tedlee

Come on out this Sunday, Oct 25th to Athens Pizza Express in Decatur, GA for the 5th Annual Pizzapalooza. Bands will be playing from noon to 6PM in the parking lot. The Ted Lee Orchestra will be playing at 2PM. Sitting in on drums will be Kelly Shane. Stick around after TLO for some other great acts, like SchwartzCommando (featuring TLO’er Mike Goldman and Kelly Shane), Gerard McHugh, and Orange Hat.

Come see the Ted Lee Orchestra in their inaugural show playing for the 500 Songs for Kids charity at Smith’s Old Bar, Sunday, May 3rd (approx 10:30-10:50PM). We’ll be doing our interperation of The Supreme’s “You Keep Me Hanging On”.

Ted, Mims & Mike will also be playing earlier the day with Stovall doing Screaming Tree’s “I Nearly Lost You There” (between 6/6:30PM). Come early and check out our unique take on this 90’s classic.

Tickets are $10 the day of the show.

As promised in an earlier post, I’ve put together an amazing group of musicians to accompany me on some upcoming gigs and further in the future, recording of new songs. On Bass, Mims Rogers (The Flinch, Stovall), on Guitar, Mike Goldman (The Indicators, Stovall) and on drums James Taylor Jr. (Warm in the Wake) is keeping time.

We’re in the process of learning material from “cuckoo singing in the cuckoo berry tree“, and learning new songs as well. Check back soon for dates in and around the Atlanta area.

Winter is almost over, and spring couldn’t come soon enough. With Cuckoo Singing in the Cuckoo Berry Tree now available on iTunes, I’ve turned my attention to writing new material, and putting together a band for shows and the next album.

I’ve completed a handful of new songs, and am working on having at least 15 to choose from before narrowing it down to 10 candidates.

For the band, I’m relying on the talents of Mims Rogers on bass, and Mike Goldman on guitar, bandmates from Stovall. I’m lucky to call these guys friends, and even luckier to have them back me up musically.

So, if everything goes according to plan, expect to see an announcement about a show in the local area in the April-May timeframe, and news about the recording of the next album in the summer timeframe.

Hope everyone had a happy and healthy 2008. And here’s to an even happier and healthier 2009!

I hope everybody is having a great holiday season. As 2008 comes to a close and I reflect on what transpired, I can’t help but smile. I managed to complete “Cuckoo Singing In the Cuckoo Berry Tree”, play a dozen or so shows with Stovall, and record 6 six songs for the Stovall debut (coming right around the release of Guns & Roses next album). 2008 is definitely the year when I jumped back on the musical horse and headed off to the rodeo. It’s good to be back.

More importantly, my family survived the year without any major catastrophes, which is the best thing I could ask for after the events of 2007. My girls are happy and healthy, and that’s all that really matters.

Here’s hoping 2009 sees things improve economically, and brings lots of new music for me to write and produce. 

See you in the New Year.

Cheers,

Ted

The wait is finally over. Cuckoo Singing In The Cuckoo Berry Tree is now available on iTunes! 10 tasty tracks recorded between 2006-2008. Click on over to iTunes (US, New Zealand, Canada, EU & Japan) and download your copy today!

I’ve posted a new song to the MySpace page. “Stop Trying To Bring Me Down” is a simple little acoustic number, tracked quickly over the weekend.

As time permits, I plan to post more of these acoustic tracks over the next couple of months, while I build up the repertoire for the next album. Hope you enjoy!

I recorded “cuckoo sitting in the cuckoo berry tree” entirely in Apple Logic. When I started the tracks in 2007, I was using Logic Express 7. In December 2007, I upgraded to Apple Logic Express 8. In the middle of the project, I upgraded to Logic Studio 8 (see below for reasons). 

Logic is an awesome piece of software. Even with the entry level Logic Express, you get a wide variety of plugins giving you access to just about any effect or instrument you could want. 

In Logic 8, Apple upped the ante with more studio instruments, effects, Mainstage, and an incredible library of instruments/loops. The interface for Logic was radically revamped, allowing for split screens and really making the most of limited real estate.

Most of the recording was done on a Macbook Pro 2.4ghz and an iMac 2.16ghz. I upgraded the iMac to the Aluminum iMac 24″ 2.8ghz in August. The extra speed was beneficial in rendering/bouncing mixes. I use an additional 20″ Cinema Display, allowing me to have the main view on the main display, and the mixing view on the second display. 

My audio interface is a PreSonus FIREPOD. All tracks were recorded to an external Firewire hard drive (Western Digital 7200RPM drive). 

The main reason I upgraded from Logic Express to Studio was Sound Designer. Recording drums in my home studio meant that I didn’t have the best room available to me for drum sounds. But in a way that was good. The room itself was very dry and dead, which allowed me to modify the drum sound in the mix using Sound Designer. Additionally, Logic Studio 8 comes with all of the material from the Jam Packs. My two main keyboard sounds on the album are the FM Organ sounds and the Analog Moog Lead. 

I’ve used ProTools for other projects, and it has it’s pace in the industry. It’s obviously the industry standard. But in many areas, ProTools seriously lags behind Logic. UI, ease of use, breadth of hardware options, and value. For $499 ($449 from Amazon.com)you get an entire studio in a box. You get an awesome non-linear editor. You get MainStage, for those who want to use your Mac on stage. You get Soundtrack Pro 2, for those who are creating music for movies/video. You get a huge library of effects and instruments. You get WaveBurner. The list goes on and on. In terms of value, no other package compares to the professionalism and quality of Logic.

If you are looking to get more value than ProTools provides, or move up from another NLE, Logic Studio 8 is a best bet.

The track “Little World” is the oldest song on the album. It was originally demoed in 1996. It became part of The Darwins set in 1997. A version of it appears on the album Kamikaze Kama Sutra. It was always on of the more popular tunes in the set, and I always considered it strong single contender.

Fast forward to 2006. Ted’s longtime friend and former band mate from The Like, Edmund Lowe, had recorded a cover version of “Little World”. Edmund’s version of the song was very different from The Darwins version. It was slower, more laid back, and featured some great “ELO-esque” backing vocals that Edmund had created.

When I was assembling the songs for “cuckoo”, I knew I wanted to take another crack at “Little World”. The Darwins version was performed so fast and frenetic, it just never “grooved” as hard as it should have. Using Edmund’s version of the song as the inspiration, I recut the tune with an even slower tempo than Edmund’s version, and more simplistic guitar parts. Additionally, I adopted Edmund’s bass line for the verses.

When the song was nearly done, I realized I was missing something. I needed to have those background vocals that Edmund had arranged for his version.

So during a summer trip to New Hampshire I met up with Edmund and talked to him about tracking them for me. The problem was we had different home recording setups – Edmund uses a Roland Hard Disk based system, where I used Apple Logic.

After a little brainstorming, I figured there was a way to collaborate. I sent Edmund a mix of the song. Edmund imported it in to two tracks on the Roland (stereo L&R). Edmund then recorded his parts on three different tracks. He then created a mix of each track seperately, with the stick click ins left in the mix. He then burned them on a CD and sent them to me via US snail mail.

When I received the tracks, I imported the tracks in to Logic, and using the clicks, positioned them in their exact positions. While a bit of work, it was great to collaborate on something nearly 20 years after the last time we recorded together.

Finally, I slapped on an acoustic guitar track and called it a day. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, and owe a great deal of gratitude to Edmund for his contribution.