Something Old and Something New (Re-animator)

Re-animator is the title of our latest effort. For this song I decided to sing in some different areas I have yet to try, as well as utilizing some older vocal styles I haven't used in a while. I wanted to use my voice tone to help aid in visualizing the atmosphere around what was happening in some other way than just with words. I wanted the song to have a dark ominous feel to it in the verses by utilizing more baritone. In the chorus I wanted to convey the struggle of identity with tense and relaxed, coarse and calm vocalizing while maintaining fluidity from each line to the next. The guitar for this one is mostly fuzz distortion palm muted off and on...pretty basic what I call "me guitar". It works well with just about everything, and it's kind of my go to sound as its compliments my voice pretty well- that and growing up every song I enjoyed had the same thing, "fuzzy palm muting off and on", so its now engrained in my musical DNA to use it as often as humanly possible!

Re-animator is about a town somewhere dark and old where a mad scientist lives who re-animates the dead from time to time. The scientists minions bring him a girl who has just died and he re-animates her. The girl, now resurected and programmed to do the mad scientists bidding, has somehow retained a portion of her own thoughts and she is at war with herself trying to come to grips with her new self.
Super neat sci fi tradgedy...good stuff. Check it out!

Research and Planning for New Equipment

Well everyone this week we decided to get clear and concerned about the next step in the "Gravity" process. This involved researching the best possible equipment in regards to studio and live sound as well as expanded function. After researching amps we decided to allocate finances for two keyboard amps (K1800Fx Ultra-Flexible 180-Watt 4-Ch PA System / Keyboard A), mixer (Behringer XENYEX1002FX 10 Input 2 Bus Mixer EQ 24fx), and 2 Heil pr35 microphones. We chose keyboard amps because they have a full range of sound so we can run EVERYTHING through a mixer and out of them. Having all of the sound- vocals, guitars, etc. running this way is great because your not competing with other amps and having to find the right room placement and angles for optimum sound. Anyone who has ever been in a band or has had to set up larger equipment knows the turmoil of moving everything around trying to find the best spot for amps without overpowering or feedbacking into something else. This usually involves some sketching on paper to get an idea of what it should look like. (My friends would always draw little sound wave lines to prove their idea to be the best). In my own experience I have just found that using a single mixer and having everything run together to be the most efficient and effective way to channel the sound. It's way less time consuming, cheaper, less stressful, and that to me makes it the best way to go as far as setting up. All of that being said, finding the right place for microphone placement is still tough..unless your willing to pay out the butt for superior mic's...but alas we found the Heil pr35's that are a third of the price of some of the others out there and user reviews have been singing its praises (literally)!
So, we decided to go with the Heil pr35 microphones because of the flexibilty of use for recording and for using live. Supposedly these microphones block out the other sounds around it and only pick up what's directly on it (you and your voice) so your not competing against the drums or guitars for your microphone. I have always had trouble when using other microphones because of this competition and it causes all sorts of issues like feeback squealing, having to almost yell everything (which if that's all you plan to do then you shouldn't have this problem), and weird pitch changes. These microphones also have this "roll off" switch that let's you combat feedback and too much low end sound. Super exicited to try these out!
Now for the saving which is always the hard part but so very rewarding when all is and and done, and at least now we know what we need and how much we need to budget for.