Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Live Session Music Video Recordings

Having videos of live performances is essential for any musician to add to their electronic press kit (EPK). While we've taken videos of live performances using iPads and cameras, we thought it would be awesome to have some professional videos. We've been recording our full length album at Full Fidelity Studios. They've recorded live music in the studio before, and it sounds fantastic. The instruments are mixed, and some post-production can be applied (reverb, chorus, etc...), all benefits that you can't do with a simple iPad recording. We also decided to have Brian of Unknown Prophet Picture do the video. They've worked in tandem with Full Fidelity Studios a number of times, and they've created some great results. We recorded:

1. Rolling in the Deep - Adele
2. Ex's and Oh's - Elle King
3. Don't Stop Believing - Journey
4. Sweet Child O Mine - Guns n' Roses
5. Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

We were worried that the studio would be too small. While it was a tight fit, it worked out perfectly. All the extra equipment and instrument cases were cleared out of the studio. The studio was pretty much a sauna all night. We'd frequently step out into the hall in between takes to cool off. While we were confident with the songs that we chose to record, there was still a lot of pressure when trying to play a song perfectly. We did about 3 - 6 takes on each song.

Steve, the sound engineer and producer would tweak guitar sounds, tune drums, or talk to us about speeding up or slowing down the tempo. We even experimented with dropping the key of "Don't Stop Believing" a full step, and then a half step.

Brian was always giving us helpful suggestions like where we should stand, adjusting the lights. and was just a professional and fun guy to work with. He had 3 cameras at different angles, and he'd zoom in at different people throughout our songs.

We heard some of the unmixed songs that Steve recorded, and they sounded awesome! We cannot wait to get the final products!  All in all, we had a great time, and we enjoyed working with Steve and Brian and we'd recommend their services to anybody! Check out their pages!

Meet Steve the Sound Engineering Wizard

Allison replaced Mark after she wowwed Aaron with her mad bass skills.


Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Last Song Recorded In The Studio!

We've been working on our CD for the past year at Full Fidelity Studios. We've almost laid down all the instruments and vocals on most of our 10 tracks. We have been holding of on one last song, "Blowing Up Everything." The great thing about working with the staff at the studio is that they give great suggestions about song composition. Steve and Curtis, prepared a short demo of a few minor changes that added a lot to the song. Afterward, we laid down a rhythm base track inspired by the short demo. Now we will go into the studio to lay down individual tracks to the song, and then we're pretty much done. They'll mix the songs, and we'll critique them, decide if we want more cowbell or if we to add another guitar harmony. We're really excited to release it! It sounds awesome thus far!

Everyone did an excellent job last night, I love working with these guys!



Sunday, August 7, 2016

Website Revamp

We've made several changes to our website, to make it easier for potential clients to navigate.

  •  Before, there was a lot of info condensed into a few pages. Now, there are many simple pages that make it easier for a client to get to the info that they need. For example, there was a music page, where the setlist, original music, and live session videos were located. Now we have three separate pages.
  • Added a Videos page. We'll add music videos, and live session videos once we've filmed them. 
  • On the shows page, I added links to each of the 'Past Shows' portraits, that link to their corresponding Facebook album. While this part was easy, it was very time consuming to reorganize all of our Facebook photos.
  • Added a photos tab
  • The link to this blog is more visible.

Give it a look let us know what you think!

www.8thDay.rocks

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Prestman Auto Grand Opening Gig

We were asked by Prestman Auto to play this gig 4 days ago (Wednesday). Even though it was last minute, we had our 4 hour set list prepared, practiced, and ready to go. I was thrilled that everybody had the availability to do it. Aaron had a military training on Saturday, but they were ahead of schedule, and were looking to give the students a day off. When Aaron talked to them, they decided to make the day off today (Saturday). This is our 4th gig in the past month. We've made enough money to almost cover all the expenses of our various projects, such as our album recording, and our live session recordings. I'm truly grateful for all the opportunities that have come our way!

This event was really cool. It was to celebrate the grand opening of a new car dealership. They had the official ribbon cutting on Thursday, and today they had a carnival. They had bouncy houses, a car show, free food trucks, free drinks, golf, prizes, free swag, and of course, a live band (us). We played in the parking lot. It was a mighty hot day, reaching triple digits at it's peak. We were glad that we came prepared with canopies. Even with the canopies, I still got a pretty good sun burn! We feel like we did an excellent job. The mix was awesome and we were the appropriate volume for playing outdoors. We got a lot of good vibes from the people there, and lots of people were dancing, and we received lots of compliments.

 Towards the middle, we got an unexpected gust of wind. All the canopies of all the vendors almost flew away. We fastened ours with bricks after that incident. One of Aaron's mic stands got bent. At the very end, when we were taking all of our stuff down, a flash downpour erupted. We had to scramble to protect all of our precious gear from drowning.

Overall, it was an excellent gig, and we are excited to play there again. Here's some photos, thanks to Aaron's mom!

Our setup in the front

They had lots of cool cars as part of the car show

Aaron liked this one

Renato couldn't decide between the Audi and the Ferrari

After much deliberation, he decided on the Audi. Unfortunately, they wouldn't accept our band swag as payment.

This delicious BBQ Sandwich was one of the many delicious items from the food trucks.


Aaron had a good time on the bouncy houses until his mom told him that he was too old to be playing on them.










Thursday, August 4, 2016

Wedding Reception

We were contacted last week to play at a Wedding Reception last week. The groom is the one who contacted us, we were a surprise for his bride-to-be. She loves the genre that we play. After we played, a DJ came on and played Latino Dance Music. The crowd was awesome, people were dancing, singing along, and cheering us on. The colors were Navy Blue and Pink. The food was delicious.  We played in the front yard, which was unusual, but it was huge, and the neighbors were far apart. We wish the best to Hyrum and Anna!

Hopefully we'll get more photos from the wedding photographers! Here's some photos that we took: (Tried to get more of Mark and Aaron this time)