Velvet Revolver - Slither (Cover)

Recording test (August, 2015)

Luther music recently had an awesome sale, and I managed to plunder for cheap a sweet audio interface, the TASCAM US-2000, and an entry-level drum recording 4-piece mic set, Shure's PGDMK4. So the natural thing was to head down to a studio and test the quality. Not too disappointed with the results!

Acknowledgements: Shuiyong, for the guitars, and help to setup and tear-down the recording gear.

Setup:

• TASCAM US-2000 USB audio interface (16-channel inputs, 4-channel outputs)
• Shure PGDMK4 4-piece drum mic set (3 x snare/tom mics, 1 x bass drum mic)
• Generic/cheap studio microphone as an overhead (this + crappy cymbals is the reason why the crashes sounded so bad!)
• Reaper Digital Audio Workstation

Looking forward to doing proper covers soon in the future, maybe with an accompanying video to put on YouTube! Gotta get hold of some decent overheads, cymbals and an SM-57 mic hopefully first!

Yo Highness

Drummer (Sessionist, 2015)

Lately, I've been sessioning as a drummer for a friend, Shen, in his band Yo Highness. I wouldn't be part of this if I didn't think he was a talented local singer/songwriter. How do we sound? ..well, he describes it best:

Yo Highness is noisy faux-jazzy poppy punky rock stuffed into bite-sized chunks made for the consumption of the ADD generation and anyone else who likes things sometimes sweet, sometimes salty and very bitter.

Do have a listen and check out/like our facebook page , and the bandcamp page .

Check out a couple of the demos of the songs:

, and my personal favorite, Terribles.

Work is still pretty much in progress, watch our facebook page for updates!

UPDATE: We recently played a gig at Esplanade Waterfront open theatre, as part of the NOISE mentorship showcase. Shoutout to all the folks and mentors behind NOISE Singapore, and a special thanks to our mentors Eddino and Daniel for their invaluable feedback. Here's a photo of us from the gig:

Desires

Music Technology course assignment (2011)

So in the autumn term of my second year at Imperial College London (2011), I decided to explore the world of electronic music production by enrolling in Music Technology Night Classes . I wasn't particularly interested in electronic music back then -- it all looked and sounded easy to play:

Step 1: Choose a bunch of effects
Step 2: Find some sample grooves
Step 3: Add a layer or twenty of effects
Step 4: Hit play.

Well, turned out it isn't that simple, and it does require creativity and hardwork, just like any other genre. Electronic music has such a huge palette of sounds to choose from, it is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. In conventional rock/metal/progressive/etc band setups, there is a limited set of sounds for musicians to work with, and as much as I love rock/metal/progressive/etc, electronic music has sonically more to offer in my opinion.

Anyways, I took a non-credit evening class for 3-months at Imperial where we were taught music production techniques like sampling and mastering tracks. We used Cubase LE5 as our Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), and Reason as an effects-box + drum groove builder. We used a 49-key MIDI keyboard to record live tracks, and a simple 4-channel mixer to feed and monitor audio input into the computer. All in all, it was a pretty new experience for me, and quite a challenge to think outside guitars + bass + acoustic drum paradigm.

Although neither mandatory nor graded, I did end up producing my very first electronic track at the end of the course. I named it "Desires", simply because it has a very spacey-feel to it, and its production symbolizes my desire to pursue this new hobby further. I've been told on a couple of occasions that it sounds like music for a car advertisment -- desire is an appropriate theme after all! Anyway, here it is: