October is here and the winter is creeping in with determination, and I have bit of a story to go with this. I have no plans to bore you with my personal life, so even though I will take you on a shopping trip, just bare with me. For this project to be possible, I will need to acquire some recording equipment. Professional studios are great, but just well out of my budget at the moment. And as home recording equipment in the past ten years has dropped in price and the quality has gone through the roof, it seems like sensible way to go. For the price of handful of days in the studio, you can get some basic equipment, and with little bit of knowledge and good set of ears, you are good to go. Don't believe me? How could you record a studio quality album in your home? Well it has been done before: David Gray “White Ladder”. Part from one track this was recorded in his bedroom. Damien Rice “O” again most of the album was done in different locations on a portable set up. It can be done, has been done and continues to be done on daily basis. So I am doing some research at the moment on the kind of equipment that will suit my needs the best. But while I am doing this, I had an urgent little detail I needed to sort out and fast. My headphone situation was dreadful and when you record on computer, before you have some sort of studio reference monitors, you need a set of head phones. Here you could spend a small fortune, but in the vain of the project I am going to give an idea of what is the minimum you can get a way with. Headphones will never replace studio monitors, but there are things that studio monitors just can't do and you need the headphones for. And in the past I have learned to check my mixes on several different sources, Studio monitors, Hi Fi speakers, computer speakers, Quality head phones and your average in ear headphones. Always try to think what will your audience listen to your music with and make sure it sounds good not only in the optimal equipment, but also on the budget equipment. But going bit ahead of things here, haven't even started recording yet... But I needed headphones, and at the same time the winter is coming and I also needed a winter jacket. And I am sure it comes as no surprise that being an independent artist, I do need to be careful with any purchases bigger than your normal weekly shopping. So I had my eyes on a set of budget headphones, they were ok. But the Jacket had to come first. So again, I am not going to advertise a high street men’s clothing shop, until they sponsor me with a life time supply of flare jeans. But this shop in question was my first stop on one of my not so favourite quests of buying a winter jacket. And to my absolute delight the first one was the one I liked (the thought of dragging me through of shops is not my favourite way of spending a Saturday afternoon... Maybe a guitar shop...) so job done, good to go and I won't freeze when the winter gets here. And I spent les than I thought; the left over money would be enough for the headphones :-) But hold on! As I am paying, the staff member at the counter slips something in the bag. “What’s that?” It turns out the jacket comes with a set of half decent head phones, actually bit better than the ones I had in mind, and definitely much better than what you would expect to get as a complimentary extra with a jacket. So two birds on a one stone :-)
So what should you look for when buying headphones for home recording? I am talking about larger, cover your ears, hide form the world type headphones. Bigger is not always better, but in headphones for studio use, it very often is. Also look for comfort, you will spend endless hours using these, and you don't want your ears to feel like they're about to fall off. Also another test I usually do is to check the spill. Put the headphones on your leg (I know... sounds weird, but bare with me) press them gently and play some music through them. How much do you hear? What ever you do hear, your microphone will most likely pick up. You can invest in headphones that are built specifically for not spilling any noise (closed back or extreme isolation) but you will pay for this. Something carefully selected in the budget range will do for now.
What else have I been up to? Well, I redid the whole design on my website. The feedback from you guys was ok, not great. So I did listen :-) This time I went for the “web 2.0” model. This is actually pretty easy to achieve. It is like combining building blogs. And the beauty of it is that these building blogs will make it interactive and keep it up to date. If you have the time, click over to http://www.jpkallio.com and let me know what you think. I'm used to working in bands, and when you do, there are always several opinions on how things like the website should look like. So when everyone is happy, the website usually is done. But when I am in charge of my own website, your feedback is actually very important to me, so keeps it coming. Rehearsals are going full steam a head and I am starting to get an idea, in arrangement wise what the album is going to sound like. It is very exiting to get to this point, but there is a still lot of work to be done. I am currently looking for a reputable digital distributor, to get music to iTunes and other download shops, and we will talk about this more when I get my research done. Also to my delight, friend of mine and Great musician Eamonn Dowd has agreed to take part in my video interviews that I will include on this blog. He is performing two concerts with his band the Racketeers in Dublin, 22nd of October in the Sweeney's on Dame Street and then on 24th in the IMOCA on Pembroke row.
But for now, keep the feedback and comments coming, good or bad; I'd love to hear it. Have a great week :-)
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