Marc Desgagnes music

[marcdesgagnes]

Hey Stéphan, don't worry to much about being judge over this version: I edited it and cut right after the kwyboard solo...lolll... And everybody out there who listen to it, this was the 3rd time we played the song on our 1st rehearsal ever with our new band! After the second rehearsal, that we just had yesterday, let me tell you that it sounds A LOT better already!

...You know we're going to kick some lazy asses with this project...lollllll

[Stephan]

How about posting a glimpse of Burning heart? I think the cut we did was pretty damn spot on!
I'll start to work on a prototype of Maniac this week and maybe post it here as people might have some suggestions? Is that something we wanna do? I think it would be cool!
Maybe we could start a poll with some 80's songs suggestions and see what we come up with?

[marcdesgagnes]

I will probably work on the mix in the upcoming days. But since we were missing a guitar track, I don't know how it will sound yet. The takes we did seemed to be just great, but I hate it when something's missing... I'll let you know when I'll start working on it.

And for the poll, could be a great idea just to get some more songs we didn't think about and that could be backups if some of the others turned out to be just plain dull to play of revisit.

[Brian Dobbs]

so how was She Bop recorded?  It sounds pretty clean.

[marcdesgagnes]

Hey Brian,

The song was recorded live with all instruments playing simultaneously except for the keyboard tracks. I used my home studio recorder, a Korg D1600mkII. I think the song is not perfect (we still have a lot of reheasing to do...lol) but it gives a good idea of what we are currently planning to do with the majority of the songs we're going to revisit. Of course, some are harder or almost impossible to change of modify without losing the essence of the song, but there are many that will blow your heads off! In fact, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme from ABBA and She's A Manic from Micheal Sembello (and the Flashdance movie soundtrack) comes into mind....Stay tuned!

[Brian Dobbs]

wow, you guys are tight.  i'm most impressed with the quality of the recorded drums.  Did you mic everything?  Any cool pictures of the setup?  This is a really good mix for a rehearsal!

[marcdesgagnes]

Thanks Brian!

Actually, our drummer uses a TD-6 electronic drum set for the rehearsals. It easier to set up in the recorder, easier to mix and balance. Rehearsing with every instruments going through my D1600 is great for a couple of things: First, since everything is directly lined-in, we can do a mix that sounds great without blowing everyone's ears after 3 songs...lolll Second, it takes less space because none of us had to bring our cabs in the room. We only use our amplifier heads w/effects gear. And also, the fact of us all directly mixed in the recorder is pretty useful because at anytime, we're ready to record what we want! How cool is that!? Pictures will soon pop in here....Just be patient my friends....!

[Stephan]

Actually, since our next rehearsal is in 3 weeks, I plan on bringing my HD Camcorder and start shooting stuff to do a nice little montage of how we wrok and all that. Since the singer will be present (well, he should be), we will almost be complete! We might need a keyboard player but the'y're a rare breed!

[Brian Dobbs]

oh wow, that's quite a unique set up indeed.  I'd love to see pics/vids!  :-P

[Stephan]

Brian, there will be pics AND vids most probably after our next general rehearsal WITH a lead singer!
You'll enjoy the total package and see the potential of what we want to accomplish!
Very nice things are coming!

[marcdesgagnes]

Hi guys,

Wow! Looks like we're going to make a movie! loll Seriously, last rehearsal was absolutely great! Stephan wasn't there and the singer will probably show up in the upcoming weeks, but the new covers were astounding! Man, can't wait to play all that good stuff for a live audience! We'll keep you informed of our progress and like Stephan said, we will have some audio and video to show to all of you out there!

Stay tuned and keep the rock alive and kickin'!

Marc

[Stephan]

Hello peeps!
Quick update:
Our lead singer officially started working on the songs we will rehearse on june 20th!
Also, I just sealed a deal with a very VERY talented keyboard player (when I say talented, I mean, Jordan Rudess has serious competition- and I'm not kidding nor exagerating!)
He will join us on june 20th as well!
Can't wait for this to happen!
And of course, all this will be recorded on full HD camera!! LOL!

How about raising expectations huh?

Alright! Back to my week-end chores!
Later!

Stef

[Brian Dobbs]

:-)

[Stephan]

Heeeelloo guys!
I'm back from my hometown and had a nice rehearsal yesterday with the boys!
We had our new keyboard player on board yesterday and we recorded a new cover song which Marc already posted on his MySpace page:
The Final Countdown which sounds fantastic!! (Thanks MArc for the small touch ups here and there! )
I have some footage as well but I want to review it on my main sound system to see if it's any good.
Unfortunately, we concentrated our efforts on the rehearsal and the new guy so, the footage is a bit boring I'd say but anyways, I'll make a small ontage if anything is good enough!
All in all, I can't wait to finally have our lead vocal to play with the full band, which should be in 2 weeks hopefully!
I'll keep you posted as soon as I have some footage!

Later!
Stef

[Brian Dobbs]

Cool...listening to the Final Countdown now.

so, will the concentration of this band be original music or cover songs?

[Stephan]

Hey Brian!
For starters, we will focus on cover songs to build a nice setup quickly as we want to gig with this but, once this is settled, the compositions will kick in to soon, probably replace cover songs one by one!

[Brian Dobbs]

gotcha.  Do you guys have a band name?

I'd like to keep cover material in the General board, and keep original stuff here.  What we might end up doing is creating two separate threads, one for covers and one for originals. 

[marcdesgagnes]

Hi Guys!

I came here to post something, but after seeing Brian's post about original and cover stuff, I'm not sure anymore! lolll Anyways, there's 4 new songs on http://www.myspace.com/markdeeproject that you can hear. 3 of them are covers from Cindy Lauper, Survivor and Europe and there is an original of mine called "My Destination". It's not perfect and I know Stephan is already working some new bass line ('cause mine sucks big time!) in his spare time. Everything will have to be re-recorded once we (the actual band) are sitting tight in our current project.

Stephan, can't wait to have a peek at this tape, is it too big to put on the FTP?

As for original composition that will burst out of our silly heads (loll), I just can't wait to start writing stuff! I don't know what direction the overall sound will head into, but I'm pretty sure that we can confirm that It will be much more Hard Rock with a big progressive touch to it.

So, hope you like the tunes I posted...

 and keep the rock alive and kickin'!!!!

Mark

[Aswepe]

Marc & Stephan:

Listening to The Final Countdown now. Sounds pretty good so far.

As far as the Originals go - ya gotta follow your muse wherever it takes you.

Let us know when you have those originals ready to hear.

And don't forget, some of us Internet DJ's are looking for Original music to play on our Radio Show.

[marcdesgagnes]

Thanks Aswepe!

You can be certain that when we'll get some original stuff going on, we'll be posting it here for sure!

Mark

[Aswepe]

That's the ticket!

Bring it on dudes.

[Brian Dobbs]

Hey guys, just to clarify, you can post whatever you'd like, I just want to be sure how to direct the thread.  There are a few of us on here that will still follow, no matter where the thread ends up.  I think A'swepe and I would still like to see some video footage.

[Stephan]

Hi Brian,
    We haven't been able to regroup for a rehearsal last saturday due to the drummer being at a friend's wedding... Thus, I haven't travelled the 130-ish miles to get there and that's how it went down basically...
I would love to put up some footage but I first need to have nice stuff to show...
I don't know if you wanna move this thread to the other forum since this band is currently doing only covers but I guess it'll be your call my friend. I don't think it matters really.
We should regroup in early september for a huge rehearsal of almost the entire song list we came up at the beginning with all members of the band! We also ave now 3 cameras from which we will shoot the rehearsals so, it'll be nicer to show off some cool vids instead of crappy still images where you only see one band member completely!

[marcdesgagnes]

Hi guys!

Brian, since the actual project is mainly covers-oriented, I think we could have a different thread for that. But I.d like to keep this one running for my personnal stuff.....And by the way, I would like you to have an extended listening session of the "Work In Progress" that I've been working on for some times now. Please keep in mind that it's mainly shit tracks and that some new recording has to be done. But I'd like to get your overall impression for this song..... And, also, Stephan has nothing to do with the horrible bass tracks you hear....lolllll....They were done with a synth and not that much work has been put into them!!!! lollllll Here's the link....hope it works...lolll

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6c76a21abc61992f7432d3c9683f450ae04e75f6e8ebb871

Another thing, thanks Brian for the DIY Guide you made available to all of us out there. I took some advices pretty seriouslly and since one of my great friend owns and operates a professionnal studio (DreyWorld Studio) here in Québec City, I will quite certainly record one of my songs there in a very near future. I'll keep you informed for sure! Thanks again!

So, thanks for all the comments, they are welcomed, bad and/or good!

MarK

[Brian Dobbs]

You're welcome Mark.  Feel free to pass the guide along to anyone else who you think would be interested.

I'm listening to your work in progress now and I'll be back later with comments...

[marcdesgagnes]

Ok Brian! Just keep in mind that this one is really just an early build and that it's mostly shit tracks to get the complete structure of the song! I'm really thinking about going in studio with this one....!

[Brian Dobbs]

Mark, honestly, this composition sounds magical.  You wrote this whole thing?  It's actually really great.

Keep in mind man that the whole point of this forum was to showcase works in progress to other artists, to give feedback and such.  This is exactly the type of stuff the Threshold guys do.  They're working on a new album and every now and then post some demos of stuff they're recording.  I can't begin to tell you how much I love that stuff.  If you haven't already, be sure to check out their thread too.  They've been busy as of late, but once they get back into the swing of things they'll be on some more with more updates.

But back to your stuff.  This is seriously a great demo man, and I would love to see how this progresses with a full band, if that's what you had intended.

[Stephan]

Guys, I'll be on vacation soon and will record tracks for Marc's project as other stuff came to me yesterday by email from him!
I never filmed myself doing anything but, I might try it while recording those tracks during the week between the 7th and 15th of august!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[marcdesgagnes]

Thanks again for your kind words Brian! Every bit of them are well appreciated. I really don't have a clue where this song came from!!!! It started as something really symphonic because I was trying some orchestra style sounds from my newly aquired Korg M50, and BAM! This came out! lollll  I added some textures to it, tweaked it a little to make it sound more complete and then the rest of the song just poped out of my head in about 10 minutes!!!!!! I'm writing lyrics as we speak....And I will surely try to record something to test 'em with my wife, who sings wonderfully but is shy as hell! lolllll

Stephan, always a pleasure to get your help anyway you can! This is GREATLY appreciated! Can't wait to get some original stuff from our teamwork!

See you guys with some more stuff soon!

Mark

[Brian Dobbs]

awesome.  Can't wait.