Open for business!

As of today, we are open for business. The studio is complete and I'm looking for artists to come and record here. I charge £10 per hour which is an extremely reasonable price for recording. I don't think there is any other studio locally that offer such a great deal. Contact yellowcolony@gmail.com if you are interested in using my studio.

New Equipment

I've just bought an electronic drum kit for the studio. Now drummers can lay down a groove just as they would on their own kit, and I can tweak the sounds afterwards to suit the tone of the song. You can also see my Squier Stratocaster which was recently fitted with Fender USA pickups.

Also we have got this 88 key Casio piano which has full size weighted keys and midi output.

New songs!

Just a quick post today.

I have decided to reveal a little preview featuring some of my new songs. They are not properly recorded quite yet but I'm excited to get my new stuff out there even if it's not perfect.

Listen on Soundcloud

Gear

I decided to share with you all the software and equipment I use to create my music.

Hardware used:

Line 6 UX2 USB sound card
Shure SM58 microphone
MXL 990 microphone
Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones

I've already posted a photo of my guitars in an older post. But I didn't show the acoustic that I use so here it is.

Epiphone PR-100NS acoustic

KRK Rokit 5 active monitors

Miditech Midistart Music 25 keyboard

 

Epiphone Valve Junior 5 watt guitar amplifier

Zoom B3

I use the balanced XLR output in true bypass mode as a DI. I have the 1/4 inch mono out going straight to my guitar amp. This way I can record the dry (unprocessed) signal whilst enjoying the live feel of playing through an amp. There is also a 'bonus' feature - I can turn up my amp and create natural feedback which improves the sustain of notes even on the dry signal

Software I use (in order how frequently I use them):

Audacity
Mixcraft 6
Addictive Drums
Voxengo Spectrum Analyser v1.9
ToneBoosters EBU Loudness Meter

Variety of Sound (all of their plugins ROCK)
Ignite Amps PTEq-1a
GVST Plugins by Graham Yeadon (mainly for the simple high pass filter)
Tin Brooke Tales TLs2095-LA (compressor)

TDR Feedback Compressor
jsAudio CompShaper (multi-band compressor)
Flux Stereo Tool (phase rotator)
Digital Fish Phones Blockfish (freeware compressor)
KeFir (freeware impulse response loader)

TSE BOD v2.0 (bass preamp sim)
Ignite Amps SHB-1 (bass amp sim)

Ignite Amps NRR-1 (guitar amp sim)
Ignite Amps Anvil (guitar amp sim)
Poulin LeGion (guitar amp sim)
CrySonic SpectraPhy (hard limiter for mastering)
MIDI File Mapper by Mark Heath (freeware)

Notes about Addictive Drums

For most songs I use a custom preset which has all the channels from AD sent to independant channels in my DAW. That is so I can process the drums using whatever VST plugins I want to use. I will also use the 'BryKit' preset for anything from pop punk to metal. I've found this preset to sound extremely punchy in a mix yet maintains enough authenticity to fool most people into believing a real acoustic kit was recorded!

Yellow Colony on Soundcloud

You can hear new material as soon as it is released on the Soundcloud channel: Yellow Colony Soundcloud

Album artwork ideas

Although my focus has been on the music, I have prepared a couple of album cover designs. The album title is still undecided but I've settled on Yellow Colony as the name for my band.

Hey folks!

I'm working on an EP. The songs are mainly guitar driven, alternative rock and all the instruments will be recorded, performed and mixed by myself.

Inspired by Jack Conte, I will try to make 'VideoSongs' to show how each part was performed and recorded. I hope to go a step further and even show a glimpse of the mixing process in the music video.

I'm going to reveal here all the methods used during the recording and mixing process so stay tuned as I will be posting updates every week.

left to right: Epiphone G400, Epiphone Thunderbird bass, Lindo Dark Defender