Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Production Diary
Those of you with a keen eye will have noticed that there is a new link up top, called 'Diary'. No, it's not a place for me to pour my heart out like a love sick teenager - instead, I'll be recording as much of the writing/tracking/mixing process as possible and posting it up there as it progresses. Bookmark it or subscribe to the feed and prepare for some total geekout material...
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Chimp Spanner interview in Classic Rock: Prog
Readers of Classic Rock presents Prog will have noticed that 'Under One Sky' made it onto the cover disc of the last issue. This issue you'll find an interview by Dom Lawson and a picture of yours-truly so offensively large, you can practically count the hairs in my beard. On sale now!
A massive thank you to Dom for the immensley kind words, and to James at Hold Tight! PR for getting the album out to the right ears. Have a good evening everyone!
A massive thank you to Dom for the immensley kind words, and to James at Hold Tight! PR for getting the album out to the right ears. Have a good evening everyone!
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
New site...and a fresh start!
Why didn't anyone tell me the old site looked so bad? You guys placate me too much. The new site is here and while still missing some bells and whistles, it's generally nicer to look at. There are a few things still yet to come - a Downloads area (including TABs), a tidied up Media section, and sadly Imperium Vorago has once again bitten the dust. But it will be back! I'm sourcing some nifty dual CD cases so in future, double orders will come in one -uncracked- case.
As for news, Euroblast is still looming on the horizon and all is set for October. I've recently forged a simian alliance with the good folk over at Toontrack, so expect a whole bunch of tests and clips and WIPs. And also, I'm very pleased to announce I am on board team Roland. This does indeed mean what you think it means...no more keyboard drumming.
That's all for now. The site will be added to slowly but surely. Again. If you have any problems with the site, or the store, just head over to the contact form.
As for news, Euroblast is still looming on the horizon and all is set for October. I've recently forged a simian alliance with the good folk over at Toontrack, so expect a whole bunch of tests and clips and WIPs. And also, I'm very pleased to announce I am on board team Roland. This does indeed mean what you think it means...no more keyboard drumming.
That's all for now. The site will be added to slowly but surely. Again. If you have any problems with the site, or the store, just head over to the contact form.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Bernie Rico Jr endorses Chimp Spanner
Hey all! You might have seen/heard a few rumblings here and there but, it's official:
http://www.ricojrguitars.com/news.php
Paul is an intensely gifted musician/guitarist and an architect of an unusual blend of music which merges Metal and Fusion with a plethora of other eclectic musical styles. The cuts on this album go from surreal and atmospheric to poly rhythmic and melodic heavy metal within a moments notice. The technique surrounding his playing coupled with his incredible ability to compose, orchestrate and deliver mind altering music is an awe inspiring experience.
It is truly a delight to work with Paul on making him custom guitars. We salute you and your creativity Paul and look forward to working with you in the future.
Bernie Rico Jr."
An absolutely gigantic thank you must go to Keith Merrow (if you haven't heard his music, please do so now.........done? Cool!) for helping to arrange this, and to Bernie for choosing to get directly involved in the development of artists both established, and up-and-coming. It's truly refreshing, and I can't wait to get my hands on these instruments and play the hell out of them!
You can find out more about his custom shop guitars at the link above.
http://www.ricojrguitars.com/news.php
"Bernie Rico Jr Guitars is honored and delighted to post this endorsement of alliance with Paul Antonio Ortiz : Chimp Spanner. One of the many great perks of being in the guitar industry is the gift of meeting unique artists and the honor of hearing their music. Another perk is working with these artists on crafting their very personal handmade guitars. Last month we were given a release for review titled "At the Dream's Edge". The music explodes in your ears. If we had to sum up what we heard on this album in one word the word would have to be WOW.
Paul is an intensely gifted musician/guitarist and an architect of an unusual blend of music which merges Metal and Fusion with a plethora of other eclectic musical styles. The cuts on this album go from surreal and atmospheric to poly rhythmic and melodic heavy metal within a moments notice. The technique surrounding his playing coupled with his incredible ability to compose, orchestrate and deliver mind altering music is an awe inspiring experience.
It is truly a delight to work with Paul on making him custom guitars. We salute you and your creativity Paul and look forward to working with you in the future.
Bernie Rico Jr."
An absolutely gigantic thank you must go to Keith Merrow (if you haven't heard his music, please do so now.........done? Cool!) for helping to arrange this, and to Bernie for choosing to get directly involved in the development of artists both established, and up-and-coming. It's truly refreshing, and I can't wait to get my hands on these instruments and play the hell out of them!
You can find out more about his custom shop guitars at the link above.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Chimp Spanner signs to Basick Records
Hey everyone! I'm extremely pleased to announce that At the Dream's Edge will be officially released on Basick Records, on April 12th, 2010!
You can read the official announcement here!
I'll gradually be replacing the videos - this, btw, is why they had to come down - with newer, better ones, including songs that you won't have seen played before!
So thanks for your patience while I bring this all together. In the meantime, feel free to come and say hi at www.facebook.com/chimpspanner to keep up to date with all the latest goings on, and once again an absolutely gigantic thank you to those of you who supported me, and the album so far. Here's to a fantastic 2010!
- Paul
You can read the official announcement here!
I'll gradually be replacing the videos - this, btw, is why they had to come down - with newer, better ones, including songs that you won't have seen played before!
So thanks for your patience while I bring this all together. In the meantime, feel free to come and say hi at www.facebook.com/chimpspanner to keep up to date with all the latest goings on, and once again an absolutely gigantic thank you to those of you who supported me, and the album so far. Here's to a fantastic 2010!
- Paul
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Missing Videos...
.Hey all!
Just a quick note regarding the missing videos from my YouTube account as I've had a lot of people asking me where they've gone!
I'm currently redoing the videos, for reasons which will hopefully be a bit clearer very soon :) Expect the first one to be up by the end of the week, with more to come including a Terminus video (not sure what I'll do about all the ambience...suggestions on a post card).
But in any case, apologies to anyone who has been trying to get to the videos or people who have subscribed to my channel only to find everything gone. Cheers for your patience, and I hope the new videos will make up for it!
- Paul
Just a quick note regarding the missing videos from my YouTube account as I've had a lot of people asking me where they've gone!
I'm currently redoing the videos, for reasons which will hopefully be a bit clearer very soon :) Expect the first one to be up by the end of the week, with more to come including a Terminus video (not sure what I'll do about all the ambience...suggestions on a post card).
But in any case, apologies to anyone who has been trying to get to the videos or people who have subscribed to my channel only to find everything gone. Cheers for your patience, and I hope the new videos will make up for it!
- Paul
Sunday, 3 January 2010
"Untitled" (2010) Pt 1
Hey everyone! So I thought seeing how I never did get around to writing those articles (notice how I cunningly removed the links?) I'd go through all the steps involved in the making of the next album ambitiously scheduled for the end of 2010. That way, it keeps things interesting, and it will also force me to make some progress as you'll all know when I've not been working ;) I also now own a camcorder! So expect to see plenty of tracking videos, and a hilarious blooper reel. Okay. Maybe not that last one.
So here's my new template. Real exciting isn't it. I'm going to be doing things quite differently this time around. With "At the Dream's Edge" I was writing, arranging, tracking, mixing and producing all at once. At the time I thought it was pretty neat, but in reality it made re-writing any part of a song an absolute nightmare, as the songs would degenerate into a tangled mess of automation lanes and parts and odds and ends. I had no option to re-amp, so I was stuck with the tone I tracked with. And my CPU was constantly hovering around 60% or so, limiting the type and complexity of the synths I could use. So for the next CD I'm going to attempt to do things way more traditionally, and split up all the processes:
Writing
Practicing
Tracking
Mixing
Producing/Mastering
So this template is where it will all start! I've made a bunch of tracks prefixed with "T". These are just going to be scratch tracks, no doubt with a lot of dropping in, copy and pasting, etc. I'll use them to learn/practice from when I'm happy with the arrangement. I'm hoping this way I'll be able to get out of the "sets of 4" trap, and do things because I want to...not just because they involve the least faffing around.
Those folder tracks will be the final takes. Each one has two tracks within it; wet, and dry. The wet track will just serve as a placeholder so I can record something vaguely amp-y sounding and listen back to it without using any CPU. The dry track will be the unprocessed signal of the guitar so I can re-amp later. Here's a look at it in the mixer:
Having the dry take at -inf doesn't affect what gets recorded. I've just done this so I don't have to listen to the uninspiring fart sound created by bone dry rhythm guitar. You'll also notice that I've got 3 input buses. This is how they're set up/routed:
I've set the X3 to output dry guitar over SPDIF (so there's no loss in quality) and the fully effected sound over 1/4" Line Outs. I've kept a stereo input bus in there so I can work out solo sections whilst hiding behind masses of reverb/delay. Makes me feel safe. Of course, using the old method I could've just tracked with send effects - so it does have its advantages but in the short tests I've done, there's a really noticeable difference in my playing when there's no latency present. Speaking of which, one last thing I've done is route the analog inputs directly to outputs 1/2:
Before, if I wanted to hear guitar I had to:
Have Cubase open
Create a track
Arm it
Monitor it (with 3 - 5ms of base latency, + whatever is added by additional plugins)
This way, all I have to do is turn the volume up on the guitar and start playing with zero latency. Much better. The only downsides I can foresee are:
[::] Reverbs/delays are going to sound mighty sucky, as the tails will be 'printed' to the take. If I stop recording, the effect stops too.
[::] Things like wah/whammy pedal will not get recorded on the dry take. Might have to automate these in later. But we'll see.
So, that's it for now. It's taken a little while to put the template together. Next up, I'll go into a bit more detail regarding the drums, and try and get a test video done and dusted!
So here's my new template. Real exciting isn't it. I'm going to be doing things quite differently this time around. With "At the Dream's Edge" I was writing, arranging, tracking, mixing and producing all at once. At the time I thought it was pretty neat, but in reality it made re-writing any part of a song an absolute nightmare, as the songs would degenerate into a tangled mess of automation lanes and parts and odds and ends. I had no option to re-amp, so I was stuck with the tone I tracked with. And my CPU was constantly hovering around 60% or so, limiting the type and complexity of the synths I could use. So for the next CD I'm going to attempt to do things way more traditionally, and split up all the processes:
Writing
Practicing
Tracking
Mixing
Producing/Mastering
So this template is where it will all start! I've made a bunch of tracks prefixed with "T". These are just going to be scratch tracks, no doubt with a lot of dropping in, copy and pasting, etc. I'll use them to learn/practice from when I'm happy with the arrangement. I'm hoping this way I'll be able to get out of the "sets of 4" trap, and do things because I want to...not just because they involve the least faffing around.
Those folder tracks will be the final takes. Each one has two tracks within it; wet, and dry. The wet track will just serve as a placeholder so I can record something vaguely amp-y sounding and listen back to it without using any CPU. The dry track will be the unprocessed signal of the guitar so I can re-amp later. Here's a look at it in the mixer:
Having the dry take at -inf doesn't affect what gets recorded. I've just done this so I don't have to listen to the uninspiring fart sound created by bone dry rhythm guitar. You'll also notice that I've got 3 input buses. This is how they're set up/routed:
I've set the X3 to output dry guitar over SPDIF (so there's no loss in quality) and the fully effected sound over 1/4" Line Outs. I've kept a stereo input bus in there so I can work out solo sections whilst hiding behind masses of reverb/delay. Makes me feel safe. Of course, using the old method I could've just tracked with send effects - so it does have its advantages but in the short tests I've done, there's a really noticeable difference in my playing when there's no latency present. Speaking of which, one last thing I've done is route the analog inputs directly to outputs 1/2:
Before, if I wanted to hear guitar I had to:
Have Cubase open
Create a track
Arm it
Monitor it (with 3 - 5ms of base latency, + whatever is added by additional plugins)
This way, all I have to do is turn the volume up on the guitar and start playing with zero latency. Much better. The only downsides I can foresee are:
[::] Reverbs/delays are going to sound mighty sucky, as the tails will be 'printed' to the take. If I stop recording, the effect stops too.
[::] Things like wah/whammy pedal will not get recorded on the dry take. Might have to automate these in later. But we'll see.
So, that's it for now. It's taken a little while to put the template together. Next up, I'll go into a bit more detail regarding the drums, and try and get a test video done and dusted!
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