escaping the studio for a while for a gig.  The gig is at The Crib Bar 151 Ponsonby Road, Auckland New Zealand, kicks off around 6pm and I’d love to see you there! :D

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I’m playing a gig on Sunday

Theoretically I’m spending Sunday afternoon and Sunday night recording Tory Staples on drums for my album.  However in reality we will be escaping the studio for a while for a gig.  The gig is at The Crib Bar 151 Ponsonby Road, Auckland New Zealand, kicks off around 6pm and I’d love to see you there! :D

posted by Kristie in Music,NZ Music,Update and have No Comments

Guitar Strings

How important are guitar strings when it comes to getting the sound you want?  I’ve always thought it rather daft to own a nice guitar but leave it strung up with old dull strings. During my time working as a guitar tech I would get very frustrated with the customers who came in wanting their guitar set-up but not wanting me to put new strings on it.  “The strings are only two or three months old” they would say.  Or sometimes… “I only change the strings when they break”.  It’s not so bad, if the person has religiously wiped down their guitar and strings every time they’ve played it, but more often than not the strings on the guitar are just plain gross.

Old strings just don’t sound as good.  They don’t vibrate as evenly as new strings due to dirt, corrosion or pitting of the string, unevenness in the metal as the string is stretched out over time.  This is usually first noticed as the string becomes less crisp sounding, the high frequencies are lost.  eg.  If you’re playing the open A string, the string will be vibrating at 440 Hz.  Thats 440 vibrations per second and is called the fundamental frequency.  But on a real musical instrument as opposed to a straight sine wave, you get harmonics that give the note it’s depth and character.  The string is oscillating loudest 440 times per minute, but it is also vibrating with less amplitude at other frequencies.  So mostly what you hear is the fundamental frequency, but the other frequencies, the harmonics, are what gives the life and color to the sound.  As a string becomes older, dirtier and less flexible it is still able to vibrate happily close to its fundamental, but the very high frequency vibrations are disrupted.  The string no longer sounds bright and sharp and clear, it sounds like it’s played through a low pass filter.  It sounds dull, without life or definition.

Old strings with their dirt and corrosion can cause premature fret wear on your guitar.  They are more gritty and abrasive than new strings so will wear away at the tops of your frets faster.  Also, if you aren’t changing your strings often you don’t get a chance to give your guitar a proper clean and oil the fretboard.

You can make your strings last longer by washing and drying your hands before you play your guitar, using a string lubricant such as ‘Finger Ease’, and wiping your strings down after you play.  Long life strings are more expensive but do last longer.

For steel string acoustic guitar, Elixir strings (in my humble opinion) don’t sound as good to begin with.  The coating they have on them seems to dull the sound.  My personal favorites are Dean Markley Alchemy’s, which sound amazing.  A close second for me would have to be the Martin SP+ strings.

For electric guitar, I quite like Dean Markley Blue Steel’s.  And not just because I’m a Zoolander fan!  They are long lasting and very crisp and clear.  They don’t seem to suit every guitar though.  I find some of my guitars need a warmer sounding string and then I just go with Ernie Balls.

I have just put Blue Steel bass strings on my bass and I’m really pleased with those.  I have a very cheap old bass that was a borderline case for being chucked out but the strings have given it new life.

Buying the cheapest strings available is fine if you’re going to change them often.  Even though I use long life strings I still change them before recording or a gig because there’s nothing like the sound of fresh strings.

I’ve often heard it said that you should change your strings after every 20 hours of playing. This sounds like a good rule of thumb, but it can depend on what kind of playing you’re doing and how you look after your strings. So it is a good idea to just use your eyes and your ears to decide. Do my strings look manky? Are the unwound strings showing signs of pitting and corrosion? Do my strings sound less than fantastic? Is my intonation going out?

The strings on your guitar are the source of your sound.  Keep in mind that horrid strings can make the best guitars sound awful. And, because I’m a girl I have to say it, old strings are gross and unhygienic and probably will give you tetanus if you spike yourself on them. :P

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