Spleen Arcana | Archive

M-Audio Oxygen 8

// November 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

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

// November 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

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

// November 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

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) (1604)

Mobile recording setup

// September 20th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gear

Thinking about recording Spleen Arcana’s second album lead me to the conclusion that I will need a mobile recording setup. I plan to set up a new home studio in Paris but I will have to record vocals in le Refuge as recording vocals is really too loud to be recorded here I guess.

So it’s probably time for me to buy my first laptop? I could use my new RME Multiface audio interface with an HDSP cardbus to use it on my desktop and then on my laptop. I found this Toshiba Satellite here, which seems to be quite good (Intel® Core™ 2 Duo, 4096 Mo, 250 Go sata hd…).

Today, even cheap laptops are more powerful than my actual audio PC, it’s amazing even if my audio PC is not so powerful anymore. I will need to upgrade it for my next album by the way.

Any opinions, ideas about mobile recording setups are welcome…

Now playing : Tangerine Dream “Force Majeure”

Custom 77 China Girl Raw Power

// September 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

Custom 77… I introduced you this quite new French brand guitar some weeks ago here.

As I got back a small amp (Vox Pathfinder), I recorded a small video to show how this SG Jr copy sounds. Keep in mind that the sound comes from my digital camera and that I played on a very small amp at low volume. I used my EH Big Muff into a Maxon AD999 analog delay and also a MI Audio Crunchbox – Feel free to share!

The more I play this guitar, the more I like it! Its P90-like pickup is really fantastic! It’s aggressive in a good way with a really nice warm tone that I looked for quite a lot of time. I guess I’ll play it a lot on my second album…

New pickups for my Les Paul (Gibson Burstbucker)

// August 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

The second electric guitar I bought twelve years ago is a Les Paul copy from a low cost brand called “Maison”, you can see it on the picture below

I played it quite a lot for the first tracks of The Field Where She Died, then I bought my Fender Classic Player 50 to add a different sound to my tracks. Actually I’m thinking of upgrading the pickups of this Les Paul and I thought about Gibson pickups. I read some really nice reviews about Gibson Burstbucker, so I’ll probably try them – I’d like to give this Les Paul copy a better and more classic Gibson-like sound.

Feel free to share your ideas about Les Paul pickups…

Free plugin : Submersible Music Drumcore

// July 30th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Gear

Submersible Music offers a free version of their Drumcore drum programming software. And according to them, “…the demo that is alot MORE than just a demo.”

Download it here : http://www.submersiblemusic.com/TemplateMain.aspx?contentId=65

I downloaded it as soon as I read the news because I was interested in this software. I plan to use a drum programming software to record drum parts of my next demos. I could use an electronic drumkit to pilot this software but I admit that I know nothing about all this (I have never programmed any drum parts, even with my keyboard)

From Submersible website : This is a fully working version of the DrumCore 3 AU/VSTi/RTAS plug-in. The way it differs from full DrumCore is:

DRUMKITS
FREE only includes two (2) kits vs. DrumCore which has over 100. Kits include a great rock/pop kit and a subwoofer-thumpin’ hip-hop kit and a sprinkling of Latin Percussion sounds.

GROOVES
FREE only includes the Basic Beats “Rock Pop 101″ GrooveSet (as both audio loops and MIDI) plus the Urban GT “HipHop Classics (1-4)” and Song Beats GrooveSets (as MIDI files) vs. the thousands of grooves in standard DrumCore.

DRUMCORE TOOLKIT
DrumCore includes the standalone application “DrumCore Toolkit” which let users add their own audio loops and drum samples to DrumCore. FREE only includes the DrumCore plug-in.

Custom 77

// July 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Gear

Custom 77 is a french guitar brand which offers at very fair prices some great guitars inspired by legendary vintage models : Les Paul, SG, ES-like, SG and Les Paul Junior…

The price/quality ratio is really great and it’s a good way to have different guitars with different sounds for a low price. Plug them into a good amp and the sound is just here!

Guitars are made in Korea. Some people want to compare them to Gibson which is quite useless of course. Custom 77 are so much cheaper and can be seen as “budget guitars” but their sound is worth the money and their finish is excellent, well I must say it’s the case on my China Girl Raw Power. You have to try them and chose one carefully like you would do for any factory made guitar as the quality can be variable. By the way, the Custom 77 team is really nice and helpful if there’s any problem.

Here is my Custom 77 Chinal Girl Raw Power which is a SG Junior replica (I plan to write about it and record some videos soon) :

Some videos featuring a China Girl Raw Power and a Needles & Pins :

Custom 77 logo
Custom 77 official website : http://www.custom77.com/
Myspace : http://www.myspace.com/custom77com
Custom 77 official Youtube broadcast : http://www.youtube.com/user/Custom77official
Wikipedia (in french) : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom77

Choosing a new audio interface

// April 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Gear

At the moment, I own an ESI1010. I used the ESI1010 to record The Field Where She Died and it worked very well.

This card is the same league as the M-Audio Delta 1010. I chose this ESI model because I needed at least 8 inputs to record the drum kit. It did the job really well and I like how works its Directwire. I’m wondering if I still need 8 inputs, maybe I could record the drum parts elsewhere, on a better drum kit and with better microphones… That’s an idea…

The fact is I’d like to improve sound and converter quality so I’m thinking about a brand new audio interface. RME, Focusrite, Lynx, EMU, I’m not sure yet. I’d like to keep the old PCI, I know that today most of the cards use firewire but I’m not really at ease with firewire, I prefer the good old PCI. Actually, I think that a RME Multiface II could be a good choice… The fact is there’s a good quality-price ratio and a Lynx Aurora would be great too but it’s more than twice the price of the Multiface. Or maybe just a RME 9632 but I absolutely don’t know if it’s the same sound quality and converter than the RME Multiface…

Any idea would be really welcome and interesting…