Quick Update

Sorry it has been a little while since the last update. We have spent the whole week recording vocals and right now we are about 95% done with them. Josh has finished up completely, and Ben has about four more songs to track harmonies for, which he should get done today. Everything is sounding really really great. It was a wonderful idea to wait to do vocals last. Hearing the vocals tacked onto everything else in the songs was like putting icing on the cake. It has been quite rewarding.

As you saw, we posted our first studio video on Monday. Stay tuned to this site, because there are plenty more where that came from.

Hopefully we will post some pictures of Josh tracking vocals tonight or tomorrow. In the mean time, if you would like to hear the chilling tale of one of Clairmont’s top three worst shows of all time, go check it out at Michael’s blog (the drummer).

Web Video 001

The first web video from the studio… enjoy!

Credit: Bernard Garceau

Long Saturday & Album Secret #3

Saturday was a long day. We were facing some crunch time on getting all the midi samples done before we head back to The Mix Lab on Sunday. We kick-started at 10 a.m. with some kolaches and donuts and we ended up calling it a night at about 9 p.m. There was a few breaks in between, but overall, it was a very busy day.

The Good News: Midi completed.

Considering we still need to add the vocals to all of these songs, it is very likely that none of these new computer tracks are set in stone yet. We may need to make some changes if any of the sounds start to clash. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all turns out at the end of this week. Here’s the final album secret that we are going to let you guys in on before we start to reveal everything.

**At last, we have finished the midi samples! Now we can look forward to adding the final touches with the vocal tracks, as well as some other small additions : tambourine, bells, noise swells, and all sorts of Great sounds. So far 10 of the 14 tracks have the midi included in them. As far as the other four songs go, you’ll just have to wait till you hear the CD to find out what those sound like.**

Pictures baby!!

P.L.A.N.S.

We are on the move again folks. Our scheduled date to return to the studio and begin the vocals is Sunday, March 9. Until then we are going to be pushing hard to get as much of the computer samples done as we can.

Friday and Saturday we will be couping ourselves in the Brown House Studio (Josh and Ben’s house) and snuggling up around the midi keyboard and computer screen.
It’s only fair that we start putting up more videos and pictures, so we will try and get some good footage for you in the process. We’ll do our best to post those by Saturday.

If you are bored and looking for something to do, go listen to this guy’s songs on myspace. Maybe even buy a couple of em off iTunes if you like it. Just make sure that you really listen to the lyrics that he is singing. It can be kind of hard because his vocals and his guitar playing are so enticing, but the words that he says in his songs are so good and so full of truth. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to a majority of the music in his genre.

I Wanna Rock…ROCK!!

For those of you who couldn’t make it out to see us at the Esotype Showcase in Houston on Saturday night, here is a 6-minute teaser video on what you missed. The video was shot and edited by our friend B.K. Garceau. So of course, thanks to him. Enjoy!

The Man Behind the Camera

For those of you who have enjoyed the pictures that we have been posting, you can direct your applause to Bernard Garceau (aka: B.K.). Bernard is a film student at Baylor University and has been a close friend of Clairmont’s for several years now. He will also be the guy putting together the video footage of our studio time, some interviews, and even some live shows that you will see posted on this site very soon. He is a huge help to us and a phenomenal artist. It’s been a real pleasure having him be such a big part of the recording process thus far.

To check out his site and some more of the projects that he has been working on, click here.

3rd Annual Esotype Showcase = Success!

Hey friends,

Sorry that it has taken us a while to update you on what’s going on with the record. We had a very busy and productive weekend. On Friday evening, B.K. Garceau drove in from Waco to get some video footage of us working on the Ableton Live sounds that we will be putting on our record. He was also kind enough to take some snap shots so that we could post them here on the blog.

After we finished up going through a few tracks, B.K. set up an hour interview with us to talk about the past, present, and future of Clairmont. We got to answer a lot of questions about what to expect from the new record that will hopefully enlighten you on what’s to come. We will of course put up several clips from this interview once we are in the waiting stage of getting the album back from duplication.

On Saturday we loaded up and drove to Houston to take part in the 3rd Annual Esotype Showcase, and it turned out to be a huge success. All the bands played beautifully, and we got to see a lot of familiar faces as well as some new ones. A big thanks to everyone who was able to come out and see it. B.K. was also able to make the trip to get some really great video footage and some more pictures as well.

Click here if you would like to browse through the photo gallery from the showcase.

For the remainder of this week, we will be working to finish all of the midi tracks that we will be putting on the record. We should have that done by the end of this weekend and then we will be able to go back to The Mix Lab starting Monday and track all the vocals.

Stay tuned to this blog. It won’t be too much longer before we start posting some videos that will give you sneak peeks at some of the songs that will be on the album. But for now, here are some pictures of us working on our midi tracks.

To view the entire gallery of studio snapshots, click here.

Album Secret #2

**Out of the 14 tracks on the album, 4 of them have the acoustic guitar as the primary guitar,  and two songs don’t have drums or bass on them at all.**

If you haven’t heard already, this Saturday is the third annual Esotype Records Showcase.  It will be held at Fitzgerald’s in Houston, TX.  The show starts at 9pm.  It should be a great night.  Five bands, 2-1/2 hours of fun music.

Here’s the lineup:

Clairmont, Hemyah, Meryll, Ethan Durelle, Tambersauro

Hope to see everyone there!

What We’ll Be Using

So as you’ve read we are approaching the time where we’ll be adding the computer based music samples into our current recordings, so I figured I would post a little equipment update to whet your appetite.

Software:
The software we will be using to create all the samples and sounds will be Ableton’s Live 6. This is a very versatile sequencer that will give us a lot of control when it comes adding synthesized elements to our music. The Essential Instrument Collection library is filled with many quality digital instruments that we have found to suit our sound quite well. If you have seen us live in the past few months you will have noticed these sounds are a vital part of our music. Not only will we create in Live, but we’ll be able to transfer the loops and samples over to our live show seamlessly. This allows for an accurate representation of our CD while performing live.

Controllers:
To control our digital instruments we will be using three primary pieces of hardware. The first (pictured left) is the M-Audio Oxygen 8. This was my first instrument that had a MIDI out and was one of the catalysts for me diving into computer music. While it may not be the most sensitive, solid, or stylish piece of hardware out there, it has served us well for the past few years and worked perfectly when creating the samples for our live show. The next piece of software we will be using is also from M-Audio, the Trigger Finger. The Trigger Finger is a 16 pad control surface used primarily for drums and is a unique, velocity sensitive device that will allow us to manually punch in beats for a more human feel. It’s controls are very user friendly and it is also useful for selecting and triggering samples live. Finally, when a more quality tone for a keyboard is needed, we’ll be using the Korg Triton Workstation LE. The Triton is an 88-Key pressure sensitive workstation from Korg that will give us the authentic piano feel. We’ll use this machine while sampling keys and to get the expressive feel we’ll need for some songs. Our good friend Craig Taylor is letting us use this one, much thanks to him.

That should cue you into to what we are about to do. We’re very excited about this production aspect of the album and are looking forward to the unique experience. Once again, we will film some parts of this process with more in depth information into what we are doing! If you’ve had any experiences with Live, Reason, Logic, whatever, we would love to hear it.

The Next Step: MIDI

Tonight was a good night. We headed down to the studio after a relaxing weekend and collected all 14 of our new songs. At this point, we have finished the drums, bass, both electric guitars, and the acoustic guitar for everything. The next step: midi. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what “midi” means, it’s basically using samples of different sounds and tones that are created on the computer. We will be posting a video pretty soon that will explain it all in depth and show you the process of how we are using this program.

Here’s a brief intro from Ben:
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Contrary to popular belief MIDI is not the crappy ring tones your phone has or Queen songs you can hear online, it’s actually a series of on and off messages that control various software based instruments. This means MIDI data can be sent to an ultra-realistic piano device, or drums, or soft-synths, etc… We’ll be using Ableton Live 6 to create and control the MIDI devices, the same software we use live, and will be posting up some short videos on how we go about creating and achieving the perfect sound.

Anyways, so now that we have in our possession the files of our new CD, we can take them back to our studio in Bryan and work on writing the midi samples to go along with each song. The reason we are going back to our studio is because it’s free and all you need in order to be able to do this is a computer and the right software. Then once we are satisfied with what we have, we will bring the newly created midi tracks back to The Mix Lab in College Station and start recording the vocals. Hazzah!

Now in honor of The Office returning to television on April 14, here is a random quote:

Michael Scott: Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you are a racist, I will attack you with the North,” and those are the principles I carry with me into the workplace.