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Will you buy Spleen Arcana second album? (poll)

Julien — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 08:15:52 +0000

Spleen Arcana second album is currently being recorded, day by day, track by track. Some of you bought the first album on cd, some of you bought a digital version, some others bougth both versions. Many others prefered the free download. What will you choose for Spleen Arcana second album? This poll is yours… Feel free to explain your choice in the comments below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Download The Platypus on Itunes

Julien — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:12:27 +0000

“The Platypus” song is now available on Itunes, check it out here and succumb to the Platypus call!

Thanks for your support

Spring discount code

Julien — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:17:22 +0000

Springtime offer! Here is a promotional code which offers you a 10% discount on Spleen Arcana’s store.

Enter your code at checkout to receive a discount on Spleen Arcana’s music. Discount code is valid on a specific track, album or package

Store : http://spleenarcana.bandcamp.com/
Coupon : spring#arcanum
Expires : 6/21/2010

Feel free to share this code on Twitter, Facebook or wherever you want…

Video clip for “A Picture…”

Julien — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:49:41 +0000

I’m glad to share with you a video clip that a team of students from Portugal – Catarina, Joana, Pedro, Vanessa – created for the song “A Picture Of Two Lovers In The Mist”

YouTube link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyJ91OdwVSc

A huge thank to the team for their interest in the song and for their work!

Playlist November 2009

Julien — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:46:34 +0000

Obviously, heavy rotation of November is The Whirlwind by the giant Transatlantic and the new release by the mythic Magma called Ëmëhntëhtt-Rê. Easily two of the best albums of this year in my opinion. The Whirlwind is a huge epic prog party with a fantastic production (Pete Trewavas bass sound is excellent, as his playing of course), I had a lot of expectations regarding this release and I’m not disappointed at all! Ëmëhntëhtt-Rê is a great release too, from the darkest side of progressive world, otherwordly enigmatic.

And I’m still listening to the last Porcupine Tree, Guilt Machine and some other titles : - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John - Tommy by the Who - Cosmic Egg by Wolfmother - The Scope by Subaudition - And a huge revival for the Flower Kings : Flower Power, The Flower King, Retropolis, The Sum Of No Evil, Back In The World Of Adventures…

Epic November, isn’t it?

What about your playlist?

M-Audio Oxygen 8

Julien — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:23:16 +0000

Some days ago, I found this used M-Audio Oxygen 8 for my new setup. With its 25 keys, it’s the smallest of the family (Edirol PCR50 and Fatar TKM88) but it’ll be great for small places like my new studio corner. The problem is there is no Windows 7 driver yet as it’s an “old” keyboard but it’s currently under development hopefully. I can’t wait because I’m seriously thinking about something (before recording the second album) which requires keyboards, a lot of keyboards…

Cockos Reaper

Julien — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:07:57 +0000

As you can read here, I added some days ago a laptop to my recording setup. I plan to use this laptop mainly to play my VST synths and record my demo tracks here in Paris. I will probably install my Samplitude Pro which I use for audio recording but my main “vst software” was Tracktion 1. Very simple software but I wanted to test something else : Reaper. I’m still in the “30 days evaluation” allowed by the daw and it seems to be a very efficient tool. I created a “project template” (left picture) which loads my most used VST synth with some custom icons. A feature which is really great is how you can manage tempo and time signatures changes. It’s so simple and you can easily render the click source as a .wav file so you can export it in another daw (Samplitude in my case). The fact is I will certainly add Reaper to my recording tools and use it to record my second album.

By the way, here is the beginnings of my new musical “home studio” corner in Paris : It should evolves in the next days with a dedicated workstation (Studio RTA Mix Station), a USB audio interface and some other stuffs… Stay tuned…

First step towards second album recording

Julien — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:57:17 +0000

And its name is : Toshiba Satellite L505-10P! Some weeks ago, I wrote about a mobile recording setup (and asked for your opinon in the forums here) but I was a bit lost in the laptop world. I spent a lot of times reading about laptop models and I finally decided to take the Toshiba road. I’m really excited about it because it means that I can start working on demos for Spleen Arcana’s second album. This model is a bit more powerful than previous model I thought about because I felt it would be safer for recording. You can read more about this model here.

I just installed Reaper actually to run some vsti like the great Elektrostudio vintage package which I had on my USB drive and never tried it yet. I have to install Samplitude Pro as well to record drums and vocals. At the moment, I’m using the Asio4all driver to test Reaper and the laptop. The next step is a USB audio interface for a better sound quality, thinking about a Focusrite Saffire 6 usb to record vst synths, bass and guitars (and the great thing is I could use my RME Multiface if I get an Express card to record the drums and vocals which will be recorded at Le Refuge). I’m still not sure about programming. I like to create some demo drums tracks to work on the songs and I’m searching for ideas about this…

To be continued…

PS : Debut album is still available for free for registered members (register here) : The Field Where She Died (128kbps) (1620)

The Field Where She Died nominated for ProgAwards

Julien — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:09:56 +0000

ProgAwards team just announced that “The Field Where She Died” has been nominated, for the fourth edition of ProgAwards, in the following categories :

- Best Artwork : http://www.progawards.it/Progawards/index.php?page=panoba - Best Debut Record : http://www.progawards.it/Progawards/index.php?page=panobdr

A huge thanks to th ProgAwards jury for these nominations!!

Playlist October 2009

Julien — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:22:06 +0000

October 2009 : Some old prog rock classic of course… Moving Waves, great album which is not just the crazy “Hocus Pocus” song, the 23 minutes long epic “Eruption” is just excellent! QE2 by Mike Oldfield became one of my favourite albums from the artist, his guitar sound and playing are fantastic. Some vintage electronic prog with Force Majeure by Tangerine Dream (one of my favourite) and Heaven and Hell by Vangelis (epic!!). There’s always some place for an Iron Maiden album and actually, it’s Dance Of Death, not my favourite one but still good (and the classic Live After Death which is great!). At last but not least : The Incident of course! Album of the year? One of the great albums of 2009 for sure!! (I have to wait for Transatlantic’s album to talk about “album of the year”, or not…). I can’t tell that it’s my fav Porcupine Tree album but again, high quality modern prog rock, I love “Kneel And Disconnect/Drawing The Line” – Perfect!

I just discovered Bat For Lashes and I can’t stop listening to Two Suns on Spotify. A multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/visual artist with a great voice, beautiful melodies and arrangements.

As usual, I’d be curious to know YOUR october playlist…