When I bought my apartment in Singapore in 2005 one of the bedrooms was allocated to be the creative studio. We built an internal air gap and soundproofed the walls and ceiling with 2 inches of rockwool. Since then it's been my central creative base, where I've made everything including brochures, annual reports, websites, photography, audio recordings and corporate video projects.
Just finished a nice video for a good friend who has turned her expert hand to jewellry design.
When my longtime friend and colleague, Heather Anderson, asked me to make a promo video for her new line of silver jewellry I leapt at the chance.
We shot this in a couple of days using the EOS 5D MKII, and shot the product inlays the following day using the EOS 1 DS MKIII.
Editing and post production were done in Premiere CS5 and After Effects - our first project since migrating from Sony Vegas. I'm really pleased with the colour grade and the quality of the H.264 encoding that Premiere does.
Behind the times, that is. I should have announced this on 16th May but it just slipped my mind. Anyway, Stu's third single, Better Off in Front came out on that date, and since then has been featured on a couple of blogs, which is nice. You can download it from the player on the front page of this site, or direct at Stu's site, where Stu also shows how it's done live.
Today I also wrapped the follow-up, Atmosphere, which is a big fat rock/indie/dancefloor filler with a pounding beat and a rousing chorus. I think you're like it, but you'll have to wait until around 16th June to hear it.
Yes, it's true. I've decided to let everyone have Calamity Pop's debut album, Pop Friction, available for free download, DRM free, for your own personal listening pleasure.
Calamity Pop was a partnership between myself and talented local singer Zuq Iruall. Recorded in 2003-2004 in the home studio that was the first incarnation of Calamity Studio, the songs were a mixture of new material and stuff that I had written over the previous 25 years. The genre is 80's Powerpop, but you will hear a diverse array of influences in there.
I was also helped enormously by many local and online friends who contributed ideas, parts and mix advice, to whom I am always grateful. One of the tracks, 'Heaven' features my wife, Amanda, on backing vocals, which is quite suitable as the song was written about her in 1988, less than a year before we got married.
The album had many good reviews but Zuq's evening commitments meant that we could never launch it as a working band. We went on to record another album, Pop Addiction, which I will probably give away later on in the year.
If you like the download and would like an original CD of Pop Friction, either check it out on CD Baby or contact me direct. I believe I have about 50 copies still left.
April saw me out of town in both Jakarta and Mumbai, shooting stills for corporate clients, so sorry if I'm a bit late with this one. On 15th April we released the 2nd track of Stu Smith's 'Stuck In My Head' album. This is a favourite of mine and it's called This Begin. You can download it for free here.
The next one, Better Off in Front, is on schedule and ready for release, but you'll have to wait until 15th May for it. So watch this space, or check out Stu's site directly. Currently I'm working on tracks four and five and we'll definitely have those ready in time for June and July release.
In the meantime I'm going to try to get a corporate showreel together, shoot something viral, upgrade to Adobe CS5, migrate from Vegas to Premiere CS5 and redecorate my apartment. It's all go.
Demand crashed the server on the first night! But normal service is now resumed. Everyone was trying to get hold of Pop Friction. Because we're giving away the 2004 debut album of Calamity Pop for free right now. Visit the Pop Friction page for details.
New Digital Download Sites
Calamity Studio output can now be digitally downloaded in any format you like at the following sites: Monjour Nagraan
New Kit
Recently added stuff New Plugs!
The amazing Valley People Dynamite from Softube is now part of our armoury. It's a fabulous little dynamics box that we've been using on the Stu Smith project to give the drums that extra 'snap'.
We're currently trialing Stilwell's Bombardier, but haven't had much chance to give it an overhaul yet.
Soundtoys Native 4 (yes I know, I'm weak), even thought its performance in Sonar 8.5.3x64 is ass and the developers have no intention of fixing it.
Softube's wonderful Bass Amp Room Softube's wonderful Tube Delay Softube's wonderful FET Compressor (it's a bit like an LA2A but better) Something secret but wonderful from Softube! (yes, we think Softube are wonderful)
Blog 
