Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B (Cover)

A couple of days back I asked my facebook friends to suggest me something to cover just for fun. I asked the question on the 2nd August and had no idea what to expect as suggestions but, one of my friends suggested that I cover Miror B's Theme from the game Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness. I was a little unsure at first because I had never heard it before despite being a fan of Pokemon but, I decided to take it on as a challenge as I don't challenge myself enough! 

I spent the next couple of days learning the song and listening to it repeatedly so that I knew it well, I wanted to make this cover the best that I could with equipment I have.

On August 4th, the first thing I had to do was make a drum track. I used Cubase 5 for this and used three tracks. One track for the snare one for the bass drum, hi-hat and any other percussion (crash) and on for the audio of actual track for me to work with so the structure of the song matched the original. This didn't take too long to do. I remember that I didn't finish it on the night I started it even though it just needed a few finishing touches, (eg. reverb). I finished it the next day on August 5th and then continued to export the track and then import the track into audacity. I decided the first track I wanted to layer on top was the bass because this would be the most useful after the drum track to guide me through the structure. I recorded the bass using a line in from my AD-82 Mixer before that going into my Zoom G7.1ut Guitar Effects Console on a clean setting. This is the best method I have to record any guitar/bass parts, I used this method for my guitar several times later on but, with a distorted setting.

I also had two keyboard tracks that I wanted to add to the track were I used the headphone output at the back of the keyboards and put it into the mixer on a line in. I used two different keyboards purely to get the exact sounds I was after. I used my Yamaha NP-30 for a bright natural sounding piano and my Casio CTK-651 for synthetic Midi sounds which I wanted to use the trumpet. My Yamaha only has about 10 different sounds loaded where as my Casio has nearly 200 to choose from.. I'm not sure that I'm ever use them all though...

I was recording footage of me playing whist I was recording the cover using a Sony NEX-3 camera, moving it around the room for different shots. I only use Windows Movie Maker to put my video together so, it was quite challenging to get everything smooth and perfectly in-time but, I'm happy with the final result.

Here is the final result:

My cover of Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B's Theme is also available for free download and to listen to on Soundcloud.

Please follow the link:

https://soundcloud.com/kimkeeton/mirror-b-cover 

Thanks, for reading :')

Enjoy!

Break Time! ...Not Quite.

So, it's the Easter holidays and yet again I find myself not doing all that much apart from eating mounts of chocolate and gaining that extra weight that no one would dream of having. I don't exercise as much either, these days; that's my other problem.

On the lighter side of life, I've been preparing for new challenges (At least that's what I like to call it). It's generally more looked upon as slashing out on new kit though, what I've brought this time certainly looks more professional. In terms of what I already own second in it's kind. My other looks so much more primary compared to this, with it's colours guiding you through it's use it's almost like you should have to input dummies and milk bottles into to it rather than jacks and xlrs! Nevertheless, they are both fantastic pieces of machinery.



L2 Audio AD-82

I've been able to test out the pre-amps for the first two channels using the line inputs but, I got distracted by my own playing to test the other two.

The bonuses of this mixer for me are:

- More channels! (Previously, I had two).
- I can now record with effects and set the amout per track.
- I have a master fader to ease the control of the overall output and help the recording process
- Aux sends as well as a basic headphone amp

The downsides so far:

- Having to switch between '2TK TO CRTL RM' and change the volume coming out of the monitors to listen to the playback or what I'm recording at the time properly.

This is what I find with my setup though, mine is very simple. A couple of rca lead in and out of my outdated laptop and mixer. Though, a little lagging... it's the best I can do for now.

Any comments/advice welcome. :')
I'm still new to this!!