Announcing: Sound Check Live Video Series!

If you saw my last post about Chucky Hugh's video for "Run Away," you're probably wondering "What is Sound Check Live?"

The short answer: Sound Check Live is a video series I am putting together to showcase local musicians that perform solo, as a duo, and eventually, even a full band. The pricing is greatly reduced because it allows me the learning curve I need to figure out some new audio equipment that I'm slowly investing in while still providing a service to anyone who has a desire to promote their music in video form.

The longer answer: After renovating the studio and taking in some work this Winter, I realized that the next step in DIGImmortal's evolution would be to invest in better audio equipment. I am slowly growing my new audio gear, and integrating it with what I already have, until I've built a good enough recording system for the scale of work I do at the moment. I need new microphones, a mixing board, cables, stands, etc. With each piece of gear, comes the technical side of learning how to use it with my existing equipment. Sound Check Live serves as a way for me to learn as I go while using the new pieces in a live setting. Solo artists or small groups can come to the studio, and for a greatly reduced rate, record a live version of a song and have a video made for it all at once. I'm not a recording studio, and I don't claim to be, so the goal is about expanding what I can do in terms of audio capture for video. I'm not trying to be a music producer, but I want to be able to capture good enough sound to release live-format music videos.




The details: Pricing starts at around $50 for solo artists. At the moment I am at the mercy of my field recorder's 2 XLR inputs, so a musician that sings, or a musician and a singer, or 2 musicians playing an instrumental tune is what I can do at the moment. Once I am able to invest in a decent mixing board with more inputs I can expand out to more options.

If you or someone you know is an up-and-comer and wants to get a live version of a song out there in front of people but you don't have the means to do it, get in touch via www.DIGImmortalPhoto.com and let's work together! Sound Check Live will be an available service for a limited time, so don't hesitate to get in touch!

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More soon,
-Rob

Unrequited

Last weekend I had a great group of guys come over for some band portraits. They're Unrequited and they play pretty frequently in the Northern NJ (Bergen County) area.

They're still in High School but they've got the professional chops and attitude that is needed these days. I see too many bands strive to be something but lack the discipline (and the thick skin) needed to make it in the music business.



It's such a breath of fresh air to meet a band with no attitude problems, no egos, no bullshit. Just a bunch of friends who enjoy making music together.

I was introduced to them by my good friend Steve Bello, another local area musician who makes some amazing Instrumental Metal geared towards total guitar-heads and fans of musical styles that range from Prince to Steve Vai to Pantera.

It's very cool to be surrounded with genuine hard working musicians. Unrequited just played a show last weekend but I'm sure they'll have more lined up soon. They also mentioned they've been writing a lot of new material, so we might be able to expect a full-length album from them in the near future.

I have a feeling these guys are going to really take off in the local scene, so here's to them making it as big as they push themselves to be.

You can visit them on Myspace and Facebook

You can also see all the photos from the session HERE

Ahoy!

Back in May a friend's band was on the Paganfest America 2009 tour. His pirate themed band Swashbuckle was opening the show in every city. From what I've heard, they did really well and got a lot of new fans and really got the crowds warmed up each night.

I was able to grab some portraits with the 3 guys in the band right after their set. It was done in the lounge downstairs at the Blender Gramercy Theatre in NYC. The lounge has this great stone/brick wall and round wooden tables. Makes the perfect backdrop for a pirate shoot. We did some cool colored strobe face shots and then I backed out and flooded the wall with blue and green to look like the ocean and turned the stone wall into the interior of an underwater cave. Not bad for 2 little Canon speedlights, some gels, and using what your handed in a situation. I'm no strobist, but I'm happy with the results I'm getting as I experiment more and more with speedlights on location.

Here are some pictures that I've been talking about, and you can always see the full gallery, which includes the live photos HERE

Admiral Nobeard

Commodore Redrum

Captain Crashride

Here is a portrait of Admiral Nobeard done with the green/blue lighting scenario:

If you're into Thrash Metal and want something new to listen to, I suggest picking up their new album coming out on Nuclear Blast Records entitled Back To The Noose.

How It Was Done

If anyone is wondering, the speedlight setup is a combo of a 580 EXII and a 430 EX. for the face shots I used the 580 pointing to the ceiling to trigger the gelled 430 sitting on the table directly in front of their faces. For the table shot of Nobeard the 430 was off on camera right with the green gel hitting the wall and rimming out his face, triggered by the 580 mounted on the camera shoe with a blue gel on half of the flash head, to allow both blue and white light out so it woulnd't look oversaturated with gelled light. That's all, 2 strobes, some gels, 3 pirates, and one hell of a way to kill a night.


More soon, as always.