The Nuns sing!

What an exciting day yesterday turned out to be, and we accomplished so much! So exciting I had to mention it now, but not in detail, cause Tara's going to give you the whole story, with pictures.

Who knew that so many of the nuns would want to be involved and would be willing to go beyond themselves by singing and recording. It was a heart warming experience to see the devotion and dedication of everyone who came together yesterday, breaking out of themselves and working so hard for Jetsunma's long life. And you know what? It sounds great! I mean it, they all had such lovely voices and its going to make this song something very special indeed.

Progress

The song is almost ready and it is sounding good. I find that I am humming it as I go about my day, a sign that it catchy, that it has potential. And we have some grand ideas for the ending which will take it beyond anything BBV has ever done before.

On Friday David finalized his piano track, adding a climatic lead to the ending of the song. That same day Tara and I added more layers of synths, specifically some sound effects which give the song some more flavor. Also I tracked some little guitar riffs which I manipulated, reversed, and adding different effects too creating a background layer of ear candy. And today I finished the bass line, grounding the song a bit.

But the real treat of the weekend was tracking Tara's vocal. It was only a rough take so that we could see what we need to do, even so, Tara's roughs are amazing.

There are many photos coming... and some surprising ones at that... so keep checking in!

Blundering

Well, it was a rainy day, the kind where you just want to curl up and watch a movie? And being the hard workers that we are, Blinded By View completely ignored this sensation and had a productive day. We started off setting up for a photo shoot, but because of the weather we decided to postpone. Though we did get some amusing shots. Then we recorded a podcast. You can find it here on iTunes. Then we made some headway on the Jetsunma Long Life prayer. We added an organ and a couple more layers of percussion. The song is coming around. We'll be adding more this afternoon. Tomorrow David will be in to finish his part and hopfully we'll get the vocals done this weekend. Its gonna be a cool song!!!

A Little Secret

I am going to let you in on a little secret, but you can't tell Jetsunma, OK?

We are writing a song for Jetsunma, using her Long Life Prayer. In other words we are writing Jetsunma's long life song, just using the words of a master so there is some actual weight behind it. The song will be presented to her at Lha Bab Duchen. This came about as a special request from Ani Yeshi, who having recently had some medical problems, asked us to compose a song for Jetsunma's long life. Talk about devotion, to think of Jetsunma's long life when your very own is in danger.

Its the first time that Blinded By View has been "commissioned" to write a song, and now with a deadline its a bit of a challenge. Fortunately we are endowed with Tara's amazing songwriting talents. At around midnight last night Tara sat down at the piano, completely inspired and raring to go and within no time at all she had the basic out line of the chords and the melody. This afternoon we invited David to come in a learn Tara's basic piano chords, allowing him the room to embellish her original with his own interpretation. Of course David picked it up right away and now its quite a thing to hear, he really knows how to add just the right touch to a song.

Here is Dave working out the piano parts.

Nathaniel began working on the drums, using our trusty Akai MPC. Because this is a new song we weren't sure what type of beat this song should have, funk, rock, downtempo, or hip hop. But regardless Nathaniel pulled it all together with his brand of rhythmic ingenuity and crafted use a nice little back beat to drive the song.



Although we didn't track it, here is a nice little photo of Nathaniel working out a guitar part.

We were so caught up in the process that we skipped a meeting we were supposed to attend, because of the nature of the session it was probably OK.

Lha Bab Duchen is on November 1st, just about a week away. It is going to be tough, but we'll pull it off. Next step will be adding guitar and bass, sounded like Nathaniel was getting something and I had a moment on the bass and I have a pretty good idea of what I can add. Then it'll be synths and texture and then the magic moment; tracking Tara's vocals. Its exciting. I wonder how we are going to present it? Anyhow this one is gonna be special.

There is....somthing happening!

Well, there is officially somthing happening! No word yet on what it is, but be ready for somthing big!

Mud Baths and other thoughts

O, it truly was a wonderful night! There was so much going on it would be impossible to cover it all here in the blog, so I am just going to post a few photos so you can get a sense of the party. If you weren't able to make it then stay tuned we are already planning our next event, which will feature more bands.

The night began with the Soulutions, although they were missing their drummer and bassist. No problem Nathaniel and a couple others from the audience sat in and helped them out.

Jermain singing. He is a great songwriter and really has command of the stage.

Diana, the violinist was amazing. BBV would love to have her come in and lay down some parts on our new material.

For their last song, Jermain and Willie, preformed "Burning" with Jermain on the acoustic guitar. It was very moving and truly demonstrated their songwriting skills.

After the Soulutions, Elizabeth Coirden took the stage with her unique stand up comedy, tonight killin the audience with her "Buddhist" material. And she was a hit! Animated and hilarious she didn't fail to keep the crowd laughing!

Nathaniel, the MC, kept the party going with jokes and introductions. He also lead the art auction and costume contest. And filled in as the drummer for the Soulutions, man, he was busy!

Rigdzen, as the renaissance man, giving Tarot readings

David, the advocate, warmed the crowd with an introduction to the activities of Blinded By View and our vision of creating a professional recording studio.

The crowd getting ready for Harbinger

Harbinger rocking out! Check out their awesome costumes!

After Harbinger the night opened up into a free form jam session-slash-open mic. Just about everyone was a musician so we all got together and jammed.

So it was a brilliant success, a great time and simply enjoyable. We'll be having another party in about a month, so stay tuned and let us know if you want to preform.

Maybe it would be asked why we throw these parties. The reason being is that we are about to begin the renovation of this old studio where the parties are held into the new design, in the photo below. The parties are a way to introduce people to Blinded By View, make connections and if possible raise a little money. More than anything the parties are a way for us to make musical connections, which we need as a production company. And also we feel the parties keep the energy moving in the space that is set for the renovation, and by keeping that energy moving we feel it helps move us forward into the actual construction phase otherwise the space would be sitting their stagnant and useless.

And The Evening Was...

A SUCCESS!!

Nathaniel Cod here;

Holy wow and a wowtron too! What a night that was - youth youth youth youth youth! Thanks everyone that helped out, showed up, hung round and participated! A special thanks to the Soulutions, Harbinger and Elizabeth Croiden!

Things could not have gone better if we'd tried! Well, maybe, but we tried pretty hard and things went pretty fantastically. I don't know what we raised, and no pictures yet, but they'll be up soon. We had a great open jam session at the end of things, and it was just good fun.

Come back later today for photos and earnings reports!

Studio Party!

Wow What a night we have in store for you!

The Soulutions, Harbinger, Stand Up Comics, Tarot Readings, and Nathaniel Cod spewing mad brainless nothings as long as they allow him!

IF YOUR NOT THERE YOU'D BETTER BE DEAD OR IN JAIL!!!!!!

Dalai Lama in D.C.

Yesterday was a beautiful day although it was not related much to our musical efforts. Atira, Tara and I went downtown and saw the Dalai Lama receive the Congressional Gold Medal. It was a wonderful event, very moving, and completely pertinent especially because Bush was in attendance.

We’ll be posting the remix of “Step Down” soon so stay tuned! And don't forget tomorrow is the Studio Party!

I Brought a Bag of Bagels Back to The House The Other Day;

HOLY CRAP!

STOP THE PRESSES;

Nathaniel Cod here, and folks do I have something to tell you. A new kinda music is abound, and today we are bringing you fresh sounds from the underground.

We received from John Keenan of JCK productions a remix of a jingle you all may know and love - the story here is a sort of reverse tragedy of errors, in which by a mistake in e-mail clarity the wrong tune was re-tooled!

We today have a new version of "Step Down" from our first Studio CD with Jetsunma, and it is amazing. Jetsunma's own words via text message were "OMG FU**ING AWSOME". Its going up on MySpace, all of our websites, and in promotional material everywhere. Keep your eyes and ears peeled, and your dance shoes on, this one is hot!

Headless Goddesses and the Feel-Good Franchise

The lecture and movie were not to begin till 7:30 so I had sometime to kill, which lead me to Barnes and Nobel, sporting a gift card someone was kind enough to give me recently. I wandered around the store looking for someth
ing interesting to buy, but nothing was jumping out at me. I was surprised to find that they had only a couple of titles on the French Revolution, titles that I already own, and no biographies of Mirabeau, Robespierre, or Napoleon. Confounded I decided to check out their Buddhist section, and to my delight I found a book I had never seen before; Buddhist Goddesses of India. I flipped through the book and found the most unique tangkha I’ve ever seen: Amazing, aye? It connects wonderfully to Jetsunma’s Chod and the ultimate sacrifice of offering one’s own life for the welfare of others. These two pictures are not the one in the book, that one is even more graphic and detailed, check it out next time you are in B&N.

When we arrived at the theatre there was some confusion over who was talking before the movie and when the lecture would begin. As it turned out Neten Chokling was a bit under the weather and would therefore give a short talk before Sogyal Rinpoche’s lecture. Both talks were very interesting in that they addressed a need to utilize media as a way to reach more people, to spread the Dharma. Sogyal Rinpoche talked about how sincere and dedicated Milarepa was, how he was able to accomplish the Buddha-dharma in one life time through his tremendous hard work. Sogyal noted how westerners tend to want to only hear the feel good aspects of Buddhism and therefore ignore the gritty reality that is the struggle of the path. Milarepa was firm in his resolve and achieved so much through single pointed devotion that included getting his hands dirty and really working the path. Sogyal Rinpoche said that this movie was poignant in that it does not portray Buddhism as a fluffy feel good belief. It was powerful to hear Sogyal Rinpoche say such things because Jetsunma too has always emphasized that the path is a verb, that this is not about sitting on a rock and looking spiritual, and that the path is about truly changing oneself.

After their talks Tara and Atira presented the Rinpoches with Jetsunma’s albums; "Revolution of Compassion" and "Delog." They briefly mentioned the project and how we would like to connect with them and their activity.

The previews were amazing. 3 books written by authors I am a fan of are being adapted as films and are to be released soon, although two I list here were not part of the previews last night the McCarthy preview prompted me to recall the others . Harold Pinter’s "Sleuth", Cormac McCarthy’s "No Country for Old Men," and Ian McEwan’s "Atonement," one of my all time favorite books. I am excited to see them. And then there is this odd movie called "Terror’s Advocate," it looks very interesting, so I am going to have to check it out.

As for the actual movie, Milarepa, I have been pondering what I would say all last night and this morning. Honestly I did not enjoy the movie, I did not think it was well done and I was not impressed by much of it. I will not go into here though; I’d like to support the effort of bringing Milarepa to a larger audience, so I do not want to hinder that by a negative critique. However, I would like to say that I did like how realistic the movie was concerning ordinary Tibetans (or Buddhists) and their confusion as to what the Buddha-Dharma actually teaches. Everyone looked Buddhist in the movie, but there was perhaps only one actual practitioner through out the entire movie and he wasn’t Milarepa.

I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s new album “In Rainbows,” it is amazing. I am very much into the song “Nude” it’s got that Radiohead brilliance, that melancholy and haunting edge, with a wonderful arrangement and use of instrumentation. Radiohead is the band of this era, I’ve been saying this for years, and once again they prove them selves with another masterpiece. So if you haven’t heard it yet check it out!

We want the Cod!

Yo folkeroonies! Nathaniel Cod Here and I have just been informed that there is some confusion about who, and what the CODs are! Well why dont you just leeeeet me tell yous guys!

The Cods are the fan-branch of Blinded By View Productions, as well as a running nickname for the members, supporters and beligerent fish like stuffed chew toys of that same company. That means that I am a cod, that Yeshe and Tara are Cods, that our marketing team are cods, and that you, brave listeners are Cods as well!

That leads us to our founder and inspiration, Jetsunma! Is she a cod as well? Does this apply to her? Your questions, noble friends, are easily answered; Jetsunma is both a Cod and more than a cod, she is, as we all like to say the CodDess!

Now, some of you may wnat history- how did this come about?

Well it all started on a cold day in some month back when....

Like fallen scooba nickers, floating away from their useful local, we the - folks at BBV were in a band. We were lacking a name for this crew, and so one day in a fit o'..erm..somthing...we decided we would name ourselves the COGS.

Now we had a long and complex backround for the COG name and it became a rediculously long running inside joke. One day however as we spoke of our COGlyness, Jetsunma overheard and believed us to hove Said the word COD. This was very funny to as all.

Things did not catch on until some time later as we we're working on a song called Interdimensional Diementia - in an as yet unreleased version there is a line "Load Cod Into Warp Nacel" - a refrence of obscure and diverse a nature if ever there was one.

After that second mention of the word things just went....upstream.

Soon we had a mascot, a shark with a fish in his pocket - both of whom we nicknamed "Cod".

After that we snuck a cod into the CD booklet, and are now working on hiding them in other locations of varrying and wild nature. Keep your eyes peeled.

Harbinger of art and movies!

Oh, its been a weekend!

Friday we had our final tracking session with Harbinger. Because the guys were not satisfied with their original performance of “Celtic Jig” and “Odyssey” they decided to re-record. This time, all live, with only solos and bass overdubbed. Learning from my last session I used an SM57 on the top of the snare, running through my OSA MP1-C, the API knock-off. And I also used an Audix on the bottom of the snare. Aside form this I miced the kit according to our first session.

Because we were recording everything live I had to deal with isolating the guitars, from each other and most especially from the drums. We are in a 10x30 construction trailer, so there isn’t much to work with. I placed Jacob in the control room with me and Victor in the hall way next to the mic closet. After some tweaking I was rather pleased to hear that the leakage was minimal and would not be a problem. I then miced their amps both with 57s.

We did about 3 takes of the long epic “Odyssey” ultimately choosing the last take, although take 2 was very good, and could have passed as well. There were a few minor edits that had to be made, but over all their playing was precise and accurate. This time the pressure was on all 3 of them as we were not planning to do overdubs and as expected they proved their skills once again and managed to tackle a very difficult song with ease and grace. It went about the same with “Celtic Jig” although there was a bit of a comic scene concerning a coveted apple and much fumbling with the opening riff. It was rather amusing. Perhaps Nathaniel will tell the story. After a couple of takes they had their final and we began working on Bass.

A most unfortunate event occurred as we were tracking the bass; my amp blew a fuse, or some other related problem and we could not record using the amp. Hopefully it is just a fuse and I’ll be able to fix it, although I am a bit concerned that it might be more. The amp got very hot before it shut off and I don’t know if this heat caused any damage. I took the bass in direct for the recording, using the LA-610. It sounds different than the other songs but it’ll serve it purpose. Victor did each part in under 3 takes and only a few over dubs.

Solos were a bit time consuming. I let them each work out their parts, placing Pro Tools in loop so they could practice and write. “Celtic Jig” was a cinch, but this process took much longer on “Odyssey” because they had not firmly written their parts, they had only done improvisation the times that they’ve played the song live. But they seceded in tracking their solos, and that concluded our tracking sessions.

There was only art on Saturday, well, art and a bottle of wine. Some talk of saltpeter and backward glances in Adams Morgan. Parking nightmare on T street, turning round and round and the slow meandering of wayward footfalls. Docile Material Trails leading to old books and bedtime stories, one thing is for certain you can’t sleep with contact lenses lodged in the socket.

Yesterday I finalized the mixes for “Revolution” and “Rain of Fire” and got a start on “Celtic Jig” and “Odyssey.” But I because of a meeting I was not able to finish.

In the meeting we learned that Delog is now available on iTunes. This is very exciting. And I found out today it is also available on Amazon.com.

Tonight, as part of our promotion efforts, Tara and I will be attempting to present ROC and Delog to Neten Chokling the director of the movie “Milarepa” now showing in theatres. The director seems to have a keen insight into the use of media as a tool for engendering compassion, much like Jetsunma’s vision with Blinded By View. So we hope to make a connection. Rumors have it that Sogyal Rinpoche will also be at the movie tonight, so we are hoping to make that connect as well.

WHY HELLO THERE

My first blog entry…EVER

Yesterday’s session brought a wonderful surprise. Jetsunma (A.K.A The CODESS) came up to the studio! Lately we have been working on promoting and marketing our music and haven’t been doing much recording, but when Jetsunma came up she wanted to record. It was AMAZING to start working on a new song. She started laying down vocals on a beat/instrumentation that Yeshe and I had come up with. After finishing up her vocal parts she had me add some vocals to the chorus. The song is nowhere done, but has a beautiful start and we will continue to add layers of vocals and harmonization on top of what we did, oh and make the drums more BOOMY.

Whenever Jetsunma comes up to the studio, she completely livens up all things stale and stagnant. She has energy, force and drive to make this music count for something; to send messages of compassion and the blessings of mantra out to the masses. As conditions in our world worsen, and as war replaces love, it is her wish to get the music out as soon as possible. She is working hard for this. She always has incredible ideas about were something should be placed in the music, how something should sound… she is the executive producer and visionary behind Blinded by View!
Our job is to carry her vision out as best we can. We lay down the musical foundation in hopes of fully supporting and nurturing her voice and the message behind it.

“I WANNA CHANGE, I WANNA, I WANNA CHANGE THE WORLD…”

More to come…
This is singing cod here saying, “Thank Cod-ness and good night!”

Marimbas on Thursday

Exciting news, we recorded with Jetsunma yesterday!

At about 3 PM she called me asking questions about how our promotion efforts were going and to get a sense for our progress on new music. I told her about the remix of “Cut the Spell” that John Keenan just sent to us, she was excited to hear about it and decided to come up and listen. We listened to the remix, which she was very happy about, excited about the potential of this particular song and the others slated for remxing.

It was then that we talked about the material for the next album. First we decided that we are going to rehash some old songs that we produced before we began ROC. These titles have potential, but we never completed them, and as we coalesced into Blinded By View our tastes changed as well, so we moved on to other material. Now, looking back, these songs seem a bit silly, but they still have qualities and we’d like to go back to them and refresh them. Mostly its Jetsunma’s lyrics that stand out, she really is a poet. She can craft a song that is potent with meaning, such that you can draw much from it and listen over and over again. These old songs should be re-worked simply because of their lyrical content.

We then moved onto reviewing our newest material. After a few listens Jetsunma was inspired to record on a song that Tara originally composed. On this particular piece, working title “Marimba” Tara was inspired to record her marimba that Jetsunma had given her for Christmas in ’06. I recorded Tara improvising on the marimba, then we cut up the parts and made a small loop that we then added a beat to and later layers of sounds including the ubiquitous mellotron, a favorite of Tara’s.

Jetsunma picked the “Fourfold Prayer for Motherly Sentient Beings” from the Nam Cho Guru Yoga as the basis of the song. She and Tara listened to the song a few times and worked out a melody. I then set up Jetsunma to record letting her get a feel for the beat and timing and allowing her the space to work the melody a bit further. After a few takes we had both a lower part that serves as a foundation and a higher part with some flourishes.

Jetsunma then wrote a short set of lyrics in English, that she asked Tara to work out as the Chorus. Immediately Tara went at it working through the chorus section, smoothing out ideas and working the words to fit the allotted time of the chorus. Tara, with her usual grace and skill created a beautiful melody.

Both the parts, the verse and the chorus are only the beginning of the song, we have many layers of vocals to go and more lyrics to write. But now we have a basis to work with and it is a good start.

Painted Pianos and Studio Drawings

Yesterday Tara and I spent the afternoon working on the her new songs. We crafted a nice little beat to go along with the piano we recorded the other day, and then began adding layers of synths and sound effects to gives the song more texture. Tara added a mellotron violin that give the song a sad and haunting edge. Then using the moog she added a couple of pads to fill in the atmosphere. One of which has a floating, ascending sound when the key is released so it kind of sends the listener out into space. Lastly she added a bit of B4 organ. She has already written the vocals, but we have not recorded them yet, perhaps we'll get to it in the next couple of days. She has asked me to write a bass line so I'll be getting to that as well. All in all the song is coming along.

This song is a product of two requests Jetsunma made of Tara. First was to deeply study the piano. The other was for Tara to write her own material for the next album, so that this album features more of Tara than "Revolution of Compassion" and "Delog." Tara went out of her way and bought a piano in order to facilitate Jetsunma's requests. And she promptly set out to compose. Within a couple of days she had written two very gorgeous songs and we have tracked the piano on both. Her intention is to have both somewhat produced before she presents them to Jetsunma.

The challenge that we face for this next album is creating songs that are wholly unique but using the same tools and instruments that we used in producing ROC and Delog. It is unfortunate that we do not have more resources to draw upon, different synths more software, for it would give us more options. Fortunately Tara and Nathaniel have amazing composition skills, there is no limitation on their ability to create. Besides all of this strengthens us as musicians if we have limited tools but can still make new and innovate sounds.

In other news we have just received the latest design from our Studio Designer Eric Wenocur and it is looking real good. He's got all the elements we need and he gives us plenty of space to work in. Here in this floor plan, Eric has two versions of the control room, one with a producer desk and one without. He is asking us which would suit our needs more aptly. I think we'll probably go without the desk, just to save room, as space is limited. Either way it'll be better than our construction-trailer-studio-thing that we are stuck in currently. Its very exciting to see this design coming together!

Later this week I have a session with Harbinger, we'll probably finish the last songs and their demo will be done. You can listen to rough mixes at this link: www.myspace.com/arsmorienti

Studio Party Planning Meeting

Atira, Tara and I have just met to discuss the upcoming Studio Party. It will be on October 19th and it will be Halloween themed. For this party we will have two bands Harbinger and Dream Resolution, who is mainly a cover band. There will be a ghost story Open Mic, a laser light show, and a costume contest.

These parties are part of our on-going fund-raising effort for the cost of the construction of the Blinded By View studio. We have plans to create a fully functional studio out of an existing space attached to the temple. We have spent the last year using a rented construction trailer as our temporary recording studio. From the moment we began using the trailer it was clear that we need to retrofit the space attached to the temple so as to suit our actual needs. The trailer has no capacity for isolation and has horrible sonic characteristics. The plans have been drawn, we just need to raise the cash to start construction. Hence the on-going studio parties.

This party will be a blast, so do try to make it. Harbinger will have their newly recorded demo available and there will be food and drink served. Rigdzen Zeoli will being doing Tarot readings and there will be a movie under the stars as well. Plenty of fun!

What A Day!

Como Esta Tiempo? Nathaniel Cod here and I just wanted to say howdy doo, and spread some information about todays goings on.

I went in my bunny slippers at around three in the afternoon and ran immediately into my main man Yeshe, and the lovely and talented Tara. They bounced back and forth between food and phone calls for some time then, So I was able to sit myself down in the Big Comfy Chair and mess around on the ol' MPC for awhile.

For those who don't know the MPC is a wonderful tool with sixteen black squares on it. Much like a trained monkey you sit in front of this thing and push buttons until you hear something you like. Even more in a behavioral pattern befitting that small trained monkey I jumped up and down like a..well..trained monkey when i found something i liked.

After about oh, an hour and a half of me time (oh How i do the love the me time), yeshe and tara finished off their business rejoined me and laughed for a few moments. Then the Cod's were ready for action. (Que the Curtis Mayfield here)

We started work on Tara Cod's rad-tac-u-lar new songs. J herself asked for these two folks, so keep your ears peeled for them. A few days ago she and I had written a melodic piano part to a rhythm piano part she had come up with. We work like this a lot so don't fret to much about how that happens (needless to say we Cods are close). Tara has a great ear for whats good, so with her help I nailed the melody fairly quickly. We listened to beats for awhile, but nothing skewered our brains immediately, so i played around with it for a bit as a beat. Food called us from its cool multi shelved Bed and son we were all away.

When i return-ed, i found myself alone but for some microwaved beef and rice gulosh, a pair of muddy bunny slippers and a fun zone of musical proportions.

I got back to the music.

Yeshe is finished with a nice song for Harbinger, and it sure is rockin', nice to finally get some heavy stuff in here - I haven't gotten enough of it since I moved.

Make sure you vote on ourstage.com for Cut The Spell

Cod Out.

Bass is the best!

And now its time for the Bass! As a bassist I am partial to this instrument, and these tracks certainly needed a bass. I had began some mixing, but really felt the lack in not having a bass. It completes a song. Victor took on the job of playing bass for this recording. We had planned to begin tracking at noon but we had a few obstacles which caused us to postpone till 8:00 PM. For this session Jacob sat in, which was helpful. To me its always good to have another member of the band sitting in with an overdubbing session, especially when the music is as technical as this music.

Victor was using my bass and amp for the session. And I went with my usual combination of AKG D-112 and the Universal Audio LA-610. I've recorded my bass hundreds of times and over all these years I have settled on this combination as my favorite. I love the low end and the versatility of the sound. I can get anything I want out of it, and never lack in texture to work with. Initially, I had set the EQ on the amp but after a few takes Victor decided to change this sound and what he came up with perfect for the recording.

We started with the untitled new song, which Jacob recommended titling "Revolution." It took about 5 takes and a couple of punch-ins. Once we got the final, it was clear the song was complete, aside from the mix, but all the elements are there. It went about the same with "Rain of Fire." This song rocks with the bass, Victor wrote an excellent part that really helped bring tension and climax to the various sections of the song. Its much fuller , and it grabs your attention better with the new elements.

After tracking "Rain of Fire" we began working on "Celtic Jig" but after a couple of passes Victor felt something was wrong with original recording, that they need to re-record it. Jacob agreed, he felt the end was a bit messy and that the song could be better if they went though another time.

With that I spent sometime getting rough mixes and bouncing the songs so that I could make CDs for Victor and Jacob. They both seemed satisfied with the recordings. It certainly is a wonderful thing to record a musician's creation and for him to walk away proud of the recording. I remember when I first started recording, I was never very pleased with the final products. Only when my bands spent a lot of time practicing and we spent enough money to in a real studio did I finally create a product I was truly proud of. Now, in the sessions I engineer, I try to provide the best possbile recording I can make so that the musicians walk away proud of their recording. I want them to want to play their songs for their friends and family. This might just be the case with this project.

Concerning Jetsunma, yesterday John Keenan our co-producer and mix engineer sent a remix of "Cut the Spell." This is a radio edit and mix, its much shorter and a little more "traditional" than the album version of the song. This and 3 other remixes will be released as single sometime in the near future. Stay tuned!

Mind the punch-in, please

At 3:30 Jacob arrived. First we sat through and listened back to a couple tracks, getting a feel for what they sound like and giving Jacob a chance to hear what Victor did on Sunday. Before Jacob arrived I set up a SM57 through an Old School Audio MP1-C, an API knock off, on the upper right speaker. I also placed a Neumann TLM 103 on the upper left speaker. As soon as I heard the 103 I knew I wasn’t getting a good sound but I didn’t immediately swap out the mic because I had to deal with another issue first.

We decided to start with their untitled new song, which begins with an intro done by Jacob. In our initial session we did not record a count in, so now going back to the guitar, Jacob had no prompt to begin his part and be in time with the rest of the instruments. To solve this I tapped in the tempo of the song, in Pro Tools and aligned the tracks to this new grid.

Now that Jacob had a 4 count, I had to go back to the microphone issue. With the TLM 103 I was getting a paper flapping sound, the mic was near distortion. At first I thought to just give it some more space so that there would be less pressure on the diaphragm. For the most part it solved the near distortion, but I was still not happy with the texture of the sound. It was too transparent, too real, but not a reality one wants to hear from a huge cabinet of speakers. I listen to the 57 and I was getting a great sound, a nice traditional heavy guitar sound that really had all the body and edge that a distorted guitar should have. I decided to switch to a different condenser instead of the TLM 103 because I still wanted to record with such a mic, but I was pretty sure the 57 was going to be the one I ultimately use. I went with an AT3030, it was much better for this amp, but it still wasn’t giving me the sound I wanted. We recorded with both mics for each song, but I knew then that I will be going with the 57 when I get to mixing.

Having the 4 count and the mics set we proceeded to record. Each song took a good amount of time to get the final; we were being very careful and choose only the best take after laying several down. Once we had a take that we both felt was right we’d go back and punch-in at any minor flubs, cleaning up a part to make the entirety flawless. Each song took a little over an hour. Jacob was especially careful with his solos. We were doing them on their own separate tracks. Many times Jacob would play an extraordinary piece, with incredible skill that I thought was the final take, but Jacob would say “No, I made a mistake, can I do it again?” I would listen back and hear a tiny little piece that was slightly out of time. But as Nathaniel said to Jacob at the beginning of the session “Don’t go with a take that you are not really satisfied with because a day or two later you will regret it.” Which is good advice, I have often went with a weak performance because I was tired only to find a few days later it is really not acceptable and I have to do it again.

At about 9:00 we had the first 3 songs done and we began working on “Odyssey” the 10 minute epic. We both knew this was going to be rough and we were both tired. We did an initial take that was not too bad; it helped us see where some of the weak points were. I told Jacob to just keep going through the song, even if the mistake was huge, because we could just punch-in to fix it later. The second take was much better and we decided to go with this one. There were several spots that needed attention. And mind you this is not any problem with Jacob’s playing, it’s that the song is very technical, with many changes, very hard for anyone to accomplish. We got through the first 6 minutes, with many overdubs, when we hit a wall. At this point we were both tired and it seemed like we were going to be recording the same part over and over with out getting anywhere. I knew we had to call the session for the night. Jacob was fine, knowing he could come in today and that the fresh start would really help get the final.

When we began working on “Odysses” I listened to Victor’s guitar track recorded with the MD421 and to Jacob’s using the SM57. I am solidly convinced that these are better tracks. There is something classic about these as opposed to the tracks with the condensers, the AT4060 and 3030. With guitars I want to experiment and find a different sound but I often come right back to the standard SM57, there is something to be said about that sound; and as it has been used so often it makes sense to follow suit. But at what point do you break away from tradition and seek out that new sound? That’s what I am looking for, a new and innovative sound. I don’t think I am going to have much room to experiment with heavy distorted guitars on a demo for a band that I am not actually a member of. But perhaps as we begin working on the new album with Jetsunma and Tara I might have the chance to create a new and interesting sound. This is certainly one of the many great conditions of working with Jetsunma, she has an ear for the cutting edge and loves it when we create something unique, something all our own. Not to mention Tara and Nathaniel both actively seek out the new and different. Something special is on the horizon.

Fried Brains

No tech report right now, OK? Six hour session, six hours of heavy guitar, six hours of punch-ins. A little fried at the moment. Jacob can play some guitar, let me tell you, we accomplished a lot, and its sounding real good. But we were being meticulous and our caution caught up to us, we ran out of time and didn't finish the last track. This last song, "Odyssey" is nearly 10 minutes long and Jacob has all the solos and technical riffs, its a tough song. And it is epic. Its one of those heavy metal songs that take you on a journey. The demo is almost done. They plan to use it to get into clubs and to pass out to their friends. Tomorrow Jacob and Dave will come by to wrap up their parts and Victor will be in to lay down his guitar on "Odyssey"

In other news, yesterday I recorded Tara playing piano on her newest song. It is rather moving. It'll bring tears to your eyes. We plan to add other elements; drums and synths for sure, we'll see what else.

Have you voted for "Cut the Spell?" Its doing really well but we still need all the support we can get.

More tomorrow!

Today In BBV Studios;

Wellll HELLLLO There Codlings! Nathaniel Cod Here again to spread the word!

Today we are recording the final guitar track for Harbinger's forthcoming Demo CD -
After that point there is a bass to overdub, and final mixxing. And then, dear codlings, you can hear it in its completeness. The demo is four tracks, all originals, and man theses songs are epic. These guys rock the shazbott, so keep your ears peeled.

Yeshe will be around later with a tech report all about the actual process of recording and how things went. Jacob is here now so were about to get started. Wish us luck!

Cod Out

Pandora, Itunes and other heady news!

Hi there folks! Nathaniel Cod here again with some great news.

DELOG, BBV's first studio album with artist Jetsunma has been accepted by New Leaf Distributors! Thats right, DELOG is coming to a store near you!

New Leaf has also accepted Jetsunma's other cd release, Revolution of Compassion. Things are heating up.

We've also just submitted our music to www.pandora.com If you've never checked out that website before, please do, as it is a truely awsome tool for discovering new music. Look for us to be on there somtime in the next month or two.

In additon! (i know it jut keeps coming) We've recieved word that Itunes will have DELOG up shortly, so be sure to look there for all your purchasing needs. Revolution of Compassion is allready available, as well as some podcasts of BBV's musicians discussing everything from Music to Dharma to the French! Be entertained!

Cod Out.

OurStage Competition

We've entered Cut the Spell in a competition on Ourstage, please check it out:

Our Harbinger session

Hi, this is Yeshe. I decided to help out a bit with the blog, relieve Nathaniel of all the pressure he’s been feeling creating all this “copy,” it is a demanding job after all, the life of a musician.

On Friday BBV had the pleasure of recording Harbinger, Dave Meneses’ band. Dave was one of the guest artists on Delog, performing on “Shabten Soldeb” and “Cut the Spell.” Dave has been working with us on our recent compositions, laying down piano parts and also a guitar track here or there. In Harbinger, Dave happens to play the drums, he is supported by his brother Victor on the guitar and Jacob Housand also on guitar.

The band was scheduled to arrive at 4 PM. About 4:30 I get a call from Dave saying that they decided to rehearse a song before they came over to the studio. I was delighted to hear this, not often do I have the pleasure of recording bands that really take the time to rehearse and have their parts down before coming into the studio; it was a good sign.

They arrived about 5:30. After loading in the drums and amps they found that they were short one cymbal stand, the stand for the all important ride cymbal. Having no other options we were forced to improvise a stand. Using a bolt, a rope, a mic stand and my bass amp we were able to rig the cymbal to stay in position and have a decent sound. We used the bolt as a hook, tied the rope to the bolt and strung the rope through the hole in the cymbal. We tied the rope to the boom extension arm of the mic stand and of course couldn’t tighten the boom enough to hold the weight of the cymbal. Using the excess length of rope we balanced the boom with the weight of the bass amp. Dave and I had a blast figuring this out and it worked perfectly. I noticed that the bolt added a bit of resonance to the ride, made it just a little brighter especially when he played the bell of the ride, no doubt because it didn’t have the felt pad a cymbal stand usually has.

Now, on to one of my favorite part of recording, micing the drum kit! (This is going to get a bit technical, sorry.) I began with the kick drum. Noticing that Dave does not have a sound hole in his kit I was resigned to place the mic on the out side of the drum. Because I didn’t want much bleed from the rest of the kit I used a soft shell case from a djembe as an improvised baffle. I used a D-112, which I ran through a Universal Audio LA-610. I tested the baffle, and set the levels right away to make sure that the combination would work out. I was surprised by how much impact and low end there was, yet also how much clarity on the attack of the kick. I moved on to the rest of the kit, placing MD421s on the high and mid toms and an AT3030 on the lowest tom, a beta 87 on the snare and a spaced pair of Octava MK12As for the overheads. The high rack tom was giving me a lot of trouble; it took a bit of effort getting the mic in a good position that did not interfere with the crash cymbal right above it. Ultimately I had to ask Dave to raise the cymbal a bit. With the kit all miced up I went though and tweaked the kick and the rest of the drums to dial in the right sound. Looking back I feel that the beta87 was not the right choice on the snare. His snare had a lot of ring and now in the mix process I am finding that I have to really massage it to get a nice tone out of it. Probably would have been better to go with a dynamic, like a sm57.

Since we do not have proper isolation booths our intention for the night was to get final takes on the drums and scratch takes for the guitars. In order to accomplish this I brought the guitars in direct, which of course sounded awful. Especially Jacob’s, it had this little toy amp sound. No bother, it took the pressure off of Victor and Jacob as they would overdub their parts later.

We began to record at 7:00. They started with a new, untitled song. This was the one that they were rehearsing before the session. Needless to say I was impressed. The skill displayed in the songs is outrageous, it is so dynamic. Truly, heavy metal is the modern heir to the performance and writing artistry of classical music, especially that of the romantic area. Time and time again when recording heavy bands I am struck with this thought, it’s right there in the songs, just listen and you’ll see, the two styles connect. Most impressive though was that Harbinger was able to get final takes of this and the other 3 songs in fewer than 3 takes each. Their precision is incredible, their timing is perfect, and their composition skills are tight and well crafted. We wrapped up around 10:00 PM, all of us satisfied with the outcome of the session.

Victor came back to the studio on Sunday. I experimented with the mics on his half stack, I placed an AT4060 about 1.5 feet from the upper left hand speaker, which to my ear had the richest sound. And I also placed a 421 about a inch away from the upper right hand speaker. The 4060 had a very full sound, lots of body, very round and warm. The 421 had a much sharper sound, it cut through a bit more and actually seemed like the “right” sound for Victor’s style. I kept both, thinking I’d play with a combination or settle on one over the other.

Again with amazing skill we were able to get final takes for both his rhythm and solo guitar parts for 3 of the songs and one scratch of a long song we didn’t have time to continue tracking. I expect that, had we enough time to run that song again, he would have nailed it in that second take, but I had booking issues and I couldn’t go beyond our slated session time.

Jacob is booked to track his rhythm guitar and solo parts later this week. And Dave is slated to come in to record the bass. I’ll be mixing in the mean time. Look for updates as they happen!

Photos From Friday

Here are some photos from Fridays session with Harbinger, they left some equipment in our space, so we took advantage!