Shadows, the album - the built of microphones

Hi everyone!

No news about the musicians this week. I'm still waiting for a reply from the singer.
I know that it's really hard for a french musician to contact musicians from others countries, I know it's mostly because of of musical reputation...I keep my finger crossed, I really want her on the album.
That said, I'm not really in a hurry, I didn't finish to write the lyrics. I plan to finish them next week.

As you know, I will record the album, in my home studio. I needed some gear. A few people know that a few years ago, I created my brand of gear, I built microphones preamps. No one wanted to buy them, but I still have them and use them. They've been used to record some things recently for the music of the fourth season of The Visitor from the Future.

But because I'm working with a lot of virtual instruments, I don't have a lot of microphones. I have 3: one MXL V67i Tube, one Oktava MC12 and one AKG D7.

I think that I'll use 4 to 6 mics for the recordings, I needed to buy gear.


Mainly for money reasons, but also because I have the knowledge, I decided to go DIY. I bought a kit to build a Neumann U87 Vintage Clone, from Mic&Mod. The price was 5 times less than the original, with some very good components, so i was very interested...

I built them in one afternoon. After that, both of them didn't work properly. One had a directivity problem, the other didn't work at all. After two days of schematics analysis, soldering, desoldering, and a transistor replacement, they both worked.

Of course, I soon tested them, and I wanted to compare with real Neumann. I asked my friend Philippe Miro to come and play for me. In the same time, a studio where I work sometimes lent me a Neumann U87i (this is not a vintage version, but it's still a reference).

Here are the results:
Both mics were side by side. I recorded guitar first, then the voice. There are no effects...
For me, the difference between them doesn't worth an extra 2000€.




I'd like to thank Philippe Miro for this little session. You can hear this song on his album "De tout droit à tordu" on all the download platforms.

Obviously, you could tell me that I only added two mics to my gear, but next time, I'll tell you about the two ribbon microphones I built.

See you soon !

The album - Title

Hi everyone !

It's the end of the OFF festival of Avignon, and almost all the next articles will be about the album.

So, where am I now with this album ?

I finished the composition of the 13 songs that will be on the album.

6 tracks will have some vocals (I started contacting musicians and the singer, I'm now waiting for their replies)

I'm actually writing the lyrics and melodies for the vocals. I plan to finish that by the end of this last week in Avignon.

At the beginning, I didn't want to sign with my name. During the first days, when I started composing the album, I chose a pseudonym. I chose a name which reflected a band name as well as an artist name.

From the beginning, my project was called Orchel (for ORCHestral ELectric). Unfortunately, this name was already used by a company, which didn't want me to use it. I didn't find any other names that I liked, so I sign this album with my name.

I had the album's title for a long time. It's called Shadows.
That doesn't mean that the songs are dark, sad...When I compose, I like to imagine people, worlds, situations, places...
Shadows is for me a way to describe a world you can't see clearly. We are just able to distinguish some shapes, some lights (no shadows without lights), and imagine a lot of things.

The album's cover should be like that, I hope you'll like it.

Next week, I really wish to have good news about the musicians, and I will tell you who they are !

Ce soir j'attends Madeleine in Avignon for the festival OFF 2014

Hi Everyone !

This month, I'm in Avignon, for the "off" festival. I'm playing with "Ce soir j'attends Madeleine", every evening till the 27th of july.

Here's a typical day:
In the morning, some of us go in the streets to give flyers to people, hoping that they will come to our show the evening. There are 1300 shows each day during the festival, so we have to do it ! Sometimes, we go out to put some posters in the streets, in order to be seen everywhere (that means where we can put our posters) and every time.

A wall full of posters. We have one here !

We go to the theatre at 7:30PM. We dress up, and then we go out, in the front of the theatre, to give some flyers to the people who are drinking or finishing dinner.

Then all suddelny goes faster. As the audience from previous show is leaving the stage, we enter and star setting up our stage set, while the artists from the previous show start to remove their one.
Once everything is on stage, we do a short soundcheck, and Crystel (accordion) and I welcome the audience, while Guillaume (the singer) is waiting in backstage. Once everyone is seat, we start !

our set, waiting for us in backstage
	A very hot moment for my head !

Voilà ! At the end of our show, it's our turn to remove our stage set while the artists from the next one start to install their one !

If you are in Avignon, we play every evenings till the 27th, at the Théâtre Essaïon, at 8:30PM.
Come and see what some of the audience call "the most beautiful show in Avignon" (They did'nt see all the shows, but it's nice to hear that !)

See you soon !

My mobile studio in Avignon !

Hi everyone !

This month, I'm in Avignon for a festival, to play in the show Ce soir j'attends Madeleine, the same show that was canceled last week because of the rain...

Anyway, we're going to spend a month here, and I'll use the time I have to finish the album, so I had plenty to do.
For this, I managed to create a little mobile studio in the flat.

So I have a master keyboard, which I took with me on the train. My acoustic bass came in by car with the set we have on stage (and my other keyboard too, the one I'll be using on stage every night), and I have a mic, since it is during this month that I'm going to start writing the lyrics and melodies for the sung tracks of the album.
For the drums, I don't have any other choice than to play them via the keyboard.

With that, I also have my sound card, a Motu Ultralight, which, this time, unlike the concert with Clara Neville, is really a sound card, and not an mixer.
I obviously have a headphones, my macbook pro with Protools and my ipad with the software ac-7 core. This software allows me to have access to different functions of protools' controls.

With all that, I can go on working on the album, and believe me, it's nice !

The next post will be about the show Ce soir j'attends Madeleine à Avignon!
See you soon!