Skyman was the first band project to come out of the Bluevibe studio and this gig was recorded back in 2004 if my memory is correct. We had a core of 4 members but expanded out to 8 members depending on who wanted to come and join in when we played live. We played quite a few gigs but only ever recorded one of them so I thought I’d get it online so you could check it out.

Skyman was based around core song elements played live from a sampler and a lot of instrumental improvisation. Each gig was completely individual and the songs never got played the same twice.

The skyman idea was based around writing a core set of elements for a song and then giving all the members of the band copies of the rough songs to have a listen to and come up with some more elements. We then had a practice to run through the songs, have a jam on the ideas, see how everybody was doing, more social than musical usually. We would then turn up to the gig, decide on a set list and play.

Here’s a run down of how it all worked at the podcast gig from the St James in Auckland:

• all the beats and samples run from the Yamaha rs7000 sampler and consist of loops which can be remixed live.
• I ran the sampler and played guitar.
• Kerry Adams also ran the sampler as well as jumping on the decks for the cuts.
• Ryan Marshall on bass, core member of the team and always smooth and solid.
• Deb Toko on vocals, great voice and ability to improvise every time.
• Johnny Flurry on the chapman stick which is basically used to either play bass or gat and trigger samples from Johnny’s rack. Stunning skills and one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with.
• Graham on percussion, exciting percussionist (mean cricketer too!!)
• finally we had Shanti join us on stage for this gig, amazing mc with some of the deepest lyrics around, mad skills for a young un.

As you can probably tell from the tracks this was recorded as a two track straight out of the desk so the mix is all over the place but still gets across the “impro” nature of what we tried to achieve on the night. Let me know what you think, if you’ve got any questions on the gear or players then hit me up. enjoy.

Related posts/pages

• Skyman – Believe promo e.p. (0)
• The Shades – Wait a minute (0)

Bluevibe remix

Proof remix

After getting the “Fallin” track on the Loop recording compilation and doing a few gigs we decided to put out a Skyman promo e.p. with 2 versions of “Believe” on it. The original version of believe can be heard on the 3 track podcast from our live set and was a completely different version from the final promo release. I could never really finish the original version, it worked well live but just never had the right feel to it in the studio.

The funk version of Believe was actually written in a few days and took the vocal and piano from the original along with a heavy sample break, funk guitar and horns plus that 808 boom under the break. Deb’s vocal for the track was always wicked and didn’t need anything too busy under it, I guess that’s why this version worked for me.

The Proof remix is an 11 minute monster in typical Tech style, I helped on some final tweaks with some of the strings and fades. Tech lost the whole song after a computer system failure so the only version we had was a 16bit bounce which is the only real copy of this track still in existence (back shit up people back shit up!!). We just burned and printed about 100 copies of the e.p. and sent it out to all the NZ radio stations and DJ’s we thought might play it, it got some good support and was an excellent learning process. You can buy the tracks on line at amplifier but we dont have any hard copies left, not sure we even have one in the studio now!

I’ll be posting more about our on going promotion strategies for our future tracks, if you’ve got any thoughts and suggestions on promoting yourself in NZ then just let me know. Our next step for promotion is getting our tracks heard internationally which is an altogether different propositon than getting local play. We’re still getting our plan of attack together for that so any suggestions would be great.

Related posts/pages

• Skyman live in Auckland (0)
• The Shades – Wait a minute (0)

• Bluevibe studio – This life volume.1 – the latest EP from the Bluevibe studio was released on October 15th 2008 and is available through many of the online music stores
• Skyman – Fallin (Bluevibe remix) – released on The Greenroom 002: Wahine by Loop recordings
• Skyman – Believe (Bluevibe remix ) is also available as a digital download through Amplifier.co.nz
• The Ghostfaders – The Archives vol.1 EP -  is currently available as a free download so head over here to get it The Ghostfaders - The Archives Vol.1 , we will also send out promo CD’s to radio stations and DJ’s so hit me up if you want a hard copy and dont want to just burn it yourself.

Related posts/pages

• The Artists (0)
• Skyman live in Auckland (0)

Bluevibe is my home studio and is based around a Nuendo/Cubase DAW with RME convertors. As you can see from the pictures below it’s a real mess and a pleasure to work in!

I’m a big fan of sampling and still have my first sampler which is an Emu esi32 with a huge 8mb of memory. As any old skool people will know 8mb would go a long way when your slicing up breaks and inserting loop pints in 0.5 second samples!! The emu still gets used but I now mostly use NI Kontakt and the Yamaha RS7000 for my sampling duties.

I’m also a big hardware fan and have a few synths, drum machines and sequencers in the studio when I’m in the mood for some hands on action. The Roland SH101 and the Waldorf Pulse are still 2 of my favourites and are always a source of inspiration. The Yamaha RS7000 is an amazing piece of kit, perfect for sampling and sequencing. The RS was the heart of the Skyman project and is perfect for improvising with sequenced beats and bass.
I’ve used cubase on and off since the days of the Atari ST and still prefer it to any other recording package. I’ve recently started looking at Ableton Live which will probably make it’s way in to the studio soon. The DAW hold a range of VST effects and instruments as well as my UAD1 card, possibly the best bit of computer hardware anybody could invest in.

I’ll be going through some of the kit in more detail in the blog but if you have any questions then just let me know, I’m always happy to discuss the merits of z-plane filters and tape saturation.

Related posts/pages

• Studio gear repairs in NZ, the insiders guide. (0)
• SampleSwap.org – the original sample resource (0)

Bluevibe studio

With influences from Talkin Louds UK soul through the beats of Dilla to the futuristic essence of Spacek and Marc de Clive Lowe – Bluevibe studio mashes up some beautiful vocal performances from Lisa Preston and Lesley Paton to bring you This life volume.1 , the first in a series of EP releases from the heart and soul of the Bluevibe studio. This life volume.1 also features the keyboard skills of Lewis Macallum on the track High times plus 2 bonus Bluevibe studio remixes previously only released in demo form.

Skyman

Skyman was a live / electronic collective of musicians and producers from Auckland who formed in 2002. Skyman’s music was a blend of dirty beats and tape saturation. Skyman performed un-scripted, ‘re-mix’ style shows that gave the crowd a unique experience every time. This ‘dub plate’ style of performance is derived from a UK influenced passion for live samplers combined with a local style of musical improvisation.

‘Fallin’ the 2003 Skyman release featured on the LOOP Recordings compilation ‘Green Room .002 Wahine’. Skyman have played shows with many of NZ’s leading live acts including Open Souls, Rhian Sheehan, The Nomad, Minuit, 50HZ, and Dejusa.

The Skyman project is currently on hold as I’m working on a few different projects which are more studio based projects. I’d love to get out playing live again but need to focus more on working on my productions skills and working on a wider range of of collaborations and remix’s.

The Ghostfaders

The Ghostfaders first e.p The Archives vol.1 is currently available as a free digital download The Ghostfaders - The Archives Vol.1. The Ghostfaders project is all written, played, programmed and produced by me and has a more live feel to it than my other projects. This will be an ongoing project and I’ve already started a new batch of Ghostfaders tracks, although I won’t be writting them all in one weekend this time!

BVX

BVX is an ongoing project which I hope to release some tracks from in early 2008. Based on heavy beats and synths these tracks will be a much more upbeat sound than previous Bluevibe studio projects. I’ll be posting some of the BVX demo’s over the next couple of months as I’m looking for vocalists and synth players to collaborate on the tracks.

Related posts/pages

• The Archives Vol.1 – The Ghostfaders (1)
• Skyman live in Auckland (0)