Change
Three and a half years.
I'm just going to let that one sink in a little.
Three and a half years since I last updated my LJ... I'm surprised it's even here to be honest, I looked it up on a whim expecting to find it had been deleted but now that I'm here I think it might be a useful tool to help get my head in order, especially since I know almost no-one uses LJ anymore so I'm really just going to be writing for me.
Lets see... catching up on 3 years
Well I suppose the major change is that I'm at university, Riptides closing kinda gave me the kick in the arse that I needed to pull my finger out and get back to school. The studio had been the central thing in my life for so long it was hard to imagine going back to a regular 9-5 afterwards, so I've spent two years getting my HND in Greenock and now I'm at Perth uni in the third year of my degree in audio engineering, things are going ok, although I'm not really enjoying the format of the course this year, the focus on research is not something I enjoy, but it's still a very worthwhile thing to do and I am really getting into some parts of it. I think part of the problem is leaving behind all the relationships I'd built up with the lecturers in Greenock, not to mention the other students. I'm the only person from my course that's here in Perth, some of the music students I was friendly with are here too, and they've given me a bit of a sense of continuity to the whole thing, but I'm getting to know my classmates from scratch and that's a little awkward.
Musically, Jeremiah's fallen by the wayside, a casualty of my desire to educate myself. I knew when I left that I'd never really be able to keep up even a vague practice regimen so we decided to go on a hiatus and see if things could be picked up when I got back. Well we're looking at it, but I don't know that it'll ever be quite what it was, I think now it's most important that we just try to get back to having some fun with it. We're looking at doing some new recordings, trying to get as much done as we can that way, but I'd really like to get back into the studio and get at least one decent session just to blow the cobwebs off and see if we've still got any spark to play with.
Tartan is even deader than that, we weren't really doing much anyway and we're all really busy with or own things now, so we barely even talk these days. I'd love to get another cover band together but finding folk who would be interested isn't easy and it's a lot of work to stay in practice and actively look for gigs so that should probably wait until I find some folk who are really into the idea.
My solo music hasn't really seen the light of day either, being in Greenock really killed a lot of what was fun for me about making music since I was on my own most of the time, but I've been hitting the local open mics and karaoke here in perth, and that's been getting me some positive feedback, so I might just get a bit more proactive about that and see if I can get back into the gist of writing and recording my own music.
Speaking of recording, that's been much more exciting, Lebowski are due to release their EP soon, which was recorded in my old flat and all engineered/mastered by me. It's been quite a process getting it all together and I've really enjoyed working with the guys to get it done, I can't wait to hear the reactions to the finished product.
My next tasks in the recording world are planning out the Jeremiah recordings, getting some demos of my own stuff down and looking for new acts to record and build some relationships with.
This is sounding a little more downbeat than I'd intended, and it's not really how I feel at the minute, but I guess when you're cataloguing a lot of time then naturally it's easier to see the endings of things than new beginnings.
Being back closer to home is awesome, the thought of the 3 or 4 hour trip to Greenock is really a nightmare now, and even though I haven't really taken advantage of it, it is nice to know I can just jump on a bus or train and go back to Dundee or Carnoustie to see friends and family again anytime I want without having to take a week out to do it.
My new flatmate's working out pretty well too, Cahal's a music business student, so we're in related areas, and he's a musician as well so we've got a lot of common ground.
My recording setup has grown exponentially in the last year as well, I'm still using the MOTU and behringer units that were the core of my setup last time I wrote about it, but since then I've picked up a host of new mics, outboard equipment, live sound gear. It's awesome.
I'm in the middle of rewiring most of it into a more easily manageable arrangement, there's a lot of random wires and re-routing cables involved when I try to do stuff, so it's a case of tidying and streamlining so I can avoid any accidents and stop it interrupting my workflow to use the outboard equipment.
Right, that's things more or less caught up. Certainly enough for now! I'll try to keep this thing updated a bit more often now, for catharsis if no other reason, but I know it's probably going to be pretty hit and miss whether I remember to do it or not!
I'm just going to let that one sink in a little.
Three and a half years since I last updated my LJ... I'm surprised it's even here to be honest, I looked it up on a whim expecting to find it had been deleted but now that I'm here I think it might be a useful tool to help get my head in order, especially since I know almost no-one uses LJ anymore so I'm really just going to be writing for me.
Lets see... catching up on 3 years
Well I suppose the major change is that I'm at university, Riptides closing kinda gave me the kick in the arse that I needed to pull my finger out and get back to school. The studio had been the central thing in my life for so long it was hard to imagine going back to a regular 9-5 afterwards, so I've spent two years getting my HND in Greenock and now I'm at Perth uni in the third year of my degree in audio engineering, things are going ok, although I'm not really enjoying the format of the course this year, the focus on research is not something I enjoy, but it's still a very worthwhile thing to do and I am really getting into some parts of it. I think part of the problem is leaving behind all the relationships I'd built up with the lecturers in Greenock, not to mention the other students. I'm the only person from my course that's here in Perth, some of the music students I was friendly with are here too, and they've given me a bit of a sense of continuity to the whole thing, but I'm getting to know my classmates from scratch and that's a little awkward.
Musically, Jeremiah's fallen by the wayside, a casualty of my desire to educate myself. I knew when I left that I'd never really be able to keep up even a vague practice regimen so we decided to go on a hiatus and see if things could be picked up when I got back. Well we're looking at it, but I don't know that it'll ever be quite what it was, I think now it's most important that we just try to get back to having some fun with it. We're looking at doing some new recordings, trying to get as much done as we can that way, but I'd really like to get back into the studio and get at least one decent session just to blow the cobwebs off and see if we've still got any spark to play with.
Tartan is even deader than that, we weren't really doing much anyway and we're all really busy with or own things now, so we barely even talk these days. I'd love to get another cover band together but finding folk who would be interested isn't easy and it's a lot of work to stay in practice and actively look for gigs so that should probably wait until I find some folk who are really into the idea.
My solo music hasn't really seen the light of day either, being in Greenock really killed a lot of what was fun for me about making music since I was on my own most of the time, but I've been hitting the local open mics and karaoke here in perth, and that's been getting me some positive feedback, so I might just get a bit more proactive about that and see if I can get back into the gist of writing and recording my own music.
Speaking of recording, that's been much more exciting, Lebowski are due to release their EP soon, which was recorded in my old flat and all engineered/mastered by me. It's been quite a process getting it all together and I've really enjoyed working with the guys to get it done, I can't wait to hear the reactions to the finished product.
My next tasks in the recording world are planning out the Jeremiah recordings, getting some demos of my own stuff down and looking for new acts to record and build some relationships with.
This is sounding a little more downbeat than I'd intended, and it's not really how I feel at the minute, but I guess when you're cataloguing a lot of time then naturally it's easier to see the endings of things than new beginnings.
Being back closer to home is awesome, the thought of the 3 or 4 hour trip to Greenock is really a nightmare now, and even though I haven't really taken advantage of it, it is nice to know I can just jump on a bus or train and go back to Dundee or Carnoustie to see friends and family again anytime I want without having to take a week out to do it.
My new flatmate's working out pretty well too, Cahal's a music business student, so we're in related areas, and he's a musician as well so we've got a lot of common ground.
My recording setup has grown exponentially in the last year as well, I'm still using the MOTU and behringer units that were the core of my setup last time I wrote about it, but since then I've picked up a host of new mics, outboard equipment, live sound gear. It's awesome.
I'm in the middle of rewiring most of it into a more easily manageable arrangement, there's a lot of random wires and re-routing cables involved when I try to do stuff, so it's a case of tidying and streamlining so I can avoid any accidents and stop it interrupting my workflow to use the outboard equipment.
Right, that's things more or less caught up. Certainly enough for now! I'll try to keep this thing updated a bit more often now, for catharsis if no other reason, but I know it's probably going to be pretty hit and miss whether I remember to do it or not!