WIntertime is traditionally very quiet in the live business , but also a perfect time for retreating to the warm and cosy studio environment and get creative . This year I started working with my very good friend and outstanding vocalist Nikkie van Lierop on a new project called Zethrya .
It's a very experimental and theatrical project , taking you to the deepest corners of your soul and evoking stong emotions . We call it a "ritual performance" and plan to perform in churches , temples and other holy places , hopefully later this year .

Sylver is a succesful Belgian dance act , and now that they've decided to go live with a full band to celebrate their 10th anniversary , I'm in for another challenge . 10 years worth of songs , all made on different software versions of logic and sometimes obsolete plugins or hardware synths , have to be revived . For days I've been working with Wout van Dessel in his studio , looking into old archives and trying to find the right parts again with the right sounds . It's all going better than we expected and we're moving in the right direction , but there's a lot of work still to be done before the 2 shows in the antwerp Lotto Arena on march 26/27

It's wintertime , no more live shows , no more tours ... time to get into the studio and work on some music .
Mitras is an highly original project : bizarre instrumental violin music with a heavy tango influence and lots of electronics going on .
We just finished all the rough mixes and decided on the CD order and are extremely happy with the overal vibe . We'll take a small break now to focus on the artwork and then we'll fine tune the mixes to make them sit comfortably in the playlist .
more info on the mitras website

It's incredible , but I have the whole month of septembe off ! I'll be staying home with the family , and in the meantime work on my lovely girlfriend's first solo album . She's a very talented violin player and songwriter with a passion for adventurous electronica . It'll be an instrumental album with both acoustic and electric violin parts playing very melodic and catchy arrangements over a background of trippy beats and moody soundscapes ... unlike anything you've ever heard , and probably commercial suicide , but hey : we've got the luxury to do what we want to do , with the people you want to do it with ..... aren't we luckiest people on this planet ? .... :-) ....

I just installed a brand new mac pro in my home studio ... boy is this machine fast !!!
I was still working on a dual G5 2.5 before that and it really started struggling with the latest plugins like omnisphere and complete 5 .
Now I’ve got an 8 core nehalem mac pro , and these processors use hyperthreading so they actually present themselves as 16 cores to the OS , and I can tell you : every one of those single cores is way faster than a G5 core . I’ve installed 8G of memory (expandable to 32G) , 2 drives of 1TB (with still 2 empty slots to fill) , and a TC electronics powercore card .
This computer will finally enable me to make 3D renders in the background (they can take a looooong time , even on this one) , while still making music with plenty of cpu headroom .

Next project : the recording of the Mitras album

I finally finished the Donquièstar album . The recording and mixing took exactly 10 days , spread over the last few months , so we stayed perfectly within the budget and timeframe .
Dave is now very proud with his first album , and I wish him all the best with it .

The second session for the Donquièstar album will take another 3 days . Most of the recording was done on a previous session , so now we’ll do some additional overdubs and try to get a good mix going . After this week we’ll let it rest for a while and then take one more day , maybe two , to finetune the mixes and do the mastering . It looks like we’re going to stay well within our 10 day timeframe . Nice .....

This week I’ll be recording the first part of the Donquièstar album , a techno-punk ish band from Leuven . I’m doing this in my small home studio , based around logic , loads of plugins , a cosy and good sounding mix room with genelec speakers , and a small recording room with some basic mics . We’re on a tight budget and time , so it’s gonna be hard work , but I love deadlines : you have to focus on the essence and not waste time on unimportant details .
And it’s good to be in the studio again and be a creative producer .
Oh , and I also do the cooking , which makes a great break to give our ears some rest .... and the client apreciates the food as well ... :-) ...