Hi Liiines.
I´m putting out my debut Album JAGUAR today. It´s avalible on all the usual platforms from noon CET.
Here´s a link to the BandCamp page.
Here´s a looongish write up on the process, if anyone find it interesting to dig in.
I started writing this record without even knowing what it would turn out to be or have a clear concept of the record and project in it self.
All the tracks from the record came from long jams in my studio where I tried to combine different instruments, effects, drum machines/samplers and percussion elements.
Most used gear would be in no particulate order:
Elektron OctaTrack/Digitone/M:C/Analog Rytm
Sequential OB6
Erica Synths Perkons/ Zen Delay
Strymon TimeLine/Big Sky/El Cap
Death By Audio ROOMS
Torso T-1
OTO Machines Boum/Bam
Udo Audio Super6
Studer 962 mixer
Antelope Audio Orion 32+
Mac Mini 2018 running Ableton
MFB Dominion 1
Bastl midi looper
MidiHub
Moog Subharmonicon
The long late night jams ended in a lot of recordings and as usual they all ended in some folder on the hard drive. I revisited the recordings this spring and actually found that there’s was some nice sections of the jams that could be cut down and arranged to be a 4-5 min track. This was a huge task to perform since most of the recorded jams where between 10-30 min long.
The recordings and setup:
I normally get a beat going on the drum machine, it could be a simple 4to the floor thing or something more syncopated. I would then try to find some percussion sounds that would go with it and then just let the beat run(that could play for hours…)
Often I work on a sample on the OT, play a bass line, some chords or a pad to create the foundation and feeling. The direction might not be finalized just yet but just keep the beat going and something would turn up.
I like to use my effects like the Zen Delay a lot in the production so I record wet(some call it British style) and committing to the sound. Ableton in marly a sophisticated tape recorder.
I also like to route some keys into the OT inputs to double the sound and do rhythmic delays with the cross fader. I would get a pattern going on the Torso and send it to the Super6 going into the OT input.
I use the Cue out of the OT to send to a ex Reverb and the master out of the OT would go to the OTO Boum before hitting the Studer/Antelope/Ableton.
I like to play my OB6 and dominion by hand or record a cord prog/bass line to a midi looper and mix it in and out direct on the Studer mixer. I would put an effect on it if it sounds good and record it wet as well.
All instruments are routed to its own ch. on the mixer and after a bit of eq each Ch. will go direct out to Ableton. But sometimes I worked a bit more sloppy, e.g recording 7 instruments on only 4 tracks. Yeah, it was late night and sometimes a spliff got in the way of good organising.
So a lot of decisions needed to be made for the first rough cut of the material and this task already took a lot of energy. More than once I asked myself if I should just give it up and start recording something new, which ofter ends up being my approach when it comes to the edit stages of my music.
Instead I bounced some of the rough cuts and stuck them on my phone to listen to when being on the move through town or doing what ever and they live there for a good year or so whiteout me providing with edit/arranging.
In the meantime I had an accident, I broke a lower back vertebrae and was pretty much out of the music game for 1,5 yeah doing recovery after 2 times surgery.
This unwilling pause forced me to quit all my engagements with bands and artist that I’ve been working with for the past 15 years. Since I wasn’t able to play(my day job was touring/recording drummer/synth player) I wondered a lot about my future as a musician and what direction to take from here.
My conclusion was that it was time to invest more in my own music and develop as an artist myself instead of only supporting other artist and projects.
I always worked really hard on all the other projects but neglected my own music due being a lot on tour and all the normal things in life like kids, love and everyday chores.
This summer I went on a vacation with my family on the remote south side of Crete and while doing nothing but snorkelling with the kids I started to write a list of which of the tracks could be used for a release.
I had 32 tracks so I had to categorise them in 2 piles, mix tape 1 and mixtape 2. So far so good!
When I got back home I started arranging all the tracks in Ableton and get a feel for which tracks could work in a collection. Some tracks just didn’t work in a short version or the momentum of the recording didn’t cross over good.
All those decisions where quite hard to make and I was really affright of messing with some of them and in the cutting /arranging ending up destroying the track instead of making it great. The mind spins and plays a lot of tricks on you….
In the process I ditched 11 tracks and ending up with 21, that was in a decent shape, with a duration of 4-6 minutes.
Mixing ahead now…
I could see that this was so much material that I needed to make a new condensed plan for this project.
After mixing on the 21 tracks, I needed to do a new selection and focus on the most important/best tracks. I was now down to 12 in total.
New questions ahead….
How much music do I wanna put out? When is it realistic to put it out(year)? How many tracks should be on the Album? Has the Album lost its focus in modern times?
How do I want to put it out, digital, cassette or vinyl? Who will be interested in my music(am I still relevant?)? Video making!.. Mastering!.. And the (for me) dreadful thing called social media!!..
After starting a modest IG account and posting videos of neardy drum machine/synth stuff(which I actually enjoy) on Youtube for the past 6 month, I overcome my fear of promoting my project/Artist name on the web.
I’m no big fish and to this date I’m rocking sub 30 followers on both platforms. But it’s a start and I see it as the beginning of my voyage into the future.
Today the Album is down to 10 tracks. A distribution service has been chosen and the Album should be up on the usual suspects in regards of the streaming world.
BandCamp for anyone, like me, who hasn’t found real friendship with the streaming business.
I did the mixing myself(didn’t have the money to pay a real mix engineer), the master is done be myself(didn’t have money to pay a real mastering engineer) both is unfortunately!
I did have 100 euro to put into the cover design but the guy had no time in the end so, well it’s also done by me….
Oh yeah I did some videos to promote the singles, the first one is blasting YouTube today!
I grew up in the 70s where we all where raised to be a part of a group/community and not celebrating the individual effort, so this process has certainly forced me out of my comfort zone.
But I must say that I’m feeling very proud, that I came so far.
The record is called Jaguar and I just found out the it symbolizes protection, courage and strength. I didn’t think much about the name but now it makes me happy that I didn’t choose something that could be translated in a wrong way.
OK, I think that this is starting to be enough and if you made it so far down the text, I hope that there’s at least some useful information that you can relate to. Thanks for making it to the end of this and feel free to ask, comment or share you own experiences regarding making music, gear and releasing it in the wild.
best
Ringokidf/ Dream Villain
