Posts filed under 'Miscellaneous'
This is site is a blog about the attempt to record a Prog Rock album at home, while learning the skills as we go along. We’re trying to document the progress we make, and also our mistakes. The project started end of 2006 and will probably, if everything goes well, have a finished album by end of 2009.
In the download area you’ll find a couple of roughmixes. We’re posting everything that is nearly completed there, but be aware, that the final mixing and mastering will be done by professional mixing engineers once all songs have been recorded. The musicians are listed in the musicians area. On the blog main page, you’ll also find drafts, failed versions, vocal only stuff, and so on.
All in all, there will be 16 songs, plus intro and extro, and most of them are a little longish. They contain great guitars (played by Sven, not by me, so this pic here is a lie 
), lots of synth, and very good vocalists!
Hope you like it!
Take care
Helge
a.k.a. Zeitlos
October 5th, 2008
NOT!
Hey guys, I’m busy writing a novel these days, and this doesn’t leave me with too much time on my hands for anything else. But don’t hold your breath, I’ll be fully back on board again by mid of september or so. However, naturally I did have some time to buy a new computer. As usually, a Macintosh, because my beloved sequencer software Logic Pro runs on Macs only, and well, I’m not overly ashamed to admit it, I do like them apples bunches. Small, but nicely shaped apples, right? Who wouldn’t love ‘em? 
Here’s a nice pic of the new computer at the voXager study. To the right, you’ll see the old G5. It’s in perfect health, so if you wanna have it at €600,- drop me a note. For an extra fifty bucks I’ll consider not deleting the porn folder
Below there’s song 6 in a new version. Not much changed here. It’s just the first song bounced with the new intel Mac. I had to change a few instruments, but not too many. The guitars are now much wider, which increases overall transparency. I upped the mastering compressor gain by 1.5db, and the limiter by 2db. So perhaps this is already too loud. Do you hear distortion? I think there’s some, but hey. Somebody’s gonna fix that someday, right? Not me, and not today.
Cheers, and greetings to all you zombies 
Helge of voXager
PS: Titten sind Macht!
August 8th, 2008
Konichiwa everyone!
Please welcome with me our two latest crew members, Laura and Cheryl-Renée!
Laura has already appeared on “Ship of the Moon” and will lend her beautiful and mystic voice to a couple of more songs shortly. Cheryl has just recorded vocals for “Wheel in Space”, and we’re going to show you a bit of that later this spring; Cheryl’s range of voicings also includes an amazing operatic style. Go to the “Musicians” area to find Laura’s and Cheryl’s mini-bio.
 |
 |
| Laura |
Cheryl-Renée |
It is safe to assume that the female vocalist section for voXager is now complete with Henny, Laura & Cheryl. There will be another addition to the crew on the male vocalist front shortly — more about that later this millennium
Nobody’s gonna be sued today, right?
Alrighty then, off you go!
Helge
March 18th, 2008
No, latency is not what you put into your coffee to make it white. Latency is a kind of delay that happens when digitally recording music. Everyone is recording digitally these days, and usually, the recording software is aware of latency and will compensate. Sometimes, for inexplicable reasons, compensation won’t happen. With song #2, “Lizards”, we had severe latency in the guitar tracks Sven recorded; the tracks felt untight to the point of being useless. To make a bad thing worse, the latency was different for each recorded take. And we’re talking about a hundred or so takes here…
It’s incredibly difficult to figure out the exact amount of latency. You can tell that a recording is slightly off the beat. But is it running away or lagging behind? Sven and I went into every take and fixed it manually, and now it should be alright. But it took us quite a couple of hours.
Once this was done, I continued in preparing the audio-only project. Listening closely to everything a couple of more times revealed, that bass and keys didn’t match the chords in some places, so I had to fix that, too. Now, I’ve only got a vague idea of music theory, even though my songs are sometimes quite sophisticated. So, this again took me a few more days. I forgot to record the cutoff/filter movement in one of the synth lines, and had to re-do again what I redid before. Wah!
So you get the idea. Lots of excuses here why were not where we promised to be However, the final audio roughmix of song #2 “Lizards” has now been put on its tracks and should really be done by… well… let’s just say Real Soon Now
Okay, what’s more?
- Sven and I are going to work on a few songs next week
- Laura has written very nice vocal harmonies for Unto The stars
- Something is happening with song #3 “Wheel in Space”…
- The audio-only version of song #4 “Split Seconds” is up soon
- Two more musicans — vocalists — on the horizon.
- Looking for a clean male voice to complete the crew. Who’s taking?
By for now
Yours truly, 2095
Helge
February 26th, 2008
People, this whole fucking first month of ‘08 sucked balls. I know you’re not used to voXager using swear words, but that’s just the way it is. Not gonna happen again, though
But. January’s gone, and february seems much friendlier. Back from the dumps and returning to business, we’re working on the final audio version of Song 2 (Lizards) right now. Originally, this should have been finished sometime in november or december, but, you see, sometimes things just don’t work out as planned. Expect something audible coming your way next week or so.
More importantly, there might be another addition to the voXager crew shortly. Stay tuned for more information while we sort things out.
Oh, and a word of advice on an altogether different topic to all you youngsters out there: Don’t go too easy on your alien space babe – she’ll appreciate it
That’s it for now, stay calm, stay tuned, as always
yours truly
Helge
Oh, and don’t sue me, right?
February 1st, 2008
Friends and foes! Now that the summer slump is finally over, we’re ready to pick up the pieces and continue with voXager from where we left off a while ago. Right? Right!
Lately, I’ve been busy turning my study into a little project studio. I optimized one corner of the room for vocal recordings by gluing pyramid foam to walls and ceiling, and also put long Ikea curtains up the remaining walls to dampen reflections. Of course, the acoustics are still not holding up to professional standards, especially since the recording computer is not separated from the microphone (although the iMac is very silent compared to most other machines). Tentative results of vocal recordings are, however, very encouraging.
Following, I’d like to show you a few pictures of how it looks inside the, well, I’d like to call it the voXager study. “Study” as opposed to “studio” — I know I’m insane, but my insanity does not include delusions of grandeur… yet
Okay, here goes. Click to enlarge:
What’s more? Well, right now, I’m doing my best to prepare very clean and accurate audio projects of voXager’s first eight songs. Sven has re-recorded guitars for the first five songs already, and sometime early next year we’re going to re-do the vocals here at the voXager study in a better quality. I hope we’ve got something to show for by february.
Meanwhile, I’ll remain
yours truly
don’t sue me
Helge
November 29th, 2007
We had a ship full of faulty equipment. We had a ship full of lizards. Now we have a shipful of new musicians. And they’re on their way to the stars! Head over to the download area to listen to the roughmix of “Ship Of The Moon”, the first song to feature John at the drums and Laura at the microphone. Enjoy!
Yours truly
just don’t boo me
Helge
September 11th, 2007
Everybody stop what you were doing for a second to welcome John Wooten, the man at the drumkit!
John is tracking drums for voXager for quite a while already, albeit up to now, somewhat behind the scenes. In a couple of days, however, the first songs with his excellent drumwork will be uploaded into the download section of this site, so today is the perfect time for this introduction. So everybody rise to your feet and say hi
Anything else? Yes. We’ve now got all the guitars for the first five songs tracked via (and to be re-amped with) a PodXt Pro, and man, do they sound fat now! Sven and I were quite pedantic with respect to timing and audio quality, so be prepared for an indian summer blast…
Apart from that, there may be upcoming news at the vocalist front soon, but you’ll have to wait just a few days longer, dear Ms. Void (I mean, c’mon, is anybody unrelated to voXager or the musicians reading this blog at all?), until this bit of info will be unveiled.
Oh, and btw, the introductory quotes preceding many of the songs have now been recorded by a professional native american voice talent. I’ll post a sample RSN (real soon now).
Yours truly,
yadda-yadda (you know the routine),
Helge
PS: After this blog entry, I’m obviously running low on (brackets). Anybody willing to send me a pack of alphabet soup without the alphabet? Thx in advance…
September 4th, 2007
Has the Gordian knot been cut?
Who knows but some razor-sharp guitars have been re-recorded for our second song “Lizards” just some hours ago. Due to some tricky time changes in that song our (so far anonymous) drummer has to do some rehearsals before he will record the drum tracks. Meanwhile the guitar recording sessions for song four “Split Seconds” are just two days ahead.
Healthy margin for the string section, gonna have to wake up the vocalists…
That’s it for today and to quote a famous author:
So long and thanks for all the fish 
September 2nd, 2007
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