Hi everyone!
Today, new samples from the recordings, still on instagram, so they are 15s maximum.
It may be very frustrating for you, but I don't want to show you too much !
Here's a short sample from the song "No Memories", with Xiomara Crystal.
Today, here are the first samples from the vocal recordings!
You already read that I had a lot troubles finding Shadows' voice. Finally, after a casting on starnow, I chose Xiomara Crystal. Everything was fine, and we spent a few days together recording the songs and talking about future collaborations. This is only a beginning...
The recordings are now completed, and I have to start mixing the album.
But before that, here's a sample from the song "The Book of Destiny".
Hi everyone! After my 2nd casting, where I had to choose between 52 singers, I finally chose...Xiomara Crystal ! She has the voice I'm looking for, but she also plays guitar and piano, and she writes for her band CrystalX ! We already talked together, and we record by the end of april. Until that, you can discover her by listening at her soundclouds: - her personal soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/xiomaracrystal - her band's soundcloud, CrystalX: https://soundcloud.com/crystalxmusic
I'm really happy to record with her, and of course you'll have some samples here when everything is recorded! See you next week.
You may remember that the last time, I covered a song from Hannah Trigwell in order to contact her and ask her if she was interested to sing on my album.
A few emails later, she finally won't sing on the album.
Almost two weeks ago, I sent an email to another singer, and as usual (I'd really like to know why), I don't have any reply.
So I attempt to do the same thing I did the last time, to have her attention.
This time I try to contact Sara Niemietz, an american singer. If she is interested, we would have to work "online", because for financial reasons, I can't go and record her in LA or pay her to come in France to record with me...it's an interesting challenge though !
This time, no loops, it's piano only. The song is Rooftops, by Sara Niemietz. Let's now hope and wait for any reactions...
As you know, all the instruments are recorded on the album, except one: vocals. Today, I tell you why I don't have a singer yet.
First, from the beginning, I don't want a French singer for several reasons, including the accent, and then the way of singing. I know that some people don't agree with me, but with the same technique, and similar voices, two singers from different countries will not sing in the same way. It turns out that I don't like the way French singers sing, at least for my album.
I spend a lot of time on Youtube listening to singers. I'm not looking for a specific voice, I just want that voice to make me feel the emotions of the song. I saw some very good singers, some very bad, and others that fit perfectly with what I wanted.
From there, I contact the singer and I expect her to reply me. If she doesn't reply, I usually contact her again a week later, by all means at my disposal (facebook, official sites, managers, etc). None of them answered me yet (I sent my first email in June).
For those of you who bought the EP, and who are dreaming about listening to the full album, you have to know that these singers have access to the whole album. No reasons to be jealous though, none of them listened to it!
So in these cases, I have to question myself and don't think all singers are rude.
In my emails, I think I'm respectful to the singers I contacted, but again, without any reply, no way to be sure.
I remain convinced that if people don't read my email or don't answer me, that is because I don't interest them (because of the double handicap cited below).
After a moment, I decide to contact someone else. That means I'm gonna spend several weeks to find another singer. I usually look for someone with a different voice from the previous singer, not to have any point of comparison.
It is a very exhausting process, since I have to find a voice that will suit my songs, although I already found one. And it's even more exhausting because I usually don't have any reply from the previous singer, so I still hope that she accepts ...
I know I have a double handicap: I'm not known, and I'm French. French music is generally associated with the accordion, you just have to watch a foreign film whose action takes place in France... However, I have nothing against accordionists, who also have to fight against this cliché. For those of you, not french, who read this blog, be aware that french music is not musette !
For now, I contacted 3 singers.
I first contacted a German singer, who never replied me, although I'm sure she got my emails.
I then contacted a Russian singer, with whom I chatted, but she never told me yes or no.
Three weeks ago, I contacted an English singer, Hannah Trigwell, I have no reply yet.
With the Russian singer, I did a video cover of one of her songs, which allowed me to strike up a conversation.
Today, I go further, I cover Rectify, a Hannah Trigwell's song, to try to have her attention and ask her if she is interested to sing on my album.
I'm pretty sure she will see at this video, and I hope she'll reply me.
Warning for you who read this blog, I'm sure Hannah will see this video, so no need to spam her about it or ask her to reply me. This is my personal initiative, I don't know if she'll like it, she can delete this video, she is allowed not to reply, or even refuse to sing on my abum or any reason.
But in the state where things are, "thank you for your interest, but I'm not interested" would be a short, yet polite reply, and that's all I ask.
Here's the video. Everything is performed and looped live:
Let's hope we'll have news about that soon, and of course, you'll know it !
I will surely do a video tutorial about the keyboard programming for this video.
See you next week !
Today, to change with the articles about my album, I want to talk about compositions I did during the last weeks, between the recordings for my album.
Frenchball is a new youtube channel created by Frenchnerd. François Descraques contacted me a few weeks ago to tell me about it, and he asked me to compose for a few things.
There were two steps.
At first, I worked on 3 music themes for the videos called "Soirées Loose"
François sent me different songs to inspire me in terms of music style, I was free to compose the way I wanted, as long as I was close to that style.
Here are the kind of descriptions François sent me:
"a cool/relax theme for introductions, like a funny tutorial"
"an action theme for some parts with a fast action"
"a party theme like you did with the Bal on the Visitor from the Future,...or in a funny Ska-Punk style"...
What's the result of that ? Here are some videos I did while recordings the last two themes (you'll discover the other one soon in the new videos)
The second part of that work was the trailer video for the channel.
This time, I received the video, with some music in it. Like before, these songs were there to inspire me in terms of style and length.
I composed three songs: one in a jazz style, one in a marching band style, and another one in a orchestral style closer to what I usually do for The Visitor from the Future.
Today, I'm sharing with you my "to do" list for the album. You can see that all the recordings for the cello and the viola are now done. You can also see what remains to do !
Here are some other samples of the recordings of the strings.
Let's start with the viola for the song 'Crossroads". You can see some samples of the bass, drums and piano HERE.
Next, here are some samples of the song "No memories"
I put together the cello and viola on the song "Open your eyes"
The strings recordings done, I listen to them alone to hear how it works together, and with all the others instruments. Here's a sample on the song "Remembering children's games".
Next week, you'll have some other recording samples, mostly for drums, bass and piano.
Hi everyone!
Today, no new vines about the songs, mostly because I don't have my computer with the videos.
Today, I tell you about the musicians who are going to play on the album.
Those who read this blog know that I started composing this album after the concert of the Visitor grom the Future.
Now, the recording days are booked, so I can announce that on this album, you will hear the following musicians:
Pauline Denize (Violin)
Jasmine Collet (Viola)
Louise Leverd (Cello)
They all played in the VDF Orchestra when we played for the Visitor from the Future. We didn't work together since, and it's a real pleasure to work with them all again !
The only unknown musician for now is the singer. After a lot of emails during the past two months without any replies, I'm starting to look for someone else, but it takes time...You'll be informed as soon as I find someone !
Hi !
Today, I'm going to show you all the sounds and I have for the songs of Clara Neville.
You'll have all my tips!
I split this into eight small videos. These videos are in french, I think you can understand it as it's really about sounds layering, but if you really need some subtitles, I will do some, just tell me.
The first one is about my gear: all I have on stage, and how it's plugged. It's technical, and there is no music in it, just description.
Here comes the second song, "A bout portant". I made some audio extracts in the article about keyboard programming, you can now see how I play it and how I'm using my delay pedal.
Next, a simple setup on another song, with just two sounds: piano and strings.
One other song in which I explain how to layer short sounds (rhodes piano) and long sounds (strings), and how to have a "full" harpsichord sound.
The next song, "Dans mes larmes" is about a lot of strings and pad layers, and a massive use of the delay pedal.
In the song called "Serre-moi", I speak about RIFF, one of the kurzweil PC3 functions which allows to play a full song or just an extract by simply playing one key ! Here, I use it to play a single chord.
Another example on another song, but this time, it's a 4 bars strings RIFF, and an other way to launch and stop it.
The use of a sampler, here an iphone with the impc app, to launch samples live.
I had a problem with my phone, so I couldn't update this blog today. It's actually 2:30AM, and as this day is ending, let me tell you about the day of the concert.
A concert is the moment we all wait, it's the moment when we show everyone the work we have done during the past weeks (see the other posts about the making of a concert).
Tonight, no way to go wrong, everything is live, we can't make any mistakes !
Here's how I live a concert day:
First, I prepare all my gear for transport, making sure I don't forget anything. It's always embarrassing to miss something when in the venue.
Then...I load my car, that's not a very interesting work, and it could be very tiring depending of the gear I carry, but I don't have a choice.
I'm in the venue two to four hours before a show, and I always start...by unloading my gear into the venue.
Depending on how many bands play, the first to go on stage is the last to play. This way, the last band to do sound checks is ready to play when the doors open.
Today, two bands are playing, and we are the second one, so we start to install our gear.
Depending on the size of the stage, everyone has a place more or less imposed.
Once everyone found a place, we start to plug our gear, with the help of the sound engineer. There is patchbay on stage, it's a big box with inputs and outputs, directly plugged into the mixer, usually several meters away. This patchbay is important, because, as musicians, we only have to carry cables long enough to plug in this box. As the longer a cable is, the heavier it is, it's nice not to carry several 30 meters cables. Once everyone is plugged, we can start the soundcheck.
The sound engineer begins to set the level and the sound for each of the mixer's inputs. We usually start with the bass drum, but sometimes, we start by the first member ready...
Once the sound engineer found a sound which he finds correct, he switches to another input, and so on with every inputs, usually ending with vocals.
Once done, we start playing some pieces together, and ask the sound engineer to set our monitors. These monitors allow us to ear everyone correctly, and play well with the others. Depending on the venue, we could all share a few monitors, or we can have several monitors for each musician.
As a keyboard player, I always insist to have my own monitor, because unlike guitars, drums or bass, I don't have a sound without a monitor, so I really need one to ear myself (that's less important if I play an acoustic piano, of course).
While we play together, the sound engineer sets the audio levels of everyone in order for the audience to hear everything fine. It's almost never true, but it depends a lot of the venue, the placement of the audience, the acoustics of the room...
Once our soundcheck is done, it's the other band's turn. We leave the stage, trying to move the less gear as possible. The other band will then do the same thing as we just did, but it's usually faster, as everything has already been checked before, so the gain levels, inputs,...are basically the same.
You now know everything about the preparation for a concert. I will not post about the concert, because it's something to see, to hear, to live...so feel free to come and see us playing.
If you missed this one, you can also come next week, friday 13th, on another boat: La Dame de Canton.
Rehearsals to set up the songs:
There are rehearsals where a band meet, wondering what to play, and everyone begins to look for what to do on a song. I call it a set up rehearsal. Everyone has to learn how to play the song, and find what to do. This is generally what bands do when they compose together. In these cases, the rehearsals are regular and numerous. They can be done anywhere as long as there is a minimum of gear for everyone to have a sound.
In this example, for the concerts of Clara Neville, this is basically the work we have done in our small workshops with André, David and Clara. After these workshops, everyone knew what to do, we had to rehease... which brings me to the other kind of rehearsals.
Rehearsals for the concert:
I don't play in bands that rehearse regularly, so these are the rehearsals that I know best.
In this case, everyone knows what to do, everyone is ready to play in the band, we just have to...do it, in stage conditions. It is usually done in a rehearsal studio, soundproofed, in order to have the volume that we'll have on stage.
With Clara Neville, we have two rehearsals before the concert on June 7th. We do that at the studio Luna Rossa (in Paris). This is the first time we all meet together.
The gear I take to rehearse.
Each member of the band comes with its gear, finds a place in the studio, plugs his gear, and chat a little with the others (this is the first time Clara, Andre and I meet Luc, the drummer ), and we begin to play.
It's during this rehearsal that we make some adjustments, rehearse the beginnings and ends of the songs, I adjust my sounds (I usually refine my programming during these rehearsals, there is always a louder sound than another, one that doesn't sound as it should...)
We usually divide this rehearsal in two steps:
- We start by playing all the songs at once. At the end of each song, we talk about it, to know if there are any comments, questions, things to change...and we note them for later, and we move to the next song.
We don't start working on the song at this moment for a simple reason: we don't know ourselves enough as a band, so that we can not say whether the imper
fections were due to one of us or the band. Playing all the songs once gives us enough time to fell good as a band.
All my gear plugged
- Then, once we played all the songs once, we begin to work on the details. We usually begin by playing the whole song with the changes noted above, and then we play the parts that cause problems, even if we have to play a dozen times the ending to know it !
The last rehearsal before a concert is usually dedicated to play the entire set of songs at once. We play all the songs in the order they will be played with a minimum of time between songs.
A small note: who knows why, but we say that the worse this last rehearsal is, the better the concert will be... something that was true a couple of times. However, the contrary isn't true.
The next article will be on the day of the concert. I 'll post it a few hours before playing, you'll then have all the details about the preparation of a concert. If you're in Paris, come and see us playing with Clara Neville, on the boat El Alamein, at 8:30 PM !
Hi everyone !
This post follows the previous one about choosing gear.
I finally know which gear I'll use. I chose to use only one keyboard, my Kurzweil PC3.
Now is the time to program the keyboard, but what does that mean ?
In music, programming is used for several things:
- Programming could be the process of creating or editing a sound
- Programming could be the process to create a sequence of sounds (that is widely used on drum programming)
- Programming could be the process of setting up the hardware for live. It includes many things, including sounds changes, sequences, effects parameters ...
This post is about this last programming process. This summer, I will do a little series of mini tutorials about synthesis, in which I will tell you how to make a sound from scratch.
Multis , splits and layers
These are complicated words which require explanations, since they are the basics of programming.
A keyboard has several modes of operation:
- We are talking about single or sound mode when using a single sound (a piano, for example).
- When it comes to use multiple sounds, we talk about multi mode, and of course, it is possible to use sounds together or each one on a portion of the keyboard.
- The word layer is used when multiple tones are played together at the same time, on the same zones of the keyboard.
- If a part of the keyboard uses one sound, and another one uses another sound, we say that the keyboard is splited into several zones.
Obviously, it is possible to combine several splits and layers.
Action!
I am now going to explain a "multi" programming with a concrete example for the concert of Clara Neville.
Let's see the programming I made for the song "Je t'aime à bout portant"
On this song, I need a Wurlitzer electric piano sound, a Rhodes electric piano sound, and some strings. Wurlitzer and Rhodes play on the verses, but not at the same time .
Rhodes and strings play on the chorus.
- As the Wurlitzer only plays on the verses, alone, it will have its own zone, my keyboard is now splited into two zones
- The Rhodes and strings layers will be on another zone.
The four sounds that I use, with their respective zones.
But it's not finished yet. To make some evolutions during the song, specially during the choruses, I chose to add another sound, some synthetic strings (the "buzzy strings").
So here are the sounds:
Everything is under control !
On the Rhodes track, you can hear tremolo and distortion effects. They are all controlled live . A modulation wheel allows me to control the tremolo depth, and a fader allows me to manage distortion. These are the same controls for the Wurlitzer sound.
I also use other faders to handle the volume of each part.
The PC3's 9 faders, 2 modulation wheels, and the delay pedal.
In addition to that, I chose to add a delay effect (in this case, my Eventide TimeFactor pedal) . It also can be controlled. I control two parameters: the effect ON/OFF, and the mix setting, a mix between the normal sound and the repetitions (I control this via a pedal).
So here are the results on a chorus with in order:
Rhodes, then I add the strings layer, the synthetic strings layer, then I turn the delay on, and I raise the mix level, then I gradually go back to the Rhodes sound. It's not very fine, but you have an idea !
The same kind of job is done for every songs. The next step is to check that everything is fine in rehearsals...
Today is another post about preparing a show, and it's about how I choose my gear.
Sometimes, when I say that I have 9 keyboards, people are surprised and don't understand very well.
It's very simple though.
We could compare with cars: some people have several cars, like a small city car and a break to go in holidays.
That's the same thing with musical gear, each of my keyboards has a specific use.
Some of them are for "generalist" sounds, like pianos, organs, strings...; others are for synthetic sounds, and others don't have any sound at all, the just control the others.
I choose my gear according to several parameters:
- the type of sounds I'm using
- the number of different sounds I have in one song
- the available space on stage (that's not the most important parameter, but some times, it matters)
So let's take a example: the upcoming concert of Clara Neville.
In the songs, I'll use pianos, organs, electric pianos, strings, synth sounds...well...I'll use of types of sounds.
With the previous workshop (cf the previous post) we did with David and André, I know that I will be using two or three sounds in each song.
From there, I could choose to use only one keyboard and split it in the amount of zones I need, or I could use two keyboards to be more comfortable. I'm not going to say more about that for now, first because I will talk about it next week in a post about keyboards programing, but also because I'm not yet decided.
The only thing I know is that I will be using my Kurzweil PC3. I'm faithful to that brand for more that 10 years, I love the timbre of their instruments. I actually have two kurzweil keyboards. The PC3 is not too big, it got 76 keys, and it's really with acoustic sounds, as well as with the synthetic ones. If I choose to use only one keyboard, that will be the one. I will tell you next week about my final choice.
From left to right:
Studiologic Sl161 (master keyboard) , Korg microKONTROL (master keyboard) , Access Music Virus Indigo 2 (synthesizer, specialized in synth sounds, so unrealistic ) Wernick Xylosynth (electronic xylophone, master keyboard), Mutable Instruments Shrutti (the small white box on the keyboard, synthesizer of synth sounds), Kurzweil Pc3 (synthesizer with acoustic sounds, but not only...)
Today, I start a small series of articles about what happens before a concert .
Many of you know that before being on stage, we rehearse, but before that, there are other things.
I was recently contacted by David Keler to play with Clara Neville on stage on the 7th and 13th of June, which gives me the opportunity to talk about the preparation of theses concerts.
I did not know Clara Neville until David called me and offered me to be part of the live musicians. I then went to listen to a few songs during the recording of the EP, then I received the recordings. This is where the preparation work begins.
On the recordings, David, director and producer of the album, played almost all the instruments. On stage, it is not possible. He chose a team of musicians to accompany Clara . There will be David Keler (bass), Luc Durand (drums), André Margail (guitar), Clara Neville (vocals) and myself on keyboards.
The goal of these concerts is to promote the release of the Clara's recently recorded EP. As musicians, we have to try to get close to what has been done on the record.
Above all, I transcripted the chord progressions. I didn't composed the songs, so I didn't know them. I note the chords, the keyboard sounds used, and any other riffs or melodies made by the keyboards.
Then we met with David and André to choose what to play in each song.
We only have one guitarist, and I only have two hands ... so, we have to choose, for each of us, which is most relevant to play, to stay close from the original recordings.
Since we can not play everything, there are several solutions :
- We could launch samples. The pro of this method is that it is possible to do on stage all that was done in the studio. Personally, in addition to the technical constraints (obligation for the drummer to play with a clic), I think we lost a little spontaneity on stage.
- Or we could decide not to play these parts at all. The pro is that everything is really live, but there is something missing from the recordings.
With André and David, we agreed: there are some songs with ambient noises or long synths playing on a entire song ... these not rhythmical elements, we chose to launch their samples (I will do it, and I 'll tell you more in a future post).
For other instrumental parts that we are not able to play, we decided... not to play them at all, even if we had to change the parts we play to make "hybrid" parts, which include the essential elements of each parts.
For example, André plays a riff with plain chords and arpeggios at the same time, whereas there are two separate parts on the record. As a compromise, André doesn't play the exact arpeggio or chord part of the record.
So, you have now a brief overview of the work done before a concert. There will be other posts on other steps, such as rehearsals, soundchecks, keyboard programming...
This blog is about my relationship with music and sound, so there will be some articles about artists I like, and here's one !
I am not directly involved in this EP Release, I didn't participate in the recording. David played everything on his EP.
17/10/07 - La comédia
However, I know David for 7 years now. He wrote songs for a singer I played with. When David finally decided to sing his own songs, he contacted me to be a member of his live musicians. We did a great series of concerts at the Comedia, Sentier des Halles, the Scene Bastille, along with JP Motte on the drums and André Margail on guitars. These concerts are still great memories!
I then played again with David and his cousin in Scarlet Pearls and during the concert for the Visitor from the Future, where I was really happy to have David playing the bass.
We will soon be back on stage together with André Margail to accompany the singer Clara Néville produced by 75Music, David's own music label.
It is not a coincidence that we spend our time to play together in various projects, he is one of the talented artists that I greatly appreciate. His music and lyrics are always well written and playing with David is always a great time.
So I let you go listen and buy the EP. You should follow David, as he's going to have some great projects in the weeks and months to come.
Today is the official release of one other important project to me: the second album of Sandrine Gameiro , which I co-produce with Sandrine Gameiro and Frédéric Turyan .
I met Sandrine in high school, on stage. We were a part of a jazz course organized by my music teacher.
Then I lost sight of her, and we met again when she was in the audience during a concert I played with Jaoara.
She had just finished his first album, and a few days later she called me and asked me to be part of the live team !
We played this album on stage for 3 years, then Sandrine wanted to move on, and began to write her texts.
She then had the idea of making a new album.
She first asked me to compose on her lyrics. I accepted, but unfortunately, I must not really inspired when it comes to write music on lyrics. You may know it or not, but I'm used to compose music for movies, videos or pictures, and the process is quite different.
For a concert in 2012, I called Frederic Turyan, a guitarist with whom I had played, to accompany Sandrine with me. Frederic loved the project, and a few weeks later, he began to compose music for Sandrine's lyrics. He is himself a songwriter,and writing music on lyrics is much easier for him.
That was the beginning of our collaboration on this new album.
Overall, this album will be the music composed by Frederic, the lyrics by Sandrine.There is still a song that I composed the music for.
Frederic and I do arrangements.
Thus, the extracts you can hear on My Major Company are the results of our collaboration.
It is the voice of Sandrine, Fred's guitars, I play the bass and keyboards, and Fred and I played percussions and some back vocals.
This album is important to me because of the collaboration with these two friends, and then because I love Sandrine's artistic universe.
You can discover it, and don't hesitate to invest, so that we will be able to make this album in optimum conditions.