November

It's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday, I played a gig at the golden fleece in Nottingham and the day before, performed and NCN  both with my band. I really enjoyed both of them, my band zebra crossing is really coming along, even though I do think we need a much bigger set list. At the moment we have still got about 45 minutes worth of a set list.  We are practicing again this Sunday but, I think we will be mostly working on what we already know but I'm unsure we might learn new song whether it be a cover or an original. We are always want to learn new songs.

At the moment, I have a side project on the way as well. I don't want to reveal too much about it right now because.. well, I'm trying to keep it a secret for now! Before I can make a side project happen, I need to invest in some new equipment. I want to buy another condenser mic so I can capture more high quality sounds, I want to get a new amplifier which would have to be quite a loud one for my guitar.

I thought for a change I should upload a photo of myself. For a change, I have actually bothered to straighten my hair properly. It's getting quite long now, the kind of long where if I don't do anything with it, it looks terrible.

Thanks, for all of the Support!

I'm going to be posting more regularly on here now, mostly about my band Zebra Crossing.

Yesterday, saw the release of our video of us playing our new song 'Drunk on Tequila'. Over the last day and a half, this video is nearly at 200 views. It's good to know we have some strong support behind us now and with our Facebook fan page increasing with 'likes' everyday, we are so lucky. I wanted to put out a massive to everyone for all the support so far, even if it was something as simple as liking our page, subscribing or even taking the time out to watch one of our videos on YouTube., so THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

At the moment, we are still working on the website and will be practicing again later on this evening, hopefully to learn so more songs to add to our setlist!

See you on the next post.

http://www.youtube.com/zebracrossing1212
https://www.facebook.com/zebracrossingofficial
https://twitter.com/ZebraCrossing13

Updates for Zebra Crossing

At the current moment we are mostly working on developing our set list by adding move covers and slowly writing new originals. We are releasing a video on YouTube tomorrow which is a recording of us during practice, playing our new song 'Drunk on Tequila'. We wrote this song as a band, coming up with the lyrics together sat around as a team suggesting ideas. When we release it tomorrow, I hope you like it!

We've also been simultaneously working on a web page. At the moment it is still under construction and still needs a fair bit adding to it until it is full complete and we are satisfied enough to show it off. Yesterday, I spent almost two hours sat with my friend Thomas Edwards whist he was writing the script for the website and going over ideas we could use. He has made many websites before, check out this link shortener that he made! http://smallurl.in/

COMING SOON! >zebracrossingofficial.co.uk<COMING SOON

We're going to be putting biographies onto our website, so that people can learn more about us and feel more involved. We'er also going to put a gallery for our good pictures taken of our band so, live, fun, individual, selfies ect. ect. It's slowly piecing together anyway and I can't wait till it's finished.

We still have many postcards that Lucy got printed to share about. I spent the later hours last night designing a poster to make awearness and promote our social media a little more. I'm not completely happy with them yet, but, I can't moan about them too much. I spent about one hour and twenty minuets putting it together, trying to make it look fairly professional. The idea of the bottom is that we cut them separately so people tear off the links if they want to check us out.

I am quite proud of this, though again I owe Thomas Edwards my thanks for making us the new logo that will be changed on the pages soon.

http://www.youtube.com/zebracrossing1212
https://www.facebook.com/zebracrossingofficial
https://twitter.com/ZebraCrossing13

YouTube Covers

Hello everyone!

As you may have seen already, I am starting to get into filming and recording covers. I've watched many people do this before and I think that now is the time to jump onto the bandwagon, though what I don't want to do is simply copy everyone else before me. I do want to challenge myself and keep myself musically active, (that is the main point of this) but, I do fear that this can't happen without small complications.

The software I use for editing videos and recording are very basic and at the moment I don't really want to buy into new software that could make my work better, (my budgets won't let me) it's not that I don't have the money or that I'm a 'poor kid' but, I don't have a job currently and I don't want to splash out cash when I have no income. That wouldn't be clever. I know that is good software out there for around £40 but, I question it's potential.

My ideal for covers are not pop songs and  I have already agreed this with myself though, I don't want to do metal covers either (even though metal is still a sub-genre of pop). I want to make fun covers that are enjoyable. My sudden inspiration to dive into this kind of work comes directly from The Piano Guys as I find their videos not only very fun and enjoyable but, very uplifting. If I had or were a cello player, I would go down those roots and maybe even if I were a better piano player but, this is not me. Plus, there are five of them yet just one of me! I highly recommend giving The Piano Guys a listen by the way, they really are an amazing group of people.

As I've said before, my set up is very simple at the moment. I do not own my own recording  studio, just a mixer, a laptop and a couple of leads that do all of the magic. People have questioned me if I use MIDI with this setup, possibly assuming some kind of USB connection. Well, no I do not. I have the option to use MIDI on my keyboards and also my Zoom G.7ut Guitar Effects Processor (which is fantastic) but, I do not use it because I do not have the the correct leads or an interface, I'm not even sure I would if I could either.

Tripping back to the original subject of covers, I'm going to count my cover; Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B Theme as my very first. Before this, I did an acoustic cover of Rush's 'In The Mood' But, I'm not too happy with the video for that or even the overall audio to be honest. I think it needed a little more than I originally gave. I'm not going to bother going back to that one, however it is finished and still a decent quality piece of work that I'm happy with for at least that reason. I can't wait to get started on my next cover now, it can be a painfully long process for a couple of minutes of entertainment but, it really is totally worth it!!!

If anyone has any suggestions of song for me to consider making a cover for, please comment. :')

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!

Update: Kim Keeton Photography

For anyone that is unaware, I am working on a series of cover photos that will be available for use on sites such as Facebook. I'll be leaving my name over them so that the copyright remains mine and so that no one will 'steal' them. This would be terrible and is unlikely but, I am aware that such things happen and I must be prepared for them.

I'm not sure just how many I will make or even decide to make into cover photos but, it will be interesting to see what responses I will receive (if any). I'm not usually one to attract much attention but, it is a wonderful thought, to imagine that the world could be able to see my photography. In honest, photography is a side hobby of mine though, I do take it quite seriously just not like a business.

I would like to work with different people with this and maybe do some photoshoots sometime with friends. I have been thinking about going out to gigs and taking photos but, that would be a massive step. It's not unusual but, I would have to be confident (which is something I struggle with). Either way, I would love to do  this, it would be a pleasure.

Check out my full portfolio at:
https://www.facebook.com/kimkeetonphotography

Also.... I'd love a new camera ;)

Thanks for reading.