AndyC

For those that have read my past few blogs you will notice a short gap (of a couple of months) since my last post! I have been studying away at trying to nail the Swedish language... pleased to say that it is going well! Anyhow, on the music front things are moving along and it looks like 2011 could develop nicely. I've been chatting to a guy I used to work for in Stockholm, who owned a studio, he's looking to open a new place sometime this year. Should be a nice place running Pro Tools HD and doing a range of activities from band recordings to voice over and general audio work. On the producing front we are starting a 3 track EP for a UK artist next week. For this project I will be in on the songwriting side as well as the production. Its paid work, so I am not moaning! I am heading back to the UK next week for a few weeks of buisness development with my company 'Kayto Sound', I am working with a couple of people on developing a range of studio training days and other programmes, should be fun! (Also managed to get in a visit to Liverpool to watch a football match at Anfield and have a chat to a few guys up there about some project management ops and tips and tricks on online marketing and promotion), I am looking forward to looking around this site again and seeing what everyone has been up to in the last couple of months. Speak Soon, AndyC

Its Sunday in a wet Stockholm. Just taken the dog for a long walk round the lake with my lovely wife, my lad is off for a play day with a pal and I'm just about to turn on the TV for an afternoon of premiership football. Perfect Sunday! I havent got much music on my mind.... but hopefully will have the Youtube things going up online in the next couple of days, so will have a bit more to say. Over n Out. AndyC

Its Friday, think the last time I posted it was Sunday morning.... where did the time go? I flew back to Stockholm on Monday morning (having had 3hrs sleep from the night before) and then slept! Such an amazing weekend, lovely musicians, lovely people and a wonderful recording experience! I ended up with 5 DVDs containing the session files. Pleased to say that I fired them into my MacBook, plugged it into the 002 and all worked fine! Thats the amazing thing with the Pro Tools rigs, you can just interchange the system you are working on without any hangups. I'm also amazed at how powerful these MacBook Pros are.... its not even thinking and has lots of plugins, tracks and automation to deal with (Strokes is Macbook with a smile! lol). So, next job is creating stems from the recording session file. For those new to this, that involves consolidating each audio track into into single wav files (or instrument). They must all start at the same point, so that they can be lined up in any audiosoftware package. (hope that made sense?!). The reason for doing this is that the material can be mixed or edited in any software package, not just pro tools software. Mat (Me partner in crime), did a mix of one of the tunes this week. Sounds amazing! The way we do this is that I upload the stems for a song, he downloads it in his Liverpool studio and does his thing, then uploads a finished Wav. of the mixed track. I'm like the extra set of ears during this process, as Mat has a pair of Genelec montiors, so obviously it sounds mint.... where as I have a 5.1 system and the apple Sound Sticks... which I find are great ways of hearing how the mix will sound on standard systems. Its always good to check a mix on a 5.1 system, as it can highlight any strange phasing or over reverb issues. If its a good stereo mix then 60 to 80% of the sound will appear in the centre speaker, with just a few bits of panned audio appearing on the L,R and surround. Anyhow, so thats one thing thats been (and is) going on. We also have a few production jobs that we are developing, plus awaiting the titiles for our 'making of' YouTube ScreenCast series which we are hoping to get online sometime next week. I'll post soon.... AndyC

Its early... I'll keep it short! 12 hours of recording yesterday and then beer until 2am. Now into the studio for 0900 to get the sessions ready for overdubs at 1000. A quick pic of the guys in the live room.

Ok, So woke up early in Stockholm to take a flight up to North Sweden for a weekend of recording the Banished Privateers. Spent the afternoon in the studio preparing for tomorrow and Sundays recording sessions. Met Nils, a lovely guy who owns a studio, near a lake, just 40mins from Umeå (Link to his studio). We are in a really nice studio in the centre of Umeå. There's 12 instruments... A couple will be DI'd as well (Double Bass and Guitars) so that we have more choice in mixdown. So most of the day was spent selecting mics and deciding where to place people in the room. As its a folk based band (Folk Punk is Björns, the band leaders, actual description! lol) We have gone for the option of recording live, all in together, and are going to try it with no 'headphone mix'. Ive never tried this before, but this makes sense as I want the musicians to be as comfortable as possible, as many havent recorded in a studio before. (I'll let you know how this goes). So at the end of day 1 and the session is set up in Pro Tools, all mics have been checked, everything is sounding great and I'm ready to roll! AndyC

Today has been a day of invoicing and chatting to the accountant. I have one accountant that deals with everything for both Kayto Sound and Pop Up... makes life so easy dealing with one person. At the moment with the UK economy looking pretty sketchy we have felt a drop in demand for the music tuition company, this means that cash flow suffers a bit and its time to lock down the hatches and ride out the storm. So important to review every expense at this stage, I managed to save lots just by switching accountants and switching phone company... sure there is more I could find! lol Big VAT bill at the end of next month... bit of forward planning always helps to keep the pressure down to a minimum. With the record production projects we tend to get paid in a 3 stage deal. A small percentage on the signing of contract, lump at the recording/production stage and then remainder on completion of rough mixes. This means that we have to use the cash flow wisely as there a periods when no cash comes in... and then all of a sudden it arrives! Its def. something that takes a bit of getting used too. So I've been reading up on the Pro Control surface.... its a few years old now, but I've always wanted to have a blast on one, they are sort of iconic in the Pro Tools world of things... obviously now replaced by the Icon series. We have a C24 in the studio in Bristol, thats a great control surface, much nicer than the Control 24, in my view. The layout is a lot nicer and it really does cut down time with the access to all the advanced Pro Tools features. Im off to see a friend that owns a studio here in Stockholm (Should mention that I am based in Stockholm, Sweden), he has a range of great vintage and classic mics which I am going to borrow for the weekend recording mission. Good old U87's, AKG 1000s, (Not too good on numbers n models,,, but u know what i mean!). I'm chatting to the studio engineer this afternoon to see what kit they have in house... then will fill in the missing bits. Not such a creative day to day... Going to do some reading up on the HD rigs later, always good to go into a studio and know the rig you'll be using... I try and really do my homework, as you never know who ya gunna meet and where things might lead (Always open to business! haha). For this recording I will be doing a lot of the engineering, this isnt something I have done too much of over the last couple of years, but its always great once you get the session rolling. Love that feeling of having a plan... but letting the sessions develop... You can be sure that you'll end up in a slightly different place that you thought! lol Laters. AndyC

So have spent the morning doing a few ScreenCasts which we are hoping to get up on Youtube in the next couple of weeks. Mat (Producing Partner) has a meeting with a video producer on Saturday to get the intro and outro graphics sorted. Once they are done we'll start uploading. The first series will be sharing the development of the track Pearshaped Girl, which we produced for Lenny Savage a couple of months ago. The videos will show how we developed the song from the first ideas to the finished mixdown of the song. Its all a bit new to us, but exciting to do! Im off to Umea on Friday, flight leaves at 0930... far too early! And will be producing a great act called Ye Banished Pirateers. Just been chatting to Björn (band leader) and it looks like we'll be recording in a Pro Tools HD studio with a Pro Control interface. Great set up, really looking forward to working with it! So, once we have done a weekend of track laying I'll be firing the files across the sea to Liverpool where Mat will be mixing them. We've got a couple of new projects starting next week, a few mixing projects, of which we will be producing at least one of the tracks. I'm not too sure on the details of the project, but i think its for a semi famous person! haha. What do i know? While I am up in Sweden, Mat will be in Bristol meeting with a very talented singer/ songwriter in the hope of securing the role of 'Producers' for his next album. We've taken a listen to the demo recordings and it could be a great record. For us, at this stage, its really important to work with artists that have a strong vision about where they are going with their musical careers.... its really helps us to work with artists that are going to get out there and show the world the music... not just sit it on a shelf. Ok, so along with that I'll be finishing the vocal track for the remix we are working on and also beginning to write a few tunes with a client that we are producing in early 2011. Busy times, but happy times! I really must figure out how to share photos and things on this... I'll take a few pics of the weekend and share them (if i can). Will post later in the week. AndyC

Thanks John... I'll keep going n see where it take us! ha

Off to Swedish lessons in a min... but thought I'd do a quick blog about the morning. I did a bit of website updating to start the day and then spent a few hours working on a vocal track for a remix we've been asked to produce. Basically is a remix of 'video star'... the classic pop-tastic tune that was out in the 80s.. if think? We are doing a mainstream remix, 4 on the floor with vocals on top. Sounds easy, but then we looked into some reference tracks and began discovering how complex some of the dance tracks our these days! We looked a the Lady Gaga track 'Lets Dance', Mat managed to get hold of an acapella version and wow... its full of vocals! Lots of harmonies, reply lines, delays and basically a song in itself! Sounds amazing! So this morning has involved me recording various vocal lines and building up the vocal tracks. At the last look I have around 20 tracks of vocals! Obviously a lot of the lines are double tracked, harmony lines and strange little noises! lol. I plan to get the guide track done by this eve and then upload for the vocalist (Emma) to have a listen to and comment back to us. We use SOUNDCLOUD for sharing tracks with clients. I love the way that you can upload them and just invite specific users to view and/or download the tracks. Its so useful! I guess I should really add some screen shots and things like that... give me time, it will come. I wonder if anyone is reading this? I sort of feel like I am writing to myself! haha. (First sign of Crazyness???) Spk soon, AndyC

So I figured I'd give this a try. See how it goes and see what comes of it. Over the next week or so I'll introduce myself and tell you about the daily work thats involved in setting up and running a production company. I intend it to be honest, non-ego and sometimes factual. We get to see another side of the music industry. We link the artist to the labels and the public. We get to manipulate, inspire, focus and explore music in a very controlled way. Its not rocket science, but its a bit of the recording process that so so many musicians and artists dont understand or dont think of. If I were to start my musical journey again (which began around 25 years ago) I would have opened up my mind to working with an honest producer, it would have saved me a lot of time and money... and hopefully we can do that for our customers! Its a balance between our vision and the artists vision. They are very close to the music, we get close... through understanding their visions and helping them to focus it to a pin point so that the music fans can also see their vision in its full glory. Music is amazing, inspiring and can change many things. We are a production process that takes the raw song and delivers it in 3D. Lots coming up over the next month, I have a recording in Umea (North Sweden), Album meeting in the UK, Vocal recording in the UK for a new remix... songwriting with a client for a recording project booked for 2011... plus a few people to chase up and a company to promote. Lets see where we go, come along for the ride! (Tooooot tooot!) My company website, that i run with my business partner Mat White is: www.iLovePopUp.com and my educational company is: www.kaytosound.com Have an explore, I'll start explaining the journey ahead tomorrow. Bye for now. Andy Cargill

Yeah, they are great plugins... what did you think of them?

Hi all. Not sure how many Pro Tools or Reaper users there are here, but thought I'd see if anyone needed any questions answered? If you are wanting advice on buying a system or need some help with the setup or operating.... I'll do my best to help. I've been using Pro Tools for many years for location recording, studio recording, film and audio and all that. Got experience with LE and HD rigs. Additionally we started using Reaper for Mixdowns last year, its a great bit of software... if ya get any problems just shout and I'll see if I can suggest an answer. AndyC