Princes Trust Team Programme?

I have been quite busy lately, mostly because of a course that I was directed to by the Ilkeston Job Centre Plus. I'm trying my best to fit in some of my recording projects in between the duration of the course but, this is proving difficult because of our 9-5 hours... Well, that and being worn out by the time I get home. Don't get me wrong, I'm thoroughly enjoying every moment of this course it's just that it would be better if I were less tired.

The week commencing we start our community project which is to build a sensory garden for the United Response which is a registered charity disabled care home. Over the last two weeks, a team of twelve of us have been trying to raise money to go towards this. It been an interesting two weeks, painting fences, tidying up garden fronts and donation collecting for our tombola/raffle that is still yet to go ahead next week. We also did a sponsored walk all the way around Carsington Waters on Friday which ended up taking around three hours and a half! It's easy for me to say that our residential trip we went on during week two was the best so far. Myself and the rest of my team took part in all sorts of teamwork/team building activities where it was essential for us to plan how we were going to approach the challenges given to us and then fine tune it so the idea works perfectly. Though, this trip did have some individual challenges coincide with it as well. We went bouldering at Roaches Gate and abseiled from the highest point of Millers Dale Bridge in Derbyshire! Both of these were quite scary and for some of us it took a lot more than others to overcome our fears. I, myself got quite scared when I managed to get myself stuck between two rocks that I couldn't quite fit through which made me quite teary. In all honesty, I think I panicked then!

During the residential trip, our team gained its own anthem. Having to travel in a mini bus often with nothing but, the radio we all took a shining to the song 'Timber' PitBull feat. Ke$ha. Plus, our favorite impressionist of anything Family Guy made us laugh and voiced over it. I started to enjoy the tune a little too much, so when I got back I ended up producing an acoustic cover of it. I'll leave a link to my cover at the bottom of the post so you can have a listen if you want to check it out!

Before I end the post I should announce that I hope to release some rough demos soon including vocals that will be home recorded. I suppose the big dream is to one day have my own studio, that way I won't have to call my work demos because the quality would be highly improved... ah, well!

Till the next time!

Links

Timber (Acoustic Cover)
https://soundcloud.com/kimkeeton/timber-acoustic-cover

Twitter: @kimkeeton

So, the last couple of months have gone by way too fast for my liking. The Christmas period has come and gone and we are already fast into a new year of 2014. As I still remain strong to my passion for music; playing open mics and recording, I've been doing a considerable amount of work for The British Heart Foundation. Before I started working for them as a volunteer, I was sent there by the JobCenter as a work placement and I do quite enjoy it, still, at least this keeps me on my toes as I no longer have a schedule to keep to. 

In regards to recording, between the 21st and 25th of December I managed to record a Christmas song... in which I sang. I was quite impressed with myself that I managed to get the whole recording finished but, I will definitely have to redo the vocals, some other instruments and render the mix.

Here is a link to the track:

https://soundcloud.com/kimkeeton/merry-christmas-everyone

 For now I'm happy. I made this possible with the layering technique I use a lot recently, it comes in handy when you are the only musician around and when you have a very basic studio setup even though, I still believe the quality that I produce at now is fairly good and only getting better! I have been recording things like this for about a year now, which has gone incredibly fast but, I'm so proud of what I've been able to make and a achieve with the equipment I use.

Also, my band. How can I forget my blessed band Zebra Crossing! We have had a bit of a ride over the last month. In early December we decided to kick out our old drummer, of course leaving us drummerless. This made gigging feel a little tedious for me; being a bass player. The good news is that we now have a new drummer, whom I found and trust more to do a great job. I can't wait to have the whole band play at The Maze, Nottingham at the CHAOS WARS! (Battle of the Bands Heats) and then at The Navigation in early February (see image)

 CHAOS WARS 2014

EP Recording

Me at my station. L2 Audio Mixer. Emachines Netbook.

Today was the day that we recorded our EP. Over the last couple of days I have been taking most of recording gear over to Lucy's house in preparation to record. I had to take mixer, my netbook and many leads. Lucy also had some leads that we used and I think in the end we just about had enough for each microphone, same goes for inputs on my mixer.

Emmett, our drummer brought a couple of condenser mics with him which was handy and we used those on this drums. He also brought a few extra mic stands and Lucy had a few that we could use too.

Lucy & David recording guitars with the
Behringer C-1.

I brought lots of electrical tape mostly in preparation for the aftermath so we could tape up the leads neatly. I ended up giving Lucy some because I had brought so much of the stuff. I had one specific yellow roll that I used to tape over the bottom of the mixer so that I could write on each track what was what. It was confusing enough as it is with all of the wires everywhere so I figured it would be best for quick access if something went wrong/was too loud, I would then know where to find the problem.

Once everything was set up and we had the right levels, I gave the instruction to record all of the drums and the guitars together. Not very professional I know, but it was the best way we could do this. We had a couple of take and then decided between us all which one we liked best. We did this for all of the songs. We used three mics on for the drum kit and one mic with two line inputs for the guitars (One input for each guitar) and I was quite happy with the sound we managed to capture overall. Like I said earlier, not so much professional (I used Audacity to record this), but it was certainly enough for a rough demo sound and my Behringer C-1 really helped the guitars come out of the track a lot more.
 

Emmett Recording Drums.

 One we had the acoustic guitars and drums recorded together, we had break down some of the stands with mics that were no longer needed and rearrange my mixer to make it ready for tracking vocals. For this, I literally just set up my C-1 for Lucy, it really is excellent for vocals and I just can't get enough of the quality it allows. Lucy had to listen to what we had just recorded using headphones to know where she was with the track, again we had a few takes at each one and I muted each attempt to be ready for the next so each attempt created it's own channel. It look less time to record vocals because there was less to set up and in fairness, more room for error. All I have left to record now is the sound of my bass guitar which I will do either later tonight or tomorrow now. I figured that there wasn't much point in me doing it there and then at Lucy's house because it is something I could literally just finish off at home. Homework if you like plus, I didn't have my bass at Lucy's so it would have been impossible and would have just been another thing to carry back home.

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.

The Behringer C1

Yesterday, I brought myself a charming new condenser microphone. I brought it of someone that no longer wanted it and it came with a stand and cable. It was kind of an impulse buy, as I've been after a new good quality microphone for a while so I didn't exactly do my research before buying. The package cost my £35 and I have no need to complain. I had to collect it myself which wasn't a problem at all, it just took a while to get there but, at least it was only a zig zag away! I wanted to test it out as soon as I got back but, had to wait until I had eaten. I didn't get back home till after 7pm and hadn't had anything to eat.

When I finally got it out of the box, I was excited to get it all set up and ready with my mixer. I set up the stand first, quite low because I tend to sit at my desk in my bedroom. I had to screw the mic onto the stand with the swivel stand mount. It was really easy to set up and I never anticipated it to be a challenge. Maybe I did learn something in the college recording lessons after all, even though I use a totally different set up.

I spent an hour 'testing' the microphone yesterday night and it really is good quality. This morning I did my research on this particular microphone and on its own its worth between £35-45 depending where you look though, I noticed that Behringer also make a USB version, the C-1U that is almost identical to the model I own apart form the connection.

After spending a lot of time just messing around recording little bits and pieces and playing them back to hear the quality, I had an idea to make an atmospheric track using only the microphone and any other useful objects that were close by but, no instuments.

This is the result. Happy Halloween!

https://soundcloud.com/kimkeeton/happy-halloween-mic-test

If you haven't guessed, I highly recommend this microphone!

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