Katie Marie Photo taken by Lisa (Indigo Blue Photography) and edited by Sandra (Soul Photography)
Blimey, I’m proper pooped! But I have been doing lots of really lovely musical stuff, so I may be completely knackered but it’s all been worth it.
The Tea Total Tour is still going really well, it’s been a real mission trying to organise all the promo and advertising stuff… but the playing side of things has been so much fun. Last weekend I had two really amazing gigs. Friday night I was at the gorgeous Calstock Arts Centre (which has the most incredible acoustics) and then Saturday I was at the Studio Lounge in Totnes supporting Rae Morris (who is stupidly talented, please check her out peepsickles!).
If you fancy taking a look there’s a few more vlogs I’ve uploaded to my Youtube channel:
Looking forward to gig number 11 at the B-Bar in Plymouth this Thursday (June 14).
In between my gigs I’ve been doing lots of noodling in the studio. I don’t really get to play drums and bass that often anymore, so I thought I’d have some fun jamming with myself. First off I recorded various random drum patterns that featured very simple micing, with literally just a D112 in the kick drum and an SM58 dangled overhead. Then I grabbed my bass and started trying to come up with riffs and bassy bits to fit in around the drums. Back in the days when I used to practise an obscene amount every day this was something I used to do all the time and it really helped to get me in sync with myself so I had a really tight rhythm section for recording.
I uploaded a few of my jams to Soundcloud if you fancy a listen, they’re un-edited and extremely rough, so you’re hearing it warts and all!
I’m also in the process of creating a hybrid kit, which I hope to have completed by next week (well, that all depends on how much spare time I have to put it together lol). Most of the bits I already have, but there was one part I purchased from eBay and it arrived today – yay!
It’s sadly not the fancy new Roland Octapad (which is what I really wanted, but they’re a little bit too pricey for me). These were released in the early 90s and it’s basically a midi controller that you hook up to an external sound module and you can assign different tones to each of the pads.
I have to say I know a little bit about midi, but when I opened the instruction manual it did look slightly terrifying and a little bit more complicated that I had expected, so it’s going to take me a little while to figure out various bits and bobs, but I’ve managed to hook up a couple of drum machines and it all sounds rather nifty (especially with my Yamaha QY70, hooo yes).
So I think I’ll be spending most of my evenings armed with a large mug of tea trying to decipher the Octapad instruction manual…wish me luck!
