Jeremy Larson

One More...

All of these videos will be hosted on the new site soon anyway.  What the heck.  Here's another song from the upcoming live DVD.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend.  Thanks for reading!

Jeremy

DVD Sneak Peek

Thank you for your patience while we work on the new site.  I thought I'd go ahead and share one of the songs from the live DVD.  Enjoy!  And please feel free to embed, or pass this along to your friends.  That's what it's here for!   After you press play, you should be able to change the quality to a higher resolution (it will be a number that you click)- which I would recommend.

Thanks for reading!

Jeremy

Gillioz

I'll be in Chicago for the weekend at the Renegade Craft Fair.  If you live in the area, come say hi!  I'll be at the Red Velvet tent.  No official release date on the DVD yet, but I can tell you it will be this fall some time.  The trailer is in the post below.  Have a great weekend.

(Still from the live DVD.  Soundcheck.)

Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

DVD/CD/iTunes

I think I have a plan.

So many of you have asked about getting a physical CD, and the release date for the live DVD.  I think they will be released together in the same packaging.  I will be releasing a CD/DVD combo that includes all of the album artwork, as well as a full version of the live DVD.  The strange thing is, it's hard to release these things together without one devaluing the other.  Whenever you buy a CD, and there's a free DVD that comes with it, you don't pay too much attention to the DVD.  It just seems like a cheap little bonus.  Yet, if you were to just release a live DVD, and include a bonus CD of the actual album, it wouldn't seem to serve the need that many of us have to own a "physical copy" of the album.  So, we are attempting the difficult task of releasing something that is 100% physical-album and 100% live DVD.  This may be really confusing for those of you that don't over-think every decision in life the way that I do.  I guess all you need to know is, YES there will be a physical album released and YES it will be released the same time as the live DVD and YES on that day it will also be released on iTunes!  

No, I don't know when that day will be.

Things were going pretty well with the DVD until yesterday.  I did a major upgrade on my studio monitors, and now all of my mixes sound weird.  I'm going to start remixing the whole thing today.  I trust my new monitors.  I'll talk more about that tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

As a reminder, you can listen to and buy my new album here right now.

Meet The Violinists

Time has kind of slipped away from me.  I've been meaning to do this for a while, but am just now getting around to it.  I'd like to introduce/thank the members of the orchestra for my album release show.  This show would have surely been a HUGE flop without the help of some really amazing musicians.  I am honored to also call these people my friends.  I should mention that I didn't actually know any of these people before the show.  They did this show (and many rehearsals) for FREE and put up with me week after week.  This post will be divided into two parts.  First, the violins:

1st Violins:

Erin Hefta- Erin, you were a strong leader from the beginning.  You always came in with a smile, that goes a long way with someone as high-strung as myself.  Let's work together again soon! Thank you.

Kera Newman- Kera, I felt like even after meeting you one time, that we were friends.  And it was a joy to see you perform the other night with your band!  Thank you.

Tony Dissmore- Tony, you were soft spoken, but such a STRONG player! You play with feeling and sophistication; you were a wonderful addition to this section.  Thank you for helping us out.

Lian Ojakangas- Lian, you are an amazing talent.  One of the youngest players in our group, yet one of the best.  So, how did you memorize all of that music, when I forgot to ever give you any music?!?  Simply amazing.

Chaski Dye: Chaski,  we didn't even meet until the day of the dress rehearsal.  But you brought so much life to that rehearsal!  The night was going on and on, but you kept such a positive attitude; it was contagious.  Thank you for that.

2nd Violins:

David Sutton: I can't believe you drove all the way from Minnesota to play with us!  Not only that, you stuck around after the show and helped me move everything back to the studio.  David, I could never thank you enough for all of your hard work and your kindness.  You are truly one of the most gifted players I've met.

Ross Donaldson: Ross, you also drove from out of town to play with us.  You even drove down for several of the group rehearsals!  I feel like I've made a good friend, and I know we will work together again.  I am LOVING your CD!  Good work my friend.

Brianna Cline: Brianna, it was such a joy to be in the same room as you!  In stressful situations, it's always good to have at least ONE "Brianna" in the room.  I'm thankful you are a Red Velvet fan, and that I still get to see you on a regular basis.  You are such a talent, and a gem.

Greg Dissmore: Greg, you are such a solid player, and a strong leader.  Thank you so much for helping to lead the 2nds.  You seemed to have a way of calmly, and quietly getting everyone on the same page with bowing, and trying to figure out what I was trying to say in the music.  Thank you!

Tessa Hull: Tessa, I am so thankful we met!  You joined us late in the game, but you worked overtime to catch up.  There's nothing more satisfying than seeing people in the group take initiative and work things out on their own.  Thank you for all of the time you put into this, it didn't go unnoticed.

Tomorrow I will introduce the rest of the band.  I was afraid if I did it all at once, the list might get a little long.  So, another round of applause for my violin section!  Thanks eveyone.

Jeremy

DVD Mixing Obstacle #1

This weekend I started working on mixing the audio for the live DVD.  I think I mentioned earlier that the kick drum mic did not record during the performance.  There are a lot of reasons this is a problem, but I will go ahead and move on to the solution.  After listening to each individual mic on the drums, I found that there was one that had a decent amount of isolation of the kick drum; it was the bottom snare mic.  This mic was basically ONLY picking up the snare drum, and the kick drum.  This was great news for me.  Never mind that the kick drum sounded terrible in that mic, it's not actually relevant.  So, here is what I did:

1. Duplicate the "Snare Bottom" track, so I can leave it as just that, a second snare mic.

2. On my new (duplicated snare bottom) track, I did a massive cut on all of the high and mid range frequencies.  Basically everything above 300 hz.  This pretty much eliminates the snare drum on this track completely.

3. I made a huge "spike" in the low end between 100-200 hz.  So now my new track is just a low end blob.  It sounds terrible, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is that the speakers are making sound every time that kick drum hits.  

(brief recap: the "Snare Bottom" mic was picking up kick and snare, and I EQ'd out the snare, and exaggerated the kick by boosting the low end frequencies)

4. You now have several options of how to make a kick drum track!  

   a. Use Drumagog or Sound Replacer on this new kick track.

   b. Do it the fun way!  Send that new kick drum blob signal through a bass or guitar amp with a bass drum in front of the speaker.  The sound will actually interact with the drum, and you can put a mic on it.  Ok, that may have been really confusing, but I did a little tutorial on this last year.  I was doing it with a snare drum, but it was the same technique.  It's called "re-amping drums".  But the way, I just found out when you google "re-amping drums" my blog is the second thing to pop up!  Here's the old video:

 

ReAmping Drums from Jeremy Larson on Vimeo.

So, that's how I got my kick drum back into the mix.  I REALLY didn't want to have to try to do it manually.  This was much quicker.

Next obstacle to tackle, a very excited baby in the crowd.  Thanks for reading.

Jeremy

The Start Of A Thank You List

There are so many people to thank for such a wonderful show the other night, but there is one big thank you I left out the night of the show.  That is, a HUGE thank you to Michael and Nate from the Gillioz Theatre.  They actually donated not one, but two nights for us to work on the DVD!  They did this because they believe in local music, and they believe in providing a service to this community.  The Gillioz is, in my opinion, the BEST venue in Springfield to play.  Especially if you are filming a live DVD, it's simply beautiful.  If you're in a band and need a venue for something like that, you should seriously consider the Gillioz.  If we don't value these historic buildings, and use them to their potential, they will certainly disappear.  You can call or email Michael Owens here.

Here are several more pages of the album art:

Yesterday "They Reappear" broke into the top 5 sellers on bandcamp!  It was a really exciting day for me.  Thank you all so much for your support.  Please help me to continue to spread the word but linking my album on your blog or Facebook page.  I just learned that if you paste the link from my bandcamp page into a Facebook post, it will actually provide a player so people can listen!  Here is the link:

http://jeremylarson.bandcamp.com/

Thank you all so much!

Jeremy

Album Release Show Stories...

I have so much to talk about, and so many people to thank for such a memorable night.  But I will just start with these two photos.  Many more to come.  I'm so incredibly thankful for every single one of you that helped to pack out the Gillioz.  Thank you for helping to create one of the greatest musical experiences of my life.

Jeremy

It's Finally Here

Well, we've finally made it.  Tonight is the album release show, hope to see you there!  

(In case anyone is confused, the album will officially be released this Tuesday the 15th.)

Jeremy

New Song

New Song!  Drumming by Darren King.

6 Bedside Manner

The album release is a week away, the album release show is five days away!  If you haven't confirmed you are coming, do so here.  We are filming for a live DVD, Stacy Dupree is performing, there's a 20 piece orchestra, what else do you want?!  Busy week ahead of me, but I am going to keep things updated here.  I may even be adding some new songs every few days... Thanks for reading!

Jeremy