Thomann is a very great shop for music-stuff indeed. Everything is easy, and i have a personal agent there who helps me with my orders. However, i called them today and they explained that
they will receive the Phonic Fireflys themself at Friday. I guess i will have my stuff saturday (okay, VERY optimistic guess) or monday. Then i can try that stuff out and hopefully start with recording the first two songs for the labels website. We’ll see- i am very excited and you’ll surely hear of my experiences here.
Archive for November, 2007
Delivery of the new equipment
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007Story of democracy and a computer crash
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007Democracy does not work. It doesn’t work in Germany nor does it work in the US. I don’t know any countrys where it works. Many people say that they are living free, but i don’t feel this is true. However, Democracy does not work in Software Development nor does it work in Heavy Metal Bands. I do not know lots of good (!) democratic bands. Most of my favourites are one-man-shows or one-man-shows with a stable line up. May it be Sodom or maybe Sisters Of Mercy, say Bathory or one of the Bands at Barbarian Wrath or similar.
However, despite this i imagined that having a band would be any good; i know, beginning with this year i told everybody that i am fed up with “band feelings”, then turned to “bands are more effective”. Now i am back to:”bands doesn’t work; it don’t work in a democratic way nor does it work when having a tyrant”.
Story is: i was promised to receive the new Cultes des Goules tracks before one or two weeks and say what, it’s not possible anymore. I received an e-mail in which Azmo and Timothy told me that they had a huge computer crash. They told me that their webserver has gone down; all data lost. Unfortuneatly all the CDG tracks where there, and they have no backup. End of story, all data lost, no work done, still at the beginning.
This was frustrating. This brought me a depression, again. Together with shit-soundcard from Terratec, this were two horrible (for me) scenarios i didn’t count with. However, after lots of whiskey (thanks, Ardbeg Distillery!) i feel better now. I wrote an e-mail to Timothy, asking, if they want to continue. But they didn’t seem to want. However, to go with my statement above, i put an end to this. I’ll wait now for my new equipment, the Phonic Firefly, and start to record myself. For this i bought a new guitar (for solos, guys, never play solos with a bass guitar haha). Songs aren’t too difficult, it’s everything about atmosphere. So i have a good chance to create an atmosphere, doom album myself, within my own timetable, with my own unique sound and without waiting for other people.
Sad story. I think i’ll have to move the release date from “end of this year” to “middle of 2008, maybe June”. We’ll see how quick i’ll be. Thanks to my friend Black Goat / Barbarian Wrath; he told me that constellation wouldn’t work before ages, and i didn’t believe him. Now i will.
Terratec Phase 88 Firewire (FW) on Intel Macs
Monday, November 19th, 2007Wow. Couldn’t believe it: i ordered everything and just one day later my stuff arrived! Thanks Thomann Musichouse, that was really great. Anyway, i started on friday to install everything… and then pain began. I dropped in my Terratec Phase 88, and say what, my Mac didn’t recognize it. This was the start of a horrible weekend… sometime the Phase 88 appeared. When i installed the software which came with the hardware, it dissappeared. Driverupdates didn’t work. I tried to upgrade the firmware (in the rare cases the fucking hardware appeared), but this ended with a strange errormessage. After that it never appeared again. I thought it could be my OS X 10.4.x installation, cause i recognized sometime that the move from PPC to Intel platform brought problems to me. So my LD still used PPC platform, while everything used Intel.
However, i made a backup of everything, hoped the best, and started to reinstall OS X. I dropped in the Phase 88- and see, it appeared. My Microphone In didn’t work and i couldn’t hear anything when working with Logic Express, so i gave the drivers a try again (and the firmware), cause i thought everything is fine with that new OS X. I started to install the firmware (latest, from terratec website) and- it failed! And: Phase 88 disappeared again!!
GWAR! What’s that bullshit? Did the Terratec people EVER test their fukking hardware on a Mac? This shit is unbelievable! I contacted Thoman this morning i told em i want a PHONIC FIREFLY 800, which is a bit more expensive, but maybe lots better for that fukking piece of shit, which they call Soundcard. I really hope this will result in everything working. I am really pissed off and if this doesn’t work, i will buy a simple and small soundcard without support for my TD-20 drums. They have to be recorded about MIDI, then. Well, this is future; i really hope my send-back-card from thoman arrive tomorror or latest at wednesday and maybe at saturday i have the new stuff at home.
The return of Doom Metal
Thursday, November 15th, 2007On normal days i have always the same or a similar bunch of CDs in my car. It’s the same procedure as every year. But I felt before weeks that my musical taste starts to change a bit again, but I didn’t realize in which direction it will lead me. But this morning I opened my CD-Box and grepped exactly one CD without thinking about it. It was CANDLEMASS – ANCIENT DREAMS, a CD which I didn’t listen to for ages. I turned on my car station and I was impressed again by the power of that record. I love it and couldn’t stop singing all the tracks with the Messiah.
After celebrating this wonderful piece of Doom Metal, I tought about what happened; in fact, I listened to a promising Band called AHAB before a few months, know the guys of OPHIS and like the releases of BARBARIAN WRATH (just heard the mp3s, but they must be good after that)- which are very oldschool doom stuff, I daresay. Much people told me that they like lots of doom stuff.
What does this mean? I think after the return of Thrash Metal a second return has started. It’s Doom Metal. The underground seems to know, lot’s of people i respect for their taste have started to find more and more Doom Metal Bands on MySpace. Maybe it will not be so explosive like the Thrash Metal revival, but Doom Metal is far from beeing dead- and that’s good news, for me!
I am excited about hearing the full albums of UPWARDS AN ENDTIME and the others. There are also lots of other bands i have to check out; so if you want to get rid of your doom stuff, drop me some lines.
New Equipment for Cultes des Goules
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007Today i ordered plenty of new equipment for Cultes des Goules and whatever is connected to that. I want the sound like raw meat. I have ordered stuff which is at quite good quality and effordable, but does not create a perfect, TÃĪgtgren like sound.
My studio, which i call “CATACOMBS STUDIOS” from now on, contains now everything i need for recording everything. However, i bought a new firewire card from Terratec Phase 88 as 19″ (of course), the T.BONE SC450 and a brandnew Sennheiser HD25 Headphone. With that i will be able to organize some cruel shit, maybe a mixture of SODOMS – FINAL SIGN OF EVIL and the old CARNIVORE LPs. We’ll see.
Meanwhile i am still waiting for the tracks from my comrades of Regensburg. When they arrive, i will record the last tracks, means voices, synths etc. immediatly. You’ll hear about my progress in this blog or at my mailinglist when bigger steps have been done.