Colin has posted some new pictures up from the band’s rehearsal over at Dead Air Space.
Meanwhile, audio engineer Graham has posted to his MySpace blog with the latest from the rehearsals:
So we are all back in the rehearsal room together again after a weekend of recharging our batteries! Usual rounds of tea punctuating the 10 old songs of the day.
After the first few days of rehearsals last week I realised that back in New York a couple of weeks ago when I was starting programming the, very new to me, Digidesign desk that there were various parameters which I hadnt considered. At a point when a majority of the information required for me to mix their live show was well and truly stored, (on the desk, on my laptop, on a memory stick and on a on line server,I believe in backing up!) I made the descion to reconfigure my system. It was just a case of copying and pasting, the sort of thing we all have to do all the time!
Thankfully when the boys arrived to play some tunes today no one knew the difference, long live the digital age!
By the way..,as I have had many messages regarding this, Im the guy who provides the sound for the band members themselves, I live on stage, the sound you all hear in the audience is the work of my friend and colleague Jim. He has become an expert with the Digidesign desks and its use of, during the recent Nine Inch Nails tour, and was without a doubt a huge contributing factor in my decision to use one myself. The best thing for me is during these rehearsals he is standing about 10 feet away from me (during a show he is normally a small figure in the distance!) so if I need any sort of advice all I need to do is convince him to remove his ear defenders (hidden beneath those are his in ear monitors!) and he knows the answers. He had a lot to do with the software update I am using at present.
The old songs done, we moved on to the new material, probably the most difficult time for all the technical crew during the rehearsal period. There are times when the band swap instruments, develop sampling routines (everything they do on show days is live! Not like some bands who use backing tracks) so when the day is finished Im ready for a sit down, and a beer! Up to 6 hours of wearing my in ear monitors a day is hard work (normally on show days its only 3 hours or so a day, including the sound check) tomorrow the last batch of old material and then all new songs, and sometime during the week a rehearsal with Thom and Jonny, with a vastly cut down crew for the occasion, for their appearance at the Friends of the Earth charity performance next week.
Graham.