Song Writing » Kristie Addison

Enemy is here!

Music, NZ Music, Recording, Song Writing 3 Responses »

Aug 142008

Enemy is the rewrite of the theme song I wrote for Erik Hogans game Derelict. It will soon be available for download from Amplifier, and eventually from iTunes.

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! )

New Toy – Yamaha CLP-230 Digital Piano

Gear Reveiw, MIDI, Piano, Song Writing 4 Responses »

May 032008

I have been dying to get a Piano for a while now, however with the stairs, and the tuning, and the space it just hasn’t proved practical. But I’ve been also needing a new MIDI controller Keyboard. Mine is only two octaves, and a few notes don’t work so good after the coffee incident… So I found a good medium point. A fairly decent digital Piano. I didn’t go overboard and get one with all the bells and whistles since I’m going to be using it with my computer anyway. It has a great Piano sound and feel, a USB port, and who needs anything else?

It has a GH3 Keyboard which has different weightings on the hammers, so the action is heavier in the lower end of the keyboard and lighter in the high end making it very realistic to play.

Within minutes of setting it up I found myself writing this piece. Apologies for my rusty playing – I haven’t lived with a piano since moving out of my parents house about ten years ago, so I have a lot of practicing to catch up on

RPM Challenge – Procrastination continues

RPM, Song Writing 5 Responses »

Feb 242008

Somehow in between all my procrastinating I have managed to come up with my ten RPM Challenge songs Duh duh duh duuum…..

1. Don’t want to wake up (without you)

2. Long Road

3. Wasting time*

4. Lullabye*

5. Ragdoll

6. This world (instrumental)*

7. End of the world*

8. Second Best

9. Autumn Leaves*

10. Song for Dan (Instrumental)*

* Far too many of these songs are rehashed old songs originally written at least 3 years ago! I’ve had writers block all month

Now that I have spent two days tidying and rearranging my workspace in order to maximise my work efficiency, I think I will actually start recording my final versions of these songs.

Off Topic: During my tidying and reorganising process, I came across an old Savage Garden cd. Now, while I am ashamed to admit I was a huge Savage Garden fan as a teenager, I am almost more ashamed to admit that I can still hear exactly what I liked about them. Bar the cheesy lyrics, and the sheer awfulness of Truely Madly Deeply, the songs on their self titled album are really kinda cool! Don’t lynch me! I just love all the synths and harmonies. It’s neat music.

Writers/Composers Block

RPM, Song Writing 7 Responses »

Feb 192008

Musicians can get writers block. I get it all the time, especially leading up to a deadline (like now). Common symptoms include:

Repeatedly playing Stairway to Heaven or Nothing Else Matters on the guitar for no apparent reason.
Listening over and over to previous work just so you can pick out every single little mistake.
Listening to your favourite songs over and over, picking out all the clever bits that are so much better than your own work
Drinking Coffee and eating Toast.
Doing housework, running errands, catching up on paperwork, blogging…

The worst thing is when you can think of a hundred things to write a song about – but none of it just seems any good. My current ideas involve sick frogs, the IRD, and mismatched socks.

The other worst thing is when you give up on what you’re writing a song about and just try to come up with some good music and/or riffs. When you have writers block, everything always sounds too much like something else. Sometimes, it all just sounds crap. Sometime it doesn’t sound like anything because you can’t even come up with anything.

Cures for writers/composers block:

Actually having feelings or opinions to write about. (Rumour has it you can get these by giving a damn – harder than it looks sometimes)
Being almost at the deadline… and dropping your standards to write about things you originally thought were crap when you had a lot of time to think about it.
Finding God (Christian bands NEVER run out of things to write about )
Harnessing random fluctuations in the Time Space Continuum. (eg, open any random book at a random page and randomly point at something on the page and write about whatever that’s about. Also works quite well with like dream cards, the random button on wikipedia, or even your media player set to random. [I secretly suspect all those Christian bands just write songs by doing this with the bible!])
Doing housework, running errands, catching up on paperwork, blogging… Sometimes stopping trying to compose and doing something else for a little while can give your brain a little time to stew things over and come up with some proper ideas.

I think I’m ready to get back to work now

The RPM Challenge

RPM, Song Writing 2 Responses »

Feb 062008

The RPM challenge is to record an Album in 29 days. I read about this in a blog, checked it out, and was horrified to see that it runs for the month of Feb, and I’ve already wasted a week simply by not knowing about it! Ahhhh. RPM stands not for Rev’s per Minute, but in this case for Recording Production Month. I think it’s a brill idea and signed up right away. You’re allowed to use pre-written material so that’s a big help since I’m starting a week late. I’ll still have to do some writing too, but not a whole albums worth in two days I’m trawling through a ton of ancient demos and lyrics to try and find what is easily salvageable or rewritable. I plan to have ten songs really roughly demo’d by midnight tomorrow night. So far since this morning I have five songs chosen for resurrection, have written two more songs, and still need to pull three more out of somewhere… Deadlines are great motivators.

General Midi – not quite dead yet?

MIDI, Recording, Song Writing 3 Responses »

Feb 012008

If you don’t know what General Midi (GM) is, you’re missing out on something which is at the time time both very awful and very cool. General Midi is a specific specification for synths, that basically means the the default synth on your soundcard or operating system should theoretically have the same instrumentation as mine. So, instead of having to save a big audio file, I can save a little set of midi instructions, and your GM synth will follow these instructions and play back the notes of my song with the drum parts sounding like drums, squarewave sounding like a square wave, and the pineapple tasting like a pineapple, and of course the schnozberry tasting like schnozberry. It’s awful it really is.

Why is music important?

Music, Opinion, Song Writing 2 Responses »

Jan 282008

In my opinionated opinion, music as an art is important as being part of what makes us human. I would also say that in this disconnected world we live in, music plays an important role in emotional expression. Not just for those who write music, but especially for those who are listening. When we’re sad we put on a sad song to sing along to or listen too, and it reminds us that there are other people out there who have the same problems and emotions. Or when you’re sad you could put on your favourite happy song, and let it cheer you up. Music, is like a friend that never stabs you in the back. Something quite hard to come by these days I find…

Work in progress – new song to critique

Recording, Song Writing 2 Responses »

Jan 062008

This is a new song I’ve been working on. It’s had almost ten different versions, and this is the rough of the version I’m probably going to go with. It’s almost a bit too “easy listening” for my personal tastes, but I think it’s probably the version most likely to get me in with a chance at a NZ on Air grant (Muh huh huh haaaaaa).

A sneaky way to fake bass

Recording, Song Writing, VST Instruments No Responses »

Dec 302007

I figured out how to make a passable bass sound. I just can’t find a bass synth I like anywhere you see. (yes I know, I could just use real bass – but it’s the principle of the thing now….) My friend Josh and I are going to make a sample based bass VSTi next year – but until then I have a solution. Playing low notes on MDA piano – then using a compressor like ME Compressor; Bring up the frequencies that sound most like a bass guitar, and scrap the ones that are excessively piano.

My illogical songwriting process

Song Writing 1 Response »

Dec 292007

Songwriting is one of those odd things, I can never explain quite how I do it. I think it often starts with a riff. When I have a guitar in my hands and I do the audio equivalent of doodling on a notepad with a ball point pen, while day dreaming about something irrelevant.

Sometimes it starts with a thought, a sole line or lyric that might occur to me while driving, cooking, talking, thinking, walking the dog. If I have a pen and paper it may eventually become a song. If I don’t, it’s lost forever. My memory is terrible.

But where ideas for songs don’t happen for me, is when I’m trying to write something. When I sit there and try to write a riff, or come up with a lyric. Just doesn’t work. They have to surprise me.

Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

Kristie Addison

Enemy is here!

New Toy – Yamaha CLP-230 Digital Piano

RPM Challenge – Procrastination continues

Writers/Composers Block

The RPM Challenge

General Midi – not quite dead yet?

Why is music important?

Work in progress – new song to critique

A sneaky way to fake bass

My illogical songwriting process

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