Shay's Studio

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Thanks to a wrong turn, found a gorgeous castle from 1500!

Pallas castle (10 minutes from the studio) was kept in an amazing condition.

Found tons of wild garlic at the forest by the studio.

Makes great soup with nettles (also found in abundance:)!

Today we recorded Simon O’Dwyer playing 7 different horns from the medieval and bronze age (reproductions).

The base track was a 15 minutes long circular breathing piece, and the other ones were overlaid on top.

Piece was recorded for the Galway Early Music Festival where 7 speakers are going to play 1 horn each, creating an early healing ritual.

Hearing this at the studio was great, so I reckon getting it in surround with 7 speakers should be a pretty cool experience!

AUDIO – Simon O’Dwyer playing 7 horns

Simon O'Dwyer playing a horn

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FAN BAN(Go Well) Galway Multicultural Community Choir(Directed by Jwana Stevenson)A traditional funeral song from the Shona tribe in Northern Zimbabwe.Sung to the soul of a loved one to comfort and celebrate them on their journey back to peace.A personal dedication from Jwana to her wee niece Hayley Elizabeth Fullerton.Thank you for all the love,fun and laughter you brought for all the family.

http://thebigsing.ie/

Song recorded at the blue teapot theatre, Galway. Video by Vincent Rateau.

The Big Sing -- Zimbabwean funeral song

Pat and Dersey have been playing together for many years.  In recent years they play at different events along with their band.

On this day they wanted to put a few drums/piano tracks. After micing the piano and drums, I pressed ‘record’ and the guys shot one track after the other, playing no less than 19 tracks in different styles from foxtrot to jazz, including some famous Irish ones.

For lunch we went to the so tasty “El Porceto” Italian restaurant in Loughrea (best coffee in Ireland IMHO!), and we came back to the studio for a few more tracks, mixing and printing of the CD.

The guys are coming back soon with their band, and I’m looking forward to it.

Medley from Pat McCourt and Dersey recording

P.S. Guest appearance by Kali at the end of the video. (the cat, not the Goddess)

For his retirement, Eddie Mullarkey received a day at the studio.

This little video shows what happened that day, starting by selecting the backing tracks, recording, editing, taking a photo of Eddie outside the studio, “photoshopping” the image (by Vinz who also made the video) and printing the CD.

Eddie never recorded before, and most people only heard him in a pub after a few good pints. You can hear the results in the last few seconds of this video.

For the rest of the video the background music was played by Pat PcCourt on piano, and Deirsey on drums (video will follow soon!).

We hope you enjoy this as much as we did. It was a special day for all of us.

These have been a few hectic and inpirational days!

I had the pleasure of working with truly exceptional musicians. Dee is a great songwriter, guitar player and singer.
After he laid down guitar and vocals, Jim Higgins (“Saw Doctors” member until 2004) came to the studio and blew my mind completely! The guy would accompany a song the first time he hears it, as if he was playing it for weeks! To make things even more exciting, classically trained violin player (who also plays trad, and anything in between!) Sarolta Simo added some beautiful sounds with her electric (and electrifying -- sorry I couldn’t help myself) violin. Tim Geoghegan played accordion and whistle.

We recorded 8 tracks in 3 days, and mixed another 4 that were recorded in a bedroom in Westport.
Dee calls this a ‘demo’, hoping it will help raise some funds to a bigger production (any rich people reading this?), but I know quite a few people who would be proud to have this as a final product. I can’t wait to work on the rest of the production!

The following video has the track “Slim” with random shots from the recording

and you can’t have more North Ireland in a song than in this chilling thrilling track:
David Dee Moore -- Candy Shop

The Speks came to the studio all the way from Glasses Island, for another kiddis masterpiece.

A few instruments were already recorded on the island, but there was still a lot to do with more recordings and mixing.

Being a virtual band, they didn’t come out on the video, so the best photo I could find is the attached one.

The Speks

Here’s the song

Links

www.thespeks.com – `The Speks – Kids’ Sing-Along Songs, Nursery Rhymes, Irish Music for Children