Karhide

This week I’ve not had chance to play with the music applications for Linux but I’ve been playing with the development tools.  I’ve installed Eclipse, Android SDK and the ADT Plugin and built my first Android application.  Plus I’ve also set up Apache, MySQL and PHP and installed Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress within minutes.  I was really surprised how quickly it was to set up everything.  Now I have everything set up I can start work on designing the new Field Records website.  I have some ideas but it’s going to take a while.

Well it finally happened I was up in Nottingham to record the bass for the Alright the Captain album I am recording and my laptop would not boot.  It had been playing up for a little while but I took the opportunity to rebuild it as a dual boot with Ubuntu.  I’d say that it’s now working better than it has for a while and the trouble I was having with the RME Fireface 400 seems to be fixed as well under Windows XP.  I’m not sure if this is due to the updated driver or not but the old driver is working well on my Windows 7 i5 machine.

I’ve also been carrying out some tested with Ubuntu and I’ve found that the Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 works as soon as I plug it in.  I’m going to be looking in to some of the audio softare availaible for Linux including Ardour digital audio workstation, LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio) and Hydrogen drum machine.

Just been having a play with setting gear up and this is what my little studio looks like now:

There’s been lots happening over the last few months but I’ve not had any time to write about it.  But the latest is that I’ve just bought a Akai DPS 16 harddisk  multi track to use for live shows and fingers crossed it’s going to be more stable than the laptop.

I’m currently just working out the best way to ransfer over the project files but needs to have the flexability to be able to set things up for shows I play on my own to a full band with a few tweaks.

Here’s a quick shot of the multi track:

Here’s a review from the show on the 26th Jan with LaFaro:

Providing the Chameleon with its first dose of genuine creativity tonight was Karhide, who is a solo artist by day, but brought some friends along to help him with the live experience tonight (that’ll be Marty Alright The Captain and Ali Beyond These Point Are Monsters then). Combining backing tracks from a laptop with live music, Karhide shows himself as a craftsman and pioneer of driving, atmospheric sound.

The instrumental meanderings build in pace and stamina, which resonate into textured landscapes that swell in beautiful melody before falling into heavy troughs of grab-you-in-the-chest sound. As a first time listener, the music draws me in as it takes on a hypnotic persona and resonates through the minimally populated Chameleon. Karhide is definitely worth keeping an ear on. 7/10

http://onebeat.squarespace.com/main/2010/1/29/live-review-lafaro-karhide-dead-souls-amateur-assassins.html

I’ve just come across Cloudkicker and he’s giving away all his work for free and you can download it here:

http://cloudkicker.uk.googlepages.com/

LaFaro http://www.myspace.com/lafaro – This band really shouldnt need any introduction but to those who haven’t heard of them they’re one of the best bands in Northern Ireland at the moment and with the album due to drop on Smalltown america records early in 2010 this is a show you do not want to miss!

Coming from Belfast Lafaro have been described as: “old school post hardcore sounds with just drums, guitars and big chunky distorted bass and Jonny Black mangling his vocals like he’s got a mouth full of drill bits, believe me, it’s a good thing. They sound like Big Black in some garage rock hybrid blended with the explosive sounds of Girls Against Boys, Jesus Lizard, Mclusky and the likes of the Cows and other am rep artists.”

Their song ‘Tupenny Nudger’ was awarded the prestigious title of ‘Best Northern Irish song of the past 5 years’ in a poll conducted by Alternative Ulster magazine, the results of which were published in October 2008, beating the likes of Snow Patrol and Ash.

but who needs reviews, come along and see for yourself what the buzz is all about!

Support from

KARHIDE http://www.myspace.com/karhide

Tipped by Rocksound as one of 2010’s bands to watch out for, Karhide has written some sumptuous masterpieces heavily influenced by his time spent living in Maine, USA and the album Acadia is due to drop early in 2010

DEAD SOULS – http://www.myspace.com/deadsouls

AMATEUR ASSASSINS http://www.myspace.com/amateurassassins

I’m all packed and ready to head to Oxford to record From Light To Sound this weekend and I get to try out my new NT5 matched pair of mics.  One of the tracks will be going on the new Field Records comp along with a Karhide track that’s not been decided on yet.  More news soon!

http://www.myspace.com/fromlighttosound

I’ve just found the Atlantis/Karhide split 7″ on Spotify and if you have an account you can go listen by clicking here

With all the recording I have coming up I’ve just bought a Rode NT5 Matched Pair of mics to use for drum overheads.  They’ll get there first outing in a couple of weeks when I start the recording of Alright the Captain.

Rode NT5 Matched Pair