Due to popular demand we have added the album Autumn Daemons to the Amazon CD on demand service. This means that for those of you who don’t have an iTunes account or prefer to have a physical copy of an album, you are now able to purchase one from Amazon using their tried and trusted methods of payment and delivery.

Amazon CD on demand service is a way for artists to offer physical copies of the their music without needing to maintain levels of stock or handle payments and shipping.

You can purchase the physical album Autumn Daemons on Amazon here.

You can also listen to the album here, and buy it on

To get a big rich heavy guitar sound in Record, the first thing I do is compress the incoming signal. This evens out the tone and gives you good sustain. Next, it’s straight into a Line 6 Guitar Amp. For the Weathermen 2.0 single I used the 2002 Angel P-Ball amp which is part of the Metal Shop expansion for Line 6′s Pod series. The cabinet I use is the 4×12 2001 Line 6, which is a pretty good all round heavy cabinet setting. If you haven’t purchased that expansion, the 2001 Treadplate will do the job too (and comes standard with Record 1.5, so you already have it). For the settings on the amp, I use:

• Drive: 99
• Bass: 64
• Mid: 45
• Treble: 91
• Presence: 69
• Volume: 96

Next step is to route the signal to the line mixer. On the line mixer I have an aux reverb (preset to the Guitar Room) which I sometimes use. You don’t have to. It’s probably advisable to use one of the main reverbs from the desk so the guitar blends in. From the line mixer I hook the signal up through a compressor on the way out to fatten the sound. The whole thing should look a bit like this when you’re done:

Don’t worry about the Spider Audio Splitter in the screen shot. I put one in my default guitar combinator setup in case I want to route extra effects or amps. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can ignore it.

The one other thing that you must ALWAYS do to get a good heavy rhythm sound is double the tracks. The trick then is to tweak the settings ever so slightly (usually presence and treble) to make the differences in takes just subtly different.

If you want to hear what the end result sounds like I’ve included the guitar tracks solo’d out. I’ve also included both the 2002 Angel P-Ball and the 2001 Treadplate samples in case you don’t have the appropriate expansion packs. If you want to listen to the original track that these samples come from, click here: Weathermen 2.0 Single.

And here is the combinator: Weathermen-Heavy-Guitar.cmb.

And if you want to hear it in context, I’ve embedded the song here (the guitars kick in at 3:24):

You can buy Weathermen 2.0 on iTunes and Amazon.

The journey to this point has been surprisingly long when I reflect on it. The oldest song on this album is Whisper, started in Sydney Australia in October 2004 and worked on in Vancouver Canada, Mt Pisgah NC USA and Copenhagen Denmark. Then I settled down and wrote the rest of the album between 2005 and 2009 in a small Sydney flat above the 7/11 in St Leonards. This album will always be a strong reminder of those days and the people who were such an important part of my life during that time.

What does the name mean?

More than a few people have asked why the name Autumn Daemons. One friend who works in marketing even suggested that it was the worst possible name I could choose to describe the music, that everyone would think it was a metal album or something. While that’s true, the album has been called Autumn Daemons for so long now, it didn’t feel right to change the name just at the end of the process.

If you think of Autumn as being the end of a cycle and Daemons as something that you have struggled with, or been overwhelmed by, you will come close to the intention of the title. This album marks the end of a cycle. The songs on it are from a particular chapter of my life and writing style.

Stores

If you are interested in purchasing the album (or individual tracks) they are available in the following places:

• iTunes
• Amazon mp3 Album
• On CD via Amazon
• Other stores as time progresses (such as Zune, Nokia, eMusic, Rhapsody, Spotify, etc).

Credits

RupertG – All compositions, mixing and mastering

Cover Painting – Kent Marcus (http://kentmarcus.com)

The Thank You’s

Remember the good old days when you would open up a CD cover and read the thank you’s that the band members would write? Well, I thought I’d do a modern version of that and thank people on the release blog post.

There have been many, many, many people who have supported me throughout the years in getting to a point where I am comfortable with releasing something officially. These are but some of them…

JR Raith – dude, you told me you liked my music early on, and without that encouragement I don’t think I would have stuck at it. You kept me sane at a very insane part of my life and I hope you appreciate just how important you were to my getting through it all. Also, a HUGE thanks for introducing me to VNV Nation, Assemblage 23 and Dead Can Dance, they were all hugely influential in shaping my approach to writing.

Paul Howse – it’s rare gift for a musician to have someone near them able to say “Nah, that’s shit dude…”. You’ve kept me persisting at getting a song ‘right’ and not just settling.

Nathan Holland – you have been my quiet producer for years, and without your support I don’t know if I would have had the confidence to put something out there. Your advice, praise and criticisms over the years have been invaluable.

Kent & Ally Lock – thanks for being my first ‘fans’. Having people excited whenever I finished something new meant more to me than I ever really let on. Also, Kent, the painting shaped the sound of the songs I wrote during this era, and gave them, collectively, a name. I know it’s a misinterpretation of what you were intending, but it was important to me.

Andrew Mortensen – thanks for letting me know I could be ‘metal’ and also write music with piano and strings. Also, it has been my great privelege to work on remixes for the Fleisch project and our collaborations ButterKnifeNinja and DöD.

Natasha – you allowed me to believe that I wasn’t just a hack and provided a lot of support at a very strange time in my life…

Famous – you were a big part of my time living in St Leonards (we were neighbours after all) and as such had a significant impact on the end result. Your friendship and support during that time was invaluable and shall never be forgotten.

Trent Hansen – without your early involvement and support in the early years, none of this would have happened – dude, I’ll make it up to you someday…

Trent Chapman – if you hadn’t uttered that important admonishment in the Oaks late one Friday night “Dude, you only write happy techno music! There’s two things wrong with that – you don’t like techno and you’re not happy!” I wouldn’t have found my own voice. It was a crucial step to go through. That night, after getting home, I wrote the first part of Whisper, track 8 on this album…

My daughter Gabrielle – Thank you for giving me the name for the band

Tamsin – you have always believed in me and been my biggest fan. Thank you for making me happy and unable to write music anymore

You can buy the song on iTunes and in the Amazon Music Store.

You can listen to the original AM Frequencies album here.

(Purchase on iTunes)

If we are just animals
How can we do wrong?
How can we be evil?
Why do we need the devil?
Why do we need god?

I wrote this late one night after a long walk. It occurred to me that if we are, as some believe, just animals, then we only obey our instincts.

It must therefore be the instincts that we deny ourselves that make us human…

This song is, in my opinion (and others disagree) probably the best I have ever written, with the possible exception of Autumn Daemons. The song makes a point and does it strongly. It has a great sound. All in all, I think this is the flagship RGS song, which is why its the first song I posted on the new RGS site.