Untitled Document


Kooler's 1st CD - Kooler The songs on our first CD were written over many years - in fact 'Think Of You' was one of the first songs I ever wrote (back in December '94); conversely 'World Of Emotion' was written just prior to the album being completed in 2007. In the early days I tried to do without drums - I suppose I was aiming for a more unique sound for the group - probably to the detrement of the music. In the end (second album) I settled for the unique voices of Wayne & Paul and kept, as much as possible, to the acoustic sound of the tracks. Dave Green (sadly no longer with the band) was our percussionist at the time and did a sterling job trying to introduce some early rythmic patterns. It must also be said that he was a strong advocate for introducing the full drum kit into our line up - of which I eventually succumbed on the second album. The actual recording of the first album was also very spread out. I often remark that the first album took four years and the second four months. Still! I was learning how to get the best out of the software and the gear; we were also forming the band and I was in no hurry to finish the CD until we had a collection of songs that were worth releasing - even so I think that the first album came out a little too soon - although OK I think we could have done a better job if we had, had a little more patience - entirely my fault. Technical: We started serious recordings on a windows '98 machine with emagic's logic 5. At the time my mate Jim Donaldson and I had agreed with A1 Music (a shop in Preston, Lancs) to borrow a load of microphones. The idea was to pit them against each other and select the best one. In return we promised to buy two of the best microphones - one each. The individual value of the mics was not to exceed £500. We did the tests and the best mic. by far was the Beyerdynamic MC740. The trouble was that when we took all the mics back we found that the shop assistant had made a mistake and the price of the MC740 was well over £1,000. We walked away but the difference in quality was so great we eventually got one each at a discount price. It was the old recording studio moto - rubbish in, rubbish out - we had to have the quality sound going in! A year later I'd saved and scraped together enough money for the newly released mixer from Yamaha, the 'DM1000' and now this had arrived we were sure we could rely on a decent sound going to CD - not the case! We really struggled with getting the sound we wanted - the mid range was muddy, the reverbs sounded quite poor, the levels were well short of broadcast standard, etc., etc. The cure - well to cut a long story short - someone had demonstrated the 't.c. electronic finalizer' to me - that was the last piece of the jigsaw - I got a second hand machine at half the retail price (the right place at the right time) and suddenly I was getting the sound I wanted. By the time we actually finished the recordings for the first CD we were on Apple computers running LogicPro7. Kevin

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Kooler's 1st CD - Kooler

The songs on our first CD were written over many years - in fact 'Think Of You' was one of the first songs I ever wrote (back in December '94); conversely 'World Of Emotion' was written just prior to the album being completed in 2007.

In the early days I tried to do without drums - I suppose I was aiming for a more unique sound for the group - probably to the detrement of the music. In the end (second album) I settled for the unique voices of Wayne & Paul and kept, as much as possible, to the acoustic sound of the tracks. Dave Green (sadly no longer with the band) was our percussionist at the time and did a sterling job trying to introduce some early rythmic patterns. It must also be said that he was a strong advocate for introducing the full drum kit into our line up - of which I eventually succumbed on the second album.

The actual recording of the first album was also very spread out. I often remark that the first album took four years and the second four months. Still! I was learning how to get the best out of the software and the gear; we were also forming the band and I was in no hurry to finish the CD until we had a collection of songs that were worth releasing - even so I think that the first album came out a little too soon - although OK I think we could have done a better job if we had, had a little more patience - entirely my fault.

Technical: We started serious recordings on a windows '98 machine with emagic's logic 5. At the time my mate Jim Donaldson and I had agreed with A1 Music (a shop in Preston, Lancs) to borrow a load of microphones. The idea was to pit them against each other and select the best one. In return we promised to buy two of the best microphones - one each. The individual value of the mics was not to exceed £500. We did the tests and the best mic. by far was the Beyerdynamic MC740. The trouble was that when we took all the mics back we found that the shop assistant had made a mistake and the price of the MC740 was well over £1,000. We walked away but the difference in quality was so great we eventually got one each at a discount price. It was the old recording studio moto - rubbish in, rubbish out - we had to have the quality sound going in!

A year later I'd saved and scraped together enough money for the newly released mixer from Yamaha, the 'DM1000' and now this had arrived we were sure we could rely on a decent sound going to CD - not the case! We really struggled with getting the sound we wanted - the mid range was muddy, the reverbs sounded quite poor, the levels were well short of broadcast standard, etc., etc.

The cure - well to cut a long story short - someone had demonstrated the 't.c. electronic finalizer' to me - that was the last piece of the jigsaw - I got a second hand machine at half the retail price (the right place at the right time) and suddenly I was getting the sound I wanted.

By the time we actually finished the recordings for the first CD we were on Apple computers running LogicPro7.

Kevin