To little fanfare, The Passage was released on MP3 this week.

Buy it here.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thepassagealbum

My page.

Finished and satisfied with it.

Busy couple of weeks:

1. Composition project 1 is approved, submitted, done.

2. Finished a bunch of work on The Passage.  I did a rendering – 2.1- that had some weird problems (a set of string tracks picked up some delay, and a few of the cross fades in tracks were off). Re-did it -2.11- and changed to mastering setup for the 2nd, 5th, and heavy part of the 4th tracks – 2.12-. I’m still not totally convinced of the mastering patches, but the underlying composition, etc. is finished.

3. Agreed to do some editing on a recording by Margaret “Meg” Schedel. That means a weekend trip to NY.

4. Finished app for an audio programs I am applying to for next year.

5. Remaster Kallisti’s Holiday 2.0 and rendered at 48k for upcoming usage in Monkey Angel Studio’s next project.

6.  Started remix work on FLE Vol. I No.4 for Mystery Cabal re-release.

7. Did some initial brainstorming on another piece for Art Bouton.

8. Migrated guitar-computer-amp rig to Max 5 from Max 4.6. Pretty seamless in most of my patches.

9. Mastered a recording of Kallisti playing a short set on acoustic instruments. Probably will include it with some upcoming Complete Kallisti Recordings release.

Busy week:

1. We did the last SPMC event for awhile. We are most likely losing the O+T space, so I’ll be search for a new host after the new year.

2. Updated the text for the mystery cabal site.

3. Did a bunch of listens and note-taking on the solo guitar stuff. Debating titles. I hope to take care of the couple of edits this weekend.

4. I did some work for Mentormeter Media.

5. More apps.

I haven’t written much for the last few months, so there is quite a bit of new info.

First, I was awarded a Beverly Sears Grant from CU to record Song & Dance for Alto Saxophone and Piano with Art Bouton and David Shuey. We will do the session next week with a student from Lamont as engineer and me as producer.

I have been remixing the Kallisti track She Got to learn my way around all of my new ProTools Plug-Ins (I bought a 003R Factory in January). I have made a bunch of changes trying to eek the best sound out of the original tracks. It reminded me how great that friggin’ song is. One of the best things I’ve been a part of. Check out the remix here.

I did a gig and some recording sessions with the Invisible College Quartet (Paul Hembree, Steven Snowden, Chris Rippey, Me). This group has some great ideas. I think there is at least one good CD there if we could just get together with some regularity.

Speaking of recording, I rearranged the studio into a more conventional studio/control room setup. I got all of the vintage analog synths up and plugged into the Mackie 24×8 (which serves as a studio submix for various things like keys, junk, electronic drum kits, etc). I bought another line regulator to run more gear on. Good power makes such a difference with electronics!

I am planning to re-record Distillations for the Distillations Set CD on Monday.

I’m looking at swapping the Behringer BCR2000 out for a 25-key controller. I just don’t use that many rotary controller, so I think I’ll use that with the desktop workstation. I borrowed a DBX 166xl compressor/gate from Conrad and added it to the rig. I really needed another few channels of compression and some more gate options.

I put together an Ableton version of the drum loops for The Passage (with Tosca String Quartet). After some careful listening. I am going to retrack a bunch of the guitar stuff. I just didn’t get the tone in the tracks, so I’ve had to do way to much doctoring. The result is weak. Beyond the tone, the piece has taken shape and there are quite a few places I think I can get a better take then I did. It seems like I might never finish this thing, but I just want it to be right. I’ve put enough time and money into it that I don’t want to cut corners on this one.

The SPMC series will have the final show of our first season this week. We started with the Playground and we’ll end there.

Still working on the guitar rig. New developments to come.

I replaced the battery on my laptop, and it solved the weird problem I was having with my monitor.

Ha!

This continues from an earlier thread:

http://www.brandonvaccaromusic.com/comp_blog/?p=36

Here it is:

http://www.mysterycabal.com/audio/distil.html

I have been working a recording of the “Distillation Set” for the last month or so. I have a pretty good version with the best stuff from several takes. I was talking to Lynn Baker about it on Sunday at Tatsuya’s SPMC show. I commented that I was trying to be very conscious of the narrative in patching together different versions. He laughed at me. For so long, I avoided narrative in pursuit of a different type of consciousness-changing experience in my music. As thought about it, I realized I wasn’t really working with a narrative so much as a meta-narrative. Read the rest of this entry »

We did another Soundscapes Presented by Mystery Cabal show last night featuring the Dialtones (Lauren Gurgiolo) from Austin. I played a solo set and sat in with Lauren.

This will probably be the last time I play the Distillations set in public for awhile. I’ve decided to retire it and start another project from scratch. It was one of the better times with that set, so I gave it a good send off. I’ll be recording it regularly for the next few weeks to compile a bunch of versions to select the best for the “official” recording for the dissertation.

This was also the first show with the new setup. It worked much better, other than that I didn’t have MIDI controls setup right on the sampler in the TSR-24s, so I kept turning my back on the audience. I’ll have to fix that.

I worked with Todd and Luke tonight on the Distillations set. I only got to play Distillations, but it gave them a chance to give me some good feedback.

Todd talked a lot about my setup. He didn’t like the fact that my computer was off to the side. I kept having to look over at it instead of performing to the audience. I also had a printed score and he suggested that anything like that should be on the laptop screen in Max. He suggested relocating the laptop to a small table or a stand in front of me, but low enough that people can bee what I’m doing. He liked that fact that I rolled in with as much gear as I do, and yet I was able to get everything running quickly and efficiently. We also talked a bit about the form of Distillations, though a lot of his comments might have been moderated in the context of the whole set.

Luke brainstormed ideas to integrate Jitter into the piece. He got a real film noir feel from the piece, so we talked about some different things to try. I wouldn’t have gone that direction; I was held creative hostage by my own knowledge of the origins of Distillations. It gave me something to try.

I may have to cycle this set back around with multimedia after a break.

I spent the day tracking a new studio recording of Distillations and the improv thing I’ve now put with it.  I’m going to present this in the Luke DuBois Masterclass next week.